Posted by Does your baby keep waking up at night leaving you exhausted and wondering:
“When will my baby sleep through the night?!” 😩
I’ve been there with my two kids and feel your pain, mama.
I’ll tell you a couple of truths about baby sleep that you probably don’t really want to hear though.
The first one is:
Your baby isn’t going to just suddenly sleep through the night. It is a skill you have to teach and work at just like you would teach them to use a spoon.
The second truth is:
You can’t buy your way out of this incredibly difficult first year of baby sleep. No fancy crib or weighted sleep sack is going to stop your baby from waking up during the night. (Tried that!)
But!…
There is plenty that you can do now to stop baby from waking at night excessively and get him to sleep through the night consistently by the time he turns 1.
In fact, by age 6-7 months, both my boys could fall asleep without help (no rocking, bouncing, bottles, pacifiers, breastfeeding to sleep, etc.). I’d put them in the crib, awake, and they’d go to sleep alone in their room.
By 12 months and 13 months respectively, they both slept 11-12 hours through the night.
And they have continued to do this EVERY NIGHT since then. (With the exception of the occasional nightmare, of course.) They’re now ages 2 and 5.
I have friends who are still struggling every night to get their 5 year olds to fall asleep without help and stay in their own beds all night. And they’re exhausted.
They wish they had worked on independent sleep habits when their kids were babies before fears and insecurities became a thing.
This is why it’s so important to start implementing these baby sleep hacks now.
And I’m excited to share what I know!
Future you is going to be well-rested when your child sleeps through the night consistently by age one. Believe me, you will thank yourself!
I’ll be covering a lot in this post so feel free to pin it so you can come back to it as needed 👇
This post contains affiliate links. For more information read my full disclosure here.
Teach Baby To Fall Asleep By Self
This is the first step to stopping so many unnecessary night wakings.
As I mentioned, we taught our babies to fall asleep on their own by 6-7 months old.
Before I get into how we did this, let me tell you why teaching this skill stops baby from waking up every 10, 20 or 30 minutes at night and helps them sleep through the night by age 1.
Why It’s Important
First, think about how you usually get your baby to fall asleep.
Whether it’s bouncing or rocking, it’s probably in your arms or maybe in a swing, right?
I breastfed my babies to sleep and then would do the careful transfer into the pack n play next to my bed.
This is wonderful. It works. But here’s the problem…
When baby wakes up (as we all naturally do throughout the night), he can’t resettle himself without the thing that put him to sleep.
He fell asleep on my breast in the warm comfort of my arms, but then upon the slightest waking, alarm bells go off.
Where’s mom?! How did I get HERE?!
He doesn’t know how to get back to sleep without me so he cries. I’m up to soothe him with a little breast even though he’s not hungry. I was just up an hour ago.
Sound familiar?
It’s exhausting.
But once you teach your baby to fall asleep on his own without any help from you or any pacifiers, bottles, rocking, etc., he will also be able to resettle himself more through the night.
Then instead of waking several times, he will cry when he actually needs to be fed. (And you’ll eventually wean when appropriate… more on that later).
So how do you teach your baby to fall asleep on his own?
Begin At 5-6 Months+ (No Earlier)
First, make sure your baby is at least 5 months old. Any baby sleep book will tell you that younger infants are not ready to learn any of this.
And let’s face it, we need to say goodbye to that 4 month sleep regression first. (Regressions are not the time to teach new sleep skills.)
Introduce A Bedtime Routine
Introducing a bed time routine when your baby is only 5 or 6 months old might seem silly, but it’s not.
Babies this young can actually recognize the pattern of a bed time routine, which helps ready them for sleep. The key is to do the same things each night so it becomes familiar.
Here is how I introduce mine to baby:
First, we close the blinds and dim the lights in the house about 30 minutes before bed to signal it’s coming. I turn on a lamp in the room baby sleeps in as well.
When I bring baby into the dimly lit bedroom, I change his diaper, put on his pajamas, brush teeth, put on his sleep sack, read a short board book and then sit down to breastfeed. He falls asleep breastfeeding. Then I turn off the lamp, and lay him down in the crib.
Same thing, same order every night.
After I’ve spent a week or two familiarizing baby with my bed time routine, it’s time to teach him to fall asleep by himself.
Gentle Training
Begin by doing this only at night when he’s most tired (naps will naturally follow after baby has mastered night.)
So I’ve just gone through my bed time routine, but instead of breastfeeding baby to sleep, I want to put him in his crib awake. I keep him awake by tickling his cheeks or talking to him while he’s breastfeeding. Then I read the board book after his feed. I turn out the light, put him in the crib and walk out of view as I sing a lullaby.
And then… crying ensues.
I stay in the room and let him cry for maybe 30 seconds to a minute and then I pick him up and comfort for the same amount of time and then put him back down in the crib.
Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
This will be hard at first. But you’re there to comfort your little one and he will find a way to self-soothe and go to sleep on his own.
My eldest learned to suck on his hands and my youngest would rock his head back and forth.
