Any parent of a newborn will know that, at the very beginning, it feels like getting a full night’s sleep with your baby is off the cards for good. However, things do eventually get better, and experts may have just figured out the key to making this happen earlier.
A new study suggests that allowing your child to self-settle could be the key to getting them to sleep through the night at an earlier stage.
For the study, a team of experts at the University of London recorded footage of over 100 sleeping babies at two stages of their development: at five weeks, and at three months.
The research showed that, at both ages, about a quarter of the babies were able to resettle themselves when they woke at night. Furthermore, those babies who were able to self-settle by five weeks began sleeping for longer.
By the three-month mark, a grand 67% of the babies who had self-settled at five weeks were able to sleep for over five hours; this was in comparison to just 38% of those who had not been given the chance to self-settle at five weeks.
Following the publication of the study results this week, the experts are now urging parents to try and allow their babies to self-settle when they wake at night, believing that this could ease them into sleeping for longer hours going forward, and sooner.
