Schedule / RoutineOur son gave us a run for our money when he was first born! We really struggled trying to figure out the whole baby sleep thing for quite some time. Learning all the newborn baby sleep tips, we still fumbled through it for the first six weeks. We were so unsure of ourselves! Thankfully, we pulled ourselves together, armed ourselves with some key infant sleep facts, developed a plan and implemented it. We stuck with it, and at 4 months old, our son was sleeping 11-12 hours at night and naps extended to 1.5 to 2 hours. Woohoo! We’ve experienced sleep regression, sleeping on the go, sleeping through teething…and so much more!
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If you’re interested in learning some awesome newborn baby sleep tips, then you are in the right place. When your baby sleeps better, you will notice a more patient, more tolerant, more engaging baby after a good nights rest or quality nap. Be encouraged. It’s never too late to foster excellent sleep habits in a baby, and ultimately help yourself get some much needed rest as well.
1. Swaddle
From birth to about age four to five months, babies innately possess a startle reflex, in which they feel as if they are falling. The sensation of falling causes jerking movements, and the baby will incidentally wake up. Keeping a tight swaddle prevents babies from startling themselves awake, helping the newborn baby sleep both better and longer. I like to think of the baby as ‘snug as a bug in a rug,’ and I used to tell my son this every time I’d swaddle him snugly.
I love the HALO SleepSack Cotton Swaddle
We stopped swaddling once our son could regularly get his arms out and roll over. We continued to use the Halo Sleep Swaddle and just swaddled around his torso, leaving his arms out.
2. Dreamfeed.
The dreamfeed is the feeding given to the baby right before you go to bed, and it helps prevent the baby from waking up just after we moms finally drift off to sleep. Isn’t this the pinnacle of sleep deprivation? You just fall asleep and the baby wakes up. The dreamfeed can really help your newborn baby sleep for longer while you sleep. We used it until about age 4 months.
3. Limit the length of naps during the day.
I know it’s hard to wake a sleeping baby, but sleeping too long of a stretch during the day can rob nighttime sleep. If the baby sleeps past the 2 – 2.5 hour mark, I would go ahead and wake the baby up, feed him, keep him a wake for a bit, and then lay him down for another nap. If you feel the baby truly needs longer naps, feel free to increase the nap limit to 2.5 hours. Breaking up sleep during the day will help your newborn baby sleep better at night.
There were, of course, times where our son was overtired and needed a little recovery nap. We would allow him to sleep for a little bit longer for just that one nap and then we started getting back on track with our daily routine.
Related: How to Help Baby Take Longer Naps
4. Use white noise.
No one wants to miss a party, so if your baby is listening to all the fun going on in the house it can be hard to fall asleep and stay asleep. I place a fan on medium in the baby’s room rather than directly next to the baby, so it does not blow directly on him or sit too close to his sensitive ears. Using white noise also helps immensely when we are traveling! We are usually able to avoid asking friends or family to be quiet 🙂
I’ve used both a regular fan and a white noise machine in the past.
5. Follow the eat, wake, sleep cycle.
The baby wakes from sleep and immediately eats. Then the baby is awake for a while to play. Then the baby goes back to sleep….
This cycle has several purposes. First, it encourages full feedings by allowing the baby to eat immediately after waking. The baby will have the most energy immediately after waking, making him more inclined to take a full feeding and go longer between feedings. Also, by feeding the baby after sleep rather than before sleep, the cycle prevents the baby from associating food with sleep or using food as a sleep prop. When using this cycle, a feeding before bedtime is typically only feeding before sleep.
Of course, there were times where I definitely fed my baby before sleep. He needed a little TLC for a certain nap, and I was totally fine offering it when he needed it. But for the most part, I tried to avoid feeding him right before sleep.
Note: Newborns require frequent feedings and rest to ensure healthy growth a development in the early months. Always feed your baby as frequently as your baby needs to ensure healthy weight gain.
6. Use a pre-nap and bedtime routines.
It is well known that babies thrive on routine, structure, and predictability. Creating consistent routines for your baby will help bring order to a very chaotic world. Choose a pre-nap routine that works for you. A pre-nap routine may include taking the baby to his room, close the blinds or curtains, place the baby in his sleep sack or wearable blanket, turn on the white noise, sing a quick song (e.g. Twinkle, twinkle), give a few cuddles, and say your sleepy words “I love you. I hope you have a good sleep.”
A bedtime routine would typically be a little longer and may include a bath, a massage, reading a story, offering a feeding, placing the baby in a wearable blanket or swaddle, turning on the white noise, a few cuddles, and saying your sleepy words. Following the same exact routine as consistently as possible cues the baby for sleep, and over time the baby will learn that sleep immediately follows the nap and bedtime routines.
