Posts Tagged ‘baby won t sleep’

Two of my neighbors and my best friend all had babies within just a couple of weeks of each other less than 8 weeks ago. All of them have commented on the sleep deprivation that goes along with having a newborn and one asked me when my babies started sleeping through the night. First, I always need to ask what that means to someone because, for some, they mean to have a baby sleep through the night, including feedings, and others mean sleep straight through 10-12 hours, with no feedings.

What does it mean to have your baby sleep through the night?

For me, “baby sleeping through the night” meant my baby sleeping 10-12 hours without feedings. It was around 4 months old, with both breastfed sons, that they started sleeping pretty much straight through with two feedings at night, so I couldn’t really expect much more than that. Sleep was not perfect (particularly with my eldest son because why else would I have a whole website about baby sleep?), but it was ten times better once I changed their sleep associations with needing to breastfeed to sleep or be rocked to sleep all night long. Of course, that’s the trickiest part of this crazy thing about getting babies to sleep and why it’s never a simple answer or silver bullet (oh how I wish it were! I’d e-mail everyone my silver bullet RIGHT NOW!).

One thing I know for certain is regardless of whether you think of “sleeping through the night” is with or without feedings, it can feel like your baby will never do it. If it’s not one thing it’s another. If it’s not a feeding, replacing a pacifier, or rocking her to sleep, it’s cold in her room. If it’s not cold, maybe it’s hot. If it’s not temperature, your baby is now teething. Later on, with your toddler or preschooler, it might even be night terrors or nightmares. You will think of a million reasons about maybe WHY she isn’t sleeping through the night and you might seriously start feeling like it’s a pipe dream that will ever happen.

When Will Your Baby Sleep Through the Night?

Obviously, I can’t really look into my crystal ball to tell you when YOUR baby will sleep through the night (I save the crystal ball for winning the lottery, but for some reason it’s on the fritz right now), but I can tell you that I’ve heard it all when it comes to doctors telling parents when their baby shouldn’t need anymore night feedings and should be sleeping all night. I can also tell you that parents who are skeptical that their 3-month old breastfed baby can go without any feedings for 12 hours per night, you should be. 12 hours is a LONG time, even for many adults and if your baby is breastfed, she will likely need to eat at night a bit longer than her formula-fed friends.

But, when I hear about 12 to 18-month old toddlers who still need a bottle (or 2 or 3) per night or aren’t sleeping all night, then I say there is action to take IF you want a baby who sleeps through the night. If you are fine with co-sleeping or feeding your toddler at night, then there is nothing much to worry about except the effect on the teeth without brushing and how it can lead to bottle mouth syndrome, in some cases.

The short answer is that NO ONE goes off to college needing a bottle in the middle of the night (at least that I know of), so don’t worry about it “never happening” (same for potty training, by the way, as I never saw anyone in the dorm still wearing diapers).

The not-so-short answer is that if your definition of sleeping through the night is with feedings, your baby can sleep fairly well through the night by 4 to 6 months, usually, on average. If you mean straight through without feedings, most can be night-weaned by around 9 months, sometimes as late as 12 months or beyond. The “experts” all vary:

• Dr, Sears (The Baby Sleep Book) says night feedings are normal up through 18 months or more.
• Pantley (The No Cry Sleep Solution) agrees.
• Weissbluth (Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child) says it’s normal for babies to need 1-2 feedings up through 9 months, and can then be night-weaned.
• Kim West (Good Night, Sleep Tight) agrees.
• Ferber (Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems) says a baby can go up to 8-10 hours without feeding by 3 months.
• Baby Wise agrees.
My pediatrician and yours would probably say something different, too.

This is why reading all of these different opinions made my head spin and I wrote my own book on baby sleep (to save other parents time and money). No, I don’t have THE answer. I actually keep the option open that YOU have the answer! Surprise!

If you think your baby or toddler is waking out of habit, then he probably is. Even if you think he is truly hungry, you might have the confidence that if he would just eat more during the day, he’d be able to sleep all night (I recommend at least an attempt at night-weaning once you feel this way). If you believe your baby or toddler “needs” to eat just to fall asleep and not because he’s hungry, then teach him how to sleep without eating. You know your baby best and the key is not to have the answer (believe me, there is not ONE answer for all of us), the key is to have the tools to teach your baby to sleep independently and when you have your tools, sleeping through the night will naturally follow when your baby is truly ready.

When did your baby/babies sleep through the night?

