There are plenty of "experts" out there ready to tell you exactly how to get your baby to sleep.
On one side there are those who say baby should learn to sleep independently on a strict routine right from the first few weeks.
And on the other those who say the first 3 months are a "fourth trimester" and babies should be held as much as possible, rocked and comforted to sleep and benefit from co-sleeping.
I'm not totally convinced by either extreme ... like most mums I muddle along somewhere in the middle.
What I am convinced of, is that there is not a one size fits all sleep solution for all babies.
My absolute biggest new mum mistake was to follow a routine from a well-known baby "guru". It was a complete and utter failure!
Not - as the baby guru might suggest - because I didn't try very hard to follow the routine, I did. But because it just didn't work for my child. Other babies I know fell into that routine with no effort from their mums but mine didn't.
The trick in the end was to get to know my baby and adopt sleep tactics and routines that she responded well to. And to learn more about things that got in the way of sleeping such as colic & reflux.
And also to recognise that good sleep probably had as much to do with everything else we'd done during the day as it did with how I put baby to sleep ... fresh air & day light morning and afternoon and increasingly stimulating activities & social interaction produced a happy, tired baby who slept better.
To provide you with some tips and tactics to try out, I've put together a list of lots of things that helped us plus lots of things that didn't work at all for us but did work for our friends ...
Hopefully it will provide you with ideas of how you can respond to your baby's personality & needs ... if you've got great tips of your own do add them to the list ...
And if you're looking for more sleeps tips for children of all ages check out the links to great posts from other bloggers at the bottom of this post ...
Tips for Getting Baby To Sleep
New Baby Board on Pinterest
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