My experience: The baby box next to the bed really helped here. This gives your little darling a chance to go back to sleep without you. Start with just one breath and build up to a longer pause over time – 2 or 3 minutes if you can. When your sweet pea inevitably wakes up in the night, take a few breaths before rushing to his or her side. Pause for a few seconds before going to your baby at night. 05 seconds of awake, right?” Over time, W was more alert and I would put her down when her blinks started to get very heavy and slow. My best strategy was to rub W’s back a little as I put her down. My experience: I got obsessed with the definition of “drowsy.” I mean, what does “drowsy” even look like in a baby that passes out while nursing? It turns out finding the perfect amount of “drowsy” doesn’t matter at all and I was just being crazy. So rock, walk, sing, whatever until your sweetie is oh-so-close to asleep, but put her in her bed before her little eyes are shut tight. Your little one feels disconcerted when she falls asleep in your arms but then wakes up an hour later in a different place. Here’s how:Īt bedtime, put baby to sleep drowsy, but awake. Otherwise you get to wake up every 45-60 minutes, too. Since babies wake up a lot, it’s helpful for them to learn how to go back to sleep without you. Help baby learn to put him or herself back to sleep.

Babies’ nervous systems are immature so they wake every 45-60 minutes. Adults wake every 90 minutes or so to flip over their pillows or elbow their partners. Here’s what I’ve learned from baby sleep books:īabies wake up… a lot. * Note: If you’re facing a specific sleep or health issue – like night terrors or sleep apnea – it’s worth talking to your doctor and reading the books yourself. The great news is that because I’ve read all of these books, you don’t have to.* All babies are different and that’s why there are 45 million(ish) baby sleep books. Ultimately, our winning combination was putting her to sleep in a baby box next to the bed, drowsy but awake, with a tiny dash of sleep training at her 4-month sleep regression. And I was terrified of losing it when I had my daughter, Winnie.

I did this because sleep is my spirit animal. (Pour one out for the fun, well-rounded person I was once.) I’ve got Jodi Mindell, Richard Ferber, Harvey Karp, Moms on Call, Marc Weissbluth, The Informed Parent, Baby 411, William Sears, Zero to Five, and Bringing up Bebe. That’s because the only e-books I own are baby sleep books. My friends and I were swapping Amazon passwords so we could download each other’s Kindle libraries (shhh…).īut. I was at a girls’ weekend a few months back. Ferber, Sears, Healthy Sleep, Sleeping Through the Night, etc.

Are you sleeping book