Myth busting: Babies, cloth nappies and ‘Sleeping through the night”
How cloth nappies can help babies sleep through the night.
Sleeping through the night…a big concern especially for first-time parents, but did you know that using cloth nappies at night is a good place to start for getting your baby ready for a sound nights sleep? Having realistic expectations will also help but that can be difficult as surely the most hated question put to first time parents is, “Is your baby a good sleeper?” It puts pressure on parents and creates the worry if our child’s sleep patterns are ‘Normal’ or not. This isn’t helpful especially as recent research has confirmed that the more parents worry about their little ones sleep, the greater the chance their mental health will suffer.
It is important to know the facts:
- Newborn babies need 18 hours sleep but they will often only sleep in 2-3 hour bursts.
- It can take several months for baby’s awareness of day and night to develop and as with every milestone stage, this can vary from baby to baby. Just because one baby at baby group may be quicker at settling into his/her own cycle than your baby, it’s not down to some magic touch the parent has, or because something is wrong with what you are doing or wrong with your baby.
- As the year goes on their sleep requirement drops and the majority of sleep becomes concentrated during night time as the circadian rhythms develop. Circadian rhythms are physical, mental, and behavioural changes that follow a daily cycle. Basically, babies go with the flow of their own internal biological rhythms and all babies have different biological rhythms too.
Once your baby is settling into longer blocks of sleep at night you will want to maximise this and using bamboozle cloth nappies can help. The beautiful supersoft bamboo is really absorbent and used with a waterproof cover and soft fleece bum liner it won’t need changing through the night and will help to ensure your little one will remain undisturbed and comfortable.
When researching this blog we came across a great line from the people at Basisonline ‘In cases where we are unhappy with our infant's sleep development it may not be the baby that is problematic, but our expectations regarding sleep and babies' needs.’ There is also a fantastic book out there by Deborah Jackson called Baby Wisdom. It doesn't tell you how to do it, it just tells you how others do it and is a very thought provoking read. You can draw your own conclusion.
The best thing we can all do for our babies is give them a nice and comfortable environment to go to sleep in. Making sure their cloth nappies are clean, that they have full tummies and full hearts but if one more person tells you it’s not forever and that this is the best age, you are allowed to throw a big pile of pooey cloth nappies at them!
Check out our range of bamboozle night time cloth nappies.