“Is There A Way To Teach My Newborn How To Be A Great Sleeper So I Don’t Have To Sleep Train Later On?”

It's never too early to start establishing great sleep habits.

This was a question I received from Fatimah, my first client in Saudi Arabia. 
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She hadn’t sleep trained her older son until he was a year old. At that point, he was waking up seven times a night to nurse. And sleep training him was excruciating.

Now eight-week-old Farris seemed to be following in brother’s footsteps. Fatimah really didn’t want to endure the same nightmare again.

Also, Farris was heavy, and rocking him and nursing him to sleep multiple times a night was really hurting Fatimah’s back. She has almost no time with her older son because Farris seemed to need her all the time, and she was feeling a lot of guilt about that. And of course, she was exhausted from nursing and not-sleeping all night long.

But she didn’t want to do anything that would harm him, of course. So she scheduled a free call with me, and we decided to move forward in a gradual, gentle progression. Neither of us wanted him to cry for long periods of time. Older babies can handle this but newborns aren’t ready for that.

Newborns have immature nervous systems and often need a lot of help falling asleep…. But that doesn’t mean they can’t learn to take over the job.

Here’s some of the strategies we used. None of them involved crying:

• Gradually increasing the intervals between feedings, with the goal of spacing them at least three hours apart.
  
  This helps because when babies are snacking frequently, they never really fill up their bellies. Which means they can’t nap very long because they get (a little) hungry again.
  
  
• Using the Soothing Ladder to gently reduce Farris’ need for help falling asleep. So when Fatimah had the energy for it (not every time he slept), she put him down awake in his bassinet and gave him a chance to fall asleep on his own. She stayed next to him and gradually offered more and more support, eventually working up to feeding him to sleep if he needed it.
  
  With lots of practice, Farris got better at putting himself to sleep. With zero crying. In his final day of our two-week sleep training program, he put himself to sleep all by himself three times. Amazing progress for a newborn who previously needed intense nursing and rocking to sleep every single time he slept!
  
  He also got faster at putting himself to sleep – by the end, it took just five minutes.
  
  
• Dramatically shortening his awake intervals. Fatimah started watching for early sleepy cues like a hawk, and putting him down to sleep much sooner than she had been previously doing.
  
  
• Creating a much earlier bedtime. It will come as no surprise to any of my former clients that an earlier bedtime helped Farris get more total hours of sleep.
  
  
• Maintaining an ideal sleep environment for most of Farris' naps. Using darkness, white noise, and the bassinet (almost) every time created strong sleep associations that made it easier for Farris to sleep. 
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• Having a lot of patience and consistency. None of these strategies are a quick fix. In the short-term, a lot of patience, consistency, and hard work are required. But with these three ingredients, huge changes can take place. 
  
  

Here’s what Fatimah told me today about her experience, “I never imagined that we could reach this point in just two weeks.”

Some of the changes she noticed in Farris, “He actually now prefers to fall asleep on his back in his bassinet instead of in my arms. He often wakes up happy now, whereas before, he was really fussy. Sometimes I don’t even realize he has woken up because he wakes up happily, without crying!”

And about herself, “I have so much more energy now that I am sleeping more. I would never have been able to do this on my own. It was scary at first, because I never sleep trained my older son at this age. I am so glad that I could message you with questions, or even just to rant! That really helped.

Farris sleeping independently will make it so much easier for him when I go back to work. I am so excited that his sleep habits will continue to grow and I will never have to sleep train Farris like I did with my older son!

It's also great having some time to relax and connect with my husband in the evenings. 

I am so happy I did this!"

If you would like to help gently guide your newborn to better sleep, it is absolutely possible! Better sleep is in your future. Schedule a free chat and let’s get your family the sleep you deserve.