Getting Baby To Sleep Through The Night
[Note: This post was originally posted June 25, 2020 on a previous blog of mine]
So the great question is "how can I make sure my baby will sleep through the night early?"
I'll give you the quick answer: You can't be sure of anything when it comes to babies and sleeping. All babies are different. But perhaps there are some things you can do to work toward that goal.
I’ve come to learn that one of the touchiest subjects when it comes to raising babies and toddlers is sleep training. Many parents are passionate about their views on it. There’s the parent who works fulltime, or that single mom who can function only on a tight schedule, or the dad who runs his house like bootcamp, who declares that the notion of sleep training is a no-brainer—every parent should do it.
On the flipside, there’s that stay-at-home mom or dad, or that relaxed, go-with-the-flow parent who honestly doesn’t mind waking up several times in the night to soothe a baby, and who would prefer to put her parental efforts elsewhere. This parent would prefer the baby’s schedule to naturally fall into place, which I’ve learned often happens, too.
I’m not here to tell you which type of parenting style is right or wrong, because neither is either. But I’ve come to the conclusion that you just have to figure what you want your parenting style to be, become educated on it, and then do your best to execute it, while giving yourself grace when it all hits the fan. Which it more than likely will at times.
At this point in the post, you should know that because of our own lifestyle, we are advocates of schedules and our own version of sleep training, so if you already know that this isn’t the way you want to go, this post might not be very helpful for you.
So what’s the hype about sleep training? Well, first, sleep training usually refers to the process of teaching a baby to fall asleep, sleep, and stay sleep (and hopefully for a solid chunk of time). A lot of people mistakenly view sleep training as a “let-baby-cry-it-out” procedure, but that isn’t always necessarily true.
In this post, my definition of sleep training will be a bit expanded and stemming from my personal experience over the last year. I want to talk about it’s entirety—the why, what, and then the how of our son’s sleep life, which has gone very well so far. I write with the hope that someone somewhere benefits from this.
First, the why and what: even before Charlie was born, we knew that we wanted and needed a schedule for him. This meant scheduled naps, meals, etc. This was first based on our observation that a baby who sleeps well often behaves better and is healthier. It was also based on our desire to raise our son to be independent, by showing him early on how schedules work. (We later found that schedules also work the other way—they have taught him to depend on us, too, to always provide food on time!) Lastly, a schedule best fitted our lifestyle because we work fulltime as college lecturers, because my husband is working on another degree, and because together we weren’t willing to sacrifice time-and-energy-consuming practices like primarily breastfeeding him and making our own food (instead of eating takeout every night) despite our crazy workloads. Without a schedule, there wouldn’t have been a chance in high heavens that we would’ve survived year one and done all that.
Additionally, we also knew that we never wanted to co-sleep or keep a baby in our room for very long, simply because we were both light sleepers. We knew that if we as parents weren’t resting, that our ability to parent would hurt, too. Therefore, for all of our sakes, we planned to move Charlie out of our room as soon as possible. And when I say “early,” I initially meant six months…however, it actually ended up being one month! I just couldn’t sleep with a baby in the room snorting and breathing heavily like all newborns do.
With that being said, we also knew that if we wanted him to sleep in his room at such a young age, we needed a way to make that happen. Our first thought was, “He’ll have to self-soothe.” However, neither of us have aggressive or militaristic personalities—in fact, we’re big softies when it comes to our baby. So simply letting a baby cry didn’t appeal much to us. But, rocking and nursing a baby to sleep for hours each night really didn’t appeal to us, either. Nothing wrong with any of those methods, of course, but our goal was for him to be an independent sleeper.
So, from there, we read a lot on how to get babies to sleep on their own, and eventually decided that swaddling was the way to go. One book, The Happiest Baby on the Block, made us both huge advocates of swaddling our son up till he could roll over. (And I’m now convinced this is why Charlie slept so well in his first months, and why we were able to stick to a schedule.) I hear many people say that swaddling isn’t for them, but I’m actually quite convinced that most babies eventually can learn to like it, even if they show resistance at first. I don’t want to get into that topic here, however, but you can read the science behind swaddling in The Happiest Baby on the Block.
