Parents' Anti-Crying Guide: How to best put your baby to bed
Created: 11/22/2022, 2:00 p.m
By: Laura Knops
Many young parents despair when it comes to sleep.
However, Japanese researchers have now developed up-to-the-minute instructions on how babies can best fall asleep.
Putting a crying baby to bed is a source of stress and frustration for most new parents.
Quite a few guides therefore provide information on the subject of sleep.
It doesn't take a lot of effort for the baby or toddler to fall asleep in peace.
It only takes a few minutes to walk, carry and hold - at least that's the conclusion reached by Japanese researchers in a recent study.
In this, the experts have worked out instructions for calming crying babies that are accurate to the minute.
The results were published in the journal Current Biology.
According to researchers, anyone who puts their baby to bed should hold it in their arms for a few minutes beforehand (symbolic image).
© Maskot/Imago
Parents' Anti-Crying Guide: How to best put your baby to bed
A total of 13 minutes of walking and holding, and the baby has already fallen asleep: at least that's what Japanese scientists promise with a specially developed method for calming small children.
Parents should hold their crying child close to their body for about five minutes and carry them around at a steady pace, if possible without abrupt movements.
Once asleep, the infant should never be put to bed.
Rather, the researchers recommend holding the baby for about eight minutes and only then putting it to sleep.
"Many parents suffer from their babies crying at night," explains study author Kumi Kuroda from the Japanese Riken Center for Brain Science (CBS) in Wako.
This can lead to stress, especially for inexperienced parents.
In the worst case, sleep problems in babies could also lead to infant abuse.
Parents are therefore always grateful for helpful tips - for example when it comes to what they can do to help their child sleep better or whether it makes sense to put the baby in the parents' bed.
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Anti-Crying Guide for Parents: Carrying around calms babies
To find the best way for parents to soothe their crying child and put him to bed, the scientists examined 21 infants in several test runs and under different conditions.
The children were sometimes kept sitting, sometimes walking, and put to sleep on an unmoving or rocking surface (such as a cradle or pram).
The reactions of the babies were recorded by means of (ECG).
The result: if the babies were kept walking, they calmed down after about 30 seconds.
In addition, the heart rate dropped significantly by wearing it.
All babies also stopped crying and around half fell asleep within this time.
If the mothers only put their children to bed after a few minutes, most of them continued to sleep without any problems.
A rocking cot or stroller had a similar effect on the child.
In contrast, more than a third of all infants woke up again within a very short time if they were put to bed immediately after falling asleep.