If you are feeling ready to sleep through the night again, you aren’t alone! I am working towards that goal myself. Here’s how to night wean.
Step One Gradually, gently lengthen out the interval between feeds during the day. Start with a goal of feedings every 3 hours, then work towards every four hours. There is no rush. Try distraction as a tool for increasing the time between feeds. My favorite distraction is going outside for a walk. It’s amazingly effective. Once your baby is comfortably feeding four times a day plus any night feeds, proceed to step two. Don’t be surprised if you already see an improvement in night sleep just from completing step one! You may also find that your baby is much less likely to cry to eat once you are on a regular schedule, and that they are happy to wait until the scheduled time. Step Two Gradually, gently, reduce one night feeding at a time. If your baby only feeds once per night, start with that one. If your baby feeds two or more times per night, pick one of those feedings. I usually suggest the second feed, then the first feed, then the third feed, if there are three. Every other night, reduce that one feeding only by either 30 seconds (if you are breastfeeding) or ½ ounce (if you are bottle feeding). If your baby takes both bottle and breast, experiment and see which is easier to reduce. I have done it both ways. Your baby may fuss when you reduce the feed, but in my experience, they rarely cry for long. Rest assured, you are only reducing the feed by roughly 15 calories every other night, so your baby really won’t be starving. It’s normal to be anxious about this but they really will be fine! Once that first feeding is eliminated, start reducing the next feed, if there is one, until all feedings are successfully eliminated. And voila, you have a baby who sleeps through the night! Caveats Most sources say to wait until 12 pounds but none of my three babies were that big and none of them had issues with weight gain despite night weaning. Check with your pediatrician if you are concerned. Tribeca Pediatrics, a huge practice with offices all over New York City as well as in LA and Chicago says that you can night wean at 2 months old. Other pediatricians are much more conservative. Another thing: if you are breastfeeding, you want to make sure that your supply is well established before reducing the number of nursing sessions… but you can use a breast pump to make up for one or more missed sessions. Using a high quality pump and pumping on both sides will increase your output. I suggest a hands free pumping bra to make this a lot more convenient. Not to worry, you can use the same bra all day long. It's worth the investment! That said, some women’s supply never gets beyond a certain limited volume and if that is you, you may need to nurse more frequently and/or supplement. I have had very good luck with Mother’s Milk Tea for boosting supply. Another caution, if your baby has reflux, you may not be able to increase the duration of time between feeds. (The general rule of thumb with reflux is “half as much (volume), twice a frequent.” That being said, my baby is a heavy spitter (though does not have pain nor difficulty gaining weight and therefore does not have a diagnosis of reflux) and I manage this with a LOT of spit up cloths and offering a dream feed in the evening before I go to bed, in order to boost her total daily intake without overloading her stomach at any given feeding. Conclusion Night weaning really isn’t that complicated, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy, for emotional reasons, of course. If you’d like help getting your little one sleeping through the night, whatever their age, set up a free consult and we will make your dreams a reality.
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Wake windows are all the rage nowadays, but the concept is actually a fairly recent invention.
They are basically a way to predict sleepy cues, and also to help parents whose babies don’t reliably show sleepy cues. Even if your baby does show sleepy cues, wake windows can help you plan your day. For example, if you know your baby is typically awake for 75 minutes after she wakes up in the morning and before she shows sleepy cues and is therefore ready to go down for her first nap, that means her wake window is roughly 75 minutes. You can use this to plan your day. For instance, after I feed and diaper the baby, I know I can reliably put her in her baby gym to play for 30 minutes while I get her sister ready for school. But if I try to shower too, I’ll be dealing with an overtired baby who will be hard to get down for her nap. It'll be better to put her down in her crib first and then shower. She'll nap longer and I'll enjoy my shower more without a wailing baby. Always go by sleepy cues first if your baby shows signs of being tired BEFORE the wake window is up. But if your baby doesn’t show sleepy cues, use wake windows instead. Wake windows generally start out shorter and get longer throughout the day. For a baby in the three-month-range, for example, her wake windows might be 60-75-75-90 minutes. That is, 60 minutes from her morning wake time until the first nap, 75 minutes of awake time (including feeding and diapering!) between the first and second nap and again between second and third naps, and 90 minutes between the final nap of the day and bedtime. Every baby is different in terms of sleep needs and wake windows so again, use your own baby's sleepy cues to predict her wake windows. When should you NOT use wake windows? I generally advise stopping them by 5-6 months. At this age, your baby should be ready to settle into a predictable clock-based schedule. That might look like: 7 am wake up 9 am nap 12 pm nap 3 pm 7 pm bedtime With older children it can be helpful to know, for example, that your child needs to be awake 4-6 hours after naptime and before bedtime, but since this is such a wide range of times, it’s not terribly useful. I find it easier to say, “don’t let your child nap past 3 pm” than to focus on the wake window. If you'd like help getting your child's sleep schedule optimized so that the whole family sleeps well, set up a free consultation and we'll get your family well-rested in two weeks or less, guaranteed. The best way to know if your baby is tired is to use sleepy cues. They can be tricky to spot at first but with practice, you’ll get better and better at them. Here are some examples. Not all babies have all of these cues, but all babies will have some of them.
