Tips for Getting an Infant to Sleep Through the Night

Lack of sleep is enough to drive any new parent crazy. By the time our first baby was 4 weeks old, I decided that the lack of sleep thing wasn't for me. That's when I called every parent I knew and asked them how they got their baby to sleep through the night. Some people said it was way too early to sleep train but I knew there had to be a way. After a few enlightening conversations combined with tips I picked up from books, our first baby slept through the night by 11 weeks. Our second is making progress - he's now 7 weeks old and sleeping 5.5 hours in a row and waking only once. My goal is to get our babe to sleep through the night by 12 weeks of age.

Here are a few tips for getting an infant to sleep through the night:

Sleep training begins on day 1 - In the first few weeks of a baby's life it's hard to see any progress with their sleeping - and that's ok. There are, however, a few things that can be done to help set the baby up for sleeping success. In the beginning babies typically sleep 2-4 hours at a time... and sometimes less. According to one of the sleep books I really like called On Becoming Baby Wise: Giving your baby the gift of nighttime sleep, after about 5 weeks of age the baby is capable of sleeping the same number of hours as their age. For example, a 5 week old is capable of sleeping 5 hours; a 6 week old is capable of sleeping 6 hours - and so on until they max out around 10-12 hours of sleep in a row. I experienced this to be true in that the baby can jump about an hour of additional sleep each week as he gets older.

Eat, wake, sleep cycle - In the first two weeks babies seem to sleep more during the day than at night. People say that their schedule needs to be flipped. In other words, they need to learn that the daytime is for being awake and the nighttime is for sleeping. While this will happen naturally, the process can be aided by implementing an eat, wake, sleep schedule (detailed in Baby Wise). The full cycle from the time the baby wakes up, eats, plays, and sleeps is about 2.5 to 3 hours. Including quality wake time is key to helping the baby sleep. Because babies often get groggy after eating, it's helps to feed the baby first and then do a diaper change to wake him. Try to keep the baby awake for 45 minutes or so before putting him back down for a nap. Continue this cycle throughout the day until the last feeding of the day.

Fill 'em up - The last feeding of the day should be the biggest. Babies wake up because they are hungry (usually). Feeding the baby as much as possible before bedtime will naturally extend how long they can sleep. For example, if a typical daytime feeding is 4 ounces, try feeding the baby 6 ounces before bedtime. If breastfeeding - keep feeding until the baby until you feel you have no more to give and then supplement with expressed milk or formula. If bottle feeding, make the babe a couple extra ounces before bed. Babies naturally stop eating when they are full so do not worry about overfeeding. He will refuse when he's done.

Crying it out (aka tucking baby in for the night) - It's ok to let your baby cry - within reason. Crying is their exercise. It's the way they develop their lungs and how they get out their frustrations. When putting the baby to bed at night we go by the 10 minute rule. Meaning, after tucking baby into bed and if he's crying - we let him cry for 10 minutes before going back in to soothe him. A friend of mine gave me this tip. He said that almost every time by 9 minutes the baby soothed himself to sleep on his own. Assuming the baby is dry, burped, swaddled, binky in the mouth, and is completely full (and of course not sick or having some ailment) - then he's probably ok to cry for a little bit. Eventually the baby will learn the schedule and he won't cry at all when put down for the night.

le Pause - Perhaps the most effective tip for teaching a baby to sleep through the night is something called le pause, a tip I picked up from a book called Bringing Up Bebe. My interpretation of what this says is that when the baby wakes up in the middle of the night - don't jump up to grab him right away. pause. Often when it sounds like the baby is waking up, he may not actually be waking up at all. Next time when the baby is waking up, grunting, making noises - just wait. Wait until the baby works himself up to a real cry. When he's really crying you will know he's awake - and that is when you should go get him out of bed. As an example - last night I thought our baby was waking up. I went to check on him and saw that his eyes were closed. Despite me already being awake and thus tempted to simply feed him then - I told myself to wait. I went back to bed and to my delight he slept another hour and a half! By pausing, he naturally made the jump from sleeping 4 hours in a row to 5.5. He wouldn't have made that progress if I had woken him from his sleep.

