Sleep Associations – Positive or Negative?

A sleep association is where your little one is relying on outside influences to fall asleep initially or to resettle after each sleep cycle rather than settling or re-settling on their own.

There is however positive sleep associations as well as negative!

A positive sleep association is something that cues your little one that sleep time is approaching so they can start to relax and unwind. These include a lovee or cuddly toy, sleep bag, white noise (if age appropriate) or bedtime routine which helps your little one switch mental gear and start the sleep process on their own.

Negative sleep associations are those which are present when your little one goes to sleep, which may not necessarily be present when they wake after each sleep cycle e.g. feeding or rocking to sleep. The difficulty with such sleep associations is that your little one will be waking after each sleep cycle needing these outside influences as they do not know how to resettle independently. Although a quick fix at the time, negative sleep associations are not sustainable long term for a number of reasons.

Dummies play a big part in both negative and positive sleep associations. If your little one is old enough find and replace their own dummy in between sleep cycles, then this is a win/win for your family. If your little one is not old enough to have the ability to find and replace their dummy then this is a negative association as your little one will be looking to have the dummy replaced after each sleep cycle both during the day as well as overnight! 

If you are happy in your current situation and everyone is sleeping well, great! If you would like to address your little one’s sleep associations and have some more restorative sleep, please feel free to give us a call.