How I Got My Son to Sleep Through the Night

My son was a GREAT sleeper when he was born. He was sleeping several hours at a time the first couple of nights. I was all “alright I got this, I can handle this whole motherhood thing…” well boy was I wrong (see my post How Brad Paisley Changed My Life to hear more about how sleep deprivation tore apart my life, my marriage, and my motherhood). My son had severe jaundice and wasn’t eating enough which made him not poop enough which made his jaundice worse. It was a vicious cycle. So, we had to wake him up every hour to feed him until his jaundice levels went down. It took us almost 3 weeks to finally get his jaundice under control so we turned him from a great sleeper to a terrible sleeper. Basically, we did reverse sleep training… it was overwhelming/ And, frankly it was hard.

So how did we get back on track?

Research

Let me tell you it was with a lot, and I mean A LOT, of research. I read every book I could get my hands on and I came up with every possible phrasing to Google sleep training. So, what worked? First, was a book our pediatrician recommended called Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. This book is the best book I have read about baby sleep! And, I have read so many of them from On Becoming Babywise to the Happiest Baby on the Block to the No-Cry Sleep Solution… so many sleep books.

So, please learn from my mistakes and start with Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. I like this book because it isn’t a one size fits all plan. It helps you develop a plan/routine/schedule based on your baby. So, a plan for a baby with colic will look different than a baby with a content disposition. It can be so overwhelming to read a book that tells you something will work when you know darn well it won’t simply because it is a one size fits all approach. My son had reflux, tongue tie, and possibly colic so he was on the pretty fussy end of the spectrum and this book really helped me cater a plan just for him.

A Quick and Consistent Routine

I think the most important aspect of teaching your baby to sleep is a routine. Think about your nighttime routine. You don’t just hop into bed with your clothes on, teeth unbrushed, face unwashed, and so on. You have a routine even if you don’t realize it. Now, I am not a great sleeper (well not anymore when I was a kid I slept like a log) and I am truly jealous of my husband who can hit the pillow and be asleep… instantly. Its almost like he started falling asleep while he walked to the bed. But, I digress.

My sleep is triggered by a couple of steps. First, I wash my face, then brush my teeth, get in my PJs, read for 30 mins or so then lights out. These steps let my brain know ok it’s that time let’s get ready to sleep. It is the same thing for your baby but even more so! You are teaching your baby everything… literally everything. They don’t even know the difference between day and night. So, the importance of a daily routine can’t be overstated.

Make it short and sweet

When you decide on the nighttime routine you would like to stick with make it short and sweet. I think around ten minutes is the ideal amount of time. You want this routine to be something you can stick with for a long time so making it a 45-minute ordeal is setting yourself up for failure. For my son our routine is feeding -> diaper change –> massage –> pajamas + Owlet Monitor –> book (Goodnight Moon) + rocking –> lullaby –> bed. All in all, it takes about 10 minutes. This sequence of events lets my son know alright it’s time for bed. We put him in his crib while he is still awake and he gets himself to sleep all by himself and sleeps all night (well most nights anyway).

It took about a week of putting him to bed drowsy but awake before he would stop screaming his head off the second we put him down. I don’t like the idea of cry it out so I didn’t let him cry more than 5 minutes ever. I would put him in his crib and rub his tummy or legs or arms to calm him down. Some nights that didn’t work and he would be too upset so I would pick him back up to calm him down. After about a week of this he stopped throwing a fit when I would put him in his crib and now he will get himself to sleep with absolutely no problems.

Lullabies

This brings me to the importance of lullabies. I love to sing. Do I have the most beautiful voice in the world absolutely not but I love it nonetheless. I started singing the same song to my son every day while I was still pregnant. The first time my son smiled is because I was singing his lullaby. I think having a special song that is “his song” has helped with bonding and it is so soothing for him (Check out my post on ways to make your child feel special).

The song I sing to my son is Dream a Little Dream – Doris Day. I love this song, it soothes him and isn’t annoying to sing every day. Not only does this song help him get ready for sleep but it also helps calm him in stressful situations like when he gets a shot or when he hurts himself. Even if your baby is a little bit older I think adding a special song is a great way to improve a sleep routine.

Sound/White Noise Machines

We have a little owl that shines stars onto the ceiling that plays different sounds in the nursery. Having some sort of white noise machine is a great way to help a baby fall asleep and stay asleep. For our son, we keep the white noise setting set to low so it is quiet enough to not drive us nuts in the monitor all night but loud enough to block out any noises that may startle our son awake. My biggest piece of advice for choosing a sound machine setting is don’t use a song for your ambient noise. First, because it is really annoying to listen to the same 20-second melody played over and over all night long. Second, you don’t want your child to need that song to fall asleep because that is just causing sleep problems later down the road.

Early bedtime

It is so counter-intuitive but the more sleep your baby gets the more they will sleep. I, like many mothers, mistakenly thought if I put my baby to sleep later they would sleep later. Wrong. We started with an 8:30 bedtime for my son (when he was about 6 months old) and he would wake up every 2 hours. We finally moved up his bedtime to 6:30 and he slept for 6 hours! I woke up in a panic that morning because something was off I could tell I had been sleeping much longer than normal so I checked the Owlet readings (check out my post Products that Helped Me Sleep at Night as a First Time Mom to learn about the Owlet) and the video monitor but our son was still sleeping!

The most important part of getting my son to sleep through the night was moving up his bedtime. So, if you don’t already put your baby to bed between 6:00-8:00 try that first! Now, it can be pretty hard on our social calendars when our baby needs to be in bed by 6:30 every night. But, after living with no sleep for so long I will do whatever it takes to make sure my family is healthy, happy and sleeping again.

Of course there will be times where he will fall asleep while we are out but in all honesty, we avoid this whenever we can. But hey life happens and that’s ok. When we get our son off his regular sleep schedule we just get right back to it as soon as we can. It is usually one night of off and on sleeping and he is back to normal.

The result

You have to decide at what age you think your child is ready for sleep training and to what extent you would like to do it. For our family we decided our son would sleep in the Halo Swivel bassinet until he was four months old, then we would move him to his crib. From four to six months we usually had to rock him until he was asleep before putting him in his crib. Once he was six months old we started putting him to sleep fairly drowsy. Then when our son was around eight months old we started putting him in his crib completely awake.

We decided the cry it out method wasn’t right for our family but we did let him cry for a couple of minutes before we would go back into his room. By the time he was 9 months old he was sleeping through the night more often than not. Now, at 11 months he is sleeping through the night the majority of the time. Obviously, when he is sick or teething his sleep is disrupted but for all other nights our son is now a great sleeper!