Ah, those blessed days and nights with a newborn. Although you can never get enough of soaking up those sweet cuddles, the middle of the night wakeups can be brutal.
After spending the last few months of pregnancy feeling large and uncomfortable and waking to pee 6 times a night, the one thing that your body craves is a full night’s sleep.
Unfortunately that may not happen for the next 2 or 3 months (and that’s if you’re lucky). Even if you hit the *new mom jackpot* and your baby is a good sleeper, you still need to wake them up to eat every 3-4 hours in the first few weeks.
However, just because your baby can’t have longer than a 4 hour stretch of sleep at a time, doesn’t mean that he or she will be a terrible sleeper for the next few months.
You have plenty time to establish a daily routine to promote better sleep habits. Read all the newborn tips for sleeping below.
The Best Newborn Tips For Sleeping
During the first 2-3 weeks, you can pretty much expect that your baby won’t be a great sleeper. They are just getting used to the outside world with bright lights, loud sounds, and so much new stimulation.
In addition to this huge adjustment period for them, they have their days and nights confused when they first make their entrance to the world.
While in the womb, your daily movements rocked them to sleep so they slept most of the day away. When you were calm and sleeping is when they tended to be the most active. Therefore, they now need to figure out how to adjust their schedule according to ours and learn the difference between days and nights.
Here are my essential newborn tips for getting your baby to sleep well.
This post may contain affiliate links which I would receive a small commission should you make a purchase.
1. Creating a Consistent Daily Routine
Getting your newborn to sleep well (both at night and during the day) is so important for a new mom’s sanity. When you’re well-rested, you will feel good and able to tackle all the new obstacles presented with having a new baby.
Starting your baby off early in life with a good daily routine will bring you both years of well-rested nights. If you can get your baby on a daily nap schedule, the night time sleeping will come too.
Even though you may not think one has to do with the other, a consistent daily routine will help a newborn become a better night sleeper. You want their days to become predictable for both you and them.
This means that each day should follow the same schedule. Feedings, nap time, and play time should always be regular. They need consistency to learn when and how they’ll be fed, held, and soothed. They will slowly become comfortable and trusting of you and understand how and when they should be sleeping.
Around 4-6 weeks is when you should start making consistent strides to get them familiar with a predictable schedule for each day. Once you establish these habits, they will begin to fall into the same daily patterns.
YOU are directly in control of your baby’s sleep habits. If you are consistent with your schedule, routine, and actions, your baby will sooner or later create a habit because of the work you are putting in.
2. Feed, Wake, Sleep Schedule
Getting your newborn on a feed, wake, sleep schedule is a common routine from the BabyWise approach to newborn sleep. The basic premise is to not let your baby fall asleep while eating.
Newborns and infants typically get lulled to sleep from nursing or bottles and feedings make them very tired. However, the goal is to allow them to fall asleep from an awake state and not directly from a feeding.
The reasoning is that if your baby has awake time before they fall asleep, they will understand how to put themselves to sleep on their own. If you let them fall asleep while eating, they will always rely on you or milk to put themselves back to sleep.
Whether they wake up in the middle of the night or when you put them down for a nap or bedtime, the goal is that they can fall asleep independently.
How to implement this routine:
From the early days, you can begin waking up your baby if they have fallen asleep during a feeding. The feeding will usually put them right to sleep, so just nudge them a little until they wake up.
At that point, continue their feeding or keep them awake for a few more minutes before they start to doze off again for their next nap. Even 1-5 minutes is sufficient in the first couple weeks and you can work up from there.
Once your baby is about 4-6 weeks old, they should start being able to stay awake longer after a feeding and before napping. At this point, they should be able to have about 20-30 minutes of wake time between a feeding and sleep.
You can use this time to play with and stimulate them to keep them awake. Here is a whole list of ideas on ways to play with your newborn if you’re having trouble thinking of things to do.
Don’t think your newborn has to actually play this whole time. For them, play time could just be staring at your face or gazing at a colorful toy.
After their awake time (20-60 min depending on age), you should attempt to put them down for a nap EVERY cycle except for the last.
So if your baby has 7 feedings, they should have 5 naps. Down to 6 feedings around 3 months? 4 naps. If your baby only sleeps 10-15 minutes or doesn’t sleep at all, it’s ok! You’re still helping to establish a consistent nap cycle.
I highly recommend the BabyWise book for tips, strategies, and the science behind why this strategy works so well.
I downloaded it on Amazon’s Audible and just listened to it on my commute to work which made ‘reading’ all those parenting books much easier! There’s a free trial that gets you 2 free Audio books– well worth it to sign up and you can cancel it after that.
Also, on the BabyWise website, they have free sample schedules week-by-week that are super easy to follow. Definitely try them out to help establish a routine.
