You did it! You made it through pregnancy and delivery, a less than restful hospital stay, and the first few nights at home with your precious newborn. Now you are free to spend hours staring at the sweet face of your blissfully sleeping baby and nap all you want since you baby is spending so much time sleeping. No? That’s not how it is working at your house? It didn’t work that way at my house either! Surviving the first few weeks with a newborn can be tough both physically and mentally, but you can and will do it!
Babies, unfortunately, don’t come with instruction manuals and no two babies are alike. Some newborn babies are naturally great sleepers and other babies have a very difficult time settling to sleep. Starting the moment you announced your pregnancy, you probably started receiving all sorts of baby advice in regards to sleep.
Sorting Through the Baby Advice
“Keep the baby in your room”, “Put baby in his own room”, “Baby should sleep 12 hours by 3 months”, “Baby needs to eat at night until at least 8-9 months of age”, “Crying it out is harmful”, “Crying it out is fine”, “Use white noise”, “White noise is dangerous”, “Get on a schedule ASAP”, “Schedules and babies don’t mix”
Sound familiar? How is a new mom supposed to know what to do? There are myriads of blogs, books, and websites dedicated to baby sleep and it can get quite confusing after a while! If you remember one thing remember this: your baby is unique and not like your sister’s/friend’s/co-worker’s baby. What worked for them may or may not work for you.
Surviving The First Few Weeks With A Newborn
While I do not recommend sleep training until at least 4 months of age corrected (many babies may not be ready until 5-6 months), there are several things you can do starting on Day One that will help both of you survive and thrive during the newborn period.
Special note to fussy baby families: mama who has read all of the “Do This To Help Your Baby Sleep Better” articles that you can find on the internet at 2 am, I hear you. I used to think “Yeah, you clearly haven’t met MY baby yet”. You are right, I haven’t met your baby yet (I so wish I could hold her while you take a nap!) but I do know that no matter how much your newborn is struggling with sleep right now that this too shall pass. It really will. I didn’t believe it when I was in the thick of it, but it did. My baby who used to wail the second she was out of my arms started sleeping beautifully on her own around 13 weeks of age and hasn’t looked back. The newborn days can be so very long and the nights even longer, but you will survive!
Remember “The Witching Hour”
Most newborns have a very fussy period each evening. This is the Period of Purple Crying also often called “the witching hour”. It usually occurs in the evening and typically at the same time each day. During this time your baby will be very, very difficult to soothe and many of your usual tricks may not work. This is not a reflection on you or your parenting! It is totally normal. It usually starts by 2 weeks, reaches its peak at 6-8 weeks and improves around 12-16 weeks. These crying periods can last as little as 30 minutes and as long as several hours (my little one cried from 7pm-12am many, many nights!).
Understandably, this is often super challenging for parents! Do what you need to do to survive this tough time. If you have a spouse, take turns trying to soothe baby. Ask a friend or relative to come over in the evening to support you. Take a deep breath. If you need to, put your baby in her crib for a few minutes while you take a breath and collect yourself or take a brief shower. Many cases of shaken baby syndrome occur during this period of crying when caregivers just want the baby to be quiet. This is why it is important that you keep yourself calm and put baby down in her crib if you are starting to get frustrated with her.
Learn Dr. Harvey Karp’s 5 S’s: Swaddle, Side/stomach (when held, not for sleep!), Sush, Swing, Suck. Use any or all of these to help calm your fussing baby. Your baby may need only one of the S’s or may need all 5 to help her calm down.
Rest as Much as You Can
You will be told over and over to “sleep when the baby sleeps”. This is hard to do in reality, especially if your baby is a cat napper and only sleeps for short periods of time. If you can’t nap there are other things you can do to help you rest: use paper products instead of washing dishes, buy frozen meals so all you have to do is throw something in the oven (there are a lot of decently healthy options these days!), use an online grocery service so all you have to do is pick them up, Amazon Prime everything else, and relax your cleaning standards for awhile.
Accept Help
True your Aunt may not fold your laundry “correctly”, but clean clothes are better than dirty clothes and folded laundry is better than piles upon piles. If someone offers to pick up something at the store for you, the answer is “yes”. If someone offers to vacuum your house or clean your bathroom, the answer is “yes”. Key point: don’t go behind this helpful person and re-do their generous work to your particular standards. Be thankful for the help and enjoy the break.
Enjoy Newborn Snuggles
It is true: you can’t spoil a newborn. While you can certainly create bad habits in older infants by rocking them to sleep, newborns cannot be snuggled too much. Key point: don’t fall asleep while you hold the baby. All those pictures on social media of dad sleeping on the couch with baby snoozing on his chest? Don’t be that dad/mom. As sweet as it looks, sleeping while you (or dad) are holding your baby is actually dangerous for your baby because while rare, babies can slip down and become wedged or trapped while you sleep which can have fatal consequences. It is so tempting to snuggle while you both nap, but it is not worth the risk.
Work on Day/Night confusion
Newborns sleep up to 20 hours a day. That’s a lot of sleep! Unfortunately for adults, newborns tend to break this up into lots of small periods that occur primarily during the daytime. While day/night confusion tends to resolve between 6-8 weeks of age, there are things you can do to help. Expose baby to light during the daytime. Soon after waking each morning, take your baby outside for a few minutes. The regular light exposure first thing in the morning will help set baby’s circadian rhythm (inner clock). I recommend newborns not nap in a dark room until 8-10 weeks of age. For nighttime feedings or wakings, keep things dark and quiet. Use the minimal amount of light you need to feed and change baby. Other than the white noise, keep things quiet.