Use these printable (and adorable!) baby sleep routine cards to keep parents, grandparents and babysitters ALL on the same page.
7. Change your baby’s diaper strategically…
Changing the diaper before a middle of the night feeding prevents the baby from waking up too much after a feeding is finished. When the baby wakes up change the diaper and re-swaddle to prepare him for sleep immediately following a night feeding. If you change the diaper after the night feeding, the baby may become too awake, making it more challenging for him to fall asleep.
8. Understand how a baby sleeps.
The more your baby sleeps, the more they will sleep. Keeping a baby awake in hopes of tiring him out will actually result in over-stimulation, and he will experience both difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep. It is very likely an over-tired baby will sleep shorter, not longer.
Note: Sometimes this tip confuses readers. And it’s no wonder. First I said limit naps during the day, and now I said an over-tired baby will sleep shorter, not longer.
Let me be more clear:
- Limiting the length of naps is important to support night time sleep. You want the baby to get in as many feedings as possible during the daytime. Think: More daytime feeds = less nighttime feeds.
- You don’t want to keep the baby awake for long stretches. Your baby will get over-tired, fussy and have difficulty falling back asleep.
- Bottom line: Encourage lots of naps AND feedings during the day following the eat, wake, sleep cycle.
Related: 8 Infant Sleep Facts Every Parent Should Know
9. Don’t rush in…
We may inadvertently encourage the start of a bad sleep habit by rushing in when a baby cries or rustles during the night. Often times, babies wake up babble and go back to sleep. The baby may even cry briefly or babble and still be asleep. Give the baby some time and see if he will resettle himself. Avoid rushing in and disturbing this process in order to help your newborn baby sleep better.
10. Lay the baby down awake, but drowsy.
The most important way to encourage your baby to sleep well in the long run is to teach him to fall asleep independently, which is essentially the beginnings of teaching independent sleep.
Babies, like adults, will naturally wake up during the night. Without knowing how to get back to sleep, a baby will cry out after waking regardless of actual need, resulting in night waking droning on for much longer than is actually necessary. Once a baby gets older, falling asleep independently enables a baby to drift back to sleep after waking in the night, ultimately helping your baby sleep better in the long run.
Print your free baby sleep checklist!
Chances are…you won’t remember the tips from this post. This printable simplifies it! Plus, when you grab this printable, you’ll get instant access to my free 3-day baby sleep eCourse.
Download Your Free Printable
- Download the checklist. You’ll get the printable straight to your inbox, plus get my Free 3-Day Baby Sleep eCourse!
- Print. Any paper will do the trick, but card stock would be ideal.
- Place it on your refrigerator. Use it as a quick reference and don’t forget a thing!
Want more on baby sleep?
- 8 Infant Sleep Facts Every Parent Should Know
- How to Get Your Baby to Take Longer Naps
- Why You Should Absolutely Wake a Sleeping Baby
I've created a free email series just for you! If you are struggling with finding a routine, rhythm or schedule, this email series will help you find one that will work for YOUR family. Yes, really. I've seen my sample routines work time and time again for parents. I know it can work for you too.
This free email series will help you:
- free sample routine for your child
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I found that swaddling made a remarkable difference. I remember the nurses in the hospital saying it gives the baby a sense of comfort.
Yes, we swaddled for as long as we safely could. We loved the Halo Swaddle!
My baby never slept well (especially through the night) until I started using http://www.InstantBabySleep.org – by far one of the best things I’ve ever got my hands on to get him to fall asleep quickly. Best time is 45 seconds from awake to asleep! Can’t imagine life without it! I heard about it through a kindergarten teacher who uses it to put to sleep a group of 30 children.
Do you feed baby the full bottle you would have fed when you dream feed? And do you have troubles burping? My LO struggles to take the whole bottle during the dream feed and I have a terrible time burping our usually great burper. It makes for a very unhappy and gassy baby in the morning. Thanks!
I believe I usually offered about 5 ounces during the dreamfeed, which I estimated was a full feeding for the dream feed. I breastfeed so it’s difficult to say what a full feeding would be in ounces exactly. For whatever reason, I pumped and bottle fed the dream feed because it was easier for me. So I just fed what I pumped. I always skipped the burping during the dream feed and it didn’t seem to cause troubles for him. For a short while I was holding him upright for 5- 10 minutes after the feeding. Sometimes he would burb. Other times, he would not. Gas issues are tough 🙁 I wish I had better advice. We did use gas drops and grip water, but the efficacy of both is usually debatable among moms. Some swear by it and others say it doesn’t really work. I hope this helps.
