Strategies! Getting your baby to sleep can be tough, but there are plenty of ways to encourage healthy sleep habits. Open up the blinds and let plenty of light in during the day, then keep things dark when it’s time for bed. Put your baby to bed when they’re drowsy, but haven’t fallen asleep quite yet. When your baby wakes up in the night, wait a few moments to see if they’ll settle and fall back asleep on their own. If they stay awake, keep things calm and quiet while you feed them or change their diaper.
IN THIS ARTICLE
- Use light strategies
- Put your baby to bed when they’re drowsy, not asleep
- Wait a moment before going to your baby
- Try not to stimulate your baby
- Only change their diaper when necessary
- Wait until they’re ready for sleep training
- Brace yourself for sleep regressions
It can be frustrating – not to mention exhausting – when your baby just won’t go to sleep or stay asleep. Those first few weeks with a newborn are bound to be chaotic, since newborns have day/night confusion and need to eat every few hours around the clock. They may snooze through the afternoon and then be up all hours of the night, even after you’ve fed and changed them.
But once your baby is a few months old, you can start to coax them into a more normal sleep routine. Whether you’re figuring out the best way to get your baby to settle in for the night or trying to get them to go down easy after a midnight feeding, these tips, drawn from a number of leading baby sleep experts, can help.
Use light strategies
Light is a powerful biological signal – daylight wakes us up, while darkness triggers the brain to release melatonin, a key sleep hormone. Keep your baby’s days bright and their nights dark to help them figure out when it’s time to sleep.
- During the day, allow plenty of sunlight into the house or take your baby outside. Put your baby down for daytime naps in a well-lit room (unless they have trouble falling asleep at nap time).
- To induce nighttime sleepiness, consider installing dimmers on the lights in your baby’s room, and also in other rooms where you both spend lots of time. Lower the lights in the evening (up to two hours before bedtime) to set the mood.
- It’s fine to use a night light in your baby’s room, but choose a small, dim one that stays cool to the touch. (And don’t plug it in near bedding or drapes.)
- If your child wakes up during the night, don’t turn on the lights or take them into a brightly lit room. The shift from dark to light tells their brain it’s go time. Instead, soothe them back to sleep in their dark bedroom.
- If early morning sunlight prompts your child to wake too early, or if they have trouble napping in the afternoon, consider putting up blackout curtains.
Newborns sleep up to 17 hours a day. Learn about newborn sleep patterns and how you can establish good sleep habits.
Put your baby to bed when they’re drowsy, not asleep
This is a tall order, but master the timing and both you and your baby will rest easier. Babies who drift off on their own are more likely to learn to soothe themselves to sleep.
Put your baby to bed as they’re quieting down, just before they nod off. When your baby is about 6 to 8 weeks old, try creating a sleepiness scale from 1 to 10 based on how they behave when they’re getting tired (1 being wide awake, and 10 out cold). Then wait until your baby hits 7 or 8 to put them down to sleep.
Wait a moment before going to your baby
If you jump at every squeak heard over the baby monitor, you’re encouraging your baby to wake up more often. Wait a few minutes to give them time to settle back to sleep on their own. If they don’t, and it sounds like they’re waking up, try to reach them before they escalate into a full-blown howl. Stepping in before a meltdown means you’ll catch them before they’re too worked up to fall back asleep.
Either way, it’s okay to turn down the volume on your baby monitor a bit. Set the volume so you’ll be alerted when they’re distressed but won’t hear every gurgle.
Try not to stimulate your baby
Many babies are easily stimulated. Just meeting your baby’s gaze can engage their attention and signal it’s playtime.
Try not to engage too much with your baby when they wake up – this could inadvertently encourage them to snap out of their sleep zone. The more you interact with your baby during the night, the more they’re motivated to wake up.
Keep it low-key instead. If you go to your baby at night, don’t talk excitedly. Soothe them back to sleep with a quiet voice and gentle touch.
Only change their diaper when necessary
Resist the urge to change your baby every time they wake up – they don’t always need it, and you’ll just jostle them awake. Instead, put your baby in a high-quality nighttime diaper at bedtime, and apply diaper-rash cream as a preventative measure.
When they wake up, sniff to see if their diaper is soiled and change only if there’s poop.
Wait until they’re ready for sleep training
Following these tips helps establish healthy sleep habits, and you can start to work on these as early as the first month of your baby’s life. But as desperate as you may be for some solid shut-eye, your baby won’t be ready for formal sleep training until they’re 4 to 6 months old. By then they’ll not only be ready to sleep for longer stretches, but they’ll also be much more receptive to the techniques you use.
Brace yourself for sleep regressions
If your baby starts waking up during the night again, don’t panic: It’s probably just a temporary hiccup. Babies and toddlers often have minor sleep regressions around major developmental milestones or changes in routine, like travel, illness, or a new sibling.
Many parents notice sleep problems begin around 4 months, when babies become more mobile and their sleep patterns change, and again around 8 or 9 months as separation anxiety increases.
To get through it, go back to basics: Stick to a predictable, consistent schedule during the day and a soothing bedtime routine in the evening. If your baby is old enough, choose a sleep training strategies and try it. If you don’t see improvement, reassess and try a new approach.
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