Sometimes it can feel like you’re in a race. Your friends have babies sleeping through the night and you want one, too. The pressure mounts as your baby gets older while well-meaning friends and family ask the same question every time they see you: “Is she sleeping through the night yet?” You know that if you don’t answer “yes”, you will hear it again: “Just let her cry. Worked for me.” or, in my case, it was: “It’s because you’re breastfeeding.” You might be tempted to say “yes”, even if she isn’t sleeping through the night, just to spare yourself the torment. You feel like all your friends got a hare and you got a tortoise.

As a parent, it’s sometimes hard to have that confidence to know that there is nothing wrong with your baby AND there is nothing wrong with your parenting. All babies are different and just because your neighbor’s baby was sleeping all night at 3 months old doesn’t mean yours can too. And, just because my son can count to 20 (mostly) at two years old doesn’t mean all two year olds can. Just like my four year old can’t really draw a picture of a person, some of his friends can. Where my older son excels in reading and math, he needs to work on his fine motor skills. And, just like your 10 month old might still need a night feeding, some of your 4 month olds don’t.

What makes your baby a tortoise or a hare when it comes to sleep?

In my experience with my clients, there are four main family types:
• Slow to Adapt baby (tortoise) with hares as parents
• Highly adaptable babies (hares) with tortoises as parents
• Slow to Adapt baby (tortoise) with tortoises as parents
• Highly adaptable babies (hares) with hares as parents

What do I mean by this?

First, let me say, there is no judgment here. You are what you are and there is no right or wrong. Second, there is a lot in between a tortoise and a hare. There are fast tortoises and slow hares. Sometimes a baby’s temperament meshes with a parenting style and sometimes it doesn’t. This is to help you see if there is a mismatch or not.

A slow-to-adapt baby is generally going to take longer to learn to self-soothe and sleep well. That is going to be generally be true regardless of chosen sleep training method. Why? Because they get used to a certain routine and they don’t give it up easily. If they are persistent, they will really fight hard to keep status quo.

A highly adaptable baby who can self-soothe, but just hasn’t had the opportunity will generally learn very quickly, regardless of method, too. They go to sleep one time without a bottle or breastfeeding or a pacifier and voila, they figure out how to do it between sleep cycles (that we ALL have) and start sleeping in longer stretches.

A parent who is a hare is usually one who doesn’t have hours upon hours to spend with a baby to help him learn to self-soothe. They might be working parents trying to fit in the various chores that need to be done, get dinner on the table, etc. They might have older kids and just can’t ignore their other kids to spend three hours putting the baby to sleep at night. Or, they might be people who just recognize they just aren’t that patient to spend hours or that their baby missing three hours of sleep is not good for them. Whatever the reason, these are parents who decide that faster is better in the big picture.

A parent who is a tortoise is usually one who feels a slower approach is better for everyone’s sakes. They are okay with taking weeks (or sometimes months) rather than days. They figure it’s been this long, what’s a few more weeks? They have the time and patience to spend with their baby and feel it’s the best way to approach it.

I have been told I have the patience of Job, but one of my current clients has really shown me what patience is. She has a two year old who was nursing all night and we have come a loooong way, using a very slow approach. Her patience has been tremendous and I really admire her. Her son is slow-to-adapt and her patience is paying off with as few tears as possible. Their personalities are really meshing, but this is not always the case, unfortunately.

When you are a tortoise and your baby is a hare, you might spend weeks and months, unnecessarily, working on his sleep because you’re taking the slow approach when your baby might just need the nudge and be left alone. I don’t mean cry it out, necessarily. I have parents literally wait five minutes during night-wakings and their baby just goes back to sleep! They are shocked! They’ve been getting up at night for months, but their baby simply needed to be left alone for a few minutes. By going in, they were only perpetuating the very wake-ups they were trying to get rid of. Their baby is highly adaptable and actually a good self-soother, they just didn’t know it.

When you are a hare and your baby is a tortoise, you might be more apt to take a faster approach, like cry it out, and your baby will likely respond fairly quickly, but have backslides where you need to “redo” it over and over, especially after illness or vacation or just because you start slipping back into old habits (very easy to do with a tortoise). You and your baby will be getting more sleep than ever, but it might be frustrating to have those off nights where you feel like you’re starting all over. Consistency is very important for tortoises, especially.

When you are a tortoise and your baby is a tortoise, you, my friend, are going to work extremely hard, I’m afraid. Slow approaches will be even slower. Remember the mom I mentioned above? She’s been working on her two year old’s sleep for a couple of months, at least. Her patience is definitely paying off, but she’s working REALLY hard. She should get a medal! The beautiful part about her is that she knows this is a slower approach and knows what her expectations should be. She is not expecting to take this slower approach and expecting changes in days. She’s expecting them in weeks and months and that’s okay for her. I nudge her when she needs a nudge to move on to the next step and she checks in to make sure she isn’t stalling out of fear of the next step, but that it’s a good idea.

