Fed up of your overtired baby snapping awake and screaming the second you put them down in their crib? Baby expert Jade Zammit says her 10-minute rule guarantees a peaceful transition
A baby sleep expert says her 10-minute rule ensures little ones stay asleep after you transition them from your arms to their crib (Image: Getty Images)
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a sleeping baby senses when its parents most need a break… and chooses that exact moment to wake up.
How often do you watch your baby blissfully fall asleep in your arms, tummy full of milk and letting out little snores of contentment, only to wake up the instant you try to put them in their crib?
Google pulls up hundreds of thousands of webpages dedicated to answering frazzled parents’ questions about transitioning snoozing babies from arms to cot, but one sleep expert says her golden rule guarantees success.
Jade Zammit, infant sleep coach at beyondthestars.co.uk and a mum-of-two herself, says it’s all about getting the timing right and understanding where your little one is at developmentally.
Babies who were great nappers in the first few weeks of life may go through a developmental shift between 12 and 15 weeks old, which suddenly makes them much more aware of where they’re being put down to sleep. Now all they want to do is sleep on you – sound familiar?
Babies sometimes take a while to learn how to sleep by themselves ( Image:
Getty Images) “Every parent starts in a different place in this cycle – some are rocking to sleep or feeding to sleep, some are giving really close contact to get their baby to sleep,” Jade explains.
“Their awareness grows at the four-month mark and some are really aware of where they’re being put down to sleep. There’s a huge developmental shift between 12 and 15 weeks where this becomes a lot more prominent.”
But if you’ve successful got your little one to sleep in your arms, what can you actually do to put them in their own sleep space without them cutting their nap short?
“Try to time the transfer right,” advises Jade. “In their little sleep cycles [which are roughly 45-minutes long], in the first 10 minutes they’re still falling in to a deeper sleep. Try to get them to that 10-minute mark before you put them down: chances are they’ll be in a deeper sleep.”
But don’t leave it too long into their nap to move them, Jade warns.
Babies will be at their deepest stage of sleep 10 to 20 minutes after shutting their eyes ( Image:
Getty Images) “If you get past the 20-minute mark you’re at risk of waking them back up, so if you can time it between that ten and 15 minutes, you’ve got a better chance at transfer,” she says. “Once they get to 20 minutes they move into a lighter stage of sleep, and by 30 to 40 minutes they’re starting to wake up again.”
Other tips to aid a smooth transfer are to warm the crib or cot before you attempt to put your baby down.
“Pop a hot water bottle in there and just remove it before you put the baby down, that helps in the early weeks when they’re used to snuggling into a warm body,” says Jade. “Or could you maybe put them in the buggy and bring it into the kitchen, or wherever you need to be, and gently rock them while you’re making dinner.
“It can help, especially when you’re in the thick of it, and you can’t get out of that cycle of not being able to put them down.”
Jade, who became a sleep consultant after both of her children, now eight and four, had problems sleeping, says there’s only so much parents can do to fix sleep issues, so it’s important not to be too hard on yourself.
Jade Zammit is a parenting expert and sleep coach at Beyond The Stars “What you can do in those early months is ‘sleep shaping’,” she says. “We can’t have huge expectations of our little ones at those early stages, but we can start to layer on new sleep cues and build up little bits of awareness, habits that we want to carry on past the four-month mark.
“It might be even just having quiet time before they get to that tired or upset stage. Have them lying beside you or in their next-to-me cot, whatever your set-up. And just be near them. Try little tummy rubs, soft face strokes, reassure them that you’re there and they are safe.
“It’s helping them practise lying down and falling asleep in their own space, before they take their nap. That is going to help you massively, even if it’s just once or twice a day, it’s given them little exposures to sleep and that will all help with the transfers if they do fall asleep on you.”
Do you have any tips to help contact nappers sleep in their own cot? Let us know in the comments below.
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