Learning How to Settle the Baby

The most difficult part of bringing home a new baby is trying to cope with their lack of a sleep schedule. For many first-time parents, this can cause major depression and anxiety for both parents, as well as exhaustion and crankiness in the infant. It's for families coping with this sudden lack of sleep that baby sleeping bags and the "sleep school" were invented.

"Sleep school" refers to government-funded or private parenting centres geared towards helping families deal with feeding and sleeping issues at home. They can offer advice, referral to an educational parenting class, or for more intensive one-on-one attention, a day-long or residential program. Residential and day-long programs attempt to replicate the home environment so the sleep school professionals can monitor routines and help handle problems as they occur. Before contacting a "sleep school", however, there are several home remedies you can try.

Helping Your Baby Relax

A key part to getting babies in the mood for sleep is making sure they're calm and comfortable. Baby sleeping bags, ambient music CDs, and rocking are all effective ways of calming the average baby. Baby sleeping bags and other forms of swaddling blankets are extremely useful, as they're proven to help babies fall asleep faster, stay asleep longer, and sleep more soundly. There are many different colors, styles, and textures of baby sleeping bags, and they're common enough to be found at your local baby store.

In addition to baby sleeping bags, CDs or DVDs of ambient music and soothing scenes can lull an infant into a dozing state, helping them relax enough to fall asleep. Reading a quiet book together and turning down the lights can ease them through this transition, as well.

Finally, rocking is a tried-and-true cure for baby fussing. It may sound simplistic, but for some babies, it's a miracle cure.

Mix and Match to Find Your Routine

No one of these suggestions is going to yield the perfect answer. To find the cure for your baby's blues, you'll need to try several different techniques, each for at least one week in order to determine how effective they are. For example, if you believe baby sleeping bags will help your child stay warm and sleep soundly, try using baby sleeping bags at bedtime every night for one week. If you don't notice a change or the change is slight, keep using the baby sleeping bags and add in a before-bed bath or feeding. After one week, if your child still isn't sleeping as well as you'd like, include a book or some soft music in addition to the bedtime bath or feeding and the use of baby sleeping bags. If the bedtime is the same time every night, regardless of routine, and each routine is continued until the desired results are achieved, you'll have a baby who sleeps through the night in less than two months.

If you suspect your baby may be having trouble sleeping due to an illness or developmental issue, or if your own lack of sleep is causing depression and anxiety, a call to your nearest sleep school can help put things right. There are some cases in which all the baby sleeping bags in the world can't help, and for those times, you need professional assistance.