Sleep Training Tips

Taking care of a newborn is not easy and sleep deprivation makes it even more challenging. So instead of giving you the bullshit mom advice of “sleep when baby sleeps”, my advice is start sleep training early! The sooner your baby sleeps through the night, the sooner YOU get to sleep through the night and will no longer feel like a mombie!!!

At 10 weeks, my Nico baby started sleeping through the night (10-12 hours) consistently (and now he’s taking really great naps!) and I owe it to three things that I would recommend every parent try! (Linked all items on Amazon here.)

 
 

  1. SNOO

    Let me start with the obvious: the SNOO is not cheap. It took until a week before Nico was born for my husband and me to cave. You have the option of buying or renting. It’s cheaper to rent, but we decided to purchase it so our *crossing fingers* future baby can use it. (Renting twice would be more expensive.) And this way our family can also borrow it. It’s TOTALLY worth it. I haven’t heard one family regret it. Pro tip: Make sure baby sleeps in the SNOO day 1 of taking baby home. If you don’t, you risk your baby not liking it and baby may prefer that YOU soothe them to sleep. Big yikes.

    • Mimics the womb - transitioning from your nice cozy womb to the world is a BIG change for baby. The SNOO mimics the womb (constantly moves and plays white noise) to make this a much more smooth transition.

    • Responds to baby - instead of Chris or me having to pick up Nico every time he cries, the SNOO automatically responds to soothe him based on the level of crying. As the crying gets louder, the swaying gets a little more aggressive and the white noise gets a little louder.

    • Safe - it has built in swaddling (they call it the sleep sack) that is clipped into the bassinet which keeps your baby securely on the back, preventing rolling

    • Connects to your phone - love the app because it helps you track baby’s sleep schedule, which is very important during the first months. Tracking allows you to see your baby’s natural sleep pattern and nap schedule. It also alerts you when the baby is crying and the SNOO is on soothe mode.

    I was worried my baby would be dependent on the SNOO, but it was actually a really easy transition out to his crib. There’s a “weaning” feature that slowly weans your baby off of the movement. This article was really helpful.

  2. 12 hours by 12 weeks

    I read about this book in a couple of blogs I follow and lagged on ordering it. By 1 week pp, I was desperate to maximize sleep so I finally ordered it. If you can, order it early and read it before baby comes. I read it while feeding/pumping (and half asleep)… it has a lot of examples that are kind of complicated so I had to read more than once to fully understand it. (My friend tried to listen to the Audiobook and it was way too confusing. The book is worth it.)

    My Sparknotes: The concept is that babies wake up to eat. By training the baby to eat less frequently but more ounces per feeding, they sleep longer stretches. The book goes over how to safely and effectively get your baby from eating every 2-3 hours to every 4 hours and only 4 meals during the day. 0 meals at night = 12 hours of sleep.

  3. Nighttime Routine

    The best advice my friend gave me: It’s so important to establish a nighttime routine to signal to baby that it’s time to SLEEP. We started the routine with Nico Week 2, but I think it’s probably better to establish one and start it right away. Here’s what we do for Nico:

  1. Prepare Bottle - I always want to make sure that Nico is well-fed before going to sleep so he doesn’t wake up in the middle of the night hungry. I prefer bottle feeding for his nighttime feeding because I can actually measure how many ounces he’s getting. I usually pump right before his nighttime feeding or I heat up frozen previously expressed milk.

  2. Hatch - Get the room ready. Turn off all the lights in baby’s room and turn on the Hatch. I read that orange light is best for sleepytime so we use orange while getting him ready to go to sleep and the TV black/white screen noise at 30%. When we put him down, we turn off all of the lights.

    • For nighttime feedings and diaper changes, we would only use the orange Hatch light.

  3. Bath - We give him a warm bath using Aveeno baby calming body wash with oatmeal and lavender. Nico is instarelaxed in his bath and loves it. Keyword: warm. We made the mistake of giving him a room temperature bath and he HATED it.

  4. Massage/Lotion - We bring him into room (with the lights off and Hatch on) and put on his diaper and massage him with Aveeno baby calming lotion.

  5. Onesie - Put on a 2 way zipper onesie (and a sleep sack if you’re not using the SNOO. I linked a couple that I like).

    • 2-way zippers allow you to unzip the bottom half of the onesie which (1) saves you a lot more time (=more time to sleep) and (2) minimum disruption to baby so they can fall back asleep quicker.

  6. Feed - Feed him the bottle. Turn off Hatch light, leave sound on.

  7. Burp/Cuddle - Burp him for about 10 minutes. Cuddle, say good night.

  8. Put down while still slightly awake - See ya in 12 hours, boyyyyy BYE!

I really hope this was helpful! If you have other sleep training tips, please add them to the comments below!

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