Day 11 :: Thriving with a Newborn: Sleeping through the Night

"Oh, what a precious baby!  How is she sleeping?"  Sound familiar?  For anyone who's ever had a newborn in their life, this is often the first question people ask.  Why?  I'm not really sure, except that it's fairly common knowledge for newborns to have erratic sleep patterns and for parents to be tired. all. the. time.

When people would ask about how my first child was sleeping at night and I would tell them she slept through the night, they would say, "Oh, just wait till the next one comes.  You won't get that lucky twice!" Now that all four of my children have slept through the night at an early age, I'm always hesitant to answer the question.  Most people respond with an upset face and say, "That's not fair!"  or "How did you get that to happen?"

I do know that God has been very gracious to me in this area, but there are also some things that I have done consistently with each of my children to help facilitate sleeping through the night.

How do I get my babies to sleep through the night?

1. Choose a 12-hour day period.  For all of my babies the day has been 8AM-8PM.  What does that mean?  The first feeding of the day is at 8AM, and the final feeding is at 8PM.  By keeping these times consistent, my babies have learned to have the same bedtime each day and they generally wake up happy a little bit before time for the first feeding of the day.

2. Feedings during the day should be every 3 hours during the first few weeks, and will eventually stretch to every 4 hours.  Even with little babies who sleep a lot, by keeping the feedings consistent during the day, babies establish their metabolism and learn to expect food at certain times.  This has enabled me to have mostly predictable days, from the very beginning.   My first feeding for my babies would be at 8AM, so I knew that during the day they would eat at 11AM, 2PM, 5PM, 8PM.  This was a rough estimate during those first few weeks, sometimes feedings would be 2.5 hours apart, but never more than 3 or less than 2.

This enabled me to be able to predict my day.  I could run errands, make dinner, and nap when the baby napped {this only happened with my first two children}.

The four-hour feeding schedule will vary from baby to baby.  My three oldest children didn't do this until about 3.5 months old.  Jennavieve, my fourth, started a four-hour schedule at 5 weeks old.  You'll know when they're ready.

3.  Naps during the day are necessary.  My napping schedule for my babies would be like this:  eat {8AM}, nap from 9:30-11AM, eat, nap from 12:30-2PM, eat, nap from 3:30-5PM, eat, short nap in the evening sometime, eat at 8PM.  People might tell you that keeping your baby awake as much as possible will get them to sleep well at night, but it's not true.  Babies that are over tired sometimes have more difficulty getting to sleep at all.

Now that Jennavieve is eating every four hours, her schedule is like this:  8AM-eat, 10AM-12PM - nap, 12PM - eat, 2PM-4PM - nap, 4PM - eat, she takes a little nap in the evenings for about a half hour, 8PM - eat and then bed.

4. Naps during the day should never be longer than 3 hours.  This one is sometimes hard to stick to, especially if the baby had a rough night and you're tired.  But it really is so important.  This helps babies to understand the difference between night and day, and again, helps with establishing their metabolism.

5. As much as possible allow baby to nap in the crib.  I love to hold my babies, no doubt, but I don't want to be holding them forever in order for them to sleep.  So, from the very beginning, I tried to always have them nap in their bed.  Sometimes this meant they cried a little bit, but in the end this is the desire, so I wanted to start out that way.  Now, my kids put themselves to sleep in their beds and it's glorious.

6. Have a consistent bedtime.  If you've chosen  your 12-hour day period, that last feeding will take place right before bed.  Feed your baby, burp and then put right to bed.  This is where my little 'secret' takes place.  I put my babies to bed at this time, and then I wake them up right before I go to bed for another feeding.

For me, this started at 11PM.  Usually the baby wouldn't even be all the way awake {some call it a dream feed}, but they would get a good feeding.  I would then put them right back to bed, and wouldn't wake them up again to eat.  If they woke up, I would feed and put right back to bed, continuing that until the first feeding the following morning.

Eventually, my babies started stretching out their sleep from that 11PM feeding on through the entire night, waking up in time to eat at 8AM the next day.

Once they had stretched out that entire time with sleep, I would back up the 11PM feeding by 15 minutes each day, until they were going a full 12 hours between the last feeding of the day and the first feeding of the day.

Jennavieve is three months old today and she's been sleeping 12 hours at night for the past three weeks.

All of my babies were sleeping 7-8 hours at night by six weeks old.  All of them were sleeping 12 hours at night by 3 months old.  

By being consistent and having a bit of delayed gratification, I really believe babies can have predictable routines and sleep well.

And, this means you can sleep well!  I know that I thrive better on good sleep and probably most of us do.

I do realize that this is a debatable topic, so I'm not trying to tell anyone what to do.  People have asked me how I do it, and others have been exasperated when I tell them about my baby's sleep habits.  If you are frustrated with what you're doing, then I suggest giving this a try.  If you are happy with what you're doing, then keep at it!  You have to find what works for you!    Sometimes babies need to eat more frequently due to health reasons, so I understand that you might not be able to follow all of these steps due to Doctor's orders.

For a list of all posts in this series go here.