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If this Blog title caught your eye, then I am guessing you have a child that is falling asleep in an awkward position?
Or perhaps, you are looking to learn about this ahead of it!
Let's say your baby has learned to stand up! Yay! This is truly an amazing milestone! It is such an exciting time to be a parent, and this is such a huge step in development for your Little Darling!
However, so many babies have the same issue when they learn to stand up... they have not learnt how to sit back down again!
During the daytime it does not really present much of an issue as they can spend a lot of time practicing the skill. The issue arises at nighttime!
It is a catch 22 issue that this puts parents in... on one hand.. you can't just leave your baby standing when they may fall and hurt themselves but on the other hand... you know if you keep going in to lay the, down, they won't learn how to do it on their own. They will also learn that standing is a good way to get attention from their parents!
Therefore, there is a fine line we need to walk to help teach baby how to sit back down on their own without it causing bad habits and leading to poor sleep.
If your baby has not started to do this yet, let me warn you that it is a rather frustrating situation. Especially because in the middle of the night, you know that the solution is just simple, if they could just lay back down on their own.
Patience is going to be key here and keep in mind that you baby may not know how to go from standing to sitting on their own yet. Baby will also not know that sleep will come easier if they lay down. I would urge you to remind yourself of this when you are hitting the 3rd or 4th time you have been woken up to this situation.
The fastest way to help resolve this situation is to help them master the art of standing and then sitting back down again. I recommend that during the day, you practice standing and sitting at every opportunity.
When your baby pulls up into a standing position, try putting their favourite toy on the floor neat them and gently encourage them to go from standing back to the floor.
You can play games like sleeping bunny and model the behaviour. You can also get their dolls/toys to stand and then sit.
Once they have mastered the art of standing as well as sitting back down, you can start tacking the second part of the issue in that baby does not always know that sleep will come easier if they laid down.
We do not want a situation where your baby starts to rely on a parent to do the work for them. Therefore, I would avoid repeatedly laying them down when they stand up in the cot. I would do it 2 or 3 times to show them what is expected of them but after this, I would switch to a more suggestion based approach. I would pat the mattress and say a key phrase like, ''Lie down darling''. You can also model laying your head on the mattress if you can or on the floor. This takes practice but before too long, they do connect the dots and start to understand that laying down is the best way to fall to sleep.
I think it is important that we remember that it may appear that they are fighting sleep, this is normally not the case. It is normally that they do want to go to sleep but their skills are not quite developed enough for them to figure our how to get to sleep after they have stood up. This is why it is key to develop confidence and ability in the art of standing as much as you can.
As always, be calm, be patient, and be consistent. The hard work now will pay off a thousand times over when your Little Darling is sleeping happily through the night and happily going down for naps during the day.
DO YOU HAVE 15 MINUTES TO CHAT ABOUT HOW WE CAN SOLVE SLEEP? I'VE GOT A SPOT TO TALK WITH YOU! FIND A TIME HERE: