any tips for getting baby to sleep thro the night??

LauraLee - posted on 03/26/2009

I have 3 kid's 10/ 5/ amd 1yr. All kid's are different, but you have to figure out if your baby is waking because they are hungry or because they awake a certain time every night. With my kid's after they were a couple months old I, when they awoke in the night I listened to their cry. If they were screaming, of course I would feed them. However, if it was just a whimper I would leave them in their crib to see if they would go back to sleep. You know your babies cries, and yes it was hard to just let them cry a bit, but they need to know how to fall back to sleep on their own. Hope this helps!

Kylie - posted on 03/26/2009

www.askdrdears.com is an excellent website thank you so much Ashley for recommending it.

Cry it out is not a good idea for a young babies.

Because your baby is still young putting him down awake but drowsy  and leaving her to peacefully drift off could help him sleep longer, this is the feed, play, sleep method.

Otherwise having a predictable bedtime routine and swaddling your baby (in cotton fabric) then rocking them off to sleep could be best. Your baby is more likely to stay asleep longer if he feels that sleep is a pleasant state to enter and a secure state to remain in. Sleeping through the night for young babies means 5-6 hour stretches.

Also A peaceful daytime is likely to lead to a restful night. The more attached you are to your baby during the day and the more baby is held and calmed during the day, the more likely this peacefulness is to carry through into the night.

Just as daytime parenting is a long-term investment, so is nighttime parenting. Teach your baby a restful attitude about sleep when they are young and both you and your children will sleep better when they are older. Good Luck!

Kerriann - posted on 03/26/2009

my doctor said you put the baby in the crib and let them cry it wont hurt them

Justine - posted on 03/26/2009

I used this routine, at 7pm I used to give him a bath, some camomile tea and then play with him a little, at 9pm he takes his bottle and at 2 months old he started sleeping the whole night

Rebecca - posted on 03/26/2009

My daughter slept through the night early , but there was a period when I travelled overseas for two months which through her routine. I believe its all to do with food, Ava seemed to be waking up for a feed during that time, once I got back from overseas and was able to get some regularity back into her routine, and she started sleeping through the night again.

Gemma - posted on 03/26/2009

my midwife told me to give my baby a nice warm bath, bottle down stairs to relax him then put him to bed for about half 7, keep a set routine... she said if he crys let him 4 5mins then go up lay him bk down without talking to him and walk away.. if he is still crying leave him 4 10mins and do the same, just add 5mins each time... if u do the same during the nite when he/she wakes up, they will soon get fed up of waking up... since i started doing that he gos down without a problem and he sleeps through till about 8.30.. i think it works a treat....

Rikki - posted on 03/25/2009

I know how you are feeling. My son is 6 mths and has only slept through the night 2 times. What I mean by sleeping through the night is sleeping 5 straight hours. We do have a bed time routine. I have tried co-sleeping. I have also tried the cry it out method. I just keep telling myself that it wont be forever and I just cherish the time that we have together.

Ashley - posted on 03/25/2009

I co sleep with my 7 week old.  I've read about it a lot because it's such a controversial thing but I totally believe it's the reason my baby has slept so well since the day we came home.  Especially if you breastfeed, you never have to get out of bed so neither of you ever fully wake up.  Last night he woke up at 5 am, wasn't even wet, so I just fed him side laying, went back to sleep until 8 am.  If you're interested, there's a great article about it that really helped me http://www.askdrsears.com/html/7/T071000....  It wasn't something I planned to do and of course it's not for everyone, but.  Also, I think getting a good bedtime routine set is good.  We give him a bath every night, put him in a sleeping gown, turn down the lights, put on soft music.  That way he knows it's bedtime.  Good luck!

Lisa - posted on 03/25/2009

I feed my 10 month old cereal mixed with yogurt juice before bed. I heard if they had a full tummy they sleep longer. Its helped me out alot. Hes teething pretty bad now though so hes not sleeping as much. A full belly is the trick. Depend on how old the baby is, you can always mix cereal in their bottle with those cross cut nipples. I did that before he was eating with a spoon. He loves it and the cereal last longer. Good luck!