How do I know if you have a tortoise or a hare?

I typically look for clues in e-mail. You might mention something that seems irrelevant, but it gives me a clue about your baby’s personality. Clues about your personality are in there, too. That’s when I develop a plan that suits both your personalities and sometimes that takes time to figure out when your personalities aren’t meshing (when it comes to sleep! not your relationship with your baby).

I say it all over the site, but make sure you make a sleep training plan that meshes with both your personality and your baby’s temperament. Just like the picture above, you might be able to speed your tortoise to the finish line, but if not, as long as you have appropriate expectations, we will all get there, eventually, just like my son will eventually learn to write his name.

What do you think? Do you have a tortoise or a hare?

Naps can be challenging to get from your baby and sometimes it seems like he just won’t nap. Part of the reason your baby won’t nap is because day and night sleep are handled by two different parts of the brain. What your baby knows how to do at night doesn’t necessarily mean he will do the same thing during the day. Depending on how perceptive he is, the sunlight can keep him up or just playing with the smallest piece of lint in the crib. There is a whole lot of fun to miss during the day!

Another reason why your baby won’t nap is because the drive for your baby’s body to sleep at night is strongest. Our internal clocks strongly push us to sleep at night, but during the day, while our babies are sleepy and they do need to nap, the drive to sleep is not strong enough to make it easy for all babies. This is when it gets frustrating. You might try 45 minutes to get a 30 minute nap. And, you might do this 3 times a day!

When your baby won’t nap it’s most frustrating when she’s cranky because of the non-napping or when she refuses to sleep through the night because she’s so overtired come bedtime that she wakes up often at night, unable to settle. Though there are a few babies who appear to do fine without enough napping, naps are a key component of good night sleep, happy babies, and happy parents.

Most of the time, if your baby won’t nap, it can be solved by avoiding some mistakes that many parents make. Today, I begin offering a new free e-Book called 7 Common Napping Mistakes that discusses the 7 most common napping mistakes and what you can do about them. Just like my other free e-Book, 5 Ways to Help Your Child Sleep Through the Night, this e-Book is completely free, with no obligation. To get your free copy, sign up here.

It’s no secret that sleep deprivation is hard. It’s no secret that all we want to do is curl up on the couch and sleep. It’s no secret that sleep deprivation makes us cranky and irritable. But, what about when it drives some parents or babysitters to the unthinkable?

Even one news story about a parent hurting their baby due to sleep deprivation is one too many and today I read three! It is so hard to read the stories about a mom who is so sleep deprived that she is so frustrated at her baby that she shakes the baby or otherwise hurts him. But, in some ways, I understand.

It’s not that we ever even came close to hurting our boys, but there were several times we said to each other, on a particularly hard night, that we understood how some people shake their babies out of sheer desperation and exhaustion! Certainly, it’s not something these parents plan. Certainly, these moms feel horrendous and nothing they do can change their actions. I remember one mom who came to me after she ran two stop signs with her kids in the car. Sleep deprivation does crazy things to us! I’m sure many of us can relate to the feeling of desperation and exhaustion, even if we, ourselves, have never been pushed as far as some of these moms:

• A mom was convicted of manslaughter in Winnipeg back in April when she was “tired and frustrated” and threw her 3 month old into his bassinet.

• This mother is still waiting for her babysitter to be brought up on charges for giving her 10 month old muscle relaxant and Sudafed to make him sleep!

• Another mom told her lawyer that she had post-natal depression and was sleep-deprived when she shook her baby causing brain damage.

Although some of these parents obviously have other “issues”, it is for these types of stories that I am so passionate about helping other parents with their baby’s sleep. It is for these stories that I worry about the mom whose 18 month old still wakes up 5 times a night! Frankly, I found it exhausting to wake up for one feeding for a whole year. Doable, obviously, but exhausting! I am actually in awe when a parent comes to me after a year with a baby, now toddler, still waking up numerous times per night.

It is always my hope when people come to this site that they feel less alone and can get some help for their family to all get more sleep. It is also my hope that the non-judgmental attitude comes across well when I say we all really do need to find our own way. It downright worries me that some people are so much against cry it out that they stress so much how much you will damage your child, that many parents will go through endless months of sleep deprivation to avoid it. I just have to hope that most of us seek help before we really do get to our wits end.

