How To Get Your Baby To Sleep Through The Night (Without Crying It Out)
This post is all about how to get your baby to sleep through the night without crying it out! These tips and tricks are how I got my breastfed baby to sleep through the night at 5 months old.
I am by no means a sleep expert, but Isaiah has been sleeping 11-12 hours through the night since he was 5 months old so I wanted to share some tips that I thought might be helpful for any other first time moms!
Early on, I decided I didn’t want to sleep train Isaiah or do the cry it out method. I am exclusively breastfeeding so I knew it might take him a little longer to sleep through the night than some babies, and I was ok with that! Breastfed babies tend to wake up more frequently than formula-fed babies since breastmilk is metabolized so quickly. I never wanted to run the risk of letting him cry out of hunger, so I let him wean himself off of nighttime feeds. At 5 months old he weaned himself off nighttime feeds and started consistently sleeping through the night for 11-12 hours. He is now 8 months old and has maintained this routine for the last 3 months aside from a few rough nights of teething.
I hope you find these baby sleep tips helpful and be sure to watch this video on YouTube!
The best sleep tips to help your baby sleep through the night!
Eat, Play, THEN Sleep
The best thing I did was put Isaiah on a schedule of eat, play, THEN sleep. You do not want your baby to eat, sleep, then play. Why? Because then they are becoming dependent on a bottle or nursing to put them to sleep. You want to disassociate sleeping with eating because then when they wake up in the middle of the night they are more likely to think they need milk to fall back asleep. This also helps ensure they get FULL feeds!
Establish a bedtime routine
Having a bedtime routine helps them distinguish day from the night as well as naptime from bedtime! You can give your baby a bath, massage lotion on them, read a book, say a prayer, or do whatever you want. Do something that you know you can be consistent with and will help cue them that it’s time for bed and not just time for a nap. We always do white noise, his favorite sleep sack, and a dark room for naps, but for bedtime, we do a bath and lotion as well. You can read all about my newborn baby must haves in this post.
Put your baby down, drowsy but awake
At about 6 weeks old, Isaiah started putting himself to sleep. Once he would start to show sleepy cues, we would swaddle him, walk into his dark room, turn on his white noise machine, set him in his bassinet, place a hand on his chest, gently shake/rock him (in his bassinet) a minute or two, and walk away before his eyes were closed. I never rocked him to sleep and rarely did contact naps. This was a decision I made early on because I knew it would be a tough habit to break.
Pack in the daytime calories
Isaiah’s schedule is constantly changing, but when he was just a few months old, he was eating every couple of hours- sometimes more! I wanted to make sure to get as many feeding in during the day to keep him nice and full throughout the night. That way, if he woke up before a certain hour, we were confident he was not hungry and you could try other ways to soothe them first. I talk more about this later in this post.
Know the difference between whining, fussing, and crying
Although I never did the cry it out method, I definitely did give him time to fuss around a bit. It’s important to know the difference between fussing, whining, and actual crying. If he started fussing or whining after going down for a nap, we would give him a few minutes to try to figure it out himself. If he was full-on crying we would immediately go in, give him his favorite paci, and place a hand on his chest until he calmed down.
Know Your Baby’s Sleepy Cues and Wake Windows
Isaiah shows us he is sleepy by getting fussy, rubbing his eyes, yawning, and his eyebrows get red. This was (and IS) super helpful to know because his wake windows are constantly changing! Baby’s gradually stay up longer and longer but it can be hard to know JUST how long they can say awake if you are only following wake windows that you find on the internet.
Set the mood!
Black Out Curtains
Make sure the room is dark. This helps increase their melatonin and sets the mood for a good nap! These are the blackout curtains we have.
White Noise
White noise replicated the sound of blood rushing through the placenta when they were in the womb. If you think about it, it was never dead silent in the womb so babies like the constant noise of some sort! It’s actually very odd for them to hear complete silence. I would get a portable white noise machine along with one for his room.
Swaddle/Sleep Sack
We started off with a velcro swaddle, then transitioned to the magic merlin sleepsuit, and now to a sleep sack. Swaddles help them feel nice and snug like they did in the womb!
