#sleepingthroughthenight

Is this normal?

Are you reaching for that third cup of joe after being up multiple times last night? Feeling worried that the nighttime interruptions will never end?

Especially when you’re a little — ok, a lot— sleep deprived, it’s only natural to have many questions and even some anxiety about your infant’s sleep patterns.

We’re here for you with answers. First, take a deep breath and remind yourself that there is a wide range of normal sleep behaviors for infants in their first year of life.

Every baby is a unique individual — and that means differences in how they sleep. But let’s take a look at some general trends that you may experience.

Birth through 2 months old

You’ve made it home from the hospital with your little one, and it probably seems like all your baby wants to do is sleep. (Two words: Enjoy it!) During the first few months of your baby’s life, they’ll spend upwards of 15–16 hours a day sleeping.

These trips to dreamland are going to come in lots of small chunks revolving around a cycle of eating, pooping, and sleeping, though. While this can offer you the opportunity to grab some zzz’s during the day while your infant is asleep, the need for frequent feedings usually means that a newborn is up every 2–3 hours day and night — and thus, so are you.

Why so many meals? The first 10 to 14 days of a baby’s life are spent getting back to their original birth weight. During this time, you may even need to wake a sleeping baby. (A horrible feeling, we know.)

Once they’re back to their birth weight, your pediatrician will likely say you do not need to wake your baby to feed at night. This may allow you to go longer between feeds in the evening hours.

But before you start your victory sleep dance (or just victory sleep, really), you should know that for newborn breastfed babies, it’s normal for them to wake every 3 to 4 hours during the night to feed even if you’re not waking them.

Some babies may achieve a slightly longer stretch of around 6 hours as they approach 3 months old, so some sustained shut-eye may arrive in the near future.

Newborn infants commonly fail to recognize the cycles of day and night. To help develop this understanding, you can offer more simulation and light during daytime hours.

To further encourage good sleeping habits, create a quiet, dark environment for night sleep and put your baby to sleep in a crib when they’re drowsy, but not yet asleep.

3 to 5 months old

After your first 6 to 8 weeks as a new parent, you’ll likely begin to notice that your baby is more alert and wants to spend more time interacting with you during the day. Around this time you may also notice that your baby drops one of their naps and sleeps about an hour less each day.

As stretches between sleep cycles lengthen, sleep patterns will also begin to develop. At least one long stretch of about 6 hours of sleep or more may start to appear at night. You can encourage this and don’t need to wake up your little one unless recommended by a doctor to do so.

Continue to put your baby down for sleep in a drowsy, but not fully asleep state. This will set up future success and help with teaching your infant to soothe themselves back to sleep — a very valuable skill!

If you haven’t already created some nighttime routines, you may want to consider doing that now. These routines can be sleep-savers as your child begins to experience sleep regressions and developmental leaps.

Wait… did you say sleep regressions? So, yes — just when your baby falls into a nice rhythm of only one or two wake-ups a night, you may find that they seem to be reverting to waking up more frequently. They may also start to take shorter naps again during the day. These are some key signals that the 4-month sleep regression has begun.

Although this is called a sleep regression, it’s really a sign that your infant is developing, so hang in there and trust that better sleep lies ahead!

Tips for better sleep

Help your baby know that it’s nighttime by making sure that shades are drawn and lights stay low or off.

Establish a bedtime routine early! This can help to send your little one the message that it’s time for a good, long rest. (This can also be helpful during times of sleep regression as a way to soothe your baby with a familiar routine.)

Encourage your baby to eat frequently during the day and especially in the hours leading up to bedtime. During growth spurts, it’ll be much easier for you if they cluster feed during the day — not at 2 a.m.!

Expect changes. (Welcome to parenthood!)

Just when you think you think you’ve got it all figured out and your baby is following a sleep pattern, things may change.

Take a deep breath and remind yourself that it’s because different stages of growth and development require different patterns and amounts of sleep. Your calm attitude can go a long way in soothing your baby back to sleep — you’ve got this.

The takeaway (and taking care of you!)

Although it may seem like forever and a day before your baby will be sleeping through the night, longer chunks of sleeping time will appear before you know it.

As you and your little one navigate the challenging nights that can be part of the first year, make sure to prioritize self-care and enjoy as many sleepy cuddles as you can.

Here are our favorite self-care tips, from new parents like you:

Exercise, even if you don’t always feel like it. (The endorphin boost will have you thanking us.) This can be as simple as a daily stroller walk (or jog, if you’re feeling ambitious) or app-led yoga sesh while your sweet babe naps.

Find time each day to talk with other adults — especially other adults who can relate to what you’re going through as a new parent or just make you laugh.

Get outside alone or with a baby to enjoy some fresh air and soak up some sunshine.

Make sure to prioritize time for your personal care routine. Freshly washed hair and the scent of your favorite body wash can improve your mood and wake you up!

I hope you enjoyed my previous “sleep” series where I shared how I managed to train Baby Dozer so that he goes down for his naps / bedtime with minimal fuss. If you missed those posts, don’t worry. Here are the links again:

How I Managed to Put My Baby Down for Bedtime with Minimal Fuss

How I Managed to Put My Baby Down for Naps with Minimal Fuss

How I Managed to Make My Baby Sleep Through The Night (most popular post!)

I strongly encourage you to read the posts in the above order as they are somewhat linked. ;)

As some sort of continuation on the “sleep” series, I thought it might be useful to share some facts based on my own experience of sleep training.