When you bring your baby home no one tells you that “sleep like a baby” only lasts a short time. This article will give you 10 tips to help your newborn sleep better.

Disclaimer: Before I get to the 10 tips to help your newborn sleep, I thought I should note that it can be dangerous for a new newborn baby (just a few weeks old) to sleep all night. They really do need to eat at least every 3 hours in those early days so they can grow well and thrive.

It is also safest to place baby on his back to sleep, to guard against SIDS. You may be interested in other ways to lower SIDS risks.

There, now that I got that out of the way.

Newborn Baby Sleep

1. Short Wake-time

The first week or so, your newborn baby will most likely hardly be awake, but after the first week or two, the #1 key with your newborn is to keep wake times very short, at first. You should soothe your baby for sleep after just 1-2 hours of wake time TOPS. You should look for signs that she is getting sleepy and start soothing her. If you wait until she is fussy, cranky or crying, you are actually too late!

An overtired baby will have more trouble settling down and going to sleep and staying asleep. My boys always fell asleep easiest when I caught them before they started to fuss and cry. Some babies are much more sensitive to being overtired than others, so while others will barely notice their child get sleepy before she drifts off to sleep, others will begin to realize just how in tune with their baby they need to be!

By wake time, I mean to include feedings and diaper changes and disregard how long her last nap was. For example, little Suzie starts to nap at 8am and sleeps for 3 hours. She eats at 11am and you change her diaper. Now, it’s 11:30 and you decide to give her a bath. At 11:45, she is fussy. She is already overtired and she needs a nap! In the beginning, they can’t go long before getting tired and overstimulated.

2. Swaddle

To help mimic the feeling of the womb, it helps to swaddle your newborn baby. This basically means to wrap him up in a blanket like a little burrito. You may have seen them do it at the hospital. This helps him feel safe and secure and also helps him stay asleep during any moro reflex or startle reflex moments. It is said that those reflexes are similar to how we have the feeling we are falling while falling asleep. It can take up to 4 or 5 months for your baby to stop the startling.

I recommend The Miracle Blanket for swaddling. It is a little pricey, but so easy to use and so hard for your baby to break out of! So worth it, to me! If you can’t or don’t want to spend that much, try this SwaddleMe Wrap

3. Days bright / Nights dark

Although you might be tempted to keep things quiet and darker for your newborn to nap well, it might prolong the day/night confusion that almost all newborns will have. Day/Night confusion can last up to 6 weeks. When she was in mom’s belly, mom’s movements lulled her to sleep and when mom was resting, she’d have a party. When she comes out, she doesn’t know she should act in the complete opposite fashion.

So, keep days bright and upbeat and nights, dark and boring, and it will help your newborn sort out her days and nights faster. This might be more than you want to know, but light is what cues our eyes to tell us to stay awake or whether it’s time to sleep.

4. Limit naps

If he is taking longer to sort out days and nights (or you are having a very rough time keeping up with him being up all night), you can further speed up the process by limiting naps to no longer than 3 hours during the day.

5. Post-feeding routine

To help your newborn baby sort out day and night sleeping even more, you may want to develop a play routine after she eats during the day. Keep her awake 30 minutes after feeding by playing, singing, bathing, etc. Again, the light stimulating her eyes will help her sort out that daylight is for being awake at least a little bit. Many people recommend the eat-play-sleep routine for newborns. This is the primary message of the popular book, On Becoming Baby Wise. You might want to review my explanation as to why I do not recommend this book, though.

6. Co-sleeping

Sometimes it helps to have your newborn in the room with you for quick access for middle-of-the-night feedings and diaper changes. This also can help give him more comfort being close by as he will be able to hear and smell you. For safety reasons, you should use a Co-Sleeper , sleep positioner, or bassinette, rather than have baby in bed with you. I used the second one with my second son and then I moved it into his crib for a seamless transition to his crib. We were able to remove it a few weeks later.

7. Angle the mattress

For babies who spit up a lot or have reflux, it helps to angle the mattress when he sleeps, so baby is not flat on his back. You’ll want to angle the mattress so his feet are lower than his head, so his stomach contents can stay put. To angle the mattress, you can simply change the support platform level on one side on most cribs. If that is not feasible, you can put blankets and pillow under the mattress. Please note that the mattress should still remain flat at all times, just at an incline. You must make sure that you do not tilt the mattress so much that your baby slides down the bed, either. I strongly recommend that you first check with a knowledgeable health care provider to make sure that what you do is best and safest for your child. I only wanted to highlight the idea.

