In conversation with: Silver Soft Care – Evelyne Haneuse

I am Evelyne Haneuse and I support parents in their quest for a better sleeping darling. I do this as a sleep consultant | agitation expert from Silver Soft Care.

I am a big proponent of carrying/carrying a little one because it is so helpful on several levels. Whether it’s that connection with each other, learning to sleep, or reducing physical distress that plagues your child.

Better sleep is done when your child is in a place where it feels secure, predictable and safe for you, where the temperature is right and the smells and sounds are recognizable. You create an ideal sleep environment for your baby and the best conditions for them to start practicing sleeping. And sometimes that fantastically beautifully decorated bedroom with a wonderfully sweet bed turns out not to be the place from which you start sleeping.

With providing help to a learning baby in mind, in my consultations I recommend exercise more often just before sleep times. You can do this by using a stroller or a carrier system. A carrying system can be convenient for use in – and around the home, takes up less space and provides physical contact. Womboo is very interesting in this because you can put it on easily, without buttons and/or click systems. This makes the threshold so low – after all, you put the shirt on like a regular shirt – that this wearing system is actually used during awkward moments. Even if your baby is completely upset.

The movement, cadence and immediacy can make it easier to get sleep hours – to practice. And walking can also be helpful for you as a parent; movement in your body is movement in your brain. Which in turn helps when you find yourself feeling a little less sunny due to lack of sleep. Happy parent – happy baby!

If there is reflux that makes it difficult for your baby to lie on his back, this has a direct effect on sleeping. Then you want your baby to sleep, by whatever means (car ride, stroller, carrier). In the Womboo, your little one sits upright against you in the frog/M position. In case of reflux, this relieves the symptoms because gravity makes the stomach contents flow upwards less easily and gives the necessary comfort and security your little one can use in times of distress. Are abdominal pains plaguing considerably? Then the same is true regarding comfort and security. In addition, the movement and warmth in tummy contact massages the tummy which can be soothing.

Sleeping literally and figuratively means letting go and therefore is related to so many factors. For example, it can be helpful and soothing for a little one to experience deep pressure, allowing stimuli to dissipate. For this, see the talk from Pediatric Physio Growth. Physical contact with mom or dad allows you to learn to regulate your own feelings and emotions. And let that also help reduce stress which keeps melatonin from being suppressed and makes it easier to transition to sleep!

How does a baby’s sleep actually work?

Sleep you may learn from your parent(s), because in your early life you do not yet know what fatigue is and what you can do about it to eliminate unfamiliar feelings. For that, you need a parent to say to you, “You must be tired, it’s time to go to sleep. In addition, in the early years of life, physical systems are cranked up and set up that make sleep even better.

Your baby’s learning to sleep is in flux and it will continue to change until your baby becomes a toddler. Thus, the length of a sleep cycle increases from 45 minutes to 90 minutes. You also learn to sleep longer in a row; you glue cycles together. And in the meantime, mental and physical developments continue as well, which also affect bedtime.

Sleep has a structure in which each period has its own function:

• In this, physical recovery takes place in deep sleep, during NON-rem sleep. Around 30 minutes of sleep, a little shock often comes through your darling’s body as well, in the transition of the different phases. This shock can cause your baby to wake up already at those 30 minutes instead of the end of a 45-minute cycle. This is called a hare’s sleep and these can make recovery incomplete, causing them to tire again earlier or stimuli to pile up.If you can easily anticipate this, then no problem. If this occurs in the majority of sleeps, then a chronic sleep deprivation may develop.
• Babies have relatively large amounts of active dream sleep, REM sleep. In this phase, information is processed and mental recovery takes place. Unlike adults, babies are literally more physically active in this as well. Mowing their arms can cause them to wake themselves up. And that can be inconvenient because your baby is not adequately rested and overtiredness lurks as a result….

Tips for helping your darling sleep better?

• If your child suffers from discomforts such as reflux or tummy pains, identify what treatment your child needs to address the burden at its origin.In addition, you’ll want to at least provide more support in sleeping, such as by carrying your little one. Otherwise, you end up in a vicious cycle of discomfort – sleeping less well – overtired – even more discomfort and worse sleep.

• Play optimally to your baby’s rhythm to go with the flow at bedtime. Do you miss the moment when all signals are green? Then it is more difficult to fall asleep, the sleep moment is of lesser quality and (if this happens often) resistance may develop for sleeping an sich.
• See what you can and should expect from your baby at his age. It is normal to take shorter naps during the day for the first few months, and those nocturnal get-togethers with his parent(s) are part of it. Expectation management makes you know where you stand, which in turn makes catching those waves easier.
• It sounds cliché: within parenthood, take care of yourselves. You can be better connected to your baby if you can be connected to yourself. This connection is also necessary to see what your little one needs. So that walk around, cup of coffee at the café or that glossy magazine are a win-win situation!
• Support your little darling in being allowed to learn to sleep, in a way that suits you as a family. And in this, everything is okay if you find that it benefits all of you! If you want to sleep together, make sure this is done in a safe way.Also, introduce your child to sleeping in their own sleeping place so that it becomes and remains a familiar place.
• Harness the power of daylight or darkness. (Sun) light allows us to wake up. Darkness allows the sleep hormone melatonin to give its sleep-inducing effect.

Being allowed to learn to sleep with your darling is a process that shows itself to you in waves. Where one child shows some ripples in the surface of the water, for another child there are high waves with wind force 10 at sea. The space you yourself experience as a parent to move with those waves also determine how it goes. And this requires customization the moment you notice that resting is less smooth.

I help you and yours from a warm heart and a cool head. Such that you can begin to address your darling’s restlessness and sleeping at your own pace, clearly – practically – decisively – lovingly. For a better sleeping darling! www.zilverzachtezorg.nl | evelyne@zilverzachtezorg.nl | 06 24221632