How I got my baby to sleep through the night at 7 weeks
/Hi friends! It’s Sunday evening, we’ve got froze pizza in the oven, a glass of wine in hand, and i’m feeling chatty so I decided to tackle one of my most asked questions:
“How did you get your baby to sleep through the night?!”
I want to preface this by saying that I am NO expert by any means. I believe my success with teaching my baby good sleeping habits is attributed to three things:
Reading Baby Wise and taking the Taking Cara Babies sleeping course
My mother in law!!! She stayed with us our first two weeks home from the hospital and her help and support was life changing in helping me stick to a schedule and create good habits
A schedule! I feel like the word schedule is a hot word these days. Either you love it or you hate it. I am not afraid to admit that I LOVE sticking to a schedule. I has given me so much predictability, freedom, peace of mind, and SLEEP! I know that every mama is different and you gotta do what works for YOU! That being said, I have yet to meet a mama who followed no schedule and their baby napped well and slept through the night. I believe this is because we are ALL programmed to be on a schedule, it’s called the circadian rhythm. A newborn fresh out of the womb doesn’t know day from night yet, all they know is hunger cues and sleep cues. It’s our jobs to teach them what those mean and when they should eat and sleep.
One things I hear from alot of mama’s is that they don’t attempt a schedule because they want their baby to be flexible and go along with their schedule. I get that logic but in my experience, having them on a schedule and being super consistent in following it gives ME so much freedom and flexibility! For example, since I know when she’s going to eat every single day, It’s super easy for me to plan out when I can go workout, run errands, or leave the baby with my hubby and go on a solo adventure. I never play the guessing game on when she’ll be tired or hungry because I know at what times during the day she eats and sleeps. Like I said, this is only coming from my personal experience but my hope is that my experience can help other mama’s facing struggles in this area!
Okay… here we go… here’s what I did…
I would highly recommend getting the book Baby Wise and taking the Taking Cara Babies sleep course before you give birth. Having a baby is so overwhelming to begin with that if you don’t have any pre-existing knowledge on sleep training, it will be hard to learn it all once the baby is here. I promise, it’s worth learning ahead of time!
I started Wynn Leigh on a schedule from day one. seriously. I was so overwhelmed in the hospital with nurses coming in and out, constantly poking and prodding, that I needed to feed her on a schedule so I wouldn’t forget. I believe I fed her ever 2.5 hours for the first week. Once my mother-in-law came and we were settled at home, I fed every 2-2.5 hours during the day and then every 3 hours at night. By week two I was feeding every three hours around the clock and by week four I stopped waking her up for feedings at night.
I’ll never forget our second night in the hospital… The nurses warned us that the second night is when most babies want to “cluster feed” and so we should be prepared to stay up all night. I remember feeding at 10pm and after I was done feeding, I put Wynn Leigh back in her bassinet and she started fussing. I immediately grabbed her out and tried feeding again… that worked for a minute but then she was flustered. She wanted to suck on something but was also too tired to eat so she was just fussy. I called a nurse in and asked if we could have a pacifier. Our hospital was against pacifiers and we had heard not to use them in the beginning so we didn’t bring our own. Our nurse “snuck one” to us and immediately it calmed Wynn Leigh down and she fell back asleep until her next feeding. We have used the pacifier as a sleep aid ever since and she never cluster fed!
*note on pacifiers: the pacifier is definitely not something that works for every baby. At first it seemed like Wynn Leigh didn’t like them but she just didn’t know how to use it. We spent a couple weeks teaching her how to use it and eventually she got the hang of it! If it seems like your baby doesn’t like them, maybe try a different brand. For us, all we had were Bibs pacifiers and so even though they seemed way too big for her at first, we just kept trying, and eventually she got the hang of them!
Once my mother in law got into town, she quickly helped me get into a routine! We have practiced the eat, play, sleep routine from the very first week and it really helped solidify our schedule. Having my mother in law, who successfully trained all four of her children to sleep through the night was invaluable. She helped me stay on schedule even when Wynn Leigh would wake up mid nap or seem fussy in between feedings. I remember one morning it was 6:45 and Wynn Leigh was fussing but her feeding time wasn’t until 7. I came downstairs and said “I think i’ll just feed her now.” My mother in law quickly said “I would wait a few more minutes. How about I hold her for you and keep her busy?” I let my mother-in-law love on Wynnie and soothe her for 15 minutes until I fed and it all worked out! It was moments like this that really helped keep me consistent and on track when I would have otherwise probably just caved in and fed her because she seemed hungry and fussy.
I am 100% not saying I denied my daughter food! There are definitely exceptions to the rule. That being said, by sticking to a schedule even early on, it allowed each feeding to be a really productive and full feeding so it was easy to not have any ‘snacking’ in between.
By the time my mother in law left, I was in a good routine of feeding every three hours. We kept that up until her 4 week appointment where we were told she was gaining enough weight. After that, I didn’t wake her at night and I would let her wake me for a feed.
By five weeks, we tried stretching to every 5 hours. By six weeks, six hours. Seven weeks, seven hours. etc! How did we logistically do that? Well, when she woke up and lets say it had only been 4.5 hours, instead of picking her up, I would put her pacifier in and put my hand on her chest and gently rock her back and forth in the hopes she would go back to sleep. There were many nights where I knew it would be easier to just get her up and feed her but I knew this wouldn’t teach her to sleep like I wanted her to. This took ALOT of patience and many times of me having to get up and soothe her, but it was 100% worth it. She quickly learned how to put herself back to sleep! We did this approach from week 5-7 and by week 7 she was doing seven hour stretches between feedings!
Sleep training is definitely not linear. There were some nights she regressed and would wake up multiple times but the biggest thing for me was NOT feeding her during whose wake-ups. This allowed her to get all her calories in during the day and taught her that nighttime is for sleeping.
Now Wynn Leigh is 6 months old and sleeps in her own room! She still wakes up maybe once or twice a night and I will go in and put her pacifier and she goes straight to sleep. Most of the time when she wakes up though she goes back to sleep on her own.
Through our entire journey, I’ve tried to focus on progress not perfection. This is just what has worked for me and things I have learned along the way. Like I said in the beginning, I can’t stress enough the book Baby Wise! It gives so much great information that will make you comfortable with sleep training. Lastly, if sleep training is your goal then you must be consistent. There’s no other way around it. Day in and day out, be consistent with the nap schedule, night schedule, and consistent feedings. This is so key to teaching your baby good habits!
I really hope this helps you all! Definitely comment below if you have any questions! I’m here for you guys!!!
Here’s to happy sleeping!!
xoxo
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