Ah baby sleep. If you’re a new parent you’re probably wondering if baby sleep actually exists or if it’s the biggest lie in the world. I mean, people commonly say, “sleep like a baby” when referring to good sleep, but I know most moms would rather sleep like their husbands than their babies.
Who am I and what do I know about baby sleep? Well, I’m just another mom. Professionally I’m a career coach. Personally I’m an enneagram 3 who is a mom of three. Not just three, but three under two years old. As I write this my son is not even two yet and our twin girls are almost 5 months old. I was dying of exhaustion when my son was a baby and I started reading everything on baby sleep and sleep training. I started testing out methods and determining how much crying I could handle vs. how much sleep I needed to get. I was able to successfully sleep train my son and our family and friends were impressed. I told everyone not to be too impressed, maybe we got lucky with a good sleeper. Once we found out we were having twins, I told my friends and family they were allowed to be impressed if and only if I could manage to get two more babies sleeping through the night and napping during the day.
I am happy to report that everyone is now allowed to be impressed with my baby sleep accomplishments. The twins are almost five months old and are sleeping 13 hours through the night (with no wake ups) and are taking 3 naps lasting 1.5-2 hours each. That’s 17.5-19 hours of baby sleep in a 24 hour period.
My Baby Sleep Strategies
All of my babies spent time in the NICU because my body doesn’t understand that a baby is supposed to bake for 40 weeks. In the NICU you are set on a strict 3 hour schedule. Which means every 3 hours the babies get fed. Both times this set a nice foundation for us in terms of baby sleep. However,I know lots of people who have been in the NICU, leave, and do not stay on the schedule. There is no guarantee.
After reading a lot of baby sleep advice and testing things out with our first born, I did a few things from the time we brought the twins home that I think set us up for sleep success. Here’s what I recommend:
At nighttime, make the room SUPER dark. Like, can’t see you hand in front of your face, dark.
Use a sound machine. We use the thunderstorm noise, but any white noise sound will do. Do not play music, music stimulates the brain, that’s not what we are looking to do at night.
Use a tight swaddle. We like using the Halo brand swaddles. I recommend getting one you can velcro. Unless you are amazing at swaddling your baby will probably break out of the blanket swaddle. I know it might seem like they hate being swaddled, but just do it. It helps that startle reflex that will wake your baby up if they aren’t swaddled.
Feed on demand or on a schedule, but whatever you do, keep the room as dark as possible when feeding. A lamp will be too bright. I’m talking light of your phone, light of your breast pump, or light from the bathroom barely streaming in. Just enough so you can see what you are doing.
Do not change their diaper at night unless it’s a poopy (did I ever use the word “poopy” before becoming a mom?)
Keep your interactions with the baby to a minimum. This means no talking, no making eye contact (I know, it’s hard!). Babies are very easily stimulated so even looking into your eyes will get them excited.
During the daytime, keep them in the regular living area. Don’t be afraid of making noise. Have the TV on, siblings running around, curtains open (you want that natural light). They will fall asleep on their own in this environment, but it gets their brain wired to know this is not the long sleep.
You wake the baby to eat during the day. I know people say, “never wake a sleeping baby”, but yeah, we do. During the day you want them eating at least every three hours (more if you are feeding on demand).
Around 8-10 weeks I moved our babies into their own rooms. For the twins I moved them into the same room, separate cribs. Since our babies were preemies, I was very serious about feeding them every 3 hours for the first two months. At our two month appointment our pediatrician told me I could let them wake me up at night. Phew, that was a blessing to hear. My advice on some of these details is to do what your doctor says. I’m not a doctor and your baby is your baby. Just like you are your own person. Please do what you and your doctor decide is best. I’m just sharing what worked for us!
Once the babies were in their own room I did all the same things as above, but then I got to travel to their room instead of staying in my own (yay?). I slowly started adding these components:
Set a desired wake time. Babies, just like adult humans, will accumulate to waking up at the same time everyday. Decide what time you want your babies to wake up and then stick to that time. Which means, they stay in their cribs until that time and they get woken up at that time if they are still sleeping. This is important to regulate their internal clock and to start your baby‘s sleep schedule. Babies don’t really sleep in, so this time is usually between 6:00 and 7:30 AM. Ours is 6:30, but I moved it around a few times before I settled on a time that worked.
Create a bedtime routine. Bedtime routines are a GAME CHANGER. They signal to the baby that bedtime (aka the long sleep) is approaching. It doesn’t have to be long or complicated.
Bedtime Routine Example
Bath time (we don’t give the twins a bath every night because TWO BABIES, but we do a wipe down to clean them up).
Lotion
New diaper
Fresh jammies
Swaddle
Rock while singing a song or reading a story
Feed
Sleep
Add a dream feed. A dream feed is just like it sounds, you feed the baby while they sleep. I started feeding the twins their dream feed between 9:00-10:00 PM. The idea is to do it before you go to sleep (truthfully, I was falling asleep around 7:30 during these days, so I still had to set an alarm). This is to help the baby get their long stretch of sleep in while you are also sleeping. My girls would go to bed around 6 or 7 PM, I’d dream feed between 9 and 10 PM and then they’d usually sleep until 2 AM and then 5 AM. Eventually we got it down to just two night wakings (including dream feed). I finally moved the dream feed back until midnight and then we just woke up once! Finally I stopped waking them up and they slept through the night!
