Newborn Sleep Strategies
As a postpartum doula and infant sleep consultant, I work with A LOT of families to help pave the path to restful nights for them and their newborn baby. In fact, the most popular age of my tiny little clients are between six weeks and six months.
When it comes to helping your baby sleep well, this doesn’t involve letting your baby just “cry it out” by any means.
In fact, I truly believe newborn babies do not have self-regulation skills and they NEED the help of a parent of caregiver to help them get to sleep.
So this leads to the question – what can I be doing to help my newborn sleep better?
I know the newborn stage can be tough. We’re healing, sleep deprived, and trying to take care of ourselves while trying to take care of this tiny little human who constantly wants to eat!
We need to set realistic expectations when it comes to sleep in the fourth trimester. There may not be a lot of it.
During those first few weeks, please do not focus on any strict rules. You will not create any “bad habits”. Feed baby around the clock, contact nap during the day, and never feel guilty.
Around six weeks, I recommend starting to introduce a consistent routine into your day. Babies LOVE consistency and knowing what comes next. This is the first step to setting a healthy sleep foundation.
Keep your routine simple. I recommend priortizing an eat, play, sleep routine – but again, no need to get hung up on any strict rules. The purpose of this routine is to separate feeding from sleeping, so your baby becomes familiarized with falling asleep independently and not at the breast or bottle. This will come in handy around four months when they become very aware of the order of their routine and start to have more opinions!
Create a nap routine →
Before every nap, bring baby into their nursery, change their diaper, swaddle or sleep sack, sound machine on, lights off, cuddles & kisses, down for nap.
Baby may fall asleep on their own, or they may need some more assistance. This is where I recommend climbing up the “soothing ladder” :
Image of Soothing Ladder
If baby was just recently fed and changed, but is fussing while you’re putting them down for a nap — climb up the ladder to see if you can soothe them to sleep. If that’s not happening, the last step is offering a feed.
Create a bedtime routine →
Just like a nap routine, a bedtime routine helps signal to the brain that it’s time to sleep. This can include a warm bath, lotion massage, clean diaper, bedtime feed, swaddle or sleep sack, sound machine on, cuddles & kisses, goodnight.
I will ALWAYS recommend feeding right before going to bed for the night, but ideally your baby isn’t fully asleep at the breast or bottle. It’s helpful to put them down “drowsy but awake” so they work on self-settling before going to bed. This is where you can step in with that soothing ladder, if needed.
“How drowsy should my baby be when I lay them down?”
Think of a scale from 1-10 with 1 being fully awake and 10 being fully asleep. Aim for 7-8 when it comes to drowsiness.
Around 12 weeks, I recommend aiming for 2-3 crib naps during the day. Typically, the first two naps of the day are more successful.
This is an age where you can begin implementing one of my favorite sleep strategies:
The Pick Up Put Down Method
This is a form of responsive settling that involves placing your baby in their crib and confidently leaving the room; if they fuss, you wait and set a timer for one minute. If your baby is still crying, then go in to pick them up and reassure them. You can start with crib-side soothing (shushing, patting) and if that isn’t doing the trick, pick them up to soothe. When your baby settles, place them back down into their crib and leave the room. Repeat the process each time baby cries. This method is most effective for baby’s ages three-eight months.
*Note: At this age, if you have been trying to soothe baby for 10 minutes and they are not calming down, move on and offer a feed.
Once baby reaches 16 weeks, try to soothe for 15 minutes before offering a feed.
At 5+ months, this approach will look slightly different.
It’s so important to make sure you’re following age-appropriate wake windows and following sleepy cues when it comes to timing naps to make sure baby isn’t under-tired or overtired. Once they get into an overtired state it can be more difficult for them to settle down. If they are under-tired, their sleep pressure won’t be high enough for them to want to sleep.
