Nurturing Healthy Sleep Habits In Newborns
As a new parent, it's natural to be anxious and attentive to every sound your newborn makes, especially at night. Many parents may feel the urge to pick up their newborn immediately when they stir or make noise in their sleep. However, good reasons exist to resist this impulse, such as avoiding picking up your newborn immediately when they stir at night.
Why you shouldn't pick up your newborn immediately when they stir at night?
Letting them settle: Newborns are born with the natural ability to self-settle (don’t confuse it with self-soothing!), which means they can calm themselves back to sleep without needing to be picked up or comforted by their parents every time they wake up. When you rush to pick up your newborn at the first sign of stirring, you may inadvertently interrupt their natural, innate self-soothing process and disrupt their ability to learn how to fall back asleep on their own.
Preventing sleep associations: Sleep associations are the external factors or actions a baby associates with falling asleep, such as being rocked, fed, or held. If you pick up your newborn every time they stir at night, they may start to rely on this action as a sleep association, meaning they may come to expect being picked up every time they wake up and may have difficulty falling asleep without it. This can create a dependency on parental intervention for sleep, making it harder for your newborn to develop healthy sleep habits.
Disrupting sleep cycles: Newborns have shorter sleep cycles than older infants and adults and naturally wake up multiple times throughout the night. This is a normal part of their sleep pattern, and they often settle back to sleep independently. However, if you pick up your newborn immediately when they stir, you may unintentionally disrupt their sleep cycles and prevent them from transitioning to the next sleep phase, resulting in more frequent awakenings and fragmented sleep.
Promoting Self-Regulation: Facilitating the natural process of your sleeping baby stirring and settling back to sleep autonomously can foster the development of self-regulation skills in their sleep patterns. By allowing them to self-soothe and learn how to fall back asleep independently, you empower them to acquire valuable skills that will prove beneficial in managing sleep challenges as they progress through different stages of life.
Fostering Healthy Sleep Patterns: Nurturing healthy sleep habits right from the beginning is crucial in your newborn's overall sleep development. Instead of immediately rushing to pick them up when they stir at night, you can promote healthy sleep routines like self-soothing and independent sleep. These habits can contribute to enhanced sleep quality and longer periods of uninterrupted sleep for your little one and yourself.
Cultivating Long-Term Sleep Independence: Encouraging your newborn to settle back to sleep unaided can also foster long-term sleep independence. It helps build their self-assurance and confidence in their ability to sleep independently, which translates into improved sleep habits as they advance into the toddler years and beyond.
Pausing when you hear baby stirring allows you to listen and assess. If the baby is being noisy, they may be in that light sleep phase and will quiet back down as they go into the next sleep cycle. Allowing babies to move through their natural sleep cycle without interruption is important. You can gently lay your hand on the baby's chest and shush them to see if they settle down. If a newborn starts crying, it's time to pick them up. They have a need for food, discomfort, reassurance, and touch. We can work on healthy sleep habits with newborns, but sleep training methods, such as letting them cry to settle, are not developmentally appropriate. Sleep training happens closer to 5-6 months, with infants developing skills to self-settle and have a more mature sleep cycle.
As a parent, you must use your judgment and intuition to determine when picking up your newborn at night is appropriate. If you understand newborn sleep and there is still something telling you to pick up your newborn immediately, do with that intuition. However, allowing your newborn to stir and settle can generally promote healthy sleep habits and support their long-term sleep independence.
If you'd like more information on newborn, infant, or toddler sleep. In that case, Nurtured Foundation offers one-on-one Sleep Consulting appointments, custom Sleep Packages, and Overnight Newborn Care for those under 5 months. We offer our sleep consulting nationwide with our certified pediatric sleep consultant, who is committed to helping families meet their sleep goals with plans that fit their parenting philosophy.