The Baby Sleep Book: How to help your baby to sleep and have a restful night

Offer more feedings during the day as well. Try to work in one or two extra feedings during late afternoon and early evening. If baby breastfeeds while falling asleep, be sure he feeds for ten or fifteen minutes before he drifts off.

Cluster feedings before bed made a big improvement on sleeping longer once we both got the hang of it.

signs of distress. These normal sleep sounds, which often occur as babies are transitioning from one state of sleep to another, may be lovingly misinterpreted as, “Oh, he’s about to wake up. I better get to him before he does.” Sometimes, if you wait out these sounds, you realize that these are not cries for attention. They’re just normal sounds, and you don’t need to rush in to pick up and comfort baby. He may not even wake up. He may put himself back to sleep without your help if he does wake. If baby’s noises escalate into cries, this indicates that something is “not right here” and that he needs something from you to make it right. It might be food, it might be holding, it might be a few soothing words, but you can’t go wrong by paying attention to these more insistent nighttime noises.

Babies are not sound-less sleepers. They sigh, snort, gurgle, coo, snore, sputter, squeak, squeal, hoot, toot, cough, even whimper and mumble a bit. Your baby’s night noises are as unique as her personality, and most of them are not

During major motor achievements, baby may start waking up at night to practise what he’s learned. Typical times for this are four months for rolling over, six months for sitting up, between seven and nine months for crawling, and between nine and 15 months for walking

One to three months. Between six and eight weeks of age, babies begin to “consolidate” their sleep into shorter periods during the day and slightly longer periods at night. They sleep from 15 to 16 hours a day. At this age, most babies wake up at least once a night and need a feeding and help to resettle (many will wake up two or three times). Babies start waking up not only from hunger, but also from a need for closeness (being alone is also very scary).
Three to six months. Babies sleep a total of around fifteen hours a day, taking two or three two-hour naps during the day and doing the rest of their sleeping at night. By six months, most babies will begin to sleep four- to five-hour stretches at night. At this age babies also begin having shorter REM periods of sleep and longer non-REM.

When passing from one state of sleep to another, the brain is more likely to awaken than at other times. We call this the “vulnerable period”. If by chance an arousal stimulus (teething pain, loud noise, hunger, separation anxiety, and so on) bothers baby during this vulnerable period, baby is likely to awaken. Because babies have shorter sleep cycles, they have more vulnerable periods – more times during the night when they are likely to wake up. In addition, babies spend more time in REM (light) sleep in the second half of the night. This explains why babies often wake up more during that time.

Bottom line:

Babies need to be gentled through this first period of REM sleep, so that they can stay asleep until deeper sleep overtakes them. Between three and six months babies begin to drift more quickly into non-REM sleep. They can be put down awake, or partially awake, and they will enter deep sleep fairly quickly.

Feed to sleep – but not completely. Help your baby learn that there are

4. Awaken baby for a full feeding just before you go to be

15. Adjust your attitude. Ni