Dana - posted on 03/25/2009

Check out the Ferber method- there is a book. Basically allow the baby to cry 5 minutes the night and keep increasing the minutes till the baby falls asleep on there own. Also I give my 3 mth old a scoop or two of cereal in his bottle to help him sleep as well.

Chrissy - posted on 03/25/2009

I just read a book called "On Becoming Babywise" by Gary Ezzo and Robert Bucknam and it was great. It's how to train your baby to sleep through the night naturally. It gives you a flexible routine of sleep, eat, play, sleep, eat, play. It also helps to make sure they're getting enough sleep during the day for nap time. It's harder to get an over tired, over stimulated baby to sleep. My little guy slept 12 hours from when he was 3 months. I highly recommend it! Good Luck!

Kelley - posted on 03/24/2009

I am on baby number two right now and my almost four month old sleeps through the night and has been for a while. My two year old was the same way. The only thing I can think that helps is I don't feed on demand, I feed every three hours. I don't have anything in their cribs like toys or mobils to distract them from sleeping and I make sure they are both well fed and dry before bed. The oldest gets a bath every night and the baby every other night. I also swaddle the baby, which a lot of people say you are not supposed to have anything like blankets and such but that's what they did in the hospital, and it probably feels more like the womb and comforting for them...Hope this helps

Jessica - posted on 03/24/2009

It's all about scheduling and your energy/personality. Your baby will pick up on your attitude, so if you're frustrated your baby will react negatively and vice versa. And the rest is scheduling. From the very beginning, you must get into a groove as best as possible. If you notice your baby getting tired at certain times and it looks consistant, then make sure you make that routine. Make sure his/her naps during the day are in a lit room with activity going on, because you want the calm and quiet to come later at night. You also want to avoid waking them to feed them. If they happen to sleep through a midnight feeding, let them! That will help create their sleeping habits to sleep through the night. I also had my doctor tell me not to feed my daughter a bottle anymore during the middle of the night (this was around 7 months old) but to give her a pacifier to appease her. This teaches them to put themselves back to sleep, and it really does work. Now, most of the time she will toss a little and then fall right back to sleep (sometimes I have to give her a pacifier). Lastly, you want to monitor the evening nap. I was allowing my daughter to take an evening nap around 7 to 8, because she was going down at 9 for bedtime. This gave an hour to get pj's on, lotion/bath, and to play a little bit to get energy out. Now my daughter is 9 months old and she rarely takes an evening nap, but she goes to bed at 8 now. With all that said, you really just have to pay attention to what they do in the day; naps (how long and many), their feedings, how much energy are they getting out of their systems, and your attitude when interacting with your child. Hope this helps; good luck!

Renee - posted on 03/24/2009

also the more feedings during the day the less likelyhood they wake up hungry at night. that is what the ped told us and i never woke my daughter up to eat. I let her wake up on her own.

Renee - posted on 03/24/2009

how old is your baby?? my daughter is 5 months and slept 4 hrs from the day she was born. i used to nurse duringthe day and bottle fed at night. I would give bath before bedtime as well with the lavender bathwash. now i dont nurse but she gets a bath in the morning then naps for 3 hours and sleeps from 9pm until 8 am. that's what worked for us!

Chelsea - posted on 03/24/2009

ok let me just say that you should NEVER wake a sleeping baby at night!!! my son has been sleeping though since he was 6 weeks and this is because i had him on 3 hourly feeds though out the day and demand feeding at night! he went from 2 feeds a night to one to none!! then i moved him on to 4 hourly feeds! he will go to bed now at about 7 and wake at 7 the next morning!!!! i knw it alot of people wont agree with that but my mum who is a baby care consultant gave me the routine to follow and it worked! if you would like any more help just let me knw!!!

Laura - posted on 03/24/2009

excellent,thanks everyone,i seem to be on the right track then,we do have a bedtime routine and he sleeps in his own room,hes only 3weeks at the minute so i know it'll take time,i just dont want 4 yrs of sleepless nites like i did with my first!! i'll bear everything in mind and fingers crossed it'll happen naturally!! thanks again!! xx

Amber - posted on 03/23/2009

Routine is very important. I agree that that Johnson and Johnson soothing bath wash and lotion before bed (every couple nights) is great! My daughter is 3 1/2 mos old and has slept through the night for a little over a month now. We do the same thing night after night, and I keep a pretty normal routine through the day as well. We try to keep her on a bit of a schedule as much as possible through the day and night. I try soothing music at night also, and that seems to help her as well. Hope this helps.

