Sleep expert Lucy Wolfe’s top tips for bedtime routines.

Bedtime routines are the foundation of healthy sleep. Parents can begin the predictable sequence of events that happen at bedtime from around 6 weeks of age onwards and this process can be developed as your baby gets older. I place a large emphasis on a structured bedtime routine and find that it can be solid foundation for healthy sleep.

There are some important factors that will influence the success of your bedtime routine.

Firstly, your baby should be well fed and content to go to sleep on a full stomach and hopefully not awaken due to hunger once night time feeds are no longer required.

I would encourage parents of children aged over 6 months plus to ensure that your baby is not fully asleep before you put them into their cot. This will help your child to be more independent in the context of their sleep and reduce potential awakenings overnight requiring parental intervention.

The actual bedtime routine should happen in the bedroom where your child will sleep in an effort to underpin positive associations with going to sleep in their own sleep environment.

It is not a good idea to break the spell of the bedtime process by doing parts of the routine in different areas of the house. I would ideally feed them first, then go to the bathroom for bath/wash up/teeth brush and then head to the bedroom to begin the wind down procedure.

The bedtime routine should happen in a dim environment and be low impact and not stimulating. The premise of the routine is to help relax your child to help their transition to sleep time. Having the routine in the darkened environment will help to enhance the sleep hormone melatonin.

I recommend that you get your child dressed for bedtime as part of the wind down process. Allocating 20-30 minutes of exclusive one to one time is the perfect remedy for restful sleep.

Make time for songs and story time. Have a familiar series of songs that you sing and words that you say so that your child starts to understand that this is what happens before it is time to sleep. Bedtime is the ideal opportunity to encourage a deep love of books.

Indulge in lots of physical and eye contact to help release the relaxing chemical oxytocin, which in turns send the right message to the brain to help switch off in time for sleep.

Avoid the use of television or electronics as these can have a negative impact on the ability to go to sleep with ease.

Ensure that the bedroom is a calm environment, without too many stimulating distractions. Use lullaby music to help your baby relax. I typically avoid this playing until your child goes to sleep. I then turn it off just before they are fully asleep.

Make sure that you have an end to the bedtime routine-an I love you ritual or prayers, kisses and cuddles and then so to bed, hopefully heading into deep, restful, contented sleep.

Lucy Wolfe, CGSC, MAPSC, is a paediatric sleep consultant and mum of four young children. She runs a private sleep consulting practice where she provides knowledge, expertise and valuable support to families across the country. See www.sleepmatters.ie <http://www.sleepmatters.ie>, t: 087 2683584 or e: lucy@sleepmatters.ie