This pick up put down routine may take a few days but each day baby will cry a little less and it will take less time for him to self soothe as he recognizes the bedtime routine. Before you know it, you’ll be amazed at how fast he’ll start to put himself to sleep with no crying at all.
Note: This is different from “cry it out” because that involves leaving him alone in the room for several minutes at different intervals to cry.
Here, you’re always there to comfort and reassure your baby by picking him up for a short time or also talking to him or rubbing his back a few seconds when he’s in the crib.
Of course, you may have a harder time teaching your baby this skill if your baby is overtired because you’re not following wake windows.
So let’s talk about that a little bit.
Follow Wake Windows
Wake windows are the amount of time that your baby can be awake at a certain age before they need to nap. Any time longer than their wake window will leave them overtired and fussy.
Below is an infographic of baby wake windows by age that you can Pin and refer to as needed:
If you ever wondered:
Won’t my baby sleep better at night if I keep him up past his wake window and he’s extra tired?
Nope. It’s the opposite actually.
This brings me to my next point.
Good Day Sleep Means Better Night Sleep
If your baby isn’t following wake windows or getting enough day time sleep, it’ll likely make it more difficult for him to self settle at bed time and sleep through the night.
An overtired baby is always a thousand times harder to get down. So make sure baby has enough naps throughout the day for an easier bedtime routine and better night’s sleep.
I’m kind of a control freak when it comes to naps. By 6 months old, I always did outings and ran errands right after baby woke up so that we could be home to have scheduled naps IN THE CRIB.
Short car naps always mess up daytime sleep and thus, have never been my thing (if I could help it anyways).
My babies always slept best when following a daily schedule where they nap and go to bed at roughly the same time every day. I’m still doing this with my 2 year old. The predictability makes sleep come so much easier.
If you haven’t started your baby on a schedule yet, you can find age appropriate schedules for your baby here.
Practice “Le Pause”
After your baby has mastered falling asleep by himself at bed time and is on a routine sleep schedule, try practicing “le pause” when he wakes up at night.
This is a French method that basically means that when you hear your infant cry out at night, don’t rush to pick him up immediately. Pause for a few minutes to see if your baby can self-soothe back to sleep.
This is a great opportunity to let your baby practice his new skill. And he’ll need to if he’s to learn to resettle himself throughout the night.
Plus, you know your baby’s cries.
Is it a whimpering that’s quieting down here and there after a few minutes that makes you think he’s self-soothing?
Or is he screaming for you to pick him up?
You’ll know when to intervene if necessary.
Eliminate Outside Elements
After all your hard work of teaching baby to fall asleep and resettle himself, the last thing you want is for him to wake at 5am because of natural daylight.
Be sure to eliminate this possibility by keeping things DARK in his bedroom.
It’s also easier for baby to fall asleep in a room that is dark since it sends a natural cue that it’s sleepy time.
We had blackout blinds installed in our kid’s rooms by Costco and love them. But you can also grab some hanging ones like these ones here for an easy solution.
In addition to keeping things dark, you’ll want to eliminate any outside noises from waking baby.
We used to live on a busy street where the ambulance went by often- *CRINGE*. So I have been using a Dohm machine in each of my kid’s rooms since infancy.
Plus:
Research shows that children sleep deeper with white noise, so yes to that!
Night Wean
The last thing that you’ll have to do to get your baby to sleep through the night by the time they are 1 is to wean them off of any night time feedings.
Since babies this age are capable of meeting their nutritional needs during the day, you can nighttime wean as you get closer to one year. (Check with your pediatrician)
Do this by offering a little bit less in the bottle or a couple minutes less at the breast every 2-3 nights. (Less liquid also means no middle of the night diaper change).
Just make sure to replace it by offering more milk or food during the day.
I remember stuffing my firstborn with cheerios right before bed at this age, hoping he could make it through the night! Of course, he finally did. 😅
Final Thoughts On Getting Baby To Sleep Through The Night
I know some of these baby sleep hacks sounded difficult, but don’t let that stop you from starting now.
Teaching our babies to be independent sleepers and sleep through the night by age one was the single best thing we ever did as parents for both our children… and our sanity!
My husband and I get to enjoy uninterrupted adult time in the evenings. AND, we don’t wake up feeling like zombies anymore.
If you’re feeling hesitant, let me tell you how our children have also benefited from becoming independent sleepers as infants:
- They’re well-rested and happy (less whining!)
- They’re able to self-regulate and identify when they are tired
- They’ve learned that bed time is a loving experience and hardly ever fight going to bed itself (maybe just the brushing teeth part 😂)
- We’ve read hundreds of books by including reading in our bedtime routine from infancy, which has lead to better speech and vocabulary
- They’ve become deep thinkers just by being able to lay in bed alone before falling asleep and upon waking (even the 2 year old will lay quietly in his crib for 20 min upon waking!)
It really is a wonderful thing.
Yes, there will be plenty of hiccups along the way including the 8-10 month sleep regression, teething and possibly illness. So just be patient with the process and you’ll get there.
Before you know it you’ll have a one year old who sleeps through the night every night.
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