I'm pretty new to the whole mom thing. My baby is currently 4 months old. And one of the assumptions people make about my life with a little one is that neither of us is getting much sleep.
That assumption is dead wrong.
My baby boy has been sleeping through the night (6+ hours) at a stretch since he was about 4 weeks old. (Knock on Wood!) Most nights he falls asleep around 9pm and wakes up with our alarm at 7am, or just before.
Now, there's a good chance that I've just lucked into some sort of freak-of-nature baby here.
But, on the off chance that some of the things my partner and I have done led to these peaceful nights, I feel I'd be doing other new moms a disservice if I didn't share the four things we've been doing every night.
1. Swaddle and Sound Machines
This is the combo we started almost as soon as baby came home (which for us was the night he was born). A friend had loaned us her copy of The Happiest Baby on the Block, and that book is very pro-swaddle and pro-sound machine. We swaddled baby up every time we wanted him to go to sleep (not including the times he just passed out on one of us) and stay asleep. We didn't have a sound machine when we first had the baby, so we would use one of our cell phones to play "baby white noise" playlists on Spotify. It was only a few nights before we decided to splurge on an actual dedicated sound machine for this purpose.
The thought behind this is that swaddling and sound machines both mimic baby's environment in the womb. The noise and the gentle constriction are familiar and comforting. Whatever the reason, it seemed to work for us.
2. The Pause
This idea was sent from Paris via the fabulous book by Pamela Druckerman - Bringing Up Bebé. The gist of it is that babies tend to make a lot of noise while they sleep. They might move, whine, mumble, or even cry and still be asleep. When we pick them up and rock them at every noise we might actually be waking them up! I believe this partially because, as my husband will confirm, I am a fairly active sleeper myself. Also, babies tend to wake up between sleep cycles, just like adults do, but they have to learn how to fall back asleep in between. As adults, we normally don't even notice when we come out of a sleep cycle anymore, we just keep our eyes closed until we start a new one. Babies need some time to figure that out.
So how do you use the pause? At some point (for us our baby was about 3 weeks old) we picked a pause duration. We agreed to wait 3 minutes from when he started fussing before actually getting up to check on the baby. Many times he kept fussing for longer than 3 minutes, and it turned out he needed to be changed or to nurse. But occasionally he'd quiet and fall back asleep within the 3 minutes. And then we got to go back to sleep as well! That happened more and more often until, a week or so later, he might only wake up once a night - or not at all!
According to Druckerman, this method works best for babies less than 4 months old, so try it early!
3. The Bedtime Routine
The parenting internet is ALL ABOUT the bedtime routine, so of course, it was worth a try. We came up with a pretty fun and easy routine that includes bathtime (we use an otteroo most nights), a baby massage, storytime, and nursing. We start this routine when we're done with our dinner, and the sound machine comes on about halfway through.
Who knows if it really works? But I'm not about to take any chances now.
4. Sleep Training
What this means, I gather, is that when the baby seems sleepy you put him to sleep and wait for him to fall asleep on his own. Seems simple. That's how I go to sleep, right? I go to bed when I start to feel tired and lay there until eventually, I drift off. It took a bit of faith to trust that my baby, as a human himself, might be capable of doing the same. But our pediatrician recommended we start doing that and so we did.
I started this during naptimes because I figured I'd be less stressed and anxious if it wasn't working when I wasn't exhausted myself. I can tell my baby is tired in two main ways: his eyes get droopy and a bit red around the edges, and literally nothing else will make him stop fussing. This is the time when he just wants to be held and rocked and walked around. (Your baby might have different sleepytime tells. Just pay attention and you'll figure them out soon enough.) When I noticed him getting sleepy I'd read him a short story (or part of one, if he's really fussy) swaddle him up, turn on the sound machine, and put him down for his nap. I actually tell my baby what's going on. I say something like "It's naptime now. Try to close your eyes, breathe deep, and rest. I'll check on you in 3 minutes." If he wasn't asleep in the three-minute window, I'd pick him up, sing him a lullaby, and put him down again. He'd normally start out fussing and even crying sometimes, but eventually, he'd quiet down and fall asleep. If he didn't within 3 tries, I'd give up and do something else.
This worked so well at naptimes that I was confident it could work at bedtime too, and it's so much nicer to just put him to bed because it's bedtime than to try to rock and sing him to sleep and then pray he doesn't wake up on his way into the bassinet!
Yes, my baby sleeps on his belly. I ate soft cheeses while pregnant too. I guess I’m just a rebel?
A final tip:
This one is a doozy, because it's in total opposition to the recommended sleep position, but my baby is a belly sleeper.
I am aware that the medical community says babies should only ever sleep on their back. I get it. But I also know that this recommendation is fairly recent in human history (officially supported by research as of the early 1990s) and that before that it was recommended that babies sleep on their tummies, or even on their sides. From personal experience, I remember my baby sister sleeping on her tummy all the time (on the couch no less! The horror!) and she has lived to be 19 years old so far.
Every. Single. Time. I put my baby to sleep on his back he was awake within minutes. So when my midwife suggested I try placing him on his belly I was ready to try it. SIDS is a thing, and it's horrible, and if my baby died while sleeping on his belly I would feel AWFUL. But I need my baby to sleep, and so there you have it.
If you are a new or expecting momma, I hope this adds to your toolbox of things to try so that you and your baby can be more well-rested and overall happier in your new life together. I would love to hear what has worked (or hasn't worked) for you and your little ones as well!