It is really tricky when after months (or even years) of sleep issues you finally decide to take the big step and you begin making changes with your baby’s sleep and routine. You are making progress and the whole family is starting to see longer periods of consolidated sleep and then there is a sudden onset of a minor illness. Baby gets a cold, or an ear infection, or a bout of tummy trouble, or any other illness and the everything starts to wobble.
So in case this happens to you, here are a few suggestions to try and keep you all on track.
Firstly, resist the temptation to bring baby into your bed. If you’re really concerned and want to be in the same room as them through the night, I suggest you bring a mattress into their room and sleep on the floor. Keeping them in their own room with familiar sleeping conditions will be much less disruptive than moving them into your room, and you don’t run the risk of them getting used to sleeping in your bed.
Secondly, do not give in to the temptation to start offering any sleep props that you might have recently taken away. I know that can be really hard, because obviously you want to offer them any kind of comfort you can while they’re feeling miserable, but you really don’t want to reintroduce those things they were dependant on prior to starting sleep training. You can of course offer more night time comfort while they are sick. Definitely check on them more often, take care of any needs they have and give then extra cuddles to support them but do your best to have them go to sleep in their own sleep space still.
If your baby has a congestion or a blocked nose a vaporiser or chest balm is really supportive for babies so they can breathe easier whilst sleeping. You may also need to use an aspirator to help clear their nose.
Once the illness has passed, you may notice a slight regression but as your baby has learned some great sleep skills already, they will probably only need a slight reset to get back on track before they’ll be back into their routine and sleeping soundly again. Just get back to the program, reintroduce the bedtime routine, and you’ll be seeing progress in no time.
