A study published on December 3rd 2018 has reviewed over 300,000 children from North America, Europe, Asia and NZ and looked into their sleep hygiene, pre-sleep rituals and bed times.

Sleep hygiene is a popular way to establish healthy sleep without even beginning to look into sleep training strategies.

We've known for years we could improve your babies sleep by simply working on their sleep hygiene, and this study proves how powerful this practice is when it comes to long term healthy sleep habits.

Read more about "How to improve your babies sleep without sleep training."

"Good sleep hygiene gives children the best chances of getting adequate, healthy sleep every day, and healthy sleep is critical in promoting children's growth and development, Nursing professor Wendy Hall says.

" Research tells us that kids who don't get enough sleep on a consistent basis are more likely to have problems at school and develop more slowly than their peers who getting enough sleep."  

We know according to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine that children need...

• 4-12 months -- 12-16 hours of sleep including naps
• 1-2 years -- 11-14 hours of sleep including naps
• 3-5 years -- 10-13 hours of sleep

All of the Baby Sleep Consultant routines are based on the AASM recommendations for sleep, and our own experience of over 30,000 babies and toddlers over the last 7 years.

You can download our nap routines and complete sleep hygiene recommendations in our online sleep programs.

The 2018 University of British Columbia study showed good to strong endorsement of certain sleep hygiene practices such as ..

• Regular bed times
• Reading before bed
• Having a quiet bedroom environment
• A pre sleep ritual
• Being able to self soothe - where a baby can go to sleep and go back to sleep on their own.

Older children benefit from no screen time prior to bed time, and family dinner time was shown to have a positive role on sleep duration, onset and quality.

This study confirms what we have known for years, that sleep timing, consistent bed time routine, a sleep environment supporting sleep and having the ability to self soothe, all positively impact your child's sleep habits, and the sleep habits we create in the first 1000 days are the sleep habits your child will have for life.

Got a 6 month old? Check out the free tutorial below..