How I Got My Baby To Sleep Through the Night
So for the most part, I don’t really know what I did. And as I’m sure you’ve heard before, if it works for your family, it’s not wrong. But, I knew a full night sleep was vital for both mine and her safety, and for my mental health.
I am all about practicing safe sleep, so that’s a number one must for me. Nothing in the crib/bassinet, safely swaddled, and the room a good temperature. Pretty much your first few weeks are going to be really rough. You’ll probably be full of anxiety, so if your baby is sleeping, you’ll surely be watching them like a hawk anyway, but truly try to get some sleep! As long as they are in a safe environment, you should be good and hopefully that gives you some piece of mind. So from the beginning we started with a routine as best as we could. We never stuck 100% to it because we wanted some freedom. It also gave us the opportunity to try what worked for us and our family! We originally started with me going to bed at the same time as her, so she wasn’t alone. We put her down drowsy in the bassinet, but we quickly realized that did not work because I wasn’t getting to see my husband at all when he got home from work. So we then switched to putting her down for bed for bed around 9pm right after a feeding where she would be drowsy. This worked for a little bit, we had about two night wakings until about 5 weeks. Starting around that 5-6 week mark, we started doing baths, diapers, pajamas, feed, sleep. And this is what did it! She started sleeping through the night. I think she was always a decent night sleeper, but sticking to this routine for us really worked well. It gave my husband and I time to hangout and watch some television. This was all good until she was just around three months, then I started to worry about the four month regression that I am sure you hear all about! I knew she wasn’t a fully independent sleeper, we always fed right before bed so she was drowsy and we would rock and hold her, but I knew if I wanted to try to avoid any issues with the regression she would need to be a completely independent sleeper!
So our schedule changed to this, starting about 45, which was about 7pm, mins before we put her down in her bassinet.
Feed, skin to skin (20-30 minutes)
Bath
Lotion
Pajamas
Book
Sleep Sack/ Swaddle
Sound Machine
Kisses & I Love You’s
Bassinet wide awake
And this has consistently worked for us! Norah is a little over 4 months now and so far so good! I will definitely keep updating on how this continues to work for us. But, important to always remember, what works for your family is fine and there is no reason to change it! Your babe is only small once, you gotta do what makes you and baby happy!