8. White Noise

White noise is made up of the sounds like a fan whirring, vacuum cleaner, hair-dryer, etc. It helps a newborn sleep because inside mom’s womb was all white noise. The sound of her blood flow, heart beating, etc. That’s why he finds comfort when you may run the vacuum cleaner. My son used to love when I turned on the blow-dryer. Of course, you can’t run the vacuum all day, so I recommend getting a White Noise machine, sound machine or a White Noise CD. I have two of the second one in each boy’s room so they don’t wake each other and they work like a dream!

9. Wear baby

For particularly fussy babies or just for parent’s convenience and snuggling, it helps to “wear” baby using a sling. They get very folded up in a sling, but again, it mimics the womb and babies love it! I didn’t use a sling with my first, but used a BabyBjorn Baby Carrier and loved it! It really helped me walk off the baby weight, which was a bonus. But, with my second, I did use this sling (there are many others!) and my son would fall asleep in less than 5 minutes until he grew out of it. This helped tremendously when I needed to cook dinner and do stuff with my toddler, at the time. I have also heard good things about the Moby Wrap and the Maya Wrap.

Here are ten reasons to wear your baby.

10. Swing

As I said earlier, mom’s movements lulled baby to sleep while in the womb, so I also recommend trying a swing, but don’t be surprised if your newborn only likes it at high speeds. Our family teased us we were making our first son “drunk”, but he just loved it going FAST and it was the only way he’d fall asleep in it! We used something like this swingto help him sleep (I don’t see the exact one I used anymore — guess I’m officially old now). My friend has the Fisher-Price Ocean Wonders Aquarium Cradle Swing and loves it. They didn’t have that when I was shopping for one!

Important Note: Some say it might not be safe for a newborn to sleep in a car seat, so be cautious about that. Some say it’s just fine.

Unfortunately, some of these tips do create sleep associations, but during the first weeks, you really do what you can to survive. Obviously, it never hurts to try to put your baby down to sleep without any of these “tricks”, but as I’ve probably said a billion times already on this site, it just doesn’t work for all of us.

For more product and site recommendations, please view my baby sleep resources page.

For additional information on helping your child sleep, you may be interested in our free guide, 5 Ways to Help Your Baby Sleep Through the Night or our e-Book, Help Your Baby Sleep, a Detailed Guide.

Do you have any newborn baby sleep tips?

I am working on a sleep training series where I will outline the various methods, from no-cry to cry, but I don’t think it makes sense to write that until I have written out how much sleep we can expect our babies and toddlers to get. If our expectations are too high, we could be trying to sleep our children too often (yes I’m using “sleep” as a verb!) and it will become frustrating for everyone. If our expectations are too low, we might not sleep our children often enough, they may become overtired and irritable, making sleep training more difficult and it will become frustrating for everyone.

How much sleep does your child get now?

The first step you should take is to log your child’s sleep for a week to get an average number of sleep hours in 24 hours and take note how much of it is during the day and how much at night. Only write down times they are actually asleep (or quiet if you’re not sure), not when you tried to get them to sleep.

Some children are very consistent and you can almost set a clock by them, while others are very inconsistent taking different length naps at different times and waking up at a different time each morning. We’ll talk about how to regulate that a bit in a different post, but one thing is for certain and that’s the average amount of sleep in 24 hours stays relatively constant. However, children can and will move sleep from day to night, and vice versa, fairly easily.

How much sleep can you expect from your baby or toddler?

Below is an outline of the average sleeper. By definition, this means some will be on the lower end of sleep needs and some on the higher end. However, it is generally accepted that most babies and toddlers under 2 years old will not need less than 10 hours of sleep at night to be the optimum restoration for their little bodies.

• 6 months and younger: 11-12 hours night, 3-4 hours day in 3-4 naps.
• 6 to 9 months: 11-12 hours night, 2-3 hours day in 2-3 naps
• 9 to 18 months: 11-12 hours night, 2-3 hours day in 1-2 naps
• 18 months to 3 years: 10-12 hours, 1 nap
• 3 to 5 years: 10-11 hours, sometimes 1 nap (most lose between 3 & 4)
• 5 years+: 9-10 hours, no nap

These are just general guidelines. My toddler was still napping at just past two, but then started going to sleep too late at night (9 or 10pm), so we dropped his nap for him, early, to get more night sleep and he started sleeping 12-13 hours at night. Note: I do not recommend dropping the last nap unless absolutely necessary. This was just an example. Combining the averages with your sleep log gives you a starting point in establishing healthy sleep habits. If your child is getting far less than the averages, you will need to take a long, hard look at the reason and determine if it’s healthy or not. Please review the reasons children need to get enough sleep, too.