Do Not Keep Baby Awake Too Long
Overtired babies are very fussy and very, very difficult to soothe to sleep. Newborns can stay happily awake for 30-45 minutes on average, with many having even shorter wake times than this. This means that much of their wake time will be spent feeding and not doing much else. As you and baby become better acquainted, you will start to recognize her sleepy cues: perhaps blinking repeatedly or a dazed look or rubbing her ear or yawning. Crying is a late sign – you don’t want to routinely wait until baby is crying to put her down for a nap (although it will happen many times. It is okay! You get to try again next time.)
Don’t be Afraid to Say “no”
Newborns attract visitors like honey attracts flies. While you most likely want to show off your precious baby, it is okay to say no if baby (or you!) needs a break. Also, you can tell people they are welcome to come over, but baby might be napping during their visit. If baby is happily sleeping when your guests are over, don’t feel pressured to go get her. Your visitors aren’t the ones who will be holding a wide awake baby at 2:00 am or trying to calm her during her fussy evening period – you are. This means that it is okay to prioritize keeping baby well rested even if it means visitors may have to wait until she is a bit older to hold her.
Give Baby Time To Practice
Let baby practice falling asleep by herself and practice “still sleep”. You are likely spending a lot of time rocking/walking/bouncing baby to sleep. This is perfectly okay to do when baby is under 4 months but if you are not careful it is easy to let baby become attached to a particular method of soothing – so much so that she will not be able to sleep without it when she is older. When baby gets to the drowsy-almost-asleep point, at least a few times a day try putting baby in her crib or bassinet. Most of the time she probably won’t fall asleep, but give her a chance. This is not crying it out, you aren’t just leaving her there. If she starts crying, pick her up, soothe her, and try again next time. By doing this over and over, she’ll get lots of practice falling asleep on her own and eventually practice makes perfect! When you soothe her to sleep for naps, stop rocking/bouncing/walking once she is asleep to let her get used to sleeping without motion. At least once or twice a day try to put baby down once she is sleeping instead of holding her for her entire nap.
Pause For a Minute
If baby has been sleeping happily in her bed and you suddenly hear a peep, wait just a minute before you go get baby. Babies are remarkably noisy sleepers for being such tiny people. There is a good chance that baby was making noises in her sleep and if you rush to her right away, you run the risk of waking her up. Even if she is already awake, by giving her a few minutes before you respond, you allow her a chance to practice returning to sleep and transition from one sleep cycle to the next. Obviously, if baby is very upset you should go to her and not make her wait.
Use Safe Sleep Practices
It is important to follow safe sleep practices. The AAP recommends several steps to reduce the risk of Sudden Unexpected Infant Death. In summary, baby should always sleep on her back on a flat, firm mattress, and alone in her crib/bassinet except for a pacifier (if you use one). If necessary, set an alarm so you don’t accidentally fall asleep holding baby after feeding in the middle of the night.
Swaddle Baby
Babies have a naturally occurring startle reflex (Moro reflex) that lasts until 3-6 months. You have undoubtedly seen this in action when baby suddenly flings her arms out to the side. This reflex tends to wake baby up, and swaddling helps prevent this from occurring. There are many brands and types of swaddles for you to chose from. Key point: chose one that fits well and be sure it cannot come up and cover baby’s face. Bonus points for zippers: they make middle of the night diaper changes that much easier! Once baby starts rolling (sometimes as early as 2 months) it is very important to stop swaddling so that baby will have her arms free to push up and move her head should she roll over to her tummy in her sleep.
Create a Sleep Routine.
Use this routine for bedtime and a shorter version for naps. By doing the same things in the same order before each sleep period, baby will eventually begin to associate those things with sleeping. If you create a routine early on, you may begin to notice the benefits as early as 3-4 months of age. Your routine does not have to be elaborate and should not be long. It can be as simple as a diaper change, swaddle, rock, and song before going in her bed to practice going to sleep.
Use a Daily Routine
Create a loose daily routine. Babies are not biologically ready for true schedules until at least 4 months of age. A schedule can be a beautiful thing for both mom and baby, but while you are waiting for baby to be ready, having a routine can help organize the day for both of you. It is generally recommended to Eat, Play, then Sleep. By separating eating and sleeping you are preventing an eat-to-sleep association from developing. When baby reaches 4+ months, you will be so glad you do not have to each baby to sleep without eating herself to sleep! Of course, there will be times when you need to feed baby to sleep in order to soothe baby or baby is tired and it happens before you realize she’s snoozing. Enjoy the warm fuzzy feeling in your heart and start over next time.
Create a consistent environment
While newborns are very portable and often able to sleep anywhere and through anything, make your goal to be home for as many naps as possible. The more your little one gets used to sleeping in her room and bed now, the less work you will have to do when baby is 3+ months old and suddenly unable to sleep through anything and everything. While the occasional car or stroller nap are unavoidable, you don’t want to make a habit of them because a) motion sleep is less restorative than still sleep and b) they are not sustainable long term. Your sleep routine, swaddle, white noise, and still sleep are also part of creating a consistent sleep environment. Until 8-10 weeks, it is okay for baby to nap in the kitchen/family room/where you are as long as she is in a safe bed and she is sleeping well. After 8-10 weeks, I recommend aiming for at least 1 nap a day to take place in baby’s night time room with all of them being there by 12 weeks.
The Bottom line
Hang in there, take one day at a time, and remember your ultimate goal – a baby who sleeps well and is able to fall asleep (and return to sleep) by herself. This won’t happen overnight and may feel like two steps forward and three steps backward. But practice makes perfect and if you stick with it you will reap the rewards. When your friends are lamenting the sleep struggles of their 9-month-old, you’ll smile to yourself and be thankful for your baby’s healthy sleep habits.
Happy Sleeping!
