Things to Try When Baby Won’t Sleep: Building Sleep Habits AND Feeling Successful

Today, I took care of a friend’s two year old. I carried her to the bed, gave her a bottle, covered her and walked away. She fell asleep without a peep and kept sleeping for over two hours. With this positive image in my mind, I believe my family can get to this place, and so can you!

For us, it is month eight of this beautiful new chapter of our lives. A month in which I am no longer spending sleepless nights rocking my infant to sleep as he suckles milk from my sore breasts for the fourth, fifth, even sixth time in the night. A month in which I’ve come to terms that my infant will not be one to sleep through the night, but nonetheless has made so much progress.

Progress may look different for you and me and that’s okay; for us it means, peacefully falling asleep without tears–but on the boob, waking a couple times a night to eat, yet sleeping the number of hours he should, and getting two to three good naps. So how did we get here? Lots and lots of work and trial and error. Here are some things to try when Baby won’t sleep, good for building sleep habits AND feeling like a successful parent:

6 Things to Try When Baby Won’t Sleep

1. Create a routine.

Yes, everyone says it! But with good reason. And no it won’t take three nights like it did for your neighbor or sister-in-law, it may take three weeks. Or sometimes even three months. But don’t you want to be that parent that sets your child down to sleep with ease and walks away? Our routine looks something like this: take baby out for a stroll around 6pm, have dinner such as fruit and/or cereal, give baby a bath, lotion and dress baby in his pajamas, feed with breast milk, and sleep by 8:30pm. I say 8:30, but that’s not always the case–and that’s simply alright!

2. Make sure baby is comfortable.

We never talk about baby comfort, but wouldn’t discomfort make you miserable? For us, we tried so many different baby sacks, and nothing really provided any progress. Well, one night, my husband stepped in and carried our baby around until he fell asleep and set him down on his side. 7 hours he slept! 7 hours! From an average of 2 to 7! So we realized that our baby just isn’t comfortable sleeping on his back, and now I don’t even have to carry and bounce to set him asleep, I can actually set him down when he’s tired and almost out, and he’ll roll to his stomach and sleep “like a baby!” So figure out what your baby needs for comfort and use it as a tool. The figuring out part takes time, but you’ll get there!

3. Baby can smell mom!

So . . . I began to set a bottle of milk in his crib overnight so that he can smell me and think I was there, and it worked! Haha! How do I know? Well, I tested it. I placed milk in there for several nights and baby would sleep 5-7 hours. Then, the nights I’d randomly remove it, baby would sleep 2-4 hours. Try it! It doesn’t hurt! Trick the little monster for some extra Zzz’s. Or maybe sleep with their sheets for a couple nights before setting them in baby’s crib, so that your scent is there to provide comfort.

4. Have someone else put baby to sleep.

Try when baby won’t sleep to switch things up with your partner. My husband did for a few nights and it was a game changer. All this time we thought he needed mommy and mommy’s boob, and then daddy stepped in and there were new standards! This really helped so much! After month four babies know how to get what they want, and after month six they get separation anxiety, so having someone else step in can really benefit mom and baby.

5. Don’t beat yourself up!

Try when baby won’t sleep not to beat yourself up. So your friends kids is asleep by 7:00pm? That’s okay. Don’t feel like a horrible parent if it’s 10:00pm and your child is still awake. I used to beat myself up over this, getting emotional and frustrated when my child was having a party at 10pm, but I figured he’s happy so I should just accept it and move on. Although we stick to our routine (this is key), he sometimes talks and talks and talks for an hour or two after bedtime. My husband and I just stare at him, kiss him and cuddle with him, and once he falls asleep we set him in his crib. And if you think that’s a bad habit, oh well, because when I get five to seven straight hours of sleep, I am happy for his health and because I just got REM!

6. Don’t fix something that isn’t broken.

And that’s exactly what I tried to do. My son would wake several times throughout the night and I’d put him on the boob and he’d go right back to sleep. Well, I read that it’s important to disassociate food with sleep. So I began to feed him in between naps, not to get him to nap like before, and before bed but not to fall asleep. And boy did this cause chaos. The boob was no longer magical! I had disassociated food and sleep, and that reeked havoc, not having something comforting to go to sleep. We had about two weeks of sleepless nights, tears and more tears, this had never happened before! I decided, screw this, it isn’t working, and went back to old habits. It did take a while to get back into our rhythm. But it’s so much nicer when your baby falls asleep without crying, and when you have a magic boob! The moral of the story? Don’t fix something that isn’t broken; if it’s working for you and mom and baby are happy, then keep at it, mama!

These are some great tricks to try when baby won’t sleep, but remember that good things don’t always happen overnight. Keep at it and stay positive; build sleep habits AND feel success as a parent.

Original source: https://www.baby-chick.com/6-tricks-to-try-when-baby-wont-sleep/