Rea - posted on 03/23/2009

I have two chldren and luckly for me the first started sleeping through from 2weeks old 8pm-7am and my second daughter took a little longer 6 weeks old, she started again the simular times.

I had a little advice from some old school mums...lol

I found making sure that baby is active and stimulated for at least a few hours before bed time, a relaxing bath, lovely cuddle and formula (woddeling is good also, they feel like they are being cuddled) and a dark room for sleep (nap times in the day has to be in a light room, they seem to realise the length of sleep patterns that way) and also cutting or waking them during the day so they only have an hour nap at each time rather than any longer.

Routine is always the key... it can take some time, but always worth it for a good nights sleep.

Betty - posted on 03/23/2009

hey. it depends on what age u'r baby is. our little girl didn't start sleeping thro the night until she was around 9 months and if i hadn't done sumthing about it she'd probably still be getting up at night. i nursed her, and she would get up every 2anda half to 3 hrs at night. and i started looking into it and reading up on it and i learned that at 6 months u'r baby should be able to sleep through the night without a feeding. so they had a few suggestions on how to go about it, but every baby is different so different methods work for different babies. for ours i pretty much did it cold turkey. but 1 of the ideas they had was to instead of going to u'r baby as soon as he/she wakes up, to wait 5 min and then go, and then the next time wait 10 min and so on. and then the next night start with 10 min and go from there.do u know what i mean? but with our daughter when she woke up i didn't go to her right away and i think within those 5 min she just fell back asleep on her own. and it only took a couple nights and she's been sleeping thro the night ever since. i think i just had her used to being fed that often it wasn't at all that she needed it.they saythat everybody's body wakes up on it's own at night but we can put ourselves back to sleep without noticing it, but baby's don't know how to put themselves back to sleep so they to learn that. i dunno if this will help u at all....i hope it does. good luck!

Erin - posted on 03/23/2009

My son just started sleeping through the night. I gave him more food before bed that way he didnt wake up till about 5am. He was a good boy though, slept through the night at 4weeks,

Jenny - posted on 03/23/2009

Every baby is different. My son didn't sleep through the night until about 5 or 6 months. But a few things helped. 

1. having a bedtime routine, that is very different from any other routine during the day. 

2. i know this sounds crazy but the johnson & johnson bedtime body wash, oil and lotion helped! the lavender scent calmed both me and my son down. 

3. using static or white noise, which mimics the womb. 

4. having a larger amount of food before bedtime. 

5. giving the baby a bath before bedtime (this helps with the routine) 

like i said, every baby is different. my son's pediatrician told me that at 14 pounds, babies stomachs can go longer without feedings and are sustained enough throughout the night. hope this helps! good luck! 

Heather - posted on 03/23/2009

My son began sleeping through the night (6-7 hours) at 3 weeks, but he was a BIG baby and didn't need to be fed every 2-3 hours.

By 3 months he began sleeping 10 hours a night, staying on schedule, and putting him to bed in his own room has definately helped.

We feed him his bed time bottle in his dark room, if he goes to bed a little early, we top him up with another bottle before we go to bed.

My husband and I found what works for us, and stick to it.

Good Luck!

Brandi - posted on 03/23/2009

With both of my children they started to sleep through the night (9:30pm-ish til 6am-ish) from about 3 weeks old. What I did was get a moss bag. This is a traditional native american/canadian swaddling bag (like a baby sleeping bag). What it does is swaddles them up nice and snug. Often when a baby wakes in the middle of the night it is merely because they have flailed an arm or shifted and lost their blankets, NOT because they are hungry or have some other need. With the moss bag their arms are secure as are the blankets. Now my youngest (he'll be 7 months old next week) goes down at about 9:30, wakes me up around 5:30 (he is crying but still asleep), feeds, and goes back to sleep until about 9:30 in the morning. If you live near a reservation, often there is a craft store or the like there and they may have one ready made that you can buy (mine cost $100 CAD and was custom made). There are also some commercially made products out there that are pretty good. Also, the routines that many of the other posters have suggested really helped us too, though I find the routine more effective with my 2 1/2 year old than I do with the baby, but he's getting there! I hope that helps!!