Temperature
I keep Isaiah’s room between 68-72° F. I dress him in what’s comfortable for me based on the temperature. This rule applies to wherever we are! If I’m in two layers, he’s in two layers. If I’m in a sweatshirt, he’s also in a sweatshirt. For bedtime, he sleeps in long-sleeved, footed PJs and a long sleeve weighted sleep sack.
Naps and Daytime Sleep
In my experience, good daytime sleep leads to good nighttime sleep. You want your baby to be well-rested and not overtired heading into naps or bedtime! It’s incredibly hard to settle an overtired baby and way less likely they will be able to settle themselves if they’re overtired.
On the flip side, you also don’t want them getting TOO much daytime sleep. I would always wake up Isaiah between the 2-2.5 hour mark if he was still sleeping. Especially if this nap was close to bedtime.
His bedtime is between 6:30 PM and 7:00 PM. This means his last nap ends by 4:00 PM to ensure he has 3 hours of awake time before bedtime. If his last nap runs too close to bedtime I will sometimes have him take a 15-minute power nap to get him to stay awake until bedtime.
For example: if he wakes up at 2:00 PM and gets sleepy around 5:00 PM (when his 3-hour wake window is up), I will let him take a catnap for about 15-20 minutes to help him make it to his 7:00 PM bedtime.
For Isaiah, we do a mixture of watching sleepy cues and following wake windows. His wake windows are MUCH longer than they were a few months ago. He now stays up 3 hours between naps and 3-4 hours before bedtime.
At the 3 hour mark, he will start to get fussier, yawn, and might rub his eyes. He also gets red eyebrows when he’s really tired. I always want to have him ready for bed BEFORE he shows too many of these cues. I like him to be in his crib by the time he starts rubbing his eyes, so this means he is in his crib closer to the 2.75-hour mark. This gives him 10 minutes or so to put himself to sleep. He actually loves his alone time before bed. He will chat with himself, play with his hands, and roll around until he settles. It’s really cute!
How we weaned nighttime feeds (and ultimately got him to sleep through the night)
I waited a long time before attempting anything other than nursing Isaiah when he would wake up in the night, BUT once he hit 4 months old and was getting in lots and lots of food during the day, I decided to let Michael (my husband) help out with nights. 😉
We decided that only after a certain amount of time had passed from his last nursing session would I offer him food. For example, if he woke up at 12:00 AM and it had only been 4 hours from his last feeding, Michael would go in and put his hand on his chest and make a “shhh” noise and gently rock him in his crib. If his paci had fallen out, we would also place it back in his mouth. This usually was enough assistance to get Isaiah to fall back asleep without needing to eat.
If Michael attempted this method more than 3 times and Isaiah was still unhappy, then I would go in a nurse him because we assumed he was genuinely hungry.
We had Michael be the primary person because we feared once Isaiah saw me it would be harder to calm him since he would be expecting food right away!
Here is the loose schedule we followed regarding nighttime feedings.
When Isaiah was 0-3 months old and would wake up in the night I would always nurse him. I was nursing on-demand 24/7 for the first 3-4 months. I talk all about my breastfeeding must-haves in this post and this video!
When he turned 4 months old I decided to only nurse him when he woke up or was crying after it had been 6 hours from his last nursing session. So, if he woke up 4 hours afte his last nursing session, Michael would go in and do what I explained above. If he would not settle afte 3 tries, then I would nurse him.
When he was close to 5 months old I decided to only nurse him when he woke up or was crying after it had been 8 hours from his last nursing session.
When he turned 5 months old he started sleeping 10-12 hours through the night. Once he did this consistently for a week, I decided if he woke up, I wasn’t going to offer him food unless absolutely NOTHING else worked because I figured he wasn’t waking due to hunger.
I hope this post was helpful if you’re struggling to get your baby to sleep through the night! And please remember that all babies are different! Just because this method and these tips worked with my baby doesn’t mean they will work for yours and that’s OK! There are so many reasons babies don’t sleep through the night the first year and it has nothing to do with you. You’re doing great, mama!
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