3. Put them down drowsy, not asleep
When you’re ready to put your baby down for a nap (from 15-60 minutes after the end of a feeding, depending on age), make sure they aren’t sleeping before you put them down.
If your baby has fallen asleep in your arms, you don’t want to gently put them down in the crib without waking because that doesn’t teach them how to fall asleep on their own.
Just give them a little nudge to wake them up before putting them down. If the most you can do is just get them to open their eyes and stretch for 3 minutes, that’s a good start.
You don’t want them to be wide awake because in most cases that won’t work for your baby. If they need a little help getting drowsy, you can rock them, shush them, walk with them, swaddle them, or give a pacifier. All 5 of these strategies work for me!
You’ll notice soon that their eyes will start to get very heavy and they’ll begin dozing off. BEFORE they completely fall asleep is when you should set them down in the crib.
They may fuss a little bit, but this will ensure that they can fall asleep on their own.
Once you place them down awake, if they start to get really crazy irritable, pick them up and repeat the process of soothing and again put them down awake.
It may take several tries before they get used to it. Remain consistent and they will pick up the habit.
The steps I followed consistently were:
- Swaddle
- Put the pacifier in
- Sound machine on
- Rock in my arms while walking around the room for a couple of minutes
- Put him down drowsy once his eyes got heavy
Follow the same routine for EVERY NAP OR SLEEP.
4. Put them in the bassinet or crib for all sleeps
Your newborn will feel the safest and most comfortable in a cozy inclined device, like a swing or bouncer. After all, they just spent the last 9 months curled up in a warm, safe place, surrounded by fluid.
The first couple of weeks after birth you can let them nap in your arms and in these devices until they are used to being in the outside world.
However, you don’t want to get them accustomed to that as the weeks go by. The older they get, the harder it is to break the habit.
The hardest thing for a newborn is to sleep flat on their back in a bassinet with no blankets, cushions, or even a slight incline. However, even though it may seem like a challenge to put them down on their back, it will be worth it in the long run.
Around the 8 week mark was when I started putting my infant down in his crib for EVERY nap.
If I saw him starting to doze off in the swing, I’d scoop him up and get him to the crib. I would follow the same routine I outlined above about 4 or 5 times a day.
This is just helpful to start establishing that routine early because you want them to eventually sleep in the crib. If you let your baby take naps in your arms all day, they aren’t learning how to fall asleep on their own and in the proper environment.
When they’re 9 months old, you don’t want the only place they nap to be in your arms! And while this seems like a long way off and that you could definitely change the habit by then, trust me, it becomes a lot harder the older they get.
You should be at least attempting to put your baby down for a nap when they’re a newborn (through 4 months) between every feeding cycle. This will get you and the baby into a routine and he will know his consistent eat, play, sleep schedule.
5. Understand your baby’s cues
Your baby may or may not show signs of being tired or hungry at different times of day. However, once you establish a consistent routine, you will know when they’re hungry or tired without them having to tell you.
It may take you a few weeks to figure out their cues, but you will eventually understand what your baby is trying to tell you.
You may see your baby yawn, eyes get heavy, scream, cry, moan, or stretch to show you how he is feeling. My baby’s hunger cry is more of a scream, whereas his tired cry is just being fussy and irritable.
For example, since I follow the feed, wake, sleep schedule, I know if my baby is getting fussy only 30-60 minutes after his last feeding, he is probably just tired. Before I really understood this cue, I would just try to feed him every time he fussed.
6. Make sure they get a full feeding
During each feed-wake-sleep cycle, you want to ensure that your baby is getting a full feeding. Newborns tend to fall asleep while eating, so you will need to wake them up to keep going until they stop on their own.
How to keep them awake long enough to feed:
- Rub their feet and hands
- Wipe their forehead, neck, and face with a wet wipe or wet washcloth
- Walk around while feeding your baby
- Strip baby down to their diaper and un-swaddle or wrap them so they are not too warm and snug
- Burp thoroughly when you change nursing sides, or halfway through with the bottle
- Take breaks from feeding to raise them high in the air and let them come down
- Make a lot of noise around them
If your baby has a full belly and ate for the recommended amount of time, they should start to feel drowsy. If they don’t get a full feeding, they may wake up from a nap within 10-15 minutes and still be hungry.
Encouraging full feedings also will reduce the habit of them snacking all day. This helps in creating a routine for your baby because they know that they will get 7 feedings at consistent times, rather than just being offered milk randomly through the day.
7. Assist your baby in these habits
Your baby may not always show cues. My first baby never really told me she was hungry and would probably go 10 hours without eating if I didn’t feed her on a 2.5-3 hour schedule. It goes the same for sleeping.
You may be thinking, my baby does not like to nap. Is that because you never see them yawn or when they get fussy, you feed them and they will always just eat because that also soothes them?
