A No Cry Solution for

Newborn Babies and Sleep

by Elizabeth Pantley
Edited version

Understanding Your Newborn's Sleep Babies younger than four months old have very different sleep needs than older babies. Hopefully this article will help to understand the newborn baby's developing sleep patterns, and to develop reasonable expectations when it comes to babies and sleep.

Read, Learn, and Beware of Bad Advice Absolutely everyone has an opinion about how to handle sleep issues with a new baby. The danger to a new parent is that misguided advice can have a negative effect on parenting skills and, by extension, a baby’s development-- if they are not aware of the facts. Education is power and the more knowledge and understanding that parents have the less likely that other people will make them doubt their parenting decisions.

When they have their facts straight, and have a parenting plan, parents will be able to respond with confidence to those who are well-meaning but offering contrary or incorrect advice.
So, for the new parent the first step is to get smart! Know what you are doing, and know why you are doing it. Read recommended books and attend classes and support groups.

The Biology of Newborn Sleep During the early months of a baby's life, he sleeps when he is tired, it's really that simple. You can do very little to force a new baby to sleep when he doesn't want to sleep, and conversely, you can do little to wake him up when he is sleeping soundly.

An important point to understand about newborn babies is that they have very, very tiny tummies. New babies grow rapidly, their diet is liquid, and it digests quickly. Formula digests quickly and breast milk digests even more rapidly. Although it would be nice to lay your baby down at a predetermined bedtime and not hear a peep from him until morning, even the most naive among us know that this is not a realistic goal for a tiny baby. Most normal young babies do not sleep through the night. Newborns need to be fed every two to four hours -- and sometimes more.

During these early months, the baby has tremendous growth spurts that affect not only daytime, but also night time feeding as well and sometimes this pushes a two to four-hour schedule to a one to two-hour schedule around the clock.

Sleeping "Through the Night" You have probably heard that babies should start "sleeping through the night" at about 2 to 4 months of age. What you may not have been told however is that, for a new baby, a five-hour stretch is a full night. Many (but nowhere near all) babies at this age can sleep uninterrupted from midnight to 5 a.m. (Not that they always do.) But this is most likely a far cry from what you may have thought "sleeping through the night" meant!

While the scientific definition of "sleeping through the night" is five hours, most of us wouldn't consider that anywhere near a full night's sleep for ourselves.

Also, some of the sleep-through-the-nighters can now suddenly begin waking more frequently, and it can often be a full year or more until the child settles into a mature, all-night, every night sleep pattern.

Falling Asleep at the Breast or Bottle It is very natural for a newborn to fall asleep while sucking at the breast, a bottle, or a pacifier. When a baby always falls asleep this way, he learns to associate sucking with falling asleep; over time, he may not be able to fall asleep any other way. A number of sleep experts refer to this as a "negative sleep association." However, it is probably the most positive, natural, pleasant sleep association that a baby can have. A large percentage of parents who are struggling with older babies who cannot fall asleep or stay asleep are fighting this natural and powerful sucking-to-sleep association.

To change this and for a baby to be able to fall asleep without help, it’s also essential to sometimes let the newborn baby suck until he is sleepy, but not totally asleep. When possible, remove the breast, bottle, or pacifier from his mouth and let him finish falling asleep without something in his mouth. When you do this, the baby may resist, root, and fuss to regain the nipple. It's perfectly okay to give back the breast, bottle, or pacifier and start over a few minutes later. If you do this often enough, he will eventually learn how to fall asleep without sucking.

Night Feedings and Distinguishing Day from Night

Waking for Night Feedings Many paediatricians recommend that parents shouldn't let a newborn sleep longer than three or four hours without feeding, and although there may be a few babies who can go longer the vast majority of babies wake far more frequently than that. No matter what, most babies will wake up during the night. The key is to learn when to pick her up for night feeding and when to let her go back to sleep on her own.

This is a time when you need to focus your instincts and intuition. This is when you should try very hard to learn how to read the baby's signals. It is critically important  to know that babies make many sleeping sounds, from grunts to whimpers to outright cries, and these noises don't always signal awakening. These are sleeping noises, and the baby is nearly or even totally asleep during these episodes.

In your desire to respond to your baby's sounds, take care that you do not teach her to wake up more often.

You need to listen and watch your baby carefully. Learn to differentiate between these sleeping sounds and awake and hungry sounds. If she is awake and hungry, you'll want to feed her as quickly as possible. If you respond immediately when she is hungry, she will most likely go back to sleep quickly. But, if you let her cry escalate, she will wake herself up totally, and it will be harder and take longer for her to go back to sleep. Not to mention that you will then be wide awake, too!

Help Your Baby Distinguish Day from Night A newborn baby sleeps about sixteen to eighteen hours per day, and this sleep is distributed evenly over six to seven sleep periods. When you can help the baby distinguish between night time sleep and day time sleep you can help him sleep for longer periods at night.

Begin by having the baby take his daytime naps in a lit room where he can hear the noises of the day, perhaps a bassinet or cradle located in the main area of your home and make night time sleep dark and quiet. You can also help your baby differentiate day naps from night sleep by using a nightly bath and massage and a change into sleeping pyjamas to signal the difference between the two.

Watch for Signs of Tiredness One way to encourage good sleep is to get familiar with the baby's sleepy signals and put her down to sleep as soon as she seems tired. A baby cannot put herself to sleep, nor can she understand her own sleepy signs. Yet a baby who is encouraged to stay awake when her body is craving sleep is typically an unhappy baby. Over time, this pattern develops into sleep deprivation, which further complicates the baby's developing sleep maturity. Learn to read the baby's sleepy signs -- such as quieting down, losing interest in people and toys, and fussing -- and put her to bed when that window of opportunity presents itself.

Make Yourself Comfortable As much as we may adore our children it's tough to be woken up over and over again, night after night. Since it's a fact that your baby will be waking you up, you may as well make yourself as comfortable as possible. The first step is to learn to relax about night waking. Being stressed or frustrated about having to get up won't change a thing. The situation will improve day by day; and before you know it, the little newborn won't be so little anymore -- she'll be walking and talking and getting into everything in sight during the day, and sleeping peacefully all night long.