Going beyond le Pause - A friend just sent me a great article on how to effectively Ferberize your babe. What I like about this is the chart that shows how many minutes to wait before getting the babe after he starts crying. Let's face it - it's hard to pause when your baby is crying. So this is good consolation that it's ok to let the baby cry... while you're laying there is bed praying he falls back asleep. One thing to note is that this method is different from le Pause because (after waiting to get the baby out of bed) what you're doing is comforting your baby rather than feeding him.

Move the baby into another room - Unlike the fairy tales, babies are not always sound sleepers. They grunt, squeak and make all kinds of noises - all while sleeping! These little noises can wake up parents throughout the night, unnecessarily. Do yourself a favor - move the baby into another room. We did this at 5 weeks and 4 weeks respectively. The result is very important - it allows the parents to sleep through the grunts and wake only when the baby is actually awake. You'll know he's awake when he's really crying, not just grunting. This also helps le Pause to happen naturally.

Do it in the dark - For nighttime feedings, do everything in the dark. Do not make eye contact, do not speak, and do not engage with the baby. Simply pick him up, do a diaper change, feed him, burb him and put him back to sleep. If you're breastfeeding and if he falls asleep after the first side - then feed him, burp him, change him, feed him again, burp him, and then put him down to sleep.

Two steps forward and one step back - It's natural that the baby will make progress and then regress. Rest assured that the baby has not regressed permanently. He will continue to make jumps forward despite what seems like a setback.

Stick to the Schedule - Ideally, wake up at the same time each day and put the baby down for bed at the same time every day.

Accommodations - For the baby's sleeping accommodations, we love the rock n play. Having the rock n play is not necessary to get the baby to sleep through the night - I'm just noting what we use. It's super light weight and can be moved easily from room to room (even while the baby is sleeping). Also it is slanted which naturally props up the baby, which we like in case the baby spits up. 

The size of their tummy - I don't know if this is true, so I'm going out on a limb here - I'm guessing that a bigger baby can hold down more chow than a smaller baby. Our first babe slept through the night when he was 14 pounds (he was a big boy!). I would guess that a smaller baby may take longer to sleep through the night simply because their tummy is smaller and can hold less food - causing him to wake up more often. Just a theory.

I hope these tips are helpful or simply validate what you're already doing. Good luck!

Year in Review

This time last year a wildness came over me. My body knew what was coming, but I didn't. The next day began what would be 68 hours labor. Painful, exhausting, contractions. The following Sunday evening baby Jack was born.

Sitting here tonight, remembering Jack's first year and also being 29 weeks pregnant, I can't believe he's days away from turning 1; and I can't believe that I'm about to do it all over again. Recounting the year, it was amazing, wonderful, challenging, and wonderful again. It was all about Jack.

The first few weeks postpartum are measured in seconds. Pat and I spent hours staring at Jack. I wanted to relish every thing about him, and yet on the other hand I asked myself, "is this what I'm supposed to do? Just look at him all day?" Time was arbitrary and morning bled into night. Our schedule was the baby's schedule. My entire focus collapsed so that all I thought about was right there in front of me. Nothing beyond our walls mattered, nor did I have the time or brain power to give it any consideration.

The next moment I remember is when Jack turned 11 weeks. This was the magical time when he slept through the night. After that, we would spend the next 3 months catching up on lost sleep.

Then we got married! ...and the next week we got pregnant again.

9 months... that is when something changed for us. Jack's personality came to life. He could crawl, feed himself, giggle. He even played little games like peek-a-boo and showed signs of being a shy guy in new company. Since then he has turned into this little guy who is so much fun. He walks, he babbles, he plays with toys. He's absolutely awesome.

At the same time, we've gotten a lot better at being parents. In the beginning, everything from changing his diaper to putting him in the car seat, and exiting the house was so hard. Pathetic as this may sound, we're simply better now at functioning with a baby. Things like going to the grocery store, hanging out with him and appeasing his desires are all easier.

In general, I think that Pat and I would say that the transition into parenthood was hard. And that's not because the baby isn't absolutely wonderful - it's because it's hard work to be a parent! Beyond that, as a couple and as individuals, we've had to carve a new role for ourselves as parents. It has been an amazing, incredible experience so far and we're both so grateful and so happy.

We celebrate Jack's first birthday this week. I cannot believe it has already been a year. Time has never gone by so quickly, and on top of that, every week that goes by I'm closer to having another little chicken in the house. Ready to do this all over again? :-)