So, to summarize so far, we knew we wanted
a schedule
him to sleep by himself
to swaddle him
Now let’s get to the good part: the how. What actually happened when Charlie was born?
To summarize, because of the schedule we used (which I detail below), and with the help of consistent swaddling and separate sleeping areas, Charlie was sleeping through the night (around six or seven hours—midnight to 7am) by the time he was 10 weeks old. No rocking, nursing to sleep, or crying at bedtime.
So how did we do it?
First, The Schedule
Babywise saved my life the first few weeks after Charlie arrived. It got us on a flexible schedule and kept not only my son healthy and happy, but me as well.
Unfortunately, there are SO many incorrect assertions about this program on the internet. Because it is a parent-led program, people often assume that it’s a restrictive, heartless, backward program that neglects to provide babies with flexibility and grace—which I doubt anyone would now deny are both so needed for young infants. The above claims are really so untrue, though. We strongly believe that the program is restrictive only in that you are restricted to listening to baby’s cues and learning them; it’s heartless only in that it is sturdy in its’ own fundamental belief of parent-led success; and it is backward only in that the core framework of its program is rooted in the successful parenting that was commonly used before the child-led philosophies really made their debut in the sixties. On the contrary—the book actually deals with some excellent (and proven-to-work) strategies for optimizing your infant’s success in his first months of life—all of which is the foundation of what I’ll say below.
So, here’s the meat and gravy of the program:
First, understand that besides love, all brand new babies need is sleep, milk, and a little wake time. The idea behind this is that if the baby eats well, the baby sleeps well, and if the baby sleeps well, the baby eats well. And if both of these things are happening, the baby is probably thriving. Therefore, the first step you can take toward getting on a schedule when you get home from the hospital is to learn and practice this pattern: Feed-Wake-Sleep. And then repeat. This is the basic Babywise belief.
Here’s how the program works: you start with 8-10 feeds a day, and every few weeks, you drop a feeding. This comes with the understanding that every few weeks, your baby will be able to sleep for longer periods at a time and therefore won't need to wake up so often. As your baby gets older, he will eat less frequently because he will eat more at each meal. When this happens, that means he will stay fuller longer, which theoretically means he’ll sleep longer, too. So ideally, when you drop a feeding, you want to start by dropping the ones at night, until eventually your baby is sleeping through the night.
The variable factor comes into knowing when your baby is ready to transition to the next phase. This of course isn’t black and white for each child. Instead, the book gives the “average range” of when babies are usually able to make the next transition. In our experience, Charles was able to make every transition at the earliest possible time he was supposed to. We got lucky in that. (For example, he could have transitioned from 7 feeds a day to 6 anywhere from 10 weeks to 12 weeks old. He transitioned smoothly at 10 weeks.) However, if you don’t think your baby is ready to transition (a.k.a. he’s acting hungry at the feeding you'd planned to cut out), then listen to the baby and don’t transition him yet. This isn’t baby bootcamp. Some babies need those extra feeds for a few more days or weeks.
So, here’s the how-to: newborn babies need to eat every 2-3 hours, which means 8-10 feeds a day. So, pick a time to start your day. Mine was 7am. Then, write out a schedule. This was ours at Week 2:
7:00 feed, diaper change, nap
9:30 feed, diaper change, nap
12:00 feed, diaper change, nap
2:30 feed, diaper change, nap
5:00 feed, diaper change, nap
7:30 feed, diaper change, nap
10:00 feed, diaper change, nap
1:00 feed, diaper change, nap
4:00 feed, diaper change, nap
You might notice that I plan the diaper change between the feed and nap. This is because I didn’t want Charlie associating food with sleep early on. It worked. It also backfired a little, though, because even to this day, he now expects a drink as soon as he wakes up. I probably will do it the same way next time round, though. The pros definitely outweighed the cons for us.
