How To Prepare Your Baby for Sleep Training
You know you want to start sleep training your baby, but where do you begin?
I had a baby who wouldn’t sleep through the night and took impossibly short naps. When we decided to try to sleep train her, I had so many questions.
What does normal sleep look like? There are so many different methods out there, how do I know which one is right? What if it doesn’t work?
I thought I was prepared, but it turns out, I wasn’t prepared at all.
Sleep training will be easier on you and your little one if you first have a plan. Here are some valuable tips on how to prepare you and your baby for sleep training.
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Keep Track of Your Baby’s Sleep
Tracking your baby’s sleep is an important step before you dive into sleep training.
I was so eager to get started trying to get my baby to sleep longer stretches at night that I didn’t take the time at first to figure out how long she was actually sleeping.
After a few failed attempts at sleep training, I started actually tracking my daughter’s sleep. You can do this any way that works for you – either just jotting down the times in a notebook or using a sleep tracker.
I tried to keep track of the following:
- when she fell asleep
- all night wakings including what time she woke up, what she fell back asleep and whether or not I fed her
- what time she woke up for the day
- all the times she ate throughout the day
- when she fell asleep and woke up for naps
Because my daughter is in daycare, I had to rely on notes sent home from our daycare provider to know when she was eating and napping during the day.
Our sleep training journey spanned many months and many methods and I tried a lot of different ways of tracking during this time.
At one point, I even created a pretty complicated Excel spreadsheet!
The easiest way to start tracking might be to keep a notebook and writing utensil by your bed or in baby’s room. Jot down the time she woke up, when she went back to sleep, and any interventions you had to do to get her back to sleep (feeding, rocking, etc.). You can then transfer that information to a more formal log the next day.
In order to get a good grasp on your baby’s sleep trends, you should try tracking her sleep for at least a week.
You’ll be able to pinpoint problem areas and see if there any patterns such as if putting her to bed earlier leads to less waking up in the middle of the night.
Make Sure Sleep Times and Wake Times Are Appropriate for Your Baby’s Age
Once you’ve been tracking your baby’s sleep for about a week, it will be easier to see if she is getting ENOUGH sleep. Maybe your baby isn’t sleeping well at night because she’s overtired. Or maybe she’s sleeping too much during the day.
My daughter has always been an early riser. However, putting her to bed LATER doesn’t cause her to sleep later. She actually tends to wake up more in the middle of the night if she goes to bed too late. In order for her to get the needed hours of sleep each night, we have to have an early bedtime for her.
It may take some trial and error to find out what works best for your baby. And inevitably, their needs will change as they get older. You may need to adjust a sleep schedule that was previously working when it doesn’t seem to be working anymore. This is especially true for when your baby starts switching from three naps to two or from two naps to one.
Typical Range for Hours of Sleep From Birth To Age Three
Please note that these are averages; every baby is different and may sleep more or less than others.
Newborn
- Total sleep: 14 to 18 hours per day
- Naps: 3-4 per day (more during first few weeks)
- Day sleep: 6 to 7 hours
- Night sleep: 8 to 10 hours
- Sleep is very variable during the first few weeks to months.
Three Months
- Total sleep: 14 to 16 hours
- Night sleep: 8.5 to 10 hours
- Day sleep: 4.5 to 6 hours
- Naps: 3 (midmorning, midafternoon, early evening)
- By three months, babies usually have a clear differentiation between day and night. Most full-term, healthy infants will begin to have the ability to sleep through most of the night (about a 5 hour stretch).
Six Months
- Total sleep: 12 to 16 hours
- Night sleep: 10 to 11 hours
- Day sleep: 3 to 4 hours
- Naps: 2-3 (midmorning and afternoon; evening nap may get dropped)
Nine Months
- Total sleep: 12 to 16 hours
- Night sleep: 9 to 12 hours
- Day sleep: 2.5 to 4 hours
- Naps: 2
Twelve Months
- Total sleep: 11 to 14 hours
- Night sleep: 11 to 12 hours
- Day sleep: 2 to 4 hours
- Naps: 1 – 2 (will usually drop morning nap, start single nap in the afternoon, in between the time the two naps had previously been happening)
18 Months
- Total sleep: 11 to 14 hours
- Night sleep: 11 to 12 hours
- Day sleep: 2 hours
- Naps: 1
2 years
- Total sleep: 11 to 14 hours
- Night sleep: 11 to 12 hours
- Day sleep: 1 to 2 hours
- Naps: 1
3 years
- Total sleep: 11 to 13 hours
- Night sleep: 11 to 12 hours
- Day sleep: 0 to 2 hours
- Naps: 1 (may drop naps)
Establish a Bedtime Routine
If you don’t already have a bedtime routine, make sure you establish one before you begin sleep training. If you DO have a bedtime routine, closely evaluate your routine to make sure it’s working.
Tips For Effective Bedtime Routine
- Keep activities the hour before bedtime low-key and non-stimulating
- Dim the lights
- Close the curtains
- Start bedtime routine at least 30 minutes before it’s time to go to sleep
- End of the routine should take place in your child’s bedroom/where he sleeps
Ideas to Incorporate Into Your Baby’s Bedtime Routine
- Give baby a warm bath
- Baby massage
- Read a story
- Sing a lullaby or play soothing music
- For older children, do a couple calming bedtime yoga poses
- Talk about plans for tomorrow to give your little something to look forward to
My daughter is now 2.5 years old but we’ve had relatively the same bedtime routine since she was a baby with some adjustments as she got older. My husband and I both do the bedtime routine together.
