Babies and Sleep

I remember when I was pregnant with my first I was scared about labor and delivery. I had a difficult labor, lasting 47 hours, and when I finally held my baby I was instantly in love and turned to my husband and said “I want another one!” (Read more about my labor story here). After getting on the other side of the long and exhausting labor I thought I had conquered the mountain and things would be smooth sailing from here. All I had to do was love on this precious little baby and catch up on the rest I missed out on from being awake for 3 days, after all everyone knows newborns sleep all the time, right? WRONG – at least that wasn’t true in the case of my precious newborn. My baby wouldn’t sleep unless I was holding him and within moments of setting him down he would wake up, which means I didn’t get much sleep unless someone else was holding him. This was not sustainable, my exhaustion was building and my precious bundle of joy was getting over tired. I am so grateful I had a good support system or I am not sure how my sanity would have survived. I was crying out to the Lord, “Lord please show me what I need to know to help my baby sleep!”.

There are lots of “sleep training” programs out there, the most common being the “cry it out” method. When we use the lens of building secure attachments, we can see that letting our baby cry until they give up hope that anyone is going to show up is not an ideal way for our baby to learn to sleep through the night. But at some point they still need to learn to sleep long stretches of time on their own, so how do we help them do that? 

Chris and I train people in relational skills, so the idea that we need to learn skills for life and thriving is not new. And when we are trying to learn something we don’t already know, the process is usually bumpy and can cause us distress. What I came to realize is that learning to fall asleep on their own in their bed (without nursing to sleep or having us rock them or lay with them until they fall asleep) is a skill our babies have to learn, and it’s natural they would feel some distress in the process of learning. So how do we help them learn this skill, allowing for some distress while offering them enough comfort and reassurance that they are not alone in their distress? Obviously that is a tricky thing to do. I wish I could sit down with each of you and talk through your situation and your fears and help you think through how to start, but since I can’t, I will share some things from my experience and hope they will help you as you figure out what’s right for you and your child.

There are lots of things we can do to help the process (a bedtime routine, the right sleep environment, feeding them when they first wake up so they don’t fall asleep while nursing or with the bottle), but there are also things we might not think of that can help set the tone. 

Are they having lots of calm, quiet together moments with us (learning the skill of quieting through quieting with us)? Putting oneself to sleep is self-quieting, so a baby learning to fall asleep on his own is the beginning of learning self-quieting (this skill is the strongest predictor of life long mental health).

Another factor – am I able to stay calm and quiet myself when my baby is feeling distressed? This is where the need for us as parents to self-quiet comes in while we are helping our baby learn to self-quiet. They can sense our tension and upset, so if we are upset it will make it harder for them to calm. When I first understood the need for self-quieting I also discovered it was a huge weakness for me. If it is for you as well, have no fear! We have lots of resources that can help you work on this skill. Check out our Skill 2 page for resources – my favorite is the Skill 2 Habit Builder Course with lots of practice exercises to help you strengthen this skill for yourself.

In addition to learning the skill of self-quieting, there are many internal factors as well that can impact a baby’s sleep. Being colicky and frequently in distress (which mine was), feeling hungry or not getting enough to eat, teething, and numerous other situations can make it harder for a little one to sleep well. These are all important factors to be aware of and be watching for as additional intervention may be needed.

It is normal for our baby’s distress to cause us distress, God designed it so we would respond to their cries! Crying is their language to communicate. As parents we begin to learn how to interpret their cries (“that is a hurt cry”, “that is the I’m tired cry”, it’s been a while since they ate so that is the “I’m hungry cry”). It’s normal for our baby to have some tears while learning to fall asleep on their own, and just because they are crying does not mean we have to pick them up right away. We have to tenderly live in the zone between “I’m not too sure about this” and “you left and I think I’m going to die”, while also working on quieting ourselves so we can be a peaceful presence in the midst of our baby’s distress. 

Even knowing all of these things I felt like I needed an example of what this process could look like. I found the Sleep Sense program* which helped me have an example with their “stay in the room” method for helping my little one learn to fall asleep in his crib. In broad strokes it involved keeping my baby awake until I put him in his bed, having him fall asleep in his crib so if he stirred in the night he recognized this as the same place he had fallen asleep and staying in the room and patting or comforting him when his distress levels increased so he could know I was still with him. When he would wake in the middle of the night, I let him fuss for a few minutes to see if he put himself back to sleep rather than instantly assuming he was hungry. We set up a bedtime routine that was different from the nap times during the day so he could start to learn when it was nighttime rather than the day.

My baby was 6 weeks old when we started trying this. There were a few stressful days for us as parents while we were helping him learn this skill, and we had to work on quieting our distress so we wouldn’t increase his, but after just a few days he went from sleeping for a maximum of one hour in his crib to several hours in a row! At 6 weeks old, he still needed to feed in the middle of the night, but over time the frequency decreased and he started sleeping longer stretches, sometimes 6-8 hours at a time. 

There were still seasons during teething, sickness or traveling and sleeping in an unfamiliar environment when we would slide back to frequent wakes ups and the need for comfort, but helping him learn to fall asleep in his bed without my help made a world of difference in his rest levels and mine. 

If your child is struggling to fall asleep without your help, I encourage you to see this as a skill he needs to learn and find steps to support him as he learns it. Doing what you can to quiet yourself will make a big difference as you help him learn. It especially helps to have a supportive partner, friend or family member involved when you first start trying to teach this lesson as you may temporarily get less rest while initially helping your child learn this skill and it can be stressful.

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*Note, the Sleep Sense program is still available, but I haven’t looked at it in 13 years, so feel free to check it out and see if there are elements that work for you. I am not endorsing the program as a whole since I am not currently familiar with it. At the time of using it,  what she called the “stay in the room method” was the aspect I felt was helpful. https://sleepsense.net/