It’s pretty simple—you just follow the feed-wake-sleep pattern at each time. So, at 7am, I’d get up and feed the baby, change him, spend some time with him, and then swaddle him up for another nap. And then repeat this at 9:30am. I know the big question is—"What if baby is still sleeping at 9:30? Do I wake him up?” Remember that the goal is to get the baby on a reliable schedule, so it’s going to take some work to get there. It won't just happen. And if you didn’t already know, newborns are SLEEPY creatures. But they also need to eat. So I believe this is where that flexibility comes in. There will definitely be an adjustment period when this schedule starts. But again, that’s the point. We’re working to get on a schedule so that baby can know when to expect food, when to sleep, and so on.
So, in my experience, if it came to baby’s feed time and he was still asleep, I usually waited a while first, hoping he’d wake himself up—maybe 15-30 minutes max. If he didn’t naturally wake, I’d wake him up and then start the process. I’d say by week 3 or 4 my son was used to his schedule and was waking up on cue. Little babies get hungry very often, and they'll let you know when they are!
Another good thing to mention here is that regarding breastfeeding, I felt that scheduled feedings honestly did wonders for my milk supply. I found that once we were on a schedule, I could feel my body naturally “get ready to nurse” when time to feed him was getting close. I’ve read articles that said schedules do the opposite, but all I can say is that it worked well for me overall and kept me sane knowing when the next feed was, because honestly, breastfeeding hurt like none other at first.
All in all, I know I really talk up Babywise, but I have to admit I didn’t end up following them after six months. I felt like I had the hang of things by then and so even though I purchased their second book, I didn’t really read it. But for the first six months, they were great. Here’s a super quick breakdown of what our schedules looked like during that time, based off of the Babywise program:
Week 1 - survival mode (no schedule, several mental breakdowns, lots of tears)
Week 2 - 9 feeds a day
Weeks 3-6 - 8 feeds a day
Weeks 7-10 - 7 feeds a day
Week 11-15 - 6 feeds a day
Week 16-24 - 5 feeds a day
Six months - 4-5 feeds a day
You can definitely figure out your own schedule based off of this info above, but I still recommend getting a copy of Babywise because they explain the different stages and transitions and go into detail about which feedings you should drop and so forth. It was SO helpful. Can’t recommend enough. Click here to download what my schedule looked like, so you can make one of your own!
Next, Sleeping in His Own Room
As I mentioned before, we moved Charles to his own room at around 1 month. Before that, he slept beside me in a bassinet. When I say he “moved,” however, I really only mean that he slept in his own room at night. During his day naps, he took naps beside Grandma on the couch, in his swing, in any of our arms, or on the floor on a plush blanket. When he was a little bigger, naps usually happened in his Rock n Play or beside me on the bed while I watched TV or read or whatever. I did this for several reasons—first, I wanted him near me. Second, because he was SO little and sleepy those first months that he really could sleep anywhere. And lastly, because I wanted to instill some flexibility in our otherwise scheduled lives. I wanted him to be able to sleep in different places if needed.
I had initially planned to keep Charlie in our room beside me at nights for the first six months before moving him to the nursery. However, I soon realized that my anxiety was through the roof at nights because I was constantly listening for his breathing, and anytime he made a sound I jumped and jerked. It was just not working.
I’d be lying if I said we didn’t have a LOT of help with this move, however. Our family had purchased an Owlet sock for Charlie, and we coupled that with the Owlet baby monitor. If you don’t know what those are, the Owlet sock tracks baby’s heartbeat and oxygen levels and will alert you if anything goes off. It’s a controversial baby product, but it gave us so much peace of mind and I’m pretty sure we would’ve kept Charles in our room much longer if we hadn’t had it. The baby monitor, like any other monitor, was a camera that worked in conjunction with the sock. It was convenient because anytime we wanted to see Charlie, we just had to pull up the app to see his face, his oxygen levels, and heartrate.
