The way a baby goes to sleep at night is the way he expects to go back to sleep when he awakens. So, if your baby is always rocked or nursed to sleep, he will expect to be rocked or nursed back to sleep.

Sometimes nurse him off to sleep, sometimes rock him off to sleep, sometimes sing him off to sleep, and sometimes use tape recordings; and switch off with your spouse on putting him to bed.

There are two schools of thought on the best way to put babies to sleep: the parent-soothing method and the self-soothing method.

1. Parent-soothing method:When baby is ready to sleep, a parent helps baby make a comfortable transition from being awake to falling asleep, usually by nursing, rocking, singing, or whatever comforting techniques work.

Advantages:

• Baby learns a healthy sleep attitude – that sleep is a pleasant state to enter and a secure state to remain in.
• Creates fond memories about being parented to sleep.
• Builds parent-infant trust

So-called "Disadvantages": Because of the concept of sleep associations, baby learns to rely on an outside prop to get to sleep, so—as the theory goes—when baby awakens he will expect help to get back to sleep. This may exhaust the parents.

2. Self-soothing method: Baby is put down awake and goes to sleep by himself. Parents offer intermittent comforting, but are not there when baby drifts off to sleep. So-called "Advantages": If baby learns to go to sleep by himself, he may be better able to put himself back to sleep without parental help, because he doesn't associate going to sleep with parents comforting. May be tough on baby, but eventually less exhausting for parents.

Disadvantages:

• Involves a few nights of let-baby-cry-it-out
• Risks baby losing trust
• Seldom works for high-need babies with persistent personalities
• Overlooks medical reasons for nightwaking
• Risks parents becoming less sensitive to baby's cries

Remember, in working out your own parenting-to-sleep techniques and rituals, be sensitive to the nighttime needs of your individual baby and remember your ultimate goal: to create a healthy sleep attitude in your baby and to get all family members a restful night's sleep.

Babies who enjoy consistent bedtimes and familiar going-to-sleep rituals usually go to sleep easier and stay asleep longer. Yet, because of modern lifestyles, consistent and early bedtimes are not as common, or realistic, as they used to be.

Busy two- income parents often don't get home until six or seven o'clock in the evening, so it's common for older babies and toddlers to procrastinate the bedtime ritual. This is prime time with their parents and they are going to milk it for all they can get. In some families, a later afternoon nap and a later bedtime is more practical. Familiar bedtime rituals set the baby up for sleep.

The sequence of a warm bath, rocking, nursing, lullabies, etc. set the baby up to feel that sleep is expected to follow. Capitalize on a principle of early infant development: patterns of association. Baby's developing brain is like a computer, storing thousands of sequences that become patterns. When baby clicks into the early part of the bedtime ritual, he is programmed for the whole pattern that results in drifting off to sleep.