How To Teach Your Baby Sleep Through The Night
By Lorena Goldsmith

Sleeplessness is one of the tough sides of parenthood and, no matter how excited we are to be with our children, a good sleeping routine brings a healthier environment for the whole family.

When you become a mom, start having reasonable expectations about your sleep time. It is almost impossible to keep a newborn asleep through the night. This is, frankly, because of their need for food. Their food intake is so small and so… liquid, they need to wake up regularly to top it up.

But if you start waking up every hour or so, this starts affecting your normal functionality and disturbs your ability to go through the day with 100% success. This includes looking after your baby.

Here could be some explanations:

Experience proved that breastfed babies have a tendency to wake up more frequent than the bottle fed babies.

Babies that have short and frequent naps through the day tend to wake up more frequent through the night.

Babies that eat little, but more frequent through the day tend to wake up more frequent at night.

It is hard to change things

Why? Because, as author of the famous No-Cry Sleep Solution book, Elizabeth Pantley, explains, parents hope things will change on their own and when they don’t, they’re to tired to persevere in their determination to change. She also revealed that mothers especially treasure their night time quiet moments with their babies, no matter how sleep depriving they are. They love knowing that their babies are safe and they love comforting them back to sleep. All of a sudden, if your baby starts sleeping for long hours, the first thing you do is check if she’s alright.

But, if after 4 months, your baby still wakes up every hour or so, it’s time to make an effort and try changing her sleeping routine.

What to do

You can start by making sure your baby knows the difference between night and day. Light, noises, movements in the house, they all help with making the difference. You can start a little before bed routine of quiet cuddling, reading, singing lullabies, telling stories. Don’t start agitating your baby just before bedtime thinking she’ll get tired and fall asleep on your back while riding horses around the living room.

Learn to respect your baby’s signs of tiredness and don’t delay the bed time.

If your baby shows sings of tiredness, like tired eyes, lack of interest in toys and playing, lack of interest in food, rubbing eyes, ducking into your chest or asking for a cuddle in any other way, use this moment. Forget the bathtime, forget the grandma’s arrival after two weeks of holidaying, it’s time for bed.

Try and rock your baby to sleep or try and make her a warmer than usual bottle, hopefully she will fall asleep before the last ounce is entirely gone.

You can try to change your baby’s nap routine. If she has 6 naps a day of 15 minutes each, it’s obviously that she will make an effort to stay asleep for longer at night time.

You can try to change her eating routine. If you feed her all through the day with short snacks, it’s likely that she will wake up more frequent at night, expecting to be fed. Try main meals a day is usually enough for a baby. If your baby starts falling asleep sucking on a dummy or cuddling a comforter, don’t worry about it and let her go on with it. In time, she will start creating her own comforting environment that works for her and that is the best thing that could happen for both of you.

As babies grow, you will find that they can go back to sleep on their own, without a feed. You will certainly know when your baby is hungry or she just wakes up out of habit. Try and comfort your baby back to sleep without a feed when you sense it’s out of habit. In a few nights, hopefully it will start working and both of you will get longer hours.

In the case of over 12 months olds still being breastfed, still waking up through the night could be a sign of time to switch to the bottle. Don’t be afraid to switch to the bottle. If it improves your baby’s sleeping hours, it is worth trying.

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