Yes, you are so right, crying and fussing are different. Thank you for sharing your tips and experience. Letting a baby cry is a very tough decision and I completely understand and respect parents who prefer not to use crying as part of sleep training. We did use some crying, but we worked very hard to minimize it and keep it very short in duration given his age and developmental level. Swaddling with arms near the face or arms out, I believe, is an awesome way to swaddle and it’s how we did it. Thanks again for sharing your tips. All my best ideas come from other parents!
We used white noise with our twins. It worked a charm. If only we had of done that with our first born!
I know some moms worry their babies will be reliant on white noise for sleep, but we’ve experienced a lot of success with it, and it’s a simple and easy way to encourage sleep. It’s encouraging to know you experienced success with it as well, Krystal.
When dreamfeeding is your baby supposed to be awake or asleep? I have tried dreamfeeding but then my baby is up& it takes her a while to get back to sleep.
It is intended for your baby to be in a slumber like state, but my son did wake up usually. I would usually only turn on a nightlight, change his diaper first, then re-swaddle him, then feed him. I did not make any eye contact or engage him at all. Just all business. He was usually able to fall back asleep during the feeding or at least get very drowsy. Also, the dreamfeed is intended to be offered about 3 hours post bedtime and it is usually only helpful up until about 4 months of age. Beyond that, I believe it becomes more disruptive. If you are already doing all the above mentioned things and it is still a struggle to lull your baby back to sleep, then it is possible that the dreamfeed isn’t really worth it. Some moms swear by it and others say it didn’t really help that much. I’m interested to know what ends up working for you….feel free to send me an email at themilitarywifeandmom(at)gmail(dot)com if you’d like to share. I’m sure other moms would benefit from what you have to share about your dreamfeed experience.
First, I saw this post on Facebook with your son Jameson’s picture and was completely taken aback by the fact that this particular picture looks just like my first born’s newborn picture. Anyway I just recently had twins and was trying for the life of me to remember how I turned my son’s sleep schedule around, and this post is exactly what I needed. I’m also a military mom and wife so I know how important it can be to learn a routine to help keep your sanity while the hubby is away!
Thank you!
Thank you so much for your thoughtful comment, Ashley. Can you tell I love a good schedule? 🙂 Motherhood in the military adds a whole other dimension to everything, and the schedule brings a lot of comfort and sanity to our home. If there is a motherhood + military life topic you’d like to see discussed on this blog, I’d love for you to send me an email and share your ideas! All my best ideas come from my readers.
How do you get the baby to nap in their crib? She will nap in her swing, but is having a hard time napping on a flat surface.
My daughter is one month old. At what age do you recommend implementing your tips on sleep scheduling and no longer nursing at night? She is gaining weight really well. Do you recommend nursing more frequently during the day so she’s fuller at night? What age do you think she can move from our room to her room in her crib?
Hey Ellie,
During night feeds it is just eat/sleep. No awake time. And if your baby falls asleep during the feeding at night time, I always thought that was fine and dandy. Easier for me to get back to sleep, right? During they daytime, you can try to keep the baby awake for a bit after a feeding, but when they are newborns their awake time may very well be the time it takes for a feeding. Then they go back to sleep. After about 3-4 weeks they will be awake a bit more, so you could try at that point to make sure they are staying awake for a full feeding and awake for a bit there after. My lactation consultant encouraged me to undress the baby or change the diaper before the feeding to help wake the baby up a bit. This will give the baby a better chance of taking a full feeding. If they are too warm and cozy, the baby might just snack at the breast, which would prevent the baby from getting the good hindmilk at the end of the feeding. Sorry there a lot of random thoughts here 🙂 Hope this helps a bit.
Lauren
Thanks so much responding and so quickly, Lauren! I really appreciate it! All very helpful information. Thank you!
With breastfeeding I just had baby in bed with me from the time I brought her home. To be honest, for the first 12 months I never had to wake or get out of bed at night. And having her crib side car to our bed allowed her to transition very easily
Great tip Cara. I know a lot of moms enjoyed success with this.
Lauren
thank you, we shared these tips on our twitter feed.
Thanks!
Hi Lauren! I love all your tips on sleeping. My husband and I are trying so hard to get our 3 month old to take naps during the day. Unfortunately we took some bad advice and we held her for her naps until about a month ago. We have been trying to get her to nap in her crib for about a month now. Usually we can get her to sleep for 5-15 minutes at a time and then she wakes up. I know she’s tired because she will go right back to sleep if we go in and rock her. We have tired letting her cry, coming in every 5-15 minutes to sooth her and I even tried staying in her room putting her passy back in her mouth to see if she would fall asleep. Nothing works and we are out of ideas. Can you help at all? We’d love to hear from you!
