Help Him Get Back To Sleep Faster

This simple little tweak will speed your baby’s return to the Land of Nod in the middle of the night….

When your baby wakes at one o’clock in the morning, or three o’clock – or both! – all you want to do is to see to his needs and then help him get back to sleep as quickly and gently as possible. But it’s not quite that easy. Because, to start with, even though it’s the middle of the night and you’ve made sure your baby is no longer hungry or uncomfy, your little one simply doesn’t know that it’s the wrong time to still be awake. “Learning how to fall back to sleep is a skill that your baby needs to master and, like all skills, he needs your support and encouragement as he learns,” says baby sleep expert Lucy Wolfe. And by making this one small, simple change, you can help him grasp this skill faster, so he can peacefully drift back to the Land of Nod, and you can get back to bed for some precious shut-eye yourself. And all you need to do is to adopt a nighttime mummy mode.

“From about six months old, it’s natural for your baby to still be waking up once or twice in the night for a feed,” says Lucy. “But if you’ve fed him and done your usual checks of making sure he’s dry and not too hot or cold, then these tweaks will create a calmer, more reassuring nighttime environment. That will help him drift back off to sleep, and also help reduce future nighttime awakenings too.”