Newborn Sleep Habits & Routines To Introduce From Day 1

Newborn Sleep Habits & Routines To Introduce From Day 1

If you would like to incorporate some good habits and routines into your baby's life, this may be a good starting point. It is a list of tips that I read about, have used and worked well for us.

1. Trust your instincts and follow your baby's cues
what & why: This advice sounds obvious, but I remember the first few days and it is tricky to follow this rule. You are still in the very early stages of getting to know your baby, so it can be easy to question your thoughts. Looking back at that period, I now know that amazingly, your intuition can guide you, if you let it.

While I am not recommending you close your ears and sing blah blah blah every time someone offers you advice - you might do well to hear them out, but do not feel bad about immediately disregarding advice that sounds absurd or not right for you and baby. Stick to your convictions and trust your opinion.
our experience: In the first week, the visiting midwife told me to take some steps to stop my baby waking up every hour for food. She recommended that I force coax Coco into eating more so that she only woke up every 2/3 hours. It sounded like helpful advice, especially since it was coming from a senior midwife, with many years of experience. Once she left, I put her advice into action and when Coco stopped nursing after about ten minutes, I tickled her, took off her socks, and then her sleep suit, to try to keep her awake and feeding. She simply ignored me, even when she had no clothes on and continued to sleep. My Mum was very amused by the whole thing. The next day I let her be and a few days later she started sleeping for longer on her own. I can think of a number of other examples of where I trusted my instincts and we (Coco and I) were better for it.


2. Keeping track of baby's cycle
what & why: Being able to figure out why baby is crying can take you from being confused to being confident about caring for the new addition to your home. It is one of the reasons some Mums choose to put young babies on schedules. If you're not quite ready for a schedule yet or even if you are trying already, you recording information on when your baby sleeps and eats, will help you  see the trends to build a picture of their behaviour. An APP is a great tool for this.

our experience: I followed the wake, eat, play, sleep pattern and Coco seemed to be on a three hour cycle, in the early weeks. This means, she would wake up at 10am, eat, 'play' (which conceited of me trying to entertain her), sleep and then wake up again at 1pm and repeat the cycle. She started this cycle naturally, by herself. I recorded when she ate and slept and had diaper changes in the 'Baby Feed' App, see this post I wrote on the best apps. This gave me a better idea of whether she was crying from hunger (generally every 3 hours) or sleepy (after she had been awake for an hour or 90minutes). There were times when she would cry and it sounded like she wanted food but it wasn't her food time yet, per her usual trend. In those cases, I more often than not, gave her food, if trying to soothe her another way did not work. Before she was about 3 months old I stopped using the app as I felt a lot more confident about why she may be crying and could just go with the flow from then.

3. Teaching day and night transition
what & why: Teaching baby to distinguish between day and night, can be helpful for getting them to sleep through the night, and also to teach them to play and be more active during the day.

our experience: I put up one blind, while we slept at night, that way when the sun rose in the morning she could tell it was a new day. In the morning, I gave her a top and tail and changed her clothes. I'd take her to the living rom for play, where it was bright and noisy thanks to cooking, washing machine, dishwasher and other normal household noise. Our night time routine was in place from week two, I would put her in the bouncer, while I ran her bath, with the annoying sing-sing music that it came with. I would give her a bath with the music still on and then dim the lights, turn the music off and get her dressed into her pyjamas. I would swaddle her, then feed her if she needed to eat, otherwise I would sing the night time song I made up 'Mummy loves you, Daddy loves you, we love you', and then put her down to sleep. Usually, by the time I started singing, she would already be showing signs she was ready to sleep - yawning and her eyes closing and would then fall asleep in my arms most times.

4. Swaddle
what & why: Swaddling a baby involves wrapping them up snuggly, mimicking the confined space of the womb so that baby feels quite secure.

our experience: During the day time, after an hour and a half, give or take, of being awake, I knew Coco was tired and ready to sleep, per her usual routine (see point 2). I would swaddle her and then cuddle and rock her to sleep. I used the aden & anais cotton swaddles, which is light and breathable too and can be used for warm or along with a thicker blanket in colder weather. I did the same at night after her bath. I would swaddle her, then feed and rock her to sleep.

The swaddle meant that when I put her down for naps or night time, she was warm and cosy and she could smell me on it, too. Coco did not like her hands being wrapped in, so I swaddled her with her hands out. Although we have now stopped swaddling, (you're advised to from about 14 weeks), while she's having her last feed at night I put her little blanket around her and even if she's awake when I put her down, with the blanket or gro-bag still around her, I feel like she gets all the swaddling benefits.

5. White noise
what & why: The idea behind white noise (background noise like shhhhhh or the sound of waves, ocean, rain etc) is that the womb is quite a noisy place so it is soothing for babies to have some background noise for their first few weeks out in the world.

our experience: I am a big believer in white noise. After swaddling Coco for naps and night time in the early weeks, I would put on white noise (I started with shh, then ocean and now we're on mountain river ) on the free Sound Sleeper app. The noise is effective even for adults - I have a picture of my sister, her two year old, and Coco all fast asleep after I put on the ocean sound. If you do use it, check the volume is not too loud. We still use white noise for naps and night time sleep. I'll admit to putting on in the pram when and we were out in the shops and I got desperate to get her to sleep. I just ignore the funny looks from strangers.

6. Other little tricks
-The fan above the hub/cooker makes a great white noise, as does the sound of a shower.
-When I knew she needed a nap, I reduced eye contact with her as much as I could get away with, because that would usually excite her and keep her concentration, and awake for longer.
-If all else fails to soothe her, I would use a sling/baby carrier to get her to sleep. If that didn't work within ten minutes, I knew for certain then, that she was hungry.
-Before you pick up a crying baby, as soon as you walk into the room, speak to him/her so he hears your voice. Then put your hand on him for a few seconds before you pick him up. Your baby then starts to learn to be soothed by your voice and touch alone. It really works and buys me a few seconds when she's howling.    

If you're thinking or worrying about all the advice relating to cry-it-out method of sleep, sleep association, getting baby to self-soothe early, not cuddling or 'spoiling baby' (it is not possible), my advice would be don't! I have been there, I still have night time sleep/eating worries (for a whole other post), but every mum has one thing or the other that they're working on. It really is normal.

This tip was super helpful for me, and it might be for you, if you feel some guilt about holding your baby all the time and you really want to prevent bad sleep habits because, for example, you might have to be alone with baby a lot of the day/night, the tip is 'variety'. Sometimes let baby sleep in your arms, other times try putting baby down, let him sleep sometimes in a play pen in the living room, other times in the bassinet or pram.

Hope this is some help for thinking about options and maybe working in some new routines.

Ps: this is the 50th post I have published on the blog - how exciting! 

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Newborn Sleep Habits & Routines To Introduce From Day 1