How to Get Your baby to Sleep through the Night Part Two

Yesterday we talked about how the bedtime routine is the key to getting your child to sleep through the night. Now that you know what to do, here are some tips to help you stay on track! Remember that this is what worked for me and what I recommend. It’s not the only way to get a child to fall sleep on their own. There is no so-called “best” way it’s just my way.

1. Put them in their own room.
Your child needs their own space dedicated to sleep. It doesn’t matter if they share a room with other siblings, but it’s going to be hard to get them to sleep without you if they can roll over and see you.

2. Make sure they are safe and not sick.
Don’t ever let a baby cry it out when they are in a potentially dangerous situation. You need to know they are safe. This means no pillows or blankets or other stuffed animals in their crib. Everyone knows their baby and their cry. Your baby may be ill. Talk to your pediatrician to make sure they are healthy and there is no medical cause for their awakenings such as reflux.

3. Make sure you are ready.
Think hard about why you want your baby to all sleep by themselves. If letting them put themselves to sleep is against your philosophy then don’t do it. There’s nothing wrong with you soothing your baby back to sleep…if that works for you!

4. Make sure everyone else is ready.
Before I decided to embark on “Operation Sleeping through the Night”, I told everyone in the household what I was doing. If anyone had any objections I usually offered that they are the one to get up 5 times a night. Nobody took me up on it so I went through with my plans.

5. Choose the right day
Chose a night where you don’t have a lot of pressing things the next day. It’ll be a tough couple of nights and you’ll be tempted to stop if it gets too hard. Don’t do it when your mom is in town. Trust me, I tried this and it failed miserably!

6. Be consistent.
Once you decide what you are going to do, be consistent. Don’t stop and start, stop and start. It’s unfair to you and your child. I figured that at some point I was going to have to let them soothe themselves. What better time than the present.

7. Expect setbacks.
Once they are sleeping through the night, expect setbacks! When they were sick or we were traveling they all woke up at some point and I soothed them back to sleep. I took that time to enjoy the cuddles and knew that they needed me. When the time was right I let them put themselves back to sleep, and they went right back to sleeping through the night.

8. Be strong.
It won’t be easy. For all of my children, I slept just outside their door so I could be near them if they needed me. I covertly checked on them periodically particularly when they stopped crying.

9. Use your clock.
When you first put your baby down, look at the clock. It’ll feel like forever if your child is crying. You’d be surprised at how relatively short it can be.

10. Ask for advice
If you need help along the way, check in with your pediatrician. They can guide you with your baby’s sleep issues.

Good luck and let me and let me know how it works for you!

Sheila Cason, MD

Previous Article:

How to Get Your Baby to Sleep through the Night

How to Get Your Baby to Sleep through the Night.

Dr. Cason,

I found you! You don't remember us, but you saw my twins and me in SD when they first came home. You showed me how to swaddle my son and turned me on to Happiest Baby on the Block. I have a question, well a problem, I guess. My twins are 8 months old. One, my boy, is sleeping through the night 7P-6a. But the other, my girl is still getting up, sometimes 5-6 times a night!

I tried to let her cry it out a few times, but then I cry or my other baby wakes up. She eats plenty during the day including food, cereal, yogurt, and a bottle before bed. I'm not sure if I should just let her cry it out and deal with her
brother, too. We are in desperate need of help! I'm 6mos. Pregnant, and I’m getting real cranky without my sleep. I'd appreciate your advice.

Thanks and I hope things are going well for you in Guam.

L.K.

Hi L.K.!

I think all parents have this issue at some point in time with one of their children. The key to getting your baby to sleep through the night is their bedtime routine. Some kids will spontaneously start sleeping through the night at about 4 months of age and others need a little coaxing. Parents will think their child wakes up a lot but remember that we all wake up in the middle of the night. We just usually go back to sleep. Your baby is probably arousing at a normal rate but then failing to put her self back to sleep on her own.

Most children who can’t put themselves back to sleep probably have a sleep prop. A sleep prop is anything she requires to help her fall asleep. It could be a bottle or pacifier or just being rocked to sleep. Remember that when we fall to sleep with something – “a prop”- then we need that same prop to be present to fall asleep again. When she wakes up and it’s not there then she’ll start to cry until it is offered again. So you see it’s really not unreasonable for her to be crying. It’s just what she been taught.

I ran across a good explanation once. They explained that it was like us falling asleep with our favorite pillow. If we were to wake up in the middle of the night and find our pillow was gone, we’d be up and aroused looking for it. If someone quickly gave us our pillow when we stirred, we would roll over and go back to sleep. But if it wasn’t replaced then we’d be tossing and turning and really mad. But what if we never went sleep with it in the first place? We’d quickly adapt and soon falling asleep and staying asleep without a pillow would feel normal to us.

So the first thing to do is eliminate the bed time props. For a lot of babies this is a bottle, whether it be held by a parent or placed in bed, an infant gets used to the drowsy comfortable feeling of a full tummy and links this to sleep. To start disassociating feeding with sleeping make sure you don’t give her anything to eat after her bath. Besides you’ll be brushing her teeth and she doesn’t need to have food or milk in her mouth. Then read her a book and put her in her crib while she’s still drowsy but not asleep.

Your night time routine should look like this:

• Dinner
• Playtime (Light playtime – No roughhousing. You don’t want to amp her up!)
• Snack or Bottle
• Bath
• Brush teeth
• Book and Cuddle time
• Bed… night- night lights out!

When she can fall asleep, by herself, in under 5 minutes then you know she has developed the ability to fall sleep on her own. After this occurs, you can let her put herself back to sleep for the rest of the night. Don’t worry about letting her wake up her twin. He’ll get used to it and soon they both will be sleeping through the night. You’d be surprised how quickly kids adapt.

That’s it. There’s nothing special or fancy to it! In reality there is no “best” way to get your child to sleep, there are just different ways. You need to decide what is best for you. Remember it’s a parenting style, not a moral decision. You’ll always find people that agree with your method and others who won’t. All of my children needed help “learning” to sleep through the night. I know it can be anything but easy, so tomorrow I’ll give you tips on how to make it work for you!

Sheila Cason, MD

How Much Sleep Does Your Child Need?

Uh… I’m still sick and feeling under the weather. During the day everything seems to go okay but then night time hits and I’m exhausted. Even the early AM time to myself is slept away as I try to get over this illness. Now that my kids are all busy either in daycare, preschool or kindergarten they have also been needing more sleep at night.

Everyone seems to have their own magic number when it comes to how much they sleep need but there are general guidelines. According to The National Sleep Foundation, experts “estimate that preschoolers (3 to 5 years-old) need 11-13 hours of sleep, while school-aged children up to age 12 need approximately 10-11 hours of sleep.” [See table]

How much sleep a person needs will depend on “a person’s basal sleep need – the amount of sleep our bodies need on a regular basis for optimal performance – and sleep debt, the accumulated sleep that is lost to poor sleep habits, sickness, awakenings due to environmental factors or other causes.” If you watch your children closely and see how they perform on a certain amount of sleep you can get a good idea of what their basal sleep need is.

Make sleep a priority. It’ll make a big difference in how you and your child functions!

Sheila Cason, MD