Hey Becky…sleep is so tough to navigate sometimes. It sounds like you are doing a really awesome job. Without knowing too much about your situation, I would recommend a few things, but you might already be doing them! I would make sure she is on a good schedule and be very consistent with that. Right now at 3 months, she will likely do well on an approximate 3 hour schedule. See here–. If she is struggling to fall asleep, there is a good chance she is overtired or overstimulated. So if you get her on a good schedule first then you will know when she needs to fall asleep. Next, I would keep swaddling her even if you think she doesn’t like it. At this point it is still likely she is startling herself awake. Also, check out my post about infant sleep facts…sounds like she is having sleep cycle transition issues in addition to having difficulty reaching deep sleep. See here Lastly, if you are just looking to learn more about sleep outside of my blog posts, you may really find my eBook For the Love of Sleep: Practical Baby Sleep Solutions for the Everyday Mama. I intentionally made it really affordable for any family, and it may really help you in your sleep journey. Here are some testimonials if you are on the fence…
I had problems putting my 2 older kids to sleep. I didn’t know about these things. So this will truly help new or young moms to putting their babies to sleep and sleep long and soundly. Great blog!
Thanks for such an encouraging comment Becky!
I loved the swaddle blankets from that they gave my little guy at the Hospital for free. About a month later I bought him a Sleeping Baby swaddle blanket and he loved it! He was double swaddled for naps and nighttime sleep until he was six months old. Got the Zipadee-Zip when we transitioned him from being swaddled in the rock n play to sleeping in his crib. We did cry it out method and we needed him not to be swaddled for that. It was a life saver! I thought this kid was going to be swaddled forever. I just recently stopped using it and put him in a sleep sack with arms. I highly recommend it!
Yes. We use a sleep sack as well and at age 2 my son still wears one. Thanks for sharing a bit of your experience with everyone!
Very nice post! A very helpful thoughts specially for new moms. 🙂
Thank you!
How do you navigate a swaddle with a tummy sleeper? Our son is 3 months and only sleeps on his tummy… and being the second baby… we just go with it…
Then no swaddling needed 🙂
Hi Lauren, saw this post, it’s so helpful. We usually put my son down for sleep at 7pm, but he protests and would not fall asleep till 9ish, everytime he cries we pick him up, he comes down but as soon as we drop him in the crip he starts crying again, These cycles would last 2+ hours. But sometimes he goes down fine and just require one or two soothing in the crip he would fall asleep. Any tips?
Thanks in advance
Sherry
Hi. I have a 6 1/2 month old baby girl who will only be breast fed to sleep. I’m trying to break this habit by laying her down when she’s drowsy, sushing, stroking her head, introducing a comforter etc but she just kicks off. My other half is making me feel really bad about it, but I’m not sure what else to try. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks a lot for the your tips as I was looking for SLEEP TIPS.Hope it will help me a lot.
Thanks for the tips.! we did swaddling for my son,but that was the only thing i did which didnt work as such.It would have been better if i knew about white noise at that time
great article and thank u.
although i do have a lot of question so i would love to find some of u at koocam site so more people like will have the chance to get suitable tips. thank u
I recently had a baby, and we are trying to help him sleep a little more. It is definitely a tiring duty as a mom, but it is definitely worth it. These tips should definitely help, though! I hadn’t thought how feeding the baby after sleep rather than before would change a baby’s cycle, as you explained. Thanks for sharing!
You are so welcome!
Never thought we’d resort to YouTube, but we’ve come to rely on lullabies and animations to get our little guy to sleep. He doesn’t even need to watch it– we just run the song throughout the night and it keeps him relaxed even when he wakes up in the middle of the night. I think music helps a lot 🙂 We even made our own channel for him: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyuwsXtz3I5fJqsXILa0rMQ
We have a 11 months old baby. We have started following the tips above and find most helpful. Thanks a lotf or your great article you have been sharing.
Thank you so much. I’m glad this was useful for you!
The best trick to give your baby sound sleep is using super absorbent and comfortable diapers. The main obstacle for the baby’s sleep is wet nappies. If we use diapers from good companies then your babies will definitely sleep tight. And also give him good massage.
I’m not sure how my wife and I got confused but just want confirmation…
Should we swaddle during naps also. Baby is 5 days old
What did your schedule look like at 6 weeks? I’m a first time mom and feel like I’m not getting a good schedule down.
