In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety. - Psalm 4:8

 Sleeping is one of the most basic activities children need to do. It is difficult to overestimate the importance of sleep. After birth, most of a newborn’s time is spent sleeping. Providing for sleep is one of the most basic ways that parents can care for their children. 

 However, helping children to sleep does not stop when infancy ends. Sleeping is an essential part of life for the entirety of a person’s lifespan. 

 The Importance of Sleep

 If sleep is so important for all of life, then it is worth a parent’s attention. And yet, it is surprising that we parents tend to treat sleep as very important for newborns, but with less and less importance as children get older. Why is that? No doubt, it is in part because sleep seems more important for newborns than it does for older children. Another reason, perhaps, is that parents are incentivized to help their newborns sleep because of the price parents pay if newborns do not. The price is less obvious as children get older. As children grow older, the price is paid increasingly by the children, not the parents.

 Why is sleep so important? Consider the text at the head of this article. The psalmist says that he will lie down and sleep in peace. We should note that the psalmist has to sleep. There is no choice. If we do not sleep, our bodies become weak, we become sick, and eventually we will die. Death is perhaps not caused by sleeplessness itself, at least, not to my knowledge, but sleeplessness leads to the deterioration of the body to the point that the body cannot fend off sickness. Of course, fatigued people also make bad decisions. Drivers doze at the wheel. Sleepless people misstep, make mistakes, and commit errors which may be deadly.

 People have to sleep, then, because our bodies require it. Sleep is baked into the design of creation. The very beginning of time is marked by a cycle of night and day. I have never heard anything from scientific sources that said anything other than that our bodies are regulated by the sun.

 All this is to say that sleeping is important, not just for babies, but for all human beings. It is inescapable. It is also good, not bad. Too often, writers and thinkers have made cases regarding sleep for babies that are more driven by overbaked ideologies than solid reasoning and common sense. 

 Helping Babies Sleep

 How, then, do parents help babies sleep? There are innumerable things to consider. Is co-sleeping preferred or is it dangerous? Should babies sleep on their stomachs or backs? Are noisemakers a good or a bad idea? Should newborns be wrapped with their arms trapped or allowed to move their arms? There are innumerable questions like these that parents will need to consider. I am not going to attempt to answer them. There are plenty of resources for parents to consider for the finer questions. Parents should consult those resources and consider the arguments. For our part, we gently but firmly wrapped our newborns snugly and placed them on their backs. We did not sleep with our babies in the bed but kept them in a crib right by the bed for the first few months. We also used noisemakers with white or brown noise.

 There are various programs and techniques that have influenced us over the years of raising babies. Several influential people and programs have made claims that their methods guarantee babies will sleep well. As a father, I have found these claims to be ridiculous and exaggerated. There are innumerable reasons a baby may not sleep well. It is unhelpful and unwise for anyone to claim that their methods will guarantee a baby will sleep well. That kind of claim leads parents into misplaced guilt and shame when their baby fails to sleep as well as predicted, and into ignorant pride when the program appears to succeed. Babies are complex beings. The origins and causes of poor sleep are also complex. Sometimes, there is no simple solution easily found. 

 Parents, then, need wisdom. Parents do well to seek input and advice from those who have gone before them. But they must also exercise discernment. Children are similar in many ways, but each child is also unique, and so are the particular circumstances of every child. Parents should seek advice, but they should not expect that anything anyone says will fully “explain” their child. Parents must temper their expectations. Parenting is hard. Discerning what is happening with children is difficult. Sleep is a surprisingly complex thing.

 Parents also need patience with their children and with each other. Parents of babies tend not to be well-slept, for good reason. This means that parents will need an extra measure of patience and perseverance through fatigue. The perseverance is not only for staying awake, but also for acting virtuously. A tired parent is often an impatient parent, but this need not be the case. 

 Practical Suggestions

 Here are some practical ideas that we have used to help our babies sleep.

 Make the room dark. Darkness is a friend to sleep. Light is not. When babies go to sleep, the darker the room is, the better.

 Use white or brown noise. We play brown noise for our babies at an appropriate level to help mask sounds which otherwise would disturb their sleep. Light is stimulating to the eyes. Unexpected or strange noise are stimulating to the ears. Limiting each of those things has helped our babies.

 Strike a balance between soothing and allowing to cry. It is difficult for many parents to allow their children to cry in their cribs. It has been hard for us, too. Nevertheless, not all cries are made equal. Parents need to learn to interpret their baby’s cries. We developed a sense over time with each baby regarding which cries reflected real distress of some sort and which did not. But when in doubt, we also exercised caution, seeking to ascertain whether there was any rash, pain, sickness, or any other issue that might be causing discomfort. There are innumerable potential causes, and we have seen our fair share. Children cry for many reasons. Parents will often be uncertain about the specific causes, but the reasons are generally clear enough. In general, we want our children to know that we care for them and love them, that we have compassion on them, and that they can trust us to care for them. This does not mean that they can demand our presence with them all of the time, but it does mean that when they cry, we listen. We want them to understand the same thing later on, as they grow up: when they talk, we listen. They will not always get what they want, but we will always try to give them what they need.

 Conclusion

Parents may underestimate the power and importance of sleep because it is easy to take it for granted. New parents, however, tend to discover that sleep for their babies is one of the most important activities, and they will often wish they could have more of it themselves. As parents think about raising their children well, sleep needs to remain an important factor rather than dropping off as the baby grows and eventually stops taking regular naps. Sleep is vital for our entire lifespan, not just as babies, and parents are wise to remember this as they help their babies sleep.