Keeping intervals of wakefulness short for newborns is extremely important. This was one area where I went drastically wrong with my first-born and likely contributed to her colic-like symptoms that we experienced [I thought my newborn was a genius for being able to stay awake for 6 hours but then wondered why she screamed all night every night - oy!]. Newborns need a LOT of sleep and they need to sleep often. It's sometimes hard to believe how often we should be putting young babies down for naps but as I have mentioned a few times, avoiding that overtired state is key. Once you hit that overtired point, any chance of independent sleep will be extremely difficult and if you do manage it, you will likely experience a lovely 25 minute micro-nap - not fun! Babies up to about 3 months of age should basically stay awake long enough to eat, have a change, and then it's time to go back down again. This can feel extremely frustrating and exhausting but it does get better! A few times I kept baby W up just because I wanted to hang out with her longer than 10 minutes and it majorly back-fired every single time. So how long are we shooting for?

0-1 months: 40 minutes maximum

1-2 months: 40-60 minutes maximum

2-3 months: 60-80 minutes maximum

That's it. Seems crazy, right? I hear you! But babies up to 2 months of age require 16-20 hours of sleep. That only leaves about 4-8 hours of awake time every single day. Baby W is currently 7 weeks old and I aim to start her nap routine at 40 minutes of awake time. This leaves about 10-15 minutes of 'play time' after changing and feeding. Any longer than this and we hit that overtired state and more than likely will have to rescue the nap.

Separate food from sleep AND encourage full feeds

When encouraging independent sleep, we want to ensure we remove any associations that can negatively impact sleep. An association is something that occurs at or near sleep times. Some of these associations are positive [white noise, swaddle, lovey] and others can negatively impact sleep [rocking to sleep, feeding to sleep, etc.] Basically, anything a baby cannot re-create on their own is an association we try to avoid! Milk is definitely a strong association and something that ideally we would try to separate from sleep times as much as possible. Therefore, once baby starts to have longer periods of wakefulness, it's a good idea to feed them at the beginning of their awake time, followed by changing and play, and then down for a nap [there may not be much time in the early months between the two but we can still try to separate it, even if it's only by 10 minutes!]

The other key with helping to establish good sleep in the early months is encouraging full feeds. This is something I've actively tried to do this time around and it has really helped. If baby falls asleep eating - wake baby up. I did this by feeding one side, burping [try to always get a good burp out! Newborns can be very easily bothered by gas!], changing, then feeding the other side [nighttime feeds included]. By encouraging full feeds, especially during the day, we should see longer stretches of sleep emerge earlier on as sleep is closely tied to food in the early months.



Wait it out

I have found that waiting it out [i.e. not rushing to baby] has become easier and easier with each subsequent child. With my first, I wouldn't even let her make a peep before I rushed in to rescue her. If your baby cries, that means you're doing something wrong, right?! No! Babies can be noisy sleepers and remember that a lot of crying can just be baby's way of expressing fatigue or trying to blow off steam [especially if overtired/overstimulated]. Now we're not talking about letting a newborn cry-it-out, but if baby is crying at a sleep time [either trying to fall asleep or trying to fall back asleep] try to wait a few seconds and really listen - is the crying very intense or not? Does the crying seem to be tapering off or becoming stronger? Is there a lot of breaks in the cries? You know what you're comfortable with and that is important - there's certain cries that I would go in immediately for and there's cries that I would wait out a bit. As I mentioned above I tried to have a baseline of a 5 minute wait once baby W was a few weeks old, but if the crying was getting more intense then I would go in sooner. With time, I've been able to build up to closer to 10 minutes [again, gauging it by the type of crying] and it's quite amazing how many times baby W has been able to settle or re-settle on her own if I give her that opportunity. I want her to know that I believe in her ability to self-soothe - that she can do it on her own but that I'm here to help her if she needs it. To me, this is helping her build confidence, something that I feel she might not learn as well if I do it all for her! But of course, keeping age-appropriate expectations is important, remembering that independent sleep is just a goal we are working towards, not something we insist on. Fully independent sleep can come later, right now we are just practicing.

Find that sweet spot bedtime

Newborns naturally have a later bedtime and trying to find that sweet spot bedtime for your newborn is important. With my second-born, I tried to shift bedtime too early too quickly and I believe it contributed to the shorter stretches of sleep and evening wakefulness that we experienced. While I love me an early bedtime, I've found that not trying to push bedtime too early too quickly has really helped. Sometimes the later bedtime can be stressful as those evening naps can be tricky to get [most of the time I don't even attempt the crib for the last nap of the day and instead we go for a stroller walk/jog or I use the swing or carrier] but working hard to get them in should ensure a more peaceful night of sleep.

From the get-go, I would call any sleep after 8:00pm nighttime sleep. So if baby W woke up at 8:30pm from a sleep time, I would start my bedtime routine right after she woke and the next sleep time [around 9:30pm] would be bedtime. Remember, bedtime up to 6 weeks of age can be anytime between 9:00-11:00pm [so the sweet spot may be different for your baby] but I tried to keep it on the early end so I would be able to shift it earlier more easily [I am not a night owl!] Once I had that 9:30pm bedtime established, every week I would try to shift it a bit earlier by ending the last nap earlier by 15 minutes. A good goal to have would be to end your last nap at 7:30pm by 1 month, 6:30pm by 2 months, and 5:30pm by 3 months. Additionally, if you're trying to shift bedtime earlier, try to ensure baby isn't sleeping in too late in the morning, as this can make it hard for baby to settle earlier in the evening. As a general rule, the wake-up time should be 12 hours before your goal bedtime. So if your goal bedtime is 9:00pm, I would wake baby up at 9:00am. If goal bedtime is 8:30pm, wake baby up at 8:30am. This ensures sufficient awake time during the day.

I have also found that the awake time before bed can often be a bit longer than in between naps, and it's good to aim for about 1-2 hours of awake time between last nap and bedtime up to the 3 month mark.

If you have found this post helpful, you will love my Comprehensive Newborn Sleep Guide, check it out here!