How to Establish a Better Baby Sleep Schedule

Posted by Christie in Health & Care

My little brother and his wife just had their first baby in July… she is a beautiful little girl. Ever since her birth her little internal clock has had the same problem as many other infants… it was backwards. 

Sleeping most of the day and crying, eating, and wanting attention all of the night. This problem is very common in babies and incredibly hard on stressed out and sleep deprived parents. So how do you fix it? 

I learned with my first baby that there are a couple of easy steps that you can try to help your infant establish a better pattern of sleep and help the entire family rest a little better.

♦ Number one rule… you need to sleep when your baby sleeps!  This will help you feel more rested and be better able to take care of your new bundle of joy.

♦  If your infant is confused on nights and days try to set the stage for him or her.  Open all the windows allowing light to flood in to the rooms during the day. Have noise around your baby during the day. Music, television, or other household sounds will help establish daytime as a time of awareness and activity.   Similarly make sure that the house is dark and quite at night.  This will help your confused baby start to correct their backwards schedule.

♦ Do not let your baby sleep for too long during the day… a morning nap and an afternoon nap should be sufficient for a baby starting at about two-three months old. If they are sleeping more than two or three hours during those stretches you need to try to entertain them with games, toys, activities, or feeding.

♦ Learn to develop a schedule for your baby’s mealtimes, bath times, and play times as well… this well help them sleep better each night too. 

♦ Use Baby massage to calm your baby and help him or her relax before bedtime. You can turn the lights down and play soothing music while you gently rub lotion all over your baby.

♦ Babies that are three-six months of age can typicaly began to self soothe themselves to sleep. This is very hard on many parents to work on with their baby… because it is hard to listen to them cry. But experts agree that safely letting a baby this age begin to “cry it out” is healthy and helps them develop good sleep patterns for life. I will post the proper steps to help teach your baby to “cry it out” in the next few days so that you can learn the right way to try it with your baby.

These are just a few ideas and suggestions that I have come across in my experience as a parent and my research as a writer. There is no way to predict what will work best with your baby until you give them a try. 

I would love it if you would let us know what works well for you to get your baby on a better sleep schedule… this is one of those issues that almost every parent encounters and struggles with.



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