1. Sleep training is not a one-off exercise

I’ve learnt that training Baby Dozer to sleep on his own and to sleep through the night or not once-off activities. Babies grow at a rapid pace and their routines and daily habits evolve to keep up with their growth. For example, Baby Dozer at 19 months is starting to transition from 2 naps a day to 1 nap a day. 

A transition period means disruption to a routine which he is used to and I’ve discovered that disruption always means that I have to restart sleep training practices again. 

Another thing I’ve noticed is that bad habits tend to form over time. For example, Baby Dozer has now fallen into the habit of using me as a pacifier so I’ve had to be the “bad Mummy” and stop him from nursing whenever I sense the pacifier ‘rhythm’ instead of the feeding ‘rhythm’. If you’re a breastfeeding Mummy, you’d know what I mean. Yes, he wails fit to bring the house down when I stop him from doing so.  

The good news is you only need to “suffer” for awhile because once the new routine is established, it’s smooth sailing again, hopefully for the next few months.

2. OK, so smooth sailing, doesn’t really mean smooth sailing ALL THE TIME

You could probably say that a car is more reliable than a human, in the sense that if you maintain it well, it shouldn’t give you too much issues. However, even cars do break down from time to time, so what more humans, who aren’t machines! There definitely is bound to be one of those days when the routine of dumping baby in the cot doesn’t work and baby refuses to sleep or fusses terribly! 

When that happens, I often find myself wondering, “Is it time to change his routine? Is he unwell? Is it because I put him to bed slightly later yesterday?” 

Questions starting with “Is it…” tend to lead to “Should I…”.

“Should I try changing his routine? Should I just let him cry? Should I carry him or rock him to sleep?” 

Well, I’ve learnt that when there is a breakdown in routine, just let it be, skip it for a day or make an exception, but be sure to return to the routine the next day. Usually, things go back to usual but if they don’t after 3 to 5 days, maybe it’s time to change the routine a little. That’s how I discovered that Baby Dozer was ready to transition from 2 naps a day to 1 nap a day. 

3. Sometimes, we all need to call for backup

The thing about sleep training is that usually once it is well established, either Hubs or you or other caretakers should be able to carry it out pretty well. Now, that I am a stay-at-home mum, I’ve noticed that Baby Dozer can get a little clingy with me. He also knows that Mummy gives in more easily so some days, he gets really naughty and fusses a lot. 

For me, the strategy that works is to enlist backup help in the form of Hubs. Thus far, after I’ve ascertained that he’s not crying out of distress, and no form of persuasion can work, I exit the room and get Hubs to try and put him to bed instead. 

So, don’t worry if your routine which was working perfectly fine is starting to come undone! Maybe all it needs is a little backup assistance from your family members for a couple of days before things return to normal. 

4. The experts know what they’re talking about

Now a lot of what I’ve learnt is thanks to this book called The Sleep Sense Program by Dana Obleman, a Canadian sleep consultant. I owe my success in training Baby Dozer to sleep through the night entirely to this book. You can click here to purchase the book from Dana Obleman’s official website or read my post about this here.

When I first read the book, I followed everything she said EXCEPT for one thing. Dana Obleman said that babies should sleep in their own room, but I privately disagreed and so Hubs and I decided that that was the one exception to the book that we should make. 

Well, as it turned out, things worked fine until one day, I was hit with mastitis. When you get mastitis, supply drops and baby becomes absolutely cranky. I decided to nurse him through the night because I feared that he was hungry. Well, after that, it was quite impossible to train him to sleep through the night anymore. 

Then, one day, Hubs and I decided that we should move Baby Dozer to his own room. It was what Dana Obleman suggested, after all and so, we moved him and restarted the sleep training methods as per the book. Within a week, Baby Dozer was sleeping through the night again! 

So, yes, as parents we need to use our own discretion but sometimes, the experts really know what they’re talking about. ;)

5. Sleep training is incredibly difficult but it’s worth it

I know how difficult it is to hear your baby cry. I tend to want to give in immediately the moment Baby Dozer fusses, and often have to give myself a mental kick before I come to my senses. 

When I was sleep training Baby Dozer, 1 minute felt like 15 minutes. It was incredibly difficult listening to him cry - even though I knew it was a manja / attention cry! By the way, I personally think that knowing how to differentiate your baby’s cries is very crucial to sleep training. You can read my post on “Should I Let My Baby Cry?” here.

It was really the mental agony of hearing your baby crying out to you, but knowing that you should NOT give in order to help him be a better baby. I had to remind myself that what I was doing was for his sake, helping him to be better-rested and more independent. This agonising fingernail-digging-into palm period never lasted more than a week but it seemed like months to me. 

But now that Baby Dozer is able to sleep on his own AND sleep through the night, is it worth it? Yes, I strongly believe so. 

I am happy that he is getting his 12 hours of sleep a night now when he used to only sleep about 8 to 10 hours a night. 

I am happy that I am able to put him in his cot for naps even before he has fallen asleep knowing that he looks forward to it too. 

I am happy seeing him learn how to play around in the cot alone in the room before he eventually falls asleep. 

Above all, I’m happy because I hope that these are the fundamentals to helping him become independent because Mummy and Daddy can’t always be around for him. 

I hope you enjoyed the post and found it helpful! Have a good weekend! :)

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