So your baby wakes as soon as you try to put him or her down. Do you find yourself holding your baby until the asleep and every time you try to put him down, he makes up. You're not alone. In this video, I'm going to share with you some simple steps to help you put your baby down for sleep. Babies don't know how to fall asleep until we teach them. Fact! So, understandably, it's strange for a baby to go from all the comfort of the motion, sound and closeness that lulled him off to sleep in the womb to suddenly being placed in a flat, still open space. So we get into very natural habits of holding, rocking and soothing our babies to sleep, often using milk to do the job in the early weeks. It's instinctive and it's nurturing, yes, but it's not sustainable long-term and it's important to know when and how you're going to shift gears. Otherwise, these lovely, helpful, soothing techniques actually turn into unhelpful habits that sabotage your baby's learning journey and development. To help your baby become a great sleeper means teaching them how to settle to sleep. This is not something they just do in their own time. There are occasions where a baby who has a rather laid back, go with a flow temperament, will be exposed to a consistent routine from his parents and without even realizing it, the parents teach him how to settle. They don't realise they're doing it, but still that little one was taught through repetition and through consistency. It's unlikely that's the story for you. Those people don't tune into baby's sleep help like this because it's not a challenge for them. So, how do the rest of us teach our children how to fall asleep? I wish there was one answer and I can tell you all right now. The thing is, beyond the basics, like consistency, routine and not doing it all for your baby, the rest is very much dependent on the individual. Different approaches suit different personalities and your baby is a unique little person. The process I teach can come in various styles of approach but the result is the same. A baby who can sleep through the night, every night for the long term. When you place your baby down and he wakes and cries, this is because he's not yet able to fall asleep himself, much like putting a tug on a bike with two wheels for the first time. He can't ride it yet because he doesn't know how, he has some practice or even been shown the way. Potty training and learning to walk are other examples of things we demonstrate, guide and show our children how to do. When it comes to bike riding, we begin with training wheels or stabilizers and those hold the bike up and enable your child to ride. This is doing it for him, which is the same as rocking your baby to sleep or feeding your baby to sleep. When we take off the stabilizers, we run alongside the bike, hold it up and help our children to ride while they're getting a bit more used to how it feels and taking a bit more lead with it. This is the equivalent to the beginning of sleep training. When you remove the rocking to sleep, but still comfort, support and help your little one to settle. Bit by bit, you hold the bike less, you keep encouraging but you're not so involved in the riding and before you know it, your child is off, they're riding their bike on their own. This is my favourite analogy to sleep training. Bit by bit, you do less and less of the work, allowing your little one to feel what it's like, adjust to the sensations and the environment until before you know it, she can put herself to sleep with little to no input from you. My philosophy is very much a hands-on and responsive one. Some babies need a lot of help, especially at the start, while others do better to be given a bit of space and too much fussing, too much effort on your part actually makes things worse. Like I say, they are all different, which is why it's important to adopt the right approach for your baby's personality and character traits. For some babies who are very attached to falling asleep on you, you need to take tiny steps before reaching the stage of even putting them down. A different whole position might be your first move to show that it might not be what they usually get, but it's safe, it's okay, and then they adjust in micro steps. So don't give up or feel like it's hopeless trying to put your baby down. You can do it, you just need to go from the current hole to sleep to the cot. There are plenty of moves you can make to progress from where you are now to being able to put your baby down happily to settle to sleep. Thanks so much for watching. If you've liked anything about this episode, then please leave a comment below and hit subscribe for more episodes like this. If any of your friends would benefit from seeing this video, then please do share it with them using the hashtag the sneak nanny. And we look forward to seeing you again real soon.