One thing I’ve had a few questions regarding, was how the hell did I manage to get my baby to sleep through the night from 9 weeks old? From what I’ve read, this is actually not common as many babies are still not sleeping through until around 5-6 months. So I thought I’d share everything we did to encourage healthy sleeping habits and create a good sleeping routine for Jack. My mum also used these tips on my brother and I, and both of us were sleeping through the night by about 6-7 weeks. Now obviously I’m no expert and this won’t work for every baby, but I do believe establishing a good routine early on does make for a world of difference when it comes to having a calm and relaxed baby. And a calm and relaxed baby means more sleep for everyone!
How we created a sleep routine
Now Jack was a pretty good sleeper from early on. Even when he was a newborn, he would only wake 2-3 times a night and could sleep easily for stretches or 4 hours or so before needing his next feed. We got him on to a flexible feeding routine fairly early on. Since Jack was so tiny when he was born, we were advised to wake him to feed him every three hours to feed. We did this for the first week or so, and at Jack’s next weigh in he had only lost 20grams which is nothing (most babies lose a fair bit of weight when they are first born), so we decided to then let him choose when he wanted to be fed and we fed on demand.
I wonder if this waking every three hours did help with creating good sleeping routines. While we demand fed during the day, we tried to keep him to a routine at night, putting him to bed around 8.30-9pm and then giving him a dream feed around 11pm before we went to bed. He then had another feed around 2am and another around 5am before waking around 7.30-8am. At the start I would wake him up to feed at these times, and then after a couple of days he naturally woke at these times.
Right from the very start, when I got up with Jack during the night I never turned the lights on. I would use the light on my cellphone to see what I was doing but I kept the room very dark and quiet. I didn’t speak or interact with Jack and I didn’t even look him in the eye. We just got up, fed, nappy change, and more feeding before a burp and put back in his bassinet. By the time he was two weeks old he was going back to sleep easily after each wake up and I never had any trouble trying to settle him. I really put this down to the fact that I never gave him any stimulation during the night, so it was very different from the day, and was clear that it was sleep time.
At six weeks we swapped Jack over to solely formula and I think this also helped massively. It just filled him up so much more than breastmilk ever did and helped him to stay asleep longer rather than waking up starving because he wasn’t getting enough.
At this stage we also started to introduce a solid night time routine. It was only about a week of routine and formula before he dropped the 2am wakeup and just woke at 5am. After about another two weeks he had dropped that too and was going right through until 6.30am-7.30am in the morning.
We chose a bedtime of 8pm and worked back from there. It took us about 45 minutes to carry out his routine, so we started at 7.15pm, it now only takes us around 30 minutes. A bedtime routine can be anything you want it to be really, but the trick is to keep it the same every single night so the baby knows what to expect. It’s also good to keep it very calm and relaxed and as dark as possible (which is very hard during daylight savings!)
Our routine has changed a tiny bit from the age of 6 weeks to 4 months, as we added in a sleeping bag and a story before bed, and dropped a 60ml top up bottle we gave him right before he went to sleep (since he’s now on solids). But for the most part it’s been the same. His bedtime has also come forward as he’s dropped a daytime nap. Here’s what our bed time routine looks like now.
4 month old bedtime routine
5.15pm: Dinner time for Jack. He has a dinner of pureed vegetables and little bit of water.
5.30pm-6pm: Quiet play on the floor or in his bouncer with some quiet toys.
6pm Jack has his bedtime bottle. Then is burped and taken over to his change mat to get ready for his bath
6.10pm: Bath time in a nice warm bath before being wrapped in his towel and taken back to his change mat to be dressed. I put on his nappy and sing a couple of songs of “Incy Wincy Spider” before getting him into his pajamas
6.20pm: Jack gets into his sleeping bag. We go over to the window to look at the birds in the garden and I tell him they’ve all gone off to bed so it’s time for him to do so too. We read a book called Angel Bear which talks about going to sleep.
6.30pm: I carry him through to his room and sing him Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. I tell him how much I love him and will see him in the morning. I lay him in his cot and say good night before leaving the room.
I’d say 5 out of 7 nights, by the time we get back through until the living room we don’t hear another peep out of him until morning. Some nights if he’s a bit grumpy or overtired he will have a little grizzle but as long as it’s nothing major we just leave him. He only grizzles for a minute or so before falling asleep.
