WHAT IS A SLEEP CRUTCH?
When your baby is a newborn, you may find yourself singing your baby to sleep while rocking in their nursery chair. You may feed them or pop that pacifier in their mouth and stroke their face until they fall asleep. Don’t stress this the first few months of your baby’s life! The most important thing at this time is that they are getting as much sleep as possible and are feeling loved and nurtured.
However, as your baby gets older, they will start to rely on these “sleep crutches” to fall asleep at bedtime and for any night wakings. Baby snuggles are the best at bedtime, I’m sure we can all agree! But what happens when they expect to be rocked and fed back to sleep at 1am, 2am, and so on?
What is a sleep crutch?
A sleep crutch can be anything that a baby or toddler relies on in order to fall asleep. Rocking, feeding, singing, bouncing and pacifiers are often referred to as sleep crutches.
Why is it important to not rely on a sleep crutch?
Everyone - even adults - wake throughout the night. What we are doing in teaching babies independent sleep is giving them the skills and confidence to seamlessly get themselves back to sleep for any night wakings, which will result in better quality sleep for both baby and parents! When your baby wakes in the night after being helped to sleep at bedtime, they are most likely looking for that same help that got them to sleep in the first place: Where is mom to nurse me to sleep? Where is the pacifier to soothe me in the night? The most important thing you can do to avoid your child becoming attached to a sleep crutch is teaching them independent sleep. We recommend doing this at 16 weeks +. At 16 weeks from a baby’s estimated due date is when they have hit the 4 month sleep regression and are developmentally ready to be sleep trained.
Sounds great! How do we do this?!
Place your child down fully awake at bedtime. Remember, the way they get themself to sleep at bedtime, they will expect in the middle of the night or after a short nap! Have a smile on your face and remain positive when placing them down.
Ask their pediatrician how many middle of the night feedings are nutritionally necessary. It is okay for you to feed your baby in the middle of the night if it is nutritionally necessary (or if it makes you feel more comfortable).
Choose a sleep training method that you are comfortable with and apply it for all wakings outside of the designated feed(s), if any.
When they wake at night, they will know it’s okay to settle themselves back to sleep without you stepping in. Transitioning away from a sleep crutch will take time and consistency, but your child can without a doubt do it! And if you need help tackling this, the team at MyBaby Sleepology can help!
There are many positive sleep associations that we can foster, including: a solid bedtime routine to set the stage for sleep, sleep sack, white noise (silence for babies is uncomfortable) and a darkened room (helps stimulate the production of melatonin, a sleepy hormone!).
However, if you enjoy nursing your baby to sleep, or going in at night to rock them back to sleep, you do not have to change your routine. It only becomes an unhelpful sleep crutch when it becomes a problem for you! Just make sure that you and your baby are getting the quality sleep that you both need!
Written By: Ashley Barie, MyBaby Sleepology