Getting Sleep Back on Track After Being Sick
Babies who are two years old and under will have about 6 or more colds each year. Babies who are in a daycare setting will average even more a year. That doesn’t mean you’ll never be able to work on sleep though! It can always feel like it isn’t the right time, but remember that better sleep carries over through rough patches.
If your baby is an independent sleeper before a cold, he or she may still have difficulty falling asleep at bedtime or staying asleep in the middle of the night due to discomfort and congestion. This is normal!
While they are sick you can try to:
stay consistent with your sleep routines and times for naps and bedtime. If your baby is independent in their crib, keep them independent for mild illnesses! stay curious without assuming they need more help, provide more help when they need it.
the more sleep the better! If you typically wake your baby from naps or in the morning - consider letting them sleep longer! However, during the day be mindful of their nutrition and hydration. Make sure they are offered the same amount of food/bottle/breast around the same time.
If baby is already in their room, keep them in their room! If you want to sleep on the floor or in the chair - that is fine, but keep them in their same space because 9/10 times, they’re going to sleep better in their familiar space and we want them getting as good of sleep as they can get when they’re not feeling well.
Sleep schedule: keep it the same but offer more check-ins to keep them hydrated and check for fevers, vomiting or diarrhea!
Your baby may have more night wakings even if they have mastered sleep training, it is okay to rock or soothe them back to sleep if needed. When my boys are sick, I typically comfort them but put them down awake. The only times I had to help them to sleep was when they had an ear infection and the antibiotics did not kick in yet! (The laying down made them extremely irritable).
However, in some cases, while your independent sleeper is sick, it is VERY appropriate to offer them what they need… whether that is more feedings during the middle of the night or extra comforts by holding or rocking to sleep! If this happens for several days you may develop some new habits and you may need to retrain your baby when he or she is feeling better. This is FINE.
Getting Back on Track After Being Sick
Once your baby is feeling better, you’ll want to immediately get back to your normal routines. It may take a day or 2, but stay consistent! You will also want to go back to limiting their sleep if needed! Therefore, if your baby was on 2 1.5 our naps and you were not waking them up when they were sick; start waking them up from their naps again!
If you were feeding your child more in the middle of the night, rebalance your baby’s calorie intake by putting those calories back to the daytime!
If your child has developed a sleep association while being sick (rocking or nursing to sleep) use your sleep training method to re-sleep train them once he or she is better. Responsive sleep training methods help a lot whenever you're working through something like a regression or just getting over a sickness.
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