Do you know what babies need to sleep well?

The photo below is me, a newborn mother with a 5-day old baby. I look tired and dazzled, because I was tired and dazzled. I had no idea at this point that I wasn’t going to sleep well for another 12 months and that sleep deprivation would nearly break me. I wish at that time that I had known about the Aware Parenting approach to sleep.

So now I’m passionate about parents finding out what babies truly need in order to be able to sleep well, deeply and for long-enough periods (depending on their age). Babies, children and all humans need to meet 3 conditions for good sleep:

• to be tired

• to feel relaxed

• to feel connected

I find the issue often comes when we think it’s our job as parents to help babies feel relaxed (through rocking or shushing or doing other things to them). Or maybe we believe the “overtired” stories and we think we need to get them to sleep ASAP so we cover the pram, or cover their eyes with the sling and forgo the connection…

The thing is babies have an innate mechanism to release stress, tension and feelings from the day. That is through crying and moving their bodies vigorously in our loving arms and with our loving presence.

I talk about this in The Aware Parenting Podcast (episode 129) but if you’re curious, send me any questions you have.