Daylight Exposure

This is a fact that your baby is used to a dark and silent environment in your womb. She’s not used to the usual cues of nighttime sleeping. Nighttime, at first, is what the baby gets used to asleep or awake.

One method of getting your baby used to sleep at night is to be sure she’s exposed to lots of sunlight during the day. When its time to go to sleep in the dark; one of your rituals can be dimming the lights, even if it’s an afternoon nap. This way, she’ll get used to day and night cycles and learn that nighttime and darkness are for sleeping.

There are clocks available, called the dawn simulators; these will gradually dim into total darkness over a period of about half an hour. This can be a way to gradually dim the light in the baby’s room. When you put her in hers crib when she is still awake, you can set the clock to start to dim when you leave the room, or get a little away through the cycle. This way you’re not just flipping out the light and leaving her alone in the dark. You can do the same for her nap times too. The clocks will cycle on slowly in the morning; you want to be sure that you mute the actual alarm sound so that she does not awakes with a shock.

If you coordinate the use of any of these devices with your work/day time routines, you’ll help teach your babies the cues for going to sleep at nap time especially at nights. These are some known gentle methods that many parents prefer instead of just letting the baby cry out.