Tips To Help When Your Baby Won’t Sleep – And You’re Fed Up!
Sleep. It’s the only thought on a new parent’s mind as you roam through your zombie days and stub your toe on the baseboard during your fifth overnight trip to the nursery. Aside from the well-being of a precious little newborn, it’s the only thing you care about. You would give up every other luxury in life just to sleep for eight hours straight and the idea of ever getting your baby to sleep through the night seems like an impossible and defeatist task.
Sleep deprivation effects your mind and body in serious and substantial ways. It’s no joke. And if your baby is fighting it at every waking turn it is enough to drive you mad.
I’ve been there.
We realized the second night in the hospital that our adorable new little baby wouldn’t fall asleep unless she was being held. We spent the first three weeks back at home laying her on our chests or cradling her in our arms to nap and to sleep at night. If we tried to calm her to the point of even laying her in a swing at night it took more than half an hour to achieve (after every feeding!). It was an existence that we couldn’t maintain. 
I am no sleep expert and I have no magical cure to present, but these are the tips that worked for us when we had reached our last straw in the overnight torment.
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UPDATE: Implementing these tips helped us to get our second baby to sleep through the night with 9 hours between feedings by 8 weeks old!
We hit phases after she reached
Every baby is different but, if you are a new parent muddling through your days on only a few hours of shut-eye, then it’s my hope that these tips might offer a little piece of hope that your baby can in fact one day sleep through the night.
Bedtime doesn’t have to be a dreaded catastrophe!
(Note: At too young of an age it may not be appropriate or healthy for your baby to sleep the whole way through the night. Be sure to adhere to your doctor’s recommendations for how long your baby can go between feedings overnight.)
Here are the tips that helped us get our baby to sleep through the night without feeding:
1. We had to let her cry sometimes.
This was torture for me as a mom the first several nights that we implemented it. However, after 3 days the decision to not immediately run to her every cry was the most transformational adjustment that we made to help our daughter Ellie to sleep. As new parents we did everything we could in those first several weeks to keep our newborn from crying, thinking that we were maintaining our sanity and allowing ourselves to rest by having a silent happy baby. However, the constant effort to keep Ellie from crying meant that we weren’t getting ANY rest as we laid her on our chests or rocked her all night in a futile attempt to maintain the restful silence.
When I became desperate for real rest (without a baby on my chest) 3 weeks after bringing our daughter home, we realized that if we were ever going to achieve refreshing sleep for her and for ourselves we were going to have to let her cry sometimes. After I hungrily read through the On Becoming Baby Wise book while awake with her one night, we started to lay her down to sleep and let her cry until she settled. We checked on her as she cried and remained very close, but we resisted the (very strong!) urge to go and soothe her as she fought the transition. Those first few days she cried for long periods each time she was set down. It was miserable and difficult but after 3 days of sticking to the transition she suddenly began to settle very quickly – no rocking or laying her on our chests required! We were in shock at how quickly the transition worked to allow us to sleep unencumbered.
A small piece of sanity was returned. A small glimmer of hope that she might one day STTN was born.
2. We put her to sleep in the crib.
In our efforts to avoid crying for the first few weeks after Ellie’s birth, we didn’t go anywhere near the crib. Placing her on such a hard flat surface was a sure recipe for torrents of tears. Instead we laid her in the bassinet piece of our Pack ‘n Play for naps downstairs and most of the night laid her on our own chests to keep her peaceful and content. I naively undertook motherhood with a goal to teach my child to sleep through noise and distraction by placing her naps in a lively environment. However, after realizing how her lack of a consistent bed may have been affecting her ability to sleep, we started to put Ellie to down directly in her crib. We started with her overnight sleep and eventually moved her naps as well.
She of course cried quite piercingly the first several nights that we made the adjustment, but after about three nights she began to settle quickly and easily. It was refreshing to have her finally asleep in her own room and bed and we were free from endless nights of slowly trying to set her into the swing without waking her and days of tiptoeing around in the living room to protect her fragile naps.
3. We didn’t rock or nurse her to sleep.
In addition to transitioning Ellie to sleep in the crib at night and letting her cry to settle, we firmly decided that we would not rock or nurse her to sleep as a part of her bed or nap time routine. We read that if she was going to learn to remain sleeping through the many transitions in a baby’s overnight sleep cycle (and ever STTN!) that she needed to learn to settle herself without these common sleep aids.