While we do try to keep this spot on for timing every day, there are some nights where all this doesn’t happen at the right time as we might have gotten home late etc. In that case we just do the whole full routine and he goes to bed a bit later. We never skip anything out, no matter how tired we are. Giving him a bath at 8.30pm at night is sometimes the last thing we feel like, but that 10 or so minutes of bath time is totally worth it!
Dealing with him when he wakes
Since Jack was 9 weeks old he has probably woken up during the night maybe 8 or 9 of those nights (he is now 21 weeks old). If he does wake up during the night, I give him a few minutes to try and resettle himself. If I have to go in and see him in the night, I never turn the night on (he has a soft nightlight in his room so I can see him anyway), and I still won’t talk to him or look him in the eye or he gets all excited and thinks it’s time to wake up. I will try and resettle him by rubbing his head and if this doesn’t work I might pick him up and give him a cuddle or burp. Once he stops crying, I then put him back down and leave the room. Usually I only need to do this once, but occasionally I’ll need to go in and do it a second time a few minutes later. I’ve never had to feed him during the night since that 9 week mark, instead I’ll try all other settling techniques.
When he wakes in the morning and I go and get him out of his cot, I always make a big deal out of it being morning time. I talk to him and open the curtains and tell him how well he did sleeping through the night. This is total contrast to how I interact with him during the night and tells him that it’s morning.
Getting baby to self settle
Getting a baby to self-settle is a huge factor in getting them to sleep well. We never introduced a dummy until Jack was about 10 weeks old and by this time he could settle himself anyway. We never gave it to him at night, only during nap times. We didn’t want him to rely on it during the night, otherwise we’d be up all the time putting it back in when it fell out!
Instead, we did everything the books tell you to do – don’t let your baby fall asleep on you or rock them to sleep, and put them to sleep when they are drowsy but not asleep. All of this worked and Jack really got used to being in his bassinet awake and learnt to fall asleep in it. When he discovered his hands, he went straight to sucking them for comfort and often we would wake up to the sound of him sucking on his wee fingers.
There were also some times when we would just let him cry for a few minutes before going in to see him and reassure him everything was okay. We only did this is we knew 100% he was fed, dry, and comfortable. I know some people don’t approve of this method, but I think in moderation it really works. It’s so hard hearing him cry, but I think if we picked him up every single time he cried during those first few months, we definitely wouldn’t have such a good sleeper now. He’s become a lot more independent and doesn’t rely on something to settle him back to sleep every single time he wakes.
Transitioning to a cot
This was probably the hardest thing for us in terms of Jack’s sleeping. I had him in the bassinet in my room and when his nursery was ready (just before three months old) I moved him into his cot for day naps only. He hated his cot as he preferred the closed in space of his bassinet so there were A LOT of tears. Through a bit of trial and error, we discovered that he fell asleep easier when listening to calming music, so we started playing Norah Jones every time he went down for a nap. We also introduced a cuddly and Jack took to this so well. We are very careful with it and only let him have it during day naps. We monitor him with it to ensure it doesn’t end up over his face as there are a lot of risks with babies and cuddlys. We are now just experimenting with not playing the music while he naps and so far so good!
After a few day naps in the cot, he transitioned easily to it for night time sleeps too. In fact I think he dealt with it better than me! The first night I missed him sleeping in our room so much, however since then I’ve been sleeping so much better. Being in different rooms means that all his little noises don’t wake me up like they used to, and I’m feeling so much more refreshed in the morning as a result.
Naps
Naps have been a bit tricky as since Jack started sleeping through the night he has become a bit of a catnapper and only naps for around 45 minutes. He always wakes up refreshed and happy though so I’m not worried too much about it. He now has 3 naps a day and that seems to be enough for him, combined with the 11 or 12 hours he gets at night. He seems to have a shorter morning and afternoon nap, and a slightly longer one around lunchtime and I try keep him up for 2 hours between naps. Sometimes he goes down for a nap beautifully, with only his cuddly and other times he grizzles for what seems like ages and needs his dummy to settle him. He is slowly learning how to put his dummy back in (which is great) but I know I’ll have to wean him off it for naps very soon. I always find it odd how he settles so well at night but struggles sometimes with naps! They are still definitely a work in progress!
And I’m pretty sure that’s everything! Thanks for making it to the end of a mammoth post, and I hope it might have been somewhat helpful if you are a bit stuck in how to try and encourage your baby to sleep. There really is no one solution for all, as all babies are different and this is just what worked for us. I really think what does work though is keeping to a routine and keeping bed times really calm. It’s also great to try and keep things quiet and calm during the night too.