You may have to help them get tired for a nap just as you do with bedtime.
My son doesn’t always fall asleep on his own wherever he is (being held or in a swing). However I know now that his tired cue is that he starts to get fussy and irritable.
That’s when I swaddle him up and rock him and he’ll start to fade into the heavy eye drowsiness.
Some time after your baby’s feeding (30-90 min), start the same routine you would do at night. Whether it be to swaddle, use the sound machine, rocking, etc.
It should get them drowsy enough to take a nap. Even if they aren’t showing their tired cue, still put them down for a nap based on this timing.
If you’re consistent about putting them down for naps at these times, whether they’re showing signs or not, you will be creating a good habit for them.
8. Use positive sleep associations
At first, it wasn’t easy to get my baby to fall asleep in the crib by himself. Along with being determined and consistent, I enlisted the help of several positive sleep aids or associations, as well.
There are positive sleep associations and negative ones.
Positive ones are those that the baby associates with sleep, but they don’t need your help in order to use. These could be sound machines, swaddles/sleep sacks, chewing their hands, holding a lovey, rocking themselves, or banging their feet.
Although you need to be the one to put their swaddle or sound machine on, this is just done one time so not considered a negative association. They help them get a peaceful night’s sleep, but are not dependent on you for them.
Negative associations are those that are reliant upon you to carry out for sleep.
You want to avoid the negative associations as much as possible. These include rocking them to sleep, nursing or feeding, driving them in a car, holding their hand, or bouncing them up and down. You can do some of these to get them drowsy, but not to complete sleep.
Here are some of my favorite sleep aids and others that have worked too. Some things that work for my baby may not work for you. That’s why it may be helpful to try out different products to see what works best for your specific situation.
Favorite sleep aids
- I love my Dohm sound machine for white noise that I leave on through the whole night and all naps to provide background noise when it’s too quiet. Sometimes silence can make it difficult for them to fall asleep.
2. The LectroFan is also an awesome sound machine for at home or on-the-go. I love that the LectroFan doesn’t need to be plugged in, so imply give it a charge and throw it in your diaper bag! With this, you can give your baby white noise while they’re in the car seat, stroller, or pack n play.
3. For newborns up until they start rolling, these SwaddleMe swaddles are my favorite! The velcro and tightness is what made my daughter sleep so well for the first few months of her life.
They wrap them up so tightly so they can’t break free like traditional blanket swaddles. It makes them feel like they’re being hugged all night long.
However, with my son, he originally did not like the swaddle. He would struggle to pull his arms out which would make it a hard time for him to fall asleep.
4. I switched to a Swaddle Up technique which worked great for those first couple weeks.
The Swaddle Up allows their arms to be up by their heads and not tied down to their sides. Some babies may take to this approach better than a traditional swaddle.
Once they start rolling over around 3-4 months, they aren’t safe to be swaddled with their arms tied down or up anymore. At this point, you should move to the Nested Bean Zen Sleep Sack.
5. This sleep sack still gives them the tightness around their body of being hugged, but their arms are free. By this point their startle reflex should be gone, so you shouldn’t have to worry about them waking themselves up from flailing. It also keeps them warm since they can’t use blankets.
6. Both of my kids took pacifiers which was a lifesaver to soothe them. The Mam Pacifiers are the perfect shape and both of my kids loved them.
You also may want to try blackout curtains, in case your baby is sensitive to any light coming in from the street or even when it starts to get light out.
7. Dusk to dawn night lights are what we use in our room and the nursery to keep a little light in there for the babies so it’s not pitch black.
8. Depending on your baby’s age, they may be able to hold on to a lovey or stuffed animal while falling asleep. This may make them feel secure and they will associate holding onto a soft object with sleep.
The Linen Bunny from LoveHeld is so soft and cozy for your child. They’ll love snuggling with it all night long!
Babies are much trial and error. What worked for me, may not work for you, but it’s good to know your options!
. . . . .
If you take away one thing from this post, let it be: CONSISTENCY. The more often you implement a routine or action, the more it will become a habit for your baby.
Follow these newborn tips for sleeping and your baby will be off to a fantastic start with their daily routine.
Providing your baby with a stable schedule will be easier for both you and them. They’ll know what to expect when and you will be able to plan out your days much more efficiently.
I know it can be hard to stay consistent with a crying baby when you’re exhausted and irritable, however you will be doing the best thing for both of you in the long run.
Since I implemented all these strategies, my daughter was taking 2-3 hour naps twice a day until past 1 year. Get your baby on a schedule and you will have time for yourself to be that great mom you know you can be!
If your baby is a bit older and you’re ready to start sleep training, head to my post on The Best Sleep Training Methods That Worked for Both of my Kids for more tips.
Related Post: The Witching Hour For Babies: How to End it Fast