We started to implement an eat, wake, sleep routine for Ellie during the day so that she learned to settle for naps that weren’t directly after her nursing times. We also sought to place her in her crib still awake at night despite the fact that bedtime fell directly after a feeding time. As Ellie navigated developmental leaps and hit rough spots in her nighttime sleep in later months we ended up flexing on this when necessary. There were some really rough nights of over-stimulation where nursing her to sleep was the only way to finally calm her. However, as a general rule we stopped allowing her to nurse to sleep and sought to put her in the crib still awake.
4. We implemented a sleep schedule for her.
Ellie’s sleep was also transformed by implementing a schedule to guide her days and nights. Our initial schedule for her followed a basic eat, wake, sleep pattern throughout the day where she would nurse, play or just be awake (depending on the age) for a period of time, and then nap until the next feeding. You can read about her detailed initial schedule here. Overnight we started implementing a firm bedtime and wake time. We tried to stay as consistent with these as we possibly could. If Ellie woke in the morning prior to the wake time we had settled on I would feed her and lay her back down in the crib, even if it was only a half hour until she would need to get up. If she was still asleep when it was time to wake I would wake her up. By doing this she gradually adjusted to consistently wake at that time. (We allowed about 15 min of wiggle room on either side of the time.)
Ellie is now over a year old and still wakes like clockwork at 7:15-7:30am unless she is in a different environment or we are away and sleeping in the same room with her. It was tedious to implement at first, but sticking to firm bed and morning wake times has paid off with biological expectations for her bedtime each night and consistent wake time each morning. It has helped her to STTN knowing when to wake and consider the night complete.
5. We swaddled her.
We had no understanding of swaddling or its importance before our sweet baby daughter entered the world. Even in the hospital I understood that swaddling was keeping Ellie warm, but I didn’t realize the role it could play in prolonging her coveted bursts of sleep. Despite our lack of understanding it, we tried to swaddle Ellie after she was born. However, I think we may have been the world’s WORST swaddlers. We gave up within a day or so on using receiving blankets. Instead we used a velcro one that we had on hand – one that our daughter seemed to pull her arm out of every single time. When her arm was free she would jolt in her sleep, waking herself prematurely. Naive new parents as we were, we didn’t realize that velcro swaddles came in various sizes. When good friends of ours came over and lent us a small swaddle to try, Ellie finally kept all limbs inside like a little pea in a pod and our swaddling was finally effective. (We had been trying to keep her snug inside a large!) Our favorite swaddles were these made by SwaddleMe since they wrapped tight, weren’t too heavy, and had a wide velcro area that made them really easy to use.
6. We invested in a white noise machine.
Since it was a small adjustment and easy to implement we bought a white noise machine for Ellie’s nursery when she was about 3 weeks old. It was our hope that the constant sound would drown out other distracting noises and remind her of the womb that she had so shockingly recently departed from. Although we sought to eliminate sleep aids, this was one we kept. It’s easy enough to transport that it can go with us if we travel and it helps me feel less conscience of noise I make around the house while Ellie’s sleeping. There are even free white noise apps that make it very easy to always have on hand. I know the white noise signaled sleep for Ellie because she would often wake if we turned it off.
7. We minimized overnight diaper changes.
When Ellie was a newborn we changed her diaper after every feeding throughout the day. As naive new parents we just assumed that’s what is also required overnight. What we didn’t realize was that changing her diaper every three hours (or less!) overnight was jolting her awake and unnecessarily disrupting her sleep. I invested in some 12 hour overnight diapers and, unless there was a notable smell or mess, I stopped changing them every time she woke to feed and kept her swaddled to put right back down. I think this made the transition back to the crib after each feeding easier – and it was certainly less work for mommy to manage overnight! There are times when we paid for it with a blowout the following morning, but it was worth it to help Ellie sleep through the night and to and take the load off of us to change her repeatedly overnight.
