Sleep through the night

 

 

Stick to a Routine

It can be tempting, when dealing with a newborn, to succumb to the habit of allowing the baby to dictate his or her own sleeping habits entirely. As much as is reasonable, you should try to avoid this, and instead try and establish a routine in which your baby sleeping habits begin to mimic those of the rest of the household.

Be Consistent

Developing a routine for your baby's sleep should follow two different tracts: first, you should be putting your baby to sleep in the same fashion each and every night. A typical routine would involve a feeding and changing, combined with some time for play. You should put your child to sleep at a point where he is tired, but still aware of what's going on. In this way, you establish the precedent that he falls asleep on his own, without you holding him or being in the room. This is crucial to ensuring better sleep habits for him down the road.

Mold your baby's sleeping habits

The second thing is to try and mold your baby's sleep habits. For example, you should discourage extensive napping throughout the day, as that increases the chance that the baby will be unable to sleep throughout the night. In a similar fashion, if he sleeps in too late during the morning hours, you should rouse him.

Be subtle

No parent wants to interfere with their baby's sleeping habits too extensively, and it is natural to want to avoid having to wake your baby up when he is sleeping, or to prevent him from napping when he wishes to do so. There are, however, subtler methods with which to direct your child's sleep patterns. For example, when your baby naps, you should make sure that he does so in a brightly lit room - this ensures that he won't nap for long periods of time, which will affect his nighttime sleep. There tendency amongst parents to make their baby as comfortable as possible when napping, which is, of course, entirely natural. But keep in mind that when you draw the curtains or turn out the light when your baby is napping, you are creating an environment where he is likely to nap for a long time, which isn't really helpful.

In general, you should think of an overall plan to develop sleeping routines for your baby that are in sync with those of the rest of the household. If you do this, you will find that not only your baby, but you yourself, will be getting a good night's rest.

A pleasant and contestant bedtime routine is the first step to getting your baby to sleep through the night. Looking at your baby's day time feeding can also help.