We have been really lucky to have been blessed with 2 babies that are amazing sleepers. I always get questions about what we do, and although I’m not sure whether it’s what we do or just that we have great sleepers, I’m happy to share our approach! I certainly don’t claim to be a baby sleep expert – just a mom with 2 kids sharing what has worked for us. These are major things we do starting around 4 weeks.
- Get all of their ounces of milk in during the day.
Babies 2 months – 1 year eat anywhere from 25-32 ounces of milk per day. If you want them to sleep through the night, they need to consume all of those ounces during the day. So I really try to always make sure they’re full and have eaten as much as they can at each feeding during the day.
We follow Moms on Call, which I highly recommend. It essentially recommends a 3 hour schedule throughout the day – eat, wake, sleep. So baby eats every 3 hours, which helps to ensure they are sufficiently hungry when you feed them and will take a full feeding. It’s a little tricky in the beginning to know how much a “full feeding” is because it is continuously changing as baby grows, so I always make sure to offer more a few times to really make sure they won’t take anymore. You can do this by touching the nipple (bottle or breast) to their mouth to see if they open and try to feed more. If they do – feed more 🙂
The other recommendation from Moms on Call is to make sure there is 3 hours of no feeding prior to their final feeding of the night before bedtime. It is especially important for this feeding to make sure they get a good, full feeding so that they can sleep longer. It can be hard at that time of night to hold off on feeding early if their fussy, so we pull out all the tricks – swing, toys, walking/bouncing, dance party…whatever works.
2. Optimize their sleep environment.
We follow these recommendations from Moms on Call to optimize the sleep environment:
- White noise – LOUD! We use this white noise machine which gets quite loud and turn it up almost all the way. This simulates their environment in the womb and helps to mask any loud noises (doors, other children, dogs barking, whatever) that might wake them.
- Sleep in crib: We’ve moved both babies to their crib in their room by 1 month. We found that everyone slept much better this way. I read somewhere that babies can smell the mother’s milk (if breastfeeding) if they are in the same room and it keeps them awake and wanting to eat instead of sleep.
- Swaddle: Moms on Call recommends their specific swaddle, which we’ve never used. I think the key is a tight fitting swaddle that they can’t get their arms out of. Babies have a startle reflex until about 3 months, so if you don’t swaddle them, that will wake them. Bailey didn’t like her arms swaddled by her side and would grunt all night trying to get them out (which meant no one was sleeping) so we quickly switched her to the Love to Dream swaddle which has their arms up, but still swaddled to mitigate the startle reflex. That has worked great for her.
- Bedtime routine – bath, bottle, bed: Babies like routines. So the bath each night isn’t necessary to clean them (as all the doctors and nurses will tell you), but it’s about establishing the routine. That signals to them that it is bedtime. So we do a bath every night for the sake of routine, and just only use soap every 3rd or so night so that it doesn’t dry her skin out. We aren’t diehard about the bath every night forever, because it’s not always convenient if you’re out and about for dinner, etc., but we do it religiously for the first few months to establish a solid routine and get baby sleeping well, and then if you have to skip it here and there I’ve found it doesn’t impact things.
3. Use “the pause”: I first read about “the pause” in the book “Bringing Up Bebe.” I read it when I was expecting my first and really enjoyed it. It reads a little more like a story than a “baby book” but has lots of great advice from the European approach to babies. It’s basically the same approach that Moms on Call advises which is to not go to the baby immediately when they make a noise or cry. Instead, you pause – just for 3-5 minutes in the beginning. This pause allows the baby a chance to self soothe first, which is what they have to learn to do in order to sleep longer stretches. This is definitely not cry it out, but just a pause for 3 minutes before swooping in. I remember being so amazed with my first when we started doing this around 4 weeks. I would set a timer on my phone for 3 minutes, and sure enough every time he would stop crying and fall back asleep just before that! Then very quickly he would stop crying at that time and just sleep. I also read that babies sleep cycles are 3 hours and in order to sleep longer stretches they have to learn how to connect the sleep cycles. Moms on Call provides specific steps of what to do if the baby wakes before the targeted time based on whatever schedule you’re on. The gist is don’t just immediately feed the baby. Try a couple other ways to soothe first and if none of those work, then the baby probably truly is hungry and you should feed. This helps to ensure the feeding doesn’t just become a soothing mechanism for the baby, which can be a hard habit to break later on.
Again, not an expert here, but just sharing what has worked well for us!
I’d love to hear your tips and tricks for sleep below!
Xo,
Shannon
