Why are Sleep Associations so Important?

If you've tried to get insight into your baby's sleep, you've likely come across the phrase "sleep associations." But what are sleep associations, really? And why are they so important? Sleep associations are basically anything we associate with sleep! For us adults, a sleep association might be an eye mask, a special pillow, a meditation app, white noise or a fan, silk PJ's, etc. Babies need sleep associations, too! Especially if you are trying to transition from all contact napping or bedsharing, building in and layering your sleep associations is so key to helping baby fall asleep and stay asleep without you.

Contrary to the myth, babies are NOT equipped or designed to "self soothe." They are not able to put themselves back to sleep when they wake up unless they have strong sleep associations. For babies within the first year of life, and especially in the 4th trimester, YOU are likely their strongest sleep association. Babies at this age connect and attach through their senses- so they need to feel, see, touch, smell us to feel secure enough to sleep. This doesn't mean that you can't get some independent sleeps, though! You just need to work to build in strong sleep associations BESIDES yourself. Examples of great sleep associations are nursing/ bottle feeding, rocking, shhh'ing, holding, swaying, cuddling, and singing. Some environmental sleep associations include white noise, a dark/ dim room, the crib itself, a special lovey or pacifier, a sleep sack, music, closing the curtains, turning off the lights, etc. Brainstorm the sleep associations your baby seems to like best. If you are the strongest sleep association and your baby is used to just nursing to sleep for every nap and night wake, that's ok! Just try to LAYER in some more sleep associations.

For example, sing while you nurse or slip a little lovey in between you as you feed your baby. Turn on white noise, put baby in a sleep sack, and rock before nursing. These little bits of your nap and bedtime routines will turn into your baby's sleep associations, and soon they will learn to anticipate that it's time for sleep when you do these things in a predicable pattern! It's also a good idea for your partner or any other caregiver to think of some sleep associations they can offer since they can't nurse. It could be a bottle, a special song, rocking baby, bouncing and shhh'ing, etc. It's totally fine and very common for different caregivers to have different ways of putting baby to sleep.

Try out these sleep associations for EVERY sleep for a few days. Even if you end up contact napping, build in the sleep associations you'd like baby to use on their own eventually. So you could lie down with your baby while they're in their sleep sack and sing a little song while they nurse to sleep. Then eventually you'll keep the associations of the sleep sack and singing and nursing, but get rid of the lying down with them in your bed in exchange for putting them in the crib. Think of sleep associations like a ladder. You want to build them up so that you can climb back down.