Basic steps to help support better sleep

1. Start waking baby at the same time each day

Benefit:

Their body clock starts to set its own little rhythm. Studies suggest babies do not fully develop their circadian rhythm until day 56 onwards, but starting a consistent wake time is only going to help baby as they move towards this.

How to do it:

Up until now, if following my plan, parents will have been aiming for a three hourly cycle of feeding, with baby sleeping in between. This cycle is likely to have been at different times each day depending on whether baby had a wakeful night, or perhaps spent two hours cluster feeding the evening before. From this point onwards, I suggest starting each day at the same time, regardless. 7 am is the most common time for a routine in the UK. This means even if baby is sleeping,  parents should rouse them, open the curtains and naturally try to wake them up! 

When waking baby in the morning, do so slowly with positive words of affection and lots of tummy rubbing and taking out their arms from their swaddle, allowing them that beautiful newborn stretch as they wake up. Mum should have a cup of tea and something to snack on ready for themself and offer baby their feed. 

‘But why wake a sleeping baby?!’

For some parents this will feel very stressful, especially if their nights are broken and they are exhausted. Your job is to encourage them to trust in the process. This will have a very positive knock-on effect on baby’s daytime sleep and, therefore, nighttime. The parent has to be ready to try it though, as it takes effort to wake both themselves and baby up for the day. 

Remember: at this age, each day will still be different and no one will hit “exact” timings, but simply starting the day at the same time will have an amazing knock-on effect on baby starting to develop their circadian rhythm and distinguish between days and nights. 

• Start aiming for a consistent bedtime for baby, 12 hours from the morning wake-up  time.

For example, if choosing a 7 am wake up, then aim for a 7 pm bed. This does not mean baby will necessarily be in bed at 7 pm, but parents should at least aim to be in a darker room by this point. Again, this will help that sleep circadian rhythm to develop. Afternoon timings may be a little all over the place still and that is fine, but the key to a regular bedtime is to always make sure that baby is awake by 5.30pm for a 7pm bedtime, as that gives them a 1hr 15 minutes awake window. 

• Differentiating day and night:

Daytime = fun, playful and bright

Nighttime = calm, serene and dark. Feeds should be done with dim lighting (orange light, rather than blue/white – ie not a phone!), to differentiate from day feeds

Up until this point, parents may well have been snuggled with their newborn in the evenings where they have been exposed to sounds and light – particularly from the TV. From 6 weeks onwards, if starting to attempt to set up successful sleep for baby, their evening routine should be moved to a darker room, with white noise or calming music playing. We want baby to start to understand that evenings are for sleeping.

Note: Whether or not a parent wants to stay with their baby in the evening has to be their personal choice. The Lullaby Trust Guidelines suggest that baby remains in the same room as you for 6 months, but this is interpreted in different ways. I have some clients that go to bed at the same time as their baby with an iPad and headphones, relishing the early nights, while other clients set up the monitor and do regular checks on their baby. This always has to be their decision and whatever feels right for them and their baby. 

• Daytime sleep

Some sleep experts will recommend that in the daytime, baby sleeps in bright light so that they don’t get confused between day and night. This old fashioned advice; babies probably did sleep better all those years ago – but mostly because they were on their tummies! 

My advice is to put baby in a bedroom for daytime naps from around 6 weeks of age onwards (or whenever it is that a family chooses to start this next stage of sleep). Babies may sleep ok in a living space for longer than 6 weeks, but by around 8-10 weeks, most babies are struggling to sleep as well and therefore will have shorter naps that are less restorative. If baby is napping really well then there is no need to make changes, but if day naps are an issue, trying a darker room with some white noise may well be the magic answer. Don’t worry about baby getting confused between day and night by doing this – you will just have a baby who naps brilliantly and in my experience, this has never been an issue! 

• Introduce a mini bedtime routine

A bedtime routine will help signal to baby that it is time to go to sleep. It should be used both fornaps and in the evening. Having a set of triggers in a specific order helps signal to the brain that sleep is coming. These might include; 

• Go into the bedroom for a nappy change 
• Read baby a short story (I love the “That’s not my….” books)
• Sing baby a song 
• Swaddle baby

Shh/calm baby before putting them down