BABY SLEEP TIPS - DEVELOP A REASONABLE ATTITUDE

Baby Sleep Tips - Develop A Reasonable Attitude

It's impossible to list all the different skills you need, and decisions that you have to make, as a
new parent. Although you should try to educate yourself and talk to other parents, in most cases
the best solution for any questions you may have is to follow your instincts. Parenting is, after
all, one of the most natural things in the world. One of the most common and difficult things
you'll deal with as the parent of a newborn is in getting your child to sleep well and throughout
the night. Often, the process of achieving this seems to be a combination of science, art, and
just plain luck. There are many baby sleep tips out there, and many of them are useful, but
before you begin researching and applying them, you should develop a realistic and healthy
attitude towards sleep. If you don't do this, you risk applying tips in a rigid and scattershot
manner, which isn't likely to work.

One of the keys to this is understanding that you should be developing a long term goal, in
terms of your baby's sleep habits. As much as any parent's short term goal is simply to get their
child to go to sleep, so that she can get some sleep herself, you should be thinking of the long
term goal of instilling healthy sleep habits in your child. A successful way to implement this goal
is to be realistic and flexible. Your child is not going to sleep the same way or in the same
manner every night. What you should be trying to do, therefore, is creating an environment that
is conducive to sleep, so that your child can slowly learn to fall asleep on his own.

The best thing you can do is help your child develop an attitude in which sleep is both an
enjoyable and secure state. Your child should think of sleep as a comforting thing that comes
naturally. One way you can help foster this idea is by avoiding too much interference with your
child's sleeping habits. Although it can be tempting to follow guides and implement rigid rules
regarding your child's sleep, in many cases this can cause problems down the road.

If you rouse or put your child to bed at set hours, you may achieve a short term goal of getting
some rest, but you may also be altering your child's attitudes towards sleep. Instead of thinking
of sleep as an enjoyable activity, he will begin to think of it as something he "has to do" like
eating his dinner. By altering your child's attitude towards sleep in this way - by making him think
of it as a task rather than an enjoyable activity - you risk problems developing later.

In older children and adults who have sleeping problems, doctors can often trace the source of
the problem back to sleeping habits enforced at an extremely young age. If as a baby the
subject was put to bed at a set hour, for example, regardless of weather he was tired or not. By
trying to stay more in tune with how your baby is feeling and what he wants, you will encourage
a healthier attitude towards sleep, which will benefit both you and your child in the future.