My baby (Little Dave) is now just over 3 months old, and when I tell other parents of small children that he sleeps 12 hours through the night, many are surprised. Some of it may be luck, but I like to think that some of it is also because of the schedule and sleep program we followed. Here are 5 things we did that I believe were key:
1. Start early.
We start sleep scheduling at 3 weeks old. We scheduled for day and night, but focused first on the night time sleep. Some will argue that you can't start that early. We did and Little Dave took to the schedule and is now used to it (especially his night schedule), but most importantly he started sleeping 7pm-7am at 12 weeks, so I would argue that you CAN start early. And in fact, why not start early instead of suffering through sleep deprivation for longer, if you can get it more manageable early on?
2. My husband calls it being dead-beat parents. I call it Cry it Out.
Joking aside, this can be tough. But we committed to it and started at about 5-6 weeks old, maybe earlier. It's a little hazy. We started with letting him cry for 5-6 minutes at his 7pm bedtime and see if he would stop and fall asleep. A couple of weeks later, we had to let him cry a little more some nights... sometimes up to 20 minutes (not straight, but on and off). If he was ever wailing hard (at any time), we would go to him, settle him, and help him go to sleep. But often times, it was 20 minutes of whimpering, fussing, or on-and-off crying.
He is now able to soothe himself, and go to sleep on his own (most of the times*). And if he does wake in the middle of the night, can put himself back to sleep without parental help.
* When I say "most of the time": he goes to sleep on his own without crying for his 7pm bedtime. For naps, last week he started unassisted sleeping and was successful for several days. Then we traveled and we are out of his comfort zone (home) so he went back to struggling/crying for his naps the first few days of our trip. We have been in our hotel for a week, and has fallen asleep on his own for naps for 2 days now. Hopefully it will go back to the unassisted sleeping regularly when we get back home!
3. Same shit every night: Establish consistent night bed time and routine.
7pm became our standard baby bed time by around 3 weeks old. Our routine starts at 6pm: nudie time (to dry out bum!) for about 15 minutes, bath time (every other day with soap), moisturize and massage (some nights more time spent on this than others), feed, lullaby, then in bed around 7pm. Some nights may be a few minutes off, and we are OK with that.
Even if we were at someone else's house for dinner (family or friends), we would at least do a little mini bath in the sink and put him to bed, and it worked. On nights where we are out at a party or dinner (which has only happened 3 times), we wouldn't be able to bathe him, but his internal clock had developed and he would fall asleep on his own right around 7pm.
4. Transitioning to Longer Night Sleeps with 5am Half-Feeds and Soothing
When he started extending from 11pm (after late-night feed/dream feed) to 5am, I started doing a half-feed at 5am. He would then go back to sleep right away and wake again to start his morning at 7am. After 2 nights (or early mornings) of 5am half-feeds, we tried just soothing him to go back to sleep at 5am (making sure first that he wasn't actually starving). This worked and within a few days he was soothing himself if he did wake at 4 or 5am, and go back to sleep on his own.
Now, he still may wake at 4 or 5am, but doesn't cry. In fact, he sometimes wakes now at 6 or 6:30am but doesn't cry. He snoozes for a bit and/or waits in his crib until we come get him around 7am or later.
5. Do not use fall-asleep dependencies
We use Baby Whisperer and BabyWise's "Eat, Activity, Sleep" routine for every cycle during the day. This helped Little Dave NOT rely on eating (breast-feeding nor bottle) in order to fall asleep. He also does not rely on music, mobiles, rocking, walking, or soother in order to fall asleep - especially for his 7pm. Yes, we sometimes have to use rocking or walking to fall asleep for naps, but we really tried for unassisted/independent sleeping for his 7pm sleep very early on. Again, I think this helps him fall back asleep on his own easily if he does wake in the middle of the night.
So how did we start all this? Three main books we followed: Baby Whisperer, BabyWise, and The Contented Baby. We liked and disliked some things from each author, so we didn't blindly follow each one, but rather used a combination of things from each that fit us. Most of the concepts above fall in line with the theories in these 3 books. In addition to the books, there are other helpful online resources, such as: Baby Whisperer Forums (if you want things like specific tactics on implementing the "EASY" schedule), My Baby Sleep Guide (a woman who's obsessed with baby sleeping more than me, who has read or tried a lot of different theories).
For any parent out there suffering from baby-related sleep deprivation, I encourage you to try these tips and read more in some of the books above!
