Helping Your Baby Sleep – Can You Do Less?

Helping your baby sleep through the night

How can you help your baby sleep through the night? The first piece is to help your baby learn to fall asleep without your assistance (feeding, rocking, soothing to sleep) at the beginning of the night. Instead of feeding or rocking your baby to sleep, put your baby in the crib wide awake and let them learn to self-soothe. This will involve some crying at first, but if you approach this in the right way, with consistency night and day, your baby will learn to put themselves to sleep. From there, you’ll also have to give your baby space to learn how to fall back asleep when they wake throughout the night. It might be tempting to feed your baby back to sleep or pop the pacifier back in a dozen times, but if you don’t jump in out of habit or fear, your baby will learn to sleep independently with the right approach.

Reasons why baby won’t/can’t sleep

There’s a lot of chatter on the interwebs about sleep pressure and wake windows and getting the timing perfect for your little one to sleep well, but the #1 reason why a baby can’t or won’t sleep is because they haven’t yet learned the skills of sleeping independently. Teaching them to fall asleep without assistance is a lifetime skill they will need to learn at some point, it’s just a matter of when and how you teach them. Some babies are very sensitive to being overtired so sometimes that can play into difficulty falling asleep, but staying asleep is tied to the skill of falling asleep independently at the beginning of the night. Once your baby can do that, they’ll be more likely to be able to put themselves back to sleep in the middle of the night!

How much sleep does my baby need?

Newborns need a lot of sleep, babies from 12-16 weeks need a little bit less daytime sleep, and as your baby grows, nap times and lengths will adjust so they are awake more during the day than they’re asleep by the time they’re toddlers. All babies need 11-12 hours of uninterrupted restful sleep at night, only the amount of daytime sleep varies. Newborns may sleep on and off all day. By 12-16 weeks, your baby will start being able to stay awake for up to 2 hours between naps, and your baby will settle into a 3-4 nap day with at least 30-40 minutes of sleep for each nap (this will extend after they’re sleep trained so that they can sleep 1-2 hours per nap!). From 4-6 months, your baby will need 3 naps of at least 40-minutes each, or up to 1-2 hours for each nap, depending on whether or not your baby knows how to sleep independently. Starting around 6 months, your baby will likely drop the 3rd nap and start consolidating sleeps into two restful naps – morning and afternoon. When your baby is somewhere between 14-17 months old, your baby will be ready for one nap after lunch. Toddlers are notorious for FOMO so don’t freak out if your baby only sleeps 40-minutes! It would be great if they slept 2-3 hours, but short naps are developmentally normal for toddlers and your baby will be fine even if they only get one catnap. 

Helping baby adjust to day and night

Is your baby sleeping all day but up all night? They might have nights and days confused. To break this cycle, start with establishing a different bedtime routine. I don’t think babies need baths every day but that can be a way to differentiate night and day. Make bedtime a calming affair with some lotion, PJs, some books, soothing music, etc. From there, you’ll want to cap daytime naps so they’re not sleeping more than about 2.5 hours at a time, and keep your baby awake with lots of daylight. If your baby is super sleepy, make sure they’re not overdressed and sleepy because they’re so warm. Unswaddle your baby, feed them when they’re fully awake, take them outside for walks, put them down on the floor, let them play, give them baths, whatever you can to keep them up during the day between naps! You’ll also be well served by getting your baby on a 3-4 hour feeding routine during the day so they’re getting FULL feeds (vs snacking) and eating less (or none) at night. 

Establishing a bedtime routine

If you don’t have a bedtime routine, now is the time to establish one! Start with making the nursery a calm, dimly-lit environment. If you bathe your baby daily, you can use that to start your bedtime routine. If not (which is fine!), start your bedtime routine when you step into the nursery. I like to start with a fresh diaper, a little massage, and pajamas. From there, feed your baby while they’re fully awake, burp them, and give them a few minutes to digest while you read your baby some age-appropriate books (I love board books for younger babies – Goodnight Moon is a great start!). All of this shouldn’t take more than 20-30 minutes unless your baby struggles with reflux and needs more upright time to digest. 

Nursery and sleep environment tips

Where your baby sleeps should be a calm environment with blackout curtains or shades to keep daylight out. It doesn’t need to be pitch black (I personally like a small nightlight or Hatch so I can see if I have to go into the nursery in the middle of the night!), but it should be dark enough during the day so that your baby can nap well. Have a good quality white noise machine and a lamp with a dimmer for bedtime stories. Pro tip – a large area rug with a professional-grade rug pad helps absorb noises if you have hardwood or tile floors, or particularly noisy neighbors!

Where should my baby sleep?

If you have a newborn who’s up all night feeding, having your baby in a bassinet in your room makes the most sense. Eventually, however, you’ll want to move your baby to their own room. The AAP recommends room-sharing until your baby is 6 months old but I honestly feel that’s a bit conservative. Consider that this statement is for everyone – including teenage parents, addicts, and families who don’t have the means for a good quality video monitor to use in a separate room. When you’re ready for your baby to sleep independently through the night (which you can do starting from 12 weeks and 12 lbs), we recommend giving your baby their own sleep environment so they can learn to self-soothe, and sleep without your assistance.

Comfort items, pacifiers, and swaddling during sleep training

When you’re sleep training your baby, it’s best to have your baby in a crib with nothing else in it – no blankets or comfort items. If your baby is 6+ months old and able to find the pacifier in their crib and insert it themselves, then you can continue using the pacifier for sleeping if you wish. It is unsafe to sleep train your baby while swaddled, so you’ll need to transition to a regular sleep sack for sleep training. We like plain cotton, sleeveless ones like Halo or Burts Bees, or the Woolino if you want something warmer. 

Adjusting to baby’s sleep patterns and changes

Babies grow and change constantly, so will their sleep patterns. When your baby is a tiny newborn, they’re probably hard to even keep awake during feeds. But by 3-4 months, you’ll enter what they call the 4-month sleep regression, which is really a normal developmental stage when your baby becomes more alert and resists sleep more. They may be harder to get down, start taking shorter naps, or wake up frequently during the night. This coincides with learning to roll and unswaddling. All of these are signs that it’s time to teach your baby some independent sleep skills!

Coping with a restless baby 

Babies are restless sleepers, much like we are! Babies grunt, moan, toss and turn at night and sometimes circle all around the crib when you’re not looking! It’s particularly challenging for parents to cope with a baby who’s developmentally ready to be out of the swaddle (and/or Snoo), but still has the moro reflex. Once you transition your baby out of the swaddle, they will wake themselves up repeatedly with their hands. They want to suck their hands, but they don’t quite have the gross motor skills to hold their hands in just the right place to self soothe. This is a normal but  challenging phase. We can help you through this while sleep training!