We are very lucky with a little guy who enjoys sleeping. He is really only cranky when he is tired, hungry or teething.
Here are a few things we did that we found help with sleep...then again I also think it is just the luck of the draw! Some babies like to eat and some don’t, some will sleep through the night and some won’t.
With that said, here are some tips I hope help you and your little one!
- Crib: we put him in his crib /in his own space around 3 months. Co-sleeping has many pros, but when the baby can get used to sleeping in their own space, they might sleep better (because they aren’t waking up with you moving and waking you up, which then leads to you checking them, changing them more and feeding them instead of letting them learn to make connections between sleep cycles ).
- Sleep routine: we started a sleep “routine” right around 3 months. That is we got ready for bed time at the same time every night, with bottle, bath and PJs and a story. Then he would go down at 8pm. No matter if he was up every 3 hours after that, it was his bed time and starting a routine started to help him learn this was his time to go down for the night.
- Hungry or just want soothing? This was something we had to figure out. Once we noticed he could go back to sleep without a bottle, after just a few times of soothing (around 4 months), we knew he could go all night and he did! We pushed up his bedtime to 7:30 and from then he sleep about 10hrs.
- Sleep associations: a few other things we allowed in the crib...his wubunub, Lovey, and we put him in a sleep sack after he outgrew swaddling, and of course white noise (which we prefer on the ocean setting now). All of these things bring him comfort and are only offered for naps and bedtime, so he now associates them with sleep.
At the end of the day, you can always ask your pediatrician or a sleep consultant for advice if you are having a tough time!
Hope this is useful and here’s to all of us parents getting tons of sleep in the futur (hahahha).