If you are a zombie new parent trying to get your baby to sleep through the night, take heart that it can be done and it does get better with time! When we implemented all of these tips to help our baby sleep we saw very fast results. Within a month Ellie settled easily at night and primarily only woke when hungry. She slept about 9 hours consistently through the night from about 3 months of age and slept 11 hours through the night when she turned 4 months old. At 4 months old the doctor gave us the go-ahead to introduce solids into her diet and that night was the first she slept from her bedtime right through to her morning wake time 11 hours later! Apparently the single serving of pureed sweet potato was just the little extra that she needed to make it the whole way through the night.
I hope these tips help you to regain a piece of sanity, or that just hearing our journey with Ellie gives you hope that there are better days ahead. Hang in there tired momma! You’re pouring love over your baby as you wake for each overnight cry.
It will get better!
(You can also read more about our daughters’ other schedules with the links below)
Baby #2: Newborn Schedule (Birth – Two Weeks)
Baby #2: Newborn Routine (2-5 Weeks Old)
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My baby is 2 weeks old and has been fussy even after we’ve made sure she has been fed, changed, and no fever. She screams whether we hold her or put her down. You said you let your 3 week old cry it out. How long would she have to cry it out for? We’ve noticed that if she cries from anywhere to 2-6 min on her own she eventually falls asleep. I worry that we are abusing her though 😢 Any advice or recommendations? My husband and I are both physically and mentally exhausted but we want to make sure our little one is getting the care she needs.
I can so relate to what you are experiencing! It was the desperation of only sleeping half hour stretches myself all night long for 3 weeks that drove us to where we knew we HAD to begin sleep training our first daughter or we simply wouldn’t be able to function anymore. Our daughter would only sleep if being held and even then it was difficult to get her to do so (even the swing didn’t really work for her). Because she was so high-strung she had to cry for pretty long periods until she learned to settle herself – but after only three days of firmly committing to teaching her she could sleep after being set down easily! It was like we had a new baby. It was SO hard for those three days though to listen to her cry. We would check on her and make sure she was ok, but it was hard. I comforted myself with knowing that she was learning to sleep. In the end this was a huge benefit to her health and she was ok. She just was not happy about being laid down. She was our harder baby so the sleep training did involve more tears. With our second baby we started training her to sleep in her crib on her own at 2 weeks old. We started a rule of letting her cry for 15 minutes when she was laid down before we would then soothe her to sleep if she hadn’t settled. This worked really well for her and by four months old she was sleeping through the night and settling very easily for naps (even though she still didn’t sleep them to a reliable duration.) With both of our babies we jumped in to comfort and help if it seemed that anything was bothering them more than just being unhappy at being set down. The crying usually sounded different if they were actually upset by discomfort of some kind, etc.
All that to say, I think the length of time really depends on the baby – and use your gut as a momma too! It’s so hard to listen to them cry but sometimes they need to a bit to learn. However, if it doesn’t feel right to you don’t be afraid to try a different method! There are so many methods out there. I know some people are probably critical of how we did things, but it was what worked for us to teach our babies and give us sanity. Also just a note – I am not a medical professional, but you mentioned your baby screaming whether held or set down a lot… have you ruled out reflux? Reflux of any kind can make the sleeping situation even more difficult!
Hi! I recently had my 3rd who is now 2.5 old. You would think by the 3rd I would be better at this. She is not sleeping well at all right from the start. Getting her to sleep is. 90 minutes process around the clock.
Our biggest issue is that she will go to sleep being held and then stay asleep 10 minutes in her crib and then wake crying and we start all over again trying to soothe her back to sleep.
My questions about your process are:
1. You would put a 2-3 week down awake after the 4s and let them cry up to 15 min, and then would you do whatever it took if they were still crying to ensure they got a good nap even if it meant holding/carrier?
2. If you 2-3 week old would wake after only a few minutes in the crib or in the night when they had just been fed would you let them cry 15 minutes then as well.
For example, i have been watching for sleepy cues and wake windows obsessively and this little lady is not giving me anything. It took me 30 minutes to soothe her to sleep, then 10 minutes later she woke crying so I shhhd and Pat, then 10 min later the same thing and 10 minutes after that I finally picked her and held her for an hour so she could get a little rest. This has been the process day and night for 2.5 weeks! Trying to figure out how much crying to allow on the front end but even more so during these early frequent wakings?
Lastly- do you ever use a pacifier?
Thanks so much!