The importance of having sleep rituals for your baby

Annette Faamausilli from Serene Sleep explains why sleep rituals are your baby’s love language.

Imagine sitting in your lounge minding your own business when someone drags you off to bed without prior warning when you're not even tired. You’d feel confused, rushed, and unlikely to fall asleep anytime soon. This is how your baby feels if you expect them to go straight to sleep at bedtime or nap time with no pre-sleep routine or prior warning. 

Believe it or not babies are far more perceptive than we realise. They pick up on subtle cues from their environment and associate them with specific events. This happens surprisingly quickly and even with very young babies too. If you are working on establishing a healthy sleep routine for your baby, sleep rituals will really help set them up to sleep soundly, more consistently and with ease. Here’s how it works.

What is a sleep ritual?

Every time you offer your baby a feed or a meal, you give them a bit of prior warning, sometimes without even knowing it. They may see or hear you preparing a meal, warming up their bottle, shaking it, and popping a bib on. Even the click of your bra strap when you're about to breastfeed signals to your baby it’s time for a feed. Babies that are bathed every night will quickly become familiar with the sound of running water and get excited in anticipation of what is about to happen. How does this happen? These are rituals you have adopted naturally over time without even thinking about it, but they are important warning cues to your baby to help them make sense of their world.

The same applies to bedtimes. Babies need to be guided towards sleep with a bit of prior warning. This is what a sleep ritual offers: a set of clear repetitive activities that occur before every nap or bedtime. These cues help your baby relax, wind down and connect with sleep in a way that is tangible to them.

Research has shown that babies and children who follow healthy, set routines for bedtimes are more likely to sleep earlier, fall asleep faster, and wake up less frequently. But the benefits go far beyond a good night’s rest (for babies and the rest of the family!). The familiarity of a robust sleep routine can also help strengthen parental attachment, help your baby feel secure and safe, improve emotional and behavioural regulation, and enhance early language and literacy skills. That’s a lot of power packed into a relatively straightforward ritual!

How to create sleep rituals

Make sleep a sensory experience (I like to refer to it as a saturation of their senses). You can do this by darkening the room (sight), turning on white noise, singing a song, or reading a story (sound), using a swaddle or sleep sack or giving baby a massage (touch) and perhaps a few drops of essential oil on their bed clothes (smell). All these things together become sleep rituals that will help prime your baby for sleep. The more tangible the rituals are, the better. Remember, you don’t have to adopt lengthy, drawn-out routines each time you pop your baby down. Sometimes even five minutes of the same cues and rituals is all that’s needed.

Annette's top tips

Here are some examples of activities you might choose to include in your sleep routine:

💗 Giving a bottle or breastfeed

💗 Bathing your baby or putting on a fresh nappy

💗 Brushing their teeth

💗 Reading a book or singing a song

💗 Turning on white noise

💗 Drawing the curtains and darkening the room

💗 Massaging, cuddling, or rocking

💗 Introducing a comfort toy for your baby to attach to

If you offer the same rituals at all sleep times for a few days, you should notice a big difference in the way your baby connects with sleep. Your baby may start to yawn when they enter their darkened room or lunge towards the cot in anticipation of sleep. Some babies may start to grizzle, stretch, and fuss just before sleep times as the cues are a reminder of how tired they are. Over time these cues will become your baby’s ‘love language’ as they will help your baby connect with sleep in a more positive and nurturing way. 

Sleep rituals are simple to initiate but hugely effective. With just a little consistency, you can create sleep routines with positive benefits that ripple throughout your child’s life.

Annette Faamausili is a baby and child sleep expert and has been advising and supporting parents since 2001. She trained and qualified in the NHS, UK, and moved to New Zealand with her Samoan husband and family in 2011. Annette has three children and lives on the beautiful Whangaparaoa Peninsula in Auckland. Find her at serenesleep.co.nz.