We followed a 2.5 hour schedule (approximately). You can find all my schedules in my book here, Mandy. https://themilitarywifeandmom.com/sleep/
Thank you for sharing your knowledge to us. I learned something new today.
You can know that the health of your baby is good by his sleep. A newborn baby sleeps at least 16 hours a day. This is normal. Care about health and food will give your baby perfect sleep that he needs.
We have 9 week old twins and are really struggling. They like being swaddled but they also move around and break free. If we swaddle their arms by their faces they come loose within minutes. We do a white noise machine. We follow the wake eat sleep routine. We do dream feeds. We avoid changing diapers when they wake up at night. We are on the 2.5 hour schedule. Nothing seems to be working at all and it actually seems to be getting worse. They won’t nap more than 15 min at a one during the day. They do sleep overnight but wake up almost hourly. What else can we do or try?!? We are so sleep deprived and will try anything.
I’m confused on some contradicting tips. You said to dream feed but also not to let them rely on eating to fall asleep. Also you had stated that the baby should not sleep too much through the day, and then went on to say not allowing the baby to sleep enough could potentially have the baby over tired and not sleep long enough. At what age would you say I should switch strategies or how should I go about this?
-1st time mom
I was confused about the same points. Our little man is 9 days old.
When in doubt, swaddle it out!
Really great article! I had very similar help from Susan Urban’s guide titled ‘How to teach a baby to fall asleep alone’. The two parts of the book are for parents with children aged from 0 to 3 months and from 3 months onwards. It says exactly what to do with babies to make them sleep better since they were born.
The author also describes what and how to use (like swaddling, rocking white noise etc) and when and how to stop using them.
I tried it with my boy so I can really recommend it.
Urban’s guide is amazing! Finally some clear and fast instructions that make sense. We succeed after only 3 days. Much faster than we expected. I so wish I had looked into these guides before I had my first baby! Thanks so much for posting the info about the guide
This is the most practical, honest guide about how to make your baby sleep. Thanks for sharing the info about this guide, I appreciate it.
The post is so useful, I will follow the instructions to have a good result. Thanks for sharing!
Hi Lauren,
Excellent tips. Swaddling makes a big difference as it comforts the baby just like he is in the womb.
What I have found to be effective in making my babies sleep in the night is dim the lights, make less noise . This makes my baby sleep atleast 3 hours a night and I can sleep too.
New mom question: I’m finding that after about 2 hrs of sleep my newborn seems to transition between active and quiet sleep as quickly as every 5 minutes, when he does finally wake up it is usually with a lot of crying. In this scenario would it be better to get him up when he first starts to rouse? Thanks for the advice and great article!
HI Lauren, I have gone through your article, and I have learnt quite awesome techniques from swaddle ,white noise and many more and thanks for mentioning such cool tools which you use. thanks a lot once again.
Hey buddy, being grateful as you posted such a useful and informative post. I like swaddling the most. 😀 I would like to save it. Thanks a lot for sharing your great thoughts. Keep posting, looking forward for more from you
Thanks so much responding and so quickly, Lauren! I really appreciate it! All very helpful information. Thank you!
Hey there! Loved your article, but I am having a hard time with my 2.5 week old. We are trying the sleep, eat, wake cycle but he is VERY awake and will not go back down for a nap. We have swaddled, used white noise, etc…. he cries and cries and we have tried to let him self soothe but eventually he just ends up screaming. Any advice on this would be Soooo helpful!!!! Thank you!!!
Lauren
I have a 7 month old baby and the nights are terrible…It was so difficult to put her to sleep, but some friend talked me about nature sounds and white noises…i was very septical about this “magic sounds” but i give it a try. I downloaded an app, put it running on my phone, and i must say that the person how found these noises deserve a Nobel Prize!!!!! This magical how a simple sound can put your baby to sleep…. I installed one called “Happy Sleep Baby” and seems to be good. It’s simple and gives a variety of noises, but you can find others that do the same job.
The article is really greate Lauren ! Also I have a question for you and maybe for the others women :* Did you or someone of you read some ebook named \How to teach a baby to fall asleep alone\ by Susan Urban?? My best friend since few months talk about this… she is good in make a babies fall asleep, also that She is good at writing, that this ebook change her life 😉 I think it is love 😉 but for real, I’m curious, because I also want to buy it. My Thomas lately have sometimes trouble with fall asleeping, and I want do something to help him <3
I read this book and it’s just helpful and that it is the most important! I have How to teach a baby to fall asleep alone, how to make breastfeeding, and now I want buy how to create order in your child’s room, beacuse we are renovating a child’s room.