One of the toughest challenges facing new parents is daytime naps. As your baby gets older teaching them to settle in their cot can be vey emotional for many parents. Especially as with age it becomes almost impossible to settle your baby without a few tears.
Using the shush-pat technique teaches your baby to settle herself, fall asleep and stay asleep.
How can you help your baby?
To teach your baby to settle and for her to learn to love her bed it’s important that she is tired not overtired and ready for a nap, which involves implementing a good routine suitable for your baby’s age and remaining consistent to help your baby relax before taking a nap.
How does your baby let you know that she is tired?
As soon as your baby begins to display signs that she is getting tired its essential that you respond quickly rather than the moment passing, and your baby can quickly become overtired which can easily escalate and become more of a challenge to settle her.
Will this involve leaving my baby to cry?
Listening to your baby cry can be heartbreaking as a parent but my technique to help settle your baby is a very gentle shush pat method and involves minimal crying allowing your baby the opportunity to fall asleep by herself rather than rocking or feeding her to sleep which although is sometimes used as a short-term fix, this is not a long-term solution.
Our Five Top Tips when using this technique.
- Gently pull your baby towards you placing her slightly on her side in her cot and begin gently patting her back and shushing.
- If your baby is very upset then pick her up, give her a cuddle until you feel her relax and then put her back in her cot and begin again.
- This requires time, patience and consistency and can take an average of 20 minutes.
- This technique is great for extending nap times or if your baby wakes in a light sleep cycle.
- I would highly recommend this technique for babies over three months
