There are two major impediments to your little one’s sleep over summer holidays: travel and family-friends.
Summer Holidays Throw a Big Wrench In Your Child's Sleep
With summer approaching, many new parents who have recently gotten their babies sleeping on a schedule are worried that they might regress a little over summer holidays. And I can assure you, those fears could not be more well-founded.
Between the travel, the excitement, the constant attention is the single easiest way to throw all of your hard work out. I'm here to tell you, it doesn’t have to be that way! With some strategic planning and an iron will, you can keep that carefully orchestrated routine running just the way you did at home.
There are two major impediments to your little one’s sleep over summer holidays: travel and family-friends.
How to Maintain Your Child's Sleep While Travelling
1. Postpone Sleep Training Until You Return Home
If you’re thinking about starting sleep training your little one, but you’ve got to take a trip in a few weeks, my suggestion is to put off the training until you get back. If you’ve already started, not to worry. Taking a trip typically won’t help your little one sleep better, but if you can maintain some semblance of normalcy until the end of your trip, you and baby should be ready to get back to business as soon as you get home.
2. Timing Your Road Trips with Baby's Naps
If you’re driving to your destination, a clever trick is to schedule your driving time over baby’s naps. Car naps aren’t ideal, but compared to no naps at all, they’re the lesser of two evils by a mile. So if at all possible, get on the road right around the time that baby would normally be taking their first nap.
If you’re really committed, you might even look for some parks, tourist attractions, or other outdoor activities that are on your route where you can stop when baby gets up. It’s a great chance to get out into the sunshine and fresh air, which will make that next nap that much easier.
3. Timing your Flights with Baby's Naps
It’s no secret that planes and babies just don’t seem to like each other, so I suggest (and this is the only time you’ll hear me say this) that you do whatever gets you through the flight with a minimum amount of fuss. Hand out snacks, let them play with your phone, and otherwise let them do anything they want to do.
The truth is, if they don’t want to sleep on the plane, they’re just not going to, so don’t try to force it. It will just result in a lot of frustration for both of you. (And, most likely, the passengers around you.)
How to Maintain Your Child's Sleep While Visiting Family
Keeping baby quiet and relaxed, and hopefully asleep, is just what everyone is rooting for when you've finally arrived at your destination. But when family and friends are around, surely the opposite will happen. Everyone wants baby awake so they can see them, play with them, take a thousand pictures, and get them ridiculously overstimulated. And it’s exceptionally difficult to tell all of these friends and family members that you’re putting an end to the fun because baby needs to get to sleep.
1. Manage People's Expectations About Baby's Nap Schedule
By telling them in advance when to expect babybased on their schedule, it'll help put people's expectations at ease. Let them know when baby will be getting up and ready to play. I know it sounds a bit firm for a vacation, but the alternative is to almost immediate backslide right back into to square one.
2. Prevent Overtiredness
Keep an eye on baby's wake windows. When baby misses a nap, they get all fired up because of all the new faces and activity. Then overtiredness kicks in, cortisol production goes up, and the next nap is ruined. This leads to yet more overtiredness which derails nighttime sleep. Before you know it, you’re headed home and it seems like baby did nothing but cry the entire trip. And this is not even an exaggeration. It happens that quickly.
3. Prepare Your Room When Room Sharing with Baby
If you think bed sharing for a few nights isn’t the end of the world, you may want to think twice. Making as little of a deviation from the normal routine as possible, including two separate sleeping surfaces. Babies can develop a real affinity for co-sleeping in as little as one night.
If you’re sharing a room, attempt to make it into two rooms. You may need to get a little creative, but hang a blanket across the room, set up a dressing screen, bring along a Slumberpod, or take advantage of a decent sized walk-in closet. The idea is to create an environment so baby can nap in a dark, quiet environment that are lsat distracting for both baby and family-friends who might walk in during napttime.
4. Avoid Sleep Props
You might be tempted to slip baby a pacifier or rock her to sleep if she’s disturbing the rest of the house, but baby is going to latch on to that really, really quickly. Chances are you’ll be waking up every hour or two, rocking baby back to sleep or putting her pacifier back in. This is going to end up disturbing everyone a lot worse than a half hour of crying at 7:00pm during bedtime. Remember, if baby knows how to fall asleep, we too have to be confident in their skills.
5. Mentally Prepare Yourself for Overwhelming Advice
The biggest reason that a child's sleep backslides completely during summer vacation often stems from parents feeling embarrassed. There’s a house full of eyes and they’re all focused on the new baby, and by association, the new parent.
In moments when we feel that everyone is making judgments about how we're parenting is overwhelming, remember what’s really important here: your baby, their health and well-being. That is a noble cause worth standing up for. Remember that you’re a superhero, defending sleep for your little one, and like any superhero, you may be misunderstood by the masses. Ignore them. You’re on a mission.