We start out using the potty, then she has either a bath or shower. Afterward, she picks out her pajamas and gets dressed. She brushes her teeth with a little help. Next, she picks out a story and she gets to choose who will read it.
For some of our favorite books, check out this post: 20 Perfect Books To Give As Baby Gifts.
After the story, we say prayers. Then she turns on her lullabies and stars. We were gifted this Elephant Summer Slumber Buddies Projection and Melodies Soother when she was a baby and we use it every night. I love it because as far as sleep associations go, I feel it’s relatively harmless. The lullabies are comforting to her and they shut off on their own after she’s sleeping. Occasionally, she’ll wake up in the middle of the night and ask for more lullabies but I don’t mind just going into her room and turning them back on.
After lullabies are on, she gives daddy and mommy hugs and kisses and we put her in the crib.
Research Sleep Training Methods
Extinction… The Ferber Method… No-Cry Sleep Training… I tried it all when I was attempting to sleep train my daughter. It’s important to research the different sleep training methods before determining the one you think would work best for your family.
Equally important is whether or not you are planning to night wean (if you’re still doing middle of the night feedings) and to come up with a plan for night weaning as well. Most sleep training methods will offer solutions for night weaning.
Here are some of the more common sleep training methods briefly explained.
Extinction
The Extinction Method of sleep training is the ultimate cry it out approach. This method is recommended by Dr. Marc Weissbluth in his book, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child.
Extinction is basically when you put your baby in their crib for the night and don’t go back into the room. The idea is your baby will learn to fall asleep faster on his own, without intervention from you.
Progressive-Waiting or Graduated Extinction (Ferber)
Alternatively, with graduated extinction or progressive-waiting, you briefly check in with and console you baby. Using this approach, you put your baby to bed awake, then briefly return to the room to check-in at increasing intervals until the baby falls asleep.
This method was made popular by Dr. Richard Ferber. You can read more about it in his book Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems.
No-Cry/Gentle Sleep Training
There are a variety of different gentle sleep training plans. The main drawback to these methods are that it can take a significant amount of time to see any changes.
Elizabeth Pantley’s No-Cry Sleep Solution is one method of gentle sleep training. This book basically goes through tips on helping you create a sleep plan for your baby based on your baby’s specific sleep issues. Pantley admits that this is NOT a quick-fix plan and may take several weeks to see any results.
Chair Method (Sleep Lady Shuffle)
In The Sleep Lady’s Goodnight, Sleep Tight, Kim West discusses The Sleep Lady Shuffle, her method for gradually teaching your baby to put herself to sleep without you.
You start out sitting in a chair right next to the crib to soothe your baby and every three nights, you move the chair progressively further away.
In my research, this seemed like one of the less popular sleep training methods but it was actually the one that worked best for me and my daughter.
You can check out my post: Sleep Training Advice From A Mom Who Tried It All. It may help you make a decision on which sleep training method is right for you.
Decide What You’re Going To Do In The Middle of The Night
For me, the hardest part of sleep training was the night wakings. I think this is why I “failed” so many times when trying to get my daughter to sleep through the night.
Whatever sleep method you choose, it’s important to be consistent.
If you are doing a cry it out method when putting your baby to sleep at the beginning of the night, you should continue to let them cry it out when they wake in the middle of the night.
When we tried the Ferber method, I could handle the initial bedtime tears. However, at 2am when she woke up crying and I knew she was tired AND I was tired, I couldn’t let her cry. I always ended up picking her up and feeding or rocking her back to sleep.
For me, it was much easier to be consistent with night wakings during the Sleep Lady Shuffle. I believe this was the reason we actually had success with this method of sleep training.
It’s important to have a plan on how you’re going to deal with middle of the night wakings. You should also decide if one parent will be handling the majority (or all) of the sleep training issues or if you will switch off and do it as a team.
Get Your Partner On Board With Sleep Training
Of course, if you’re counting on your partner to help out, he needs to be on board with your sleep training plans.
My husband was all for sleep training our daughter but he wasn’t the one doing the research or learning the methods or waking up at night with the baby. He basically told me to do what I thought was best, which was supportive, but not entirely helpful. However, it worked for us. When I needed him to take over for me, I could give him specific instructions on what to do.
If you need more from your husband or significant other, let him know! Sleep training will be much easier if both of you are on the same page and following the same plan.
Find a Sleep Training Buddy
Sleep training for our family was hard. It felt like no matter what we tried, we just couldn’t figure it out.
Even though my husband was on board, I was the one doing the actual sleep training. It helped to be able to talk to others who had been through this already or were currently going through the same thing.
I found it helpful to ask advice from my mom friends who had older kids and knew what I was going through. Their support and encouragement made things easier.
Additionally, when things were rough in the middle of the night, posting in Facebook mom groups was helpful. No matter the time of day or night, there was usually someone else going through the same thing.
Sometimes all you need is a little solidarity, mama.
With that being said, feel free to reach out to me if you need a little support or encouragement from someone who has been there and got to the other side.
You’ve got this!
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