Create an early bedtime. I know it seems crazy, but keeping your baby up later will not result in them sleeping later. Babies will get overtired and then they have an even harder time going to sleep. I think the ideal bedtime for a baby is in the 6 o’clock hour. But heck, our twins go to sleep in the 5 o’clock hour. I know, it seems so early, but it’s what works for us.
Eliminate sleep crutches. Sleep crutches include: pacifiers, rocking, eating, car rides, stroller rides...basically anything that helps a baby go back to sleep. You want baby to learn how to self soothe, if you are always rocking them back to sleep then they will cry until you rock them back to sleep. Which is okay when they are two months old, but by month 10 you’ll really wish you were not a part of their sleep routine. Our twins liked pacifiers. And they worked well to soothe them for a while, but then we got into this routine of the paci falling out of their mouth and they’d cry, I’d go replace it. Only to have it fall out two minutes later. This gets old real fast. Eventually I just said, nope. I’ll go replace it once and after that you’re not getting it back. Did they cry? Yes, yes they did. I learned I was okay with some crying.
Follow eat, play, sleep. If you feed your baby and then put them down to sleep, you are giving them a huge sleep crutch. You want to feed the baby when they wake up to eliminate the sleep crutch. They wake up, you feed them, you play with them (remember for newborns this can be holding them and talking to them) and then you put them down to sleep again.
Slowly start doing naps in their crib. I started with just one nap a day and slowly worked my way to all naps. It can be very freeing to have your baby sleep in their own room. It’s a little scary at first, but whoa, go take a shower, mama.
During the day, follow wake window times. You can find charts on wake windows online and most are similar enough that it doesn’t matter which one you follow. But for every month your baby is, there is a certain amount of time they should be awake before going back to sleep. In the sleep training world, wake windows are very important. Right now my babies are 4 months old, their wake window is 1-1.75 hours. It’s short, ya’ll. I watch for tired cues (yawning, rubbing eyes) and then I go put them down for a nap. We do a mini bedtime routine before naps to signal sleep. Remember, the wake window includes the time it takes to feed the baby and the time for them to go to sleep before the next nap.
Practice crib hour. Around 3 months I start taking sleep more seriously. I give the baby one hour to fall asleep on their own before I step in. Yes, that means they cry. As long as I know they’ve been fed, they’ve recently been changed, and they are generally comfortable, I will let them cry. None of my babies have ever lasted the entire hour. A couple times it’s been about 45 minutes of torture (because of course I’m just sitting and looking at the monitor while biting my nails). But then they fall asleep. Usually they fall asleep in 5-15 minutes.
Once they are asleep, keep them in their crib for 75 minutes. A baby’s sleep cycle is 30-45 minutes. They will likely wake up at that time and cry. This is when you usually rush in to give the paci back, or rock, or sing, or whatever. Once I’m full on sleep training, I stop doing that. Yes, they will cry again. But I let them. I want them to learn to self soothe.
Our 4 Month Schedule
6:30 am desired wake time
1st feeding, play
7:30 am-9:30 am 1st nap
9:30 am 2nd feeding, play
10:30 am-12:30 pm 2nd nap
12:30 pm 3rd feeding, play
1:30-3/3:30 pm 3rd nap
3:30 pm 4th feeding, play
5:00 pm bedtime routine + final feeding of the day
5:30 pm sleep for night
We will constantly be adjusting this schedule as the babies grow and change. If you have twins too, then know I do everything for my twins at the exact same time. I want them on the same schedule, so if one wakes up, I wake the other up. If one is ready for sleep, I put the other to sleep too. I’m not sure how long I can do this for, but for now it’s working pretty well.
Resources I Recommend:
I followed the 3 Day Sleep Solution for many of my tips. I also love following Taking Cara Babies on Instagram. I haven’t taken any of her classes, but she has so much great *free* advice. On Facebook you can find the group Respectful Sleep Training/Learning. This group was my lifesaver! They have files which answer about any question you have (including the 3 day sleep solution workbook). Also everyone asks questions and lots of people answer in helpful ways. I usually don’t even need to post my question, I just search for the topic and read what other people have posted and the answers. I also read the book On Becoming Baby Wise.
Final Thoughts
Baby sleep can be hard! I am no expert. I am simply another mom who was desperate and wanted our lives to not suck. I did a lot of reading and asked a lot of questions. I just want to share what I’ve learned and what I’ve done in case anyone out there can benefit. At the end of the day, it’s your baby and you gotta do what you want! I’m not here to judge you or make you feel guilty. There’s too much of that crap out there already. I’m just here to say, “I see you, maybe I can help.”
Sleep tight,
Sarah