5 Sleep-Rituals That Actually Help Your Baby Sleep Through the Night
Whether it is in a private class, group class, home visit postpartum or grandparents class, sleep is a frequently addressed topic for New Parent Network! We always hope to best prepare our families for the realities of life with newborns who do not sleep through the night for many months. It takes time and patience to help them reliably string hours of sleep together.
For the adults caring for these infants, 5 hours of sleep is neuroprotective. Aiming for a continuous 4-5 hour block of rest can help manage the negative impacts of sleep deprivation. But how do you do this?! Initially, splitting the work overnight (ie. One person take 8pm-2am and the other take 2-8am) and night nurse coverage can be very helpful. Ultimately however, consolidating sleep is the goal. (And if you have just given birth and are trying to breastfeed? It is ok to laugh at this idea because you’re in the newborn bubble of sleeplessness!)
(Before the recommendations: When can we stop waking baby for feeds every 2-3 hours and let baby sleep? As soon as they get back to birthweight and are eating well during the day!)
These are my top 5 recommendations for helping your baby consolidate their rest time and sleep through the night.
1. Don’t wait to start a sleep routine. This is not “sleep training”. It is creating a regular set of actions done in the same order to teach babies brains to settle down.
2. Make your sleep routine replicable. If you create a sleep ritual that is hours long, super specific, and complicated, it will always be long, specific and complicated! (Which then makes it hard for anyone else to help you!) I usually suggest bath, book, bottle/breast, and bed. This can all be done in around 15-20minutes and sets the expectation that every night will look the same.
3. Daytime light and noise. Bright natural light exposure during the day, extended wake windows and activities like reading, tummy time, and play, will help baby tire themselves out during the day and be ready for good sleep overnight.
4. Bring the energy in the house down before bedtime. If you have every light on, with high energy music, lots of songs and dance and entertainment, baby will not be able to regulate and settle to sleep. Before the bedtime routine starts, and as baby is showing signs of tiredness, get the house ready for sleep. Lights come down, noise is reduced and calmed, and energy is settling.
5. Be deliberately boring overnight! Be loving, kind, and gentle, but do not set the expectation that exciting things happen in the middle of the night! Babies have FOMO and they do not want to miss out! When you respond to baby overnight, keep the lights low, keep your voice down, speak as little as possible, and have the goal be to feed/settle/place straight back to sleep in their own sleep space.
I recommend each of these things not only because they are evidence based, but also because they are opposite of what I did with my first (who was a horrific sleeper for the first 6 months of her life) and the exact things I did with my third! (who was a great sleeper from minute one!) Don’t make the mistakes I did!
More questions? New Parent Network is always here for you!