Mom Habits That Are Barriers To Peaceful Baby Sleep

These are mindsets, habits, or accidental strategies moms have that make it hard for baby to sleep well. And solutions!

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When you are sleep deprived, everything is hard. Days are hard, nights are hard. Avoiding sleep training is hard, trying to sleep train feels hard.

But… you’re in luck. There aren’t that may reasons why babies don’t sleep well. In this post, however, let’s get into things moms do – usually inadvertently or accidentally – that make deep sleep more difficult.

Things moms do that (work against) proper sleep…..

Let’s dive in!

Moms rush in and wake baby up

Often, as babies transition between passive and active sleep they’ll wake up a bit. Not fully awake, but more alert. Usually, especially for newborns, they will simply fuss a bit and go back to sleep.

If mom rushes in, shoves baby onto the breast, or picks baby up to rock her, then these types of things can wake baby up more. And thus prevent baby from learning to transition through those cycles for the long term.

Moms don’t stop doing the thing that’s causing the problem

Often, moms will come to me and complain that baby will only go to sleep by breastfeeding. Which isn’t really an issue at first until baby wakes up from naps super early all the time or wakes up at night a lot needing nursing to get to sleep.

This also can cause confusion in that there’s a ton of milk going in baby’s tummy. Often, upset tummy or gas symptoms will start to occur which further exacerbates the issue.

It could be reinserting the pacifier, rocking, patting, or any number of things really. Whatever your baby wants or needs to get to sleep – if you actually want to stop doing it – then you need to stop doing it.

But if I stop there will be wailing! you say.

Yes, likely so, but that doesn’t mean you need to keep doing the very thing that is what you are trying to avoid. You simply have to replace it with a settling strategy that’ll help your baby learn to sleep independently.

Moms can’t separate out behavior vs. sleep issues

With little babies, this really isn’t an issue. As babies get to be closer to 9 months and above, often what can appear to be a sleep issue (resistance to sleep) can be an assertion of baby’s personality.

If there’s a lot of crying about about to nap, resistance to bedtime, standing up, throwing themselves down, trying to climb out, etc.

Sometimes these are behavior issues (aka child doesn’t want to go to sleep and is fighting it) and those simply need to be considered. Baby has a personality, that’s excellent! But it doesn’t mean you should abandon all of your sleep training plans because you meet a bit of resistance.

Moms get tired (bless!) and aren’t consistent

When your child won’t sleep you can’t really sleep. Unless you have a night nanny. But, well, sleep issues don’t last long with night nannies because they’re usually all sleep certified!

A real catch 22 issue about sleep problems is that you need a bit of energy to start making changes. And if you are terribly sleep deprived, well, you don’t have the energy.

And in the dead of the night when you most need your wit’s about you to not reinforce the very habits you want to break… you have no energy or wits because you’re sleep deprived.

This isn’t your fault, but it’s a true thing. Often what’s needed when we are changing sleep habits, is replacing the old habits with new purposeful ones. And while you can go gradual to try and have less protest from baby… often the slow approaches require the most self-discipline.

Which is in very short supply when you’re sleep deprived.

Moms view protest or resistance as a sign they are doing it wrong

This is a big one. I hear from moms a lot who say, “But I did what you said and baby cried!” My response is usually… “Yes, and?”

There are gradual slow sleep training approaches that are hands on and in room. But, truthfully, these are usually chosen by moms who need to feel like they aren’t leaving baby abandoned to their crib to get to sleep.

They actually require:

• more discipline
• much more time
• more self-control to maintain the new path in face of resistance
• ability to stay awake to carry them out

Often, if I had moms calculate out the amount of tears from baby during sleep training, it’s far far less than the amount of tears they ALREADY CRY because they’re overtired, overstimulated, and constantly fussy.

Moms listen to other voices (out of guilt, shame, or pressure)

Another reason sleep problems linger for a long time without resolution is that moms are hearing so many other voices that tell them what they want to do is dangerous, that they balk.

Moms have babies that are going through the following things:

• Lots of daily fussiness
• Irregular sleeping habits (when we know sleep is linked with healthy development)
• Moodiness and irritability
• Inability to get to sleep on their own or stay asleep on their own
• Clinginess

Babies who are sleep deprived are ALREADY going through hard times. At this point, moms think that they need to do a more formal intervention to help baby sleep better. This is when I get a lot of moms buy my Sleep Little Lamb class.

Other mamas or experts who mean well tell them things like:

• Sleep training causes nervous system damage (using a debunked study)
• The attachment bond will be severed with sleep training (umm… because being a haggard harried sleep deprived mom will result in mindfulness and the presence required to be an attuned mom?)
• You are being selfish to even think about this (because wanting to meet your body’s critical need to sleep is selfish…)

Mama, get in touch with your own intuition. If you can see you’re operating in an unsustainable way that is only getting worse (for you or baby) and feel it’s time to make a move.

Then do it.

You can sleep train in a way that aligns with your parenting values.