So our nights went like this those first months when he moved to his room: At the last feeding of the night, I fed him, burped him, and then usually his dad changed him into his pajamas before we swaddled him and put him down in his crib. We’d close the blackout curtains and leave.
Sometimes he fussed for a minute, but most of the time he didn’t. The swaddle usually settled him.
For the first month or so after the big move to the nursery, Charles still had a scheduled middle-of-the-night feeding, which I’d wake up for. I didn’t mind going across the house to get him, because the kitchen was on the way there, which meant I could grab a snack and drink to help me stay awake for the feeding. I’d get Charles from his nursery and bring him back to my room so I could get back in bed and feed him there.
(Looking back, I don’t know why I wouldn’t just feed him in the living room during those night feedings. That would’ve made so much more sense. My husband, who was still working long days, woke up almost every time Charlie was in the room. Plus, had I nursed Charlie in the living room, I could’ve watched TV to help me stay awake. Exhaustion does weird things to our minds. I’m definitely going to change this up if I have another baby!)
I like to think that moving Charlie to his own room helped him sleep better, too. It was pitch black in there and much quieter than in our room.
In conclusion, we all benefited from this move. It wasn’t easy emotionally the first couple nights, but once we got the hang of it, and with the comfort of the Owlet, it became our normal.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t also mention the unforeseen downsides of putting Charlie in his own room from such a young age. Because Charlie became so used to sleeping on his own, not falling asleep in our arms, and having his own space, we soon realized that when times come for him to take a nap in our arms (e.g. on an airplane, at friends’ houses, etc.), these naps don’t often happen. After our first long flight to Hawaii when Charlie was only five months old, I confessed to my husband that I wasn’t sure we had been doing the right thing, “making Charlie so independent, so young.” Caleb then made a good counter point of saying how yes, we might struggle on the days where we are flying or visiting people, but for most of our days, Charlie sleeps so well. Would we really want to rock a baby to sleep every night, just so that when we travel a couple times a year he’ll be able to sleep? For us, probably not.
We learned after the first few failed naps on trips that it helped to start bringing blankets, a Pack n Play, and sleep sacks on trips. Telling your host ahead of time that you might need to borrow a corner of their house of a spare room for the Pack n Play also helps.
For flying—if you have a little baby, you can call ahead and book a baby bassinet for the flight. If that isn’t feasible or your baby is too big for a bassinet, bite the bullet, buy your baby his own seat, and bring your car seat. OR you can do what we sometimes do, and just suffer through an entire flight with a squirmy untamable baby! Haha. Whatever floats your baby boat, you. :)
Swaddling
Finally, the last important part of sleep training for us were the swaddles. Baby burritos are the best! Before I had my son, I wanted to use nothing but muslin blankets to swaddle my baby. It was cool and hip and all my favorite mom bloggers did it. But I learned quickly that I wasn’t good at swaddling, and that Charlie is practically a little Houdini. So we bought the Halo Sleepsack. They worked wonders. We used them up till Charlie could roll over in his swaddle (an event I actually witnessed on the baby monitor!) which was around 15 or 16 weeks.
We swaddled him for MOST of his naps till then. There were times he slept unswaddled—like in his Rock'n'Play (a rocker which has since been recalled), swing, or on his tummy on the floor (we always supervised, of course). But anytime we wished to put him flat on his back, especially for the long sleeps at night, we always swaddled him.
When we stopped, we still kept him in a sleep sack. If you don’t know what that is, it's a wearable zip-up blanket. You can get them at Target, Amazon, consignment shops, etc. They're not expensive. We love them because he moves so much in his sleep and he’d never keep a blanket on. We also keep our house quite cool, so it reassures us that he’ll stay nice and warm throughout the night. We plan to keep him in them for as long as he’ll let us.
This ends my long post on babies and getting them to sleep. If you stuck with me till the end, thanks so much! You're a gem.
Grace