Ashley - posted on 03/23/2009

my son was sleeping through the night by 6 weeks:) i just had a routine that we did every night from the time we got home from the hospital and it's helped alot.

Tabatha - posted on 03/23/2009

my boy slepted through thenight since 5 weeks old. what i did was when he was hungery i feed him. just befor i put him down for the night him and daddy would have a shower then i would get my boy and dry him off. then i would rub him down with the johnsons bedtime message gel, then i would read him a story, then feed him a bottle of JUST formula or breastmilk! NOT WITH PABLUM BECAUSE THERES S RISK OF CHOKING! then i would put him in his crib turn his mobile on and close the door( not all the way). by this time its was 7:30pm i would stay up for about 2 hrs after i put him down. then just befor i went to bed i would sneek into his room and feed him 1 more time, he would be asleep for this feeding! then lay him back down and he would be down till 6:30 am every morning! after about 2 months of doing the sleep feeding i stopped doing it and he would just sleep all night! i hope this helps you. keep in mind that no matter how good of a sleeper the baby is they dont sleep well when they hit a growth spurt or have teeth coming in!!

Monica - posted on 03/23/2009

sleeping throught the night is sleeping 4-6 hours for a baby and depending on the age they should be eating ever 2-4 hours

Rachel - posted on 03/23/2009

Quoting Laura:

any tips for getting baby to sleep thro the night??

just wondered what the secret was to getting a young baby sleeping thro the night???thankyou!!

Everyone child is different, so don't stress out too much about this.  What we did for our daughter is set up a routine in the evenings of bath (every couple days), putting her in night clothes, breastfeeding, reading to her, placing her in her bed, and putting on some soothing music.  It was important to us to be consistent, although it's difficult at first when I was so exhausted from waking up all the time and having to let her cry.  She started sleeping through the night around 3-4 months old.  Now that she's one we don't always put on the music and I'm not breastfeeding anymore, but  it seems that when she knows what to expect, she acts accordingly after a while and she's a happier baby for it.  Hope this helps.

Cassandra - posted on 03/23/2009

My daughter slept 9 -9 since day 1. I kept her as much as possible during the day and fed her often (I nursed, but it doesn't matter what your method is.) Right before bed would be the longest span of time and the biggest feeding. I would also do the same thing every night before bed so she would know. We took a bath or got wiped clean, put into pjs, and then read a book, and then rocked in a chair until she fell asleep. I'd kiss her and she'd wake up in 12 hours... :) Does that help?

Amanda - posted on 03/23/2009

My daughter is now 11 months and has slept through the night since she was 7 weeks.  Tip one: wake your baby up a 1/2 hour before you go to bed and feed a bottle.  Tip two: if your child takes naps during the day with noise or without try to do the same at night to make them most comfortable.

Nicole - posted on 03/23/2009

My son is 9 months old and I just got him to sleep through the night. He was waking up 2-3 times a night and drinking full bottles. So one night when he got up I gave him water instead of formula. He didn't like it much and he cried a little but I just let him cry. After a couple of nights like that he started eating more during the day and didn't need to get up in the middle of the night. Hope this helps.

Keshia - posted on 03/23/2009

My 3 month old does not always sleep throughout the night but when she does.  I normally give her a bath in Johnsons calming body wash and lotion her with the lotion, a warm bottle with a teaspoon of cereal. 

Emily - posted on 03/23/2009

That depends on how young! While I don't think a babyshould be sleeping through the night before 5 months old in most cases to be completely honest my first daughter slept through the night very early (3 weeks)and I was told that it was because I was feeding her enough during the day that she didn't need to wake up at night to eat.  My other child whom I also fed on demand, coslept with, and basically did everything the same with is two and a half years old and not sleeping through the night. I think they just do it when they are ready. If you still measure your baby's age in weeks, he or she probably shouldnt be sleeping through the night.