How to Sleep Train a 3-Months Old Baby
The human body requires a healthy amount of sleep to operate. American Academy of Sleep Medicine concludes that infants between the age of 3 to 12 months need 12 -16 hours of sleep to stay healthy and happy.
As your baby grows, its sleep requirements decrease. This explains why children between the ages of 1 and 2 years sleep for 11 to 14 hours while 3 to 5-year olds only sleep only 10 hours daily. Not getting a good night’s rest can lead to numerous health issues, behavioral problems, childhood obesity, and so on.
But babies often wake up frequently, which makes them agitated and cranky during the day. It can also hinder your sleep schedule and daytime routine. You can combat these issues by sleep training your little one. Here we’ve added expert-approved tips to help your baby catch their sweet Zs:
What is Sleep Training?
Sleep training refers to teaching your baby the skill of falling asleep without your help. It means that you put your baby in their bed fully awake and let them go to sleep without rocking, cuddling, nursing, or swaying them.
It’s also an excellent way of teaching your baby how to drift off again when they get up during the night.
The Top Methods to Sleep Train Your Baby
Here are the best ways to keep in mind when sleep training your baby:
- Keep a log of your little one to notice their sleeping patterns. Start by tracking days and nights for at least 1-week to identify their ideal bedtime
- Perform several bedtime rituals to ease your baby’s mind and prepare them for sleep. You may use soothing techniques like singing lullabies, bathing, or reading.
- There’s no perfect time to start sleep training; however, avoid scheduling it around significant events in their life
- When it comes to sleep training, you must keep a happy and healthy environment. Ensure the room is comfortable and cool
- The ideal sleep training tactic can vary from child to child. The most common training options that most parents try and experts vouch for are: fading method, pick up technique, chair method, and cry it out method
- No matter what kind of sleep training method you choose, it’s essential that you drop all sleep crutches
- Check your baby during preset intervals but don’t rock, feed, or sway them to sleep
- Lastly, one of the biggest mistakes parents make is being inconsistent. At some point, your little one will cry. Check on them by avoiding old sleep crutches
The Right Age To Sleep-Train Your Child
Multiple sleep coaches believe that the best time to start sleep training your baby is based on their development. Generally, it’s better for the ages of four to six months when your little one hasn’t gotten used to rocking or nursing to sleep.
During this stage, most children are developmentally prepared to learn to fall asleep by themselves. Most babies go through sleep regression around the age of four months, which makes it the ideal time to teach them sleep skills.
The Bottom Line
Often sleep training takes between two to three days. However, some methods last longer to ensure minimum tears from your little one.