And they start from the earliest newborn days so it's never too soon to start looking for them. They include:
Fussiness is a sign of overtiredness. Do not wait for fussing to put your baby to bed because once she’s overtired, it’s a LOT harder for her to fall asleep. Caveat: chronically overtired babies often don’t show sleepy cues. If that’s the case with your little one, go by wake windows. I’ll be explaining them in tomorrow’s post. Sleepy cues also work for older kids! In toddlers, preschoolers, and beyond, yawns may be followed by a burst of energy, called the “second wind.” If your child starts to bounce off the walls before bedtime each night, he doesn’t need more exercise, he needs an earlier bedtime. The goal is always to get your child while they are still calm and collected, just a little quiet and dazed. Even adults have sleepy cues. If you find yourself yawning, get yourself to bed stat, dirty dishes be damned. Missing that magic window, just like with children, makes falling asleep much more difficult. PS If you’d like help deciphering your baby’s sleepy cues, or you’re worried your baby doesn’t have them, schedule a free consultation and get your family’s sleep on track in two weeks or less, guaranteed. With Valentina on the way, I ordered some new swaddles to try them out. I was particularly excited to try out one of the arms up swaddles because I had heard folks rave about them.
Well, to my disappointment, it was a huge disappointment for us. Having her arms up near her head meant she kept swatting herself in the face. She barely slept in it at all – her arms kept waking her. Ultimately I went back to my favorite from my older girls, the Miracle Blanket. What I like about the Miracle blanket is:
The newborn months pass quickly but when it’s needed, a swaddle is really needed. Soon we’ll be moving to the Magic Merlin Suit and then the Woolino sleep sack. I’ll post reviews as we do! Want help getting your new baby sleeping longer stretches, even without sleep training? Set up a free consult and find out how we can get your whole family sleeping better in two weeks or less, guaranteed! (I also work with families of older children.) Does your infant wake up every time the pacifier falls out? Some babies really struggle with this. (Others don't have any problems so it's not a guaranteed issue.)
Pacifiers can be an amazing sleep tool but if falling out wakes them… not so much! And if you have to keep running to the bassinet to put it back… that’s definitely not a win. I recently learned a technique to help with this. Just before your infant is fully asleep with the pacifier… pull it out. If she is nearly asleep, she should fall asleep anyway… and falling asleep without the pacifier in her mouth will help her put herself back to sleep without it. As your baby gets better at this skill, try removing the pacifier earlier in the routine. You can still use is to soothe your baby and get her very relaxed, just not to the point of asleep. This skill takes time to develop so don’t despair if it doesn’t work the first few times. Just keep trying! If your baby doesn’t struggle with this problem, no need to adjust your routine. Using a pacifier to fall asleep at bedtime has been shown to reduce the risk of SIDS, and some babies sleep really well with them. Thank you, Mia, for introducing me to this technique! Here’s a video from TCB to demonstrate how to do this. If you are having trouble sending your little one off to dreamland, schedule a free consult and see how we can help your entire family get the sleep you deserve. Even with a young baby. I was really excited to have another baby now, as an experienced sleep coach, to see if having that experience would change my parenting. (Rest assured, no pun intended, I was also excited for other reasons.) I was not yet a sleep coach with the first two; I just read and researched a lot about sleep with them.
I also thought that I would post short daily updates about my newborn and that was lesson one: do not overestimate what you can get done with a newborn! I had forgotten how fast and simultaneously slow the days can go by when you are in an endless cycle of feeding, diapering, and rocking a baby. I did get a shower in every days but some days, not much more. Lesson number two was that I always advise parents to “anchor” the day with a reliable wake up time, generally between 6-7 am although it could be as late as 7:30 with a baby under 5 months. Now, having a newly 4-month old of my own, and not needing to get her out of the house for daycare, I prefer not to have a set wake time for her. If she was up at 5:30 to eat, I’d prefer that she sleep until 8:30, if she wants to. Waking her at 7:30 seems ridiculous. I don’t know what I was thinking. I do like having a predictable bedtime for her, around 7 but… sometimes she goes to bed earlier or later. Last night she went to bed right on time but started waking up 1.5 hours later, something she hasn’t done in ages… after the fourth pacifier re-insertion, I got her up and as soon as I unwrapped her swaddle and laid her on the bed, she happily kicked and cooed. After a few minutes she ate a rather large meal and then went back to sleep until 5:30 this morning. So I’m more flexible than I used to be. And the third thing I’ve learned and that has changed my practice is a subtle shift about the earliest age a baby can be sleep trained. Valentina needed to be rocked to sleep every time she slept until one day, when she was 3 months old, I laid her down on the bed, swaddled, while I stepped out of the room for a moment. When I came back, she was asleep. I was stunned. And the very next night, I couldn’t get her to sleep, despite rocking, burping, feeding… and she was wailing miserably despite all my efforts. So I put her in her bed and let her cry it out. At 3 months. An age I would have previously suggested was too young. It took two nights but now she puts herself to sleep independently most of the time. And usually sleeps 9-10 hours now. My partner still likes to rock her to sleep and that’s another thing I’ve learned – you don’t have to be absolute about rules when you start sleep training young. If you'd like to get your baby sleeping beautifully through the night, or napping independently, set up a free consult and let's chat about making your dreams a reality. If your child has recently returned to school or daycare and is coming home grumpy – I know mine is – it means she is exhausted.
And the solution is – you guessed it – an earlier bedtime. It doesn’t matter if the current bedtime has worked for them for ages. Returning to school and daycare is exhausting. I know because I worked in a school for many years and I was always exhausted for the first few weeks. It doesn’t matter if your child is already waking up too early in the morning. In fact, too-early morning wakings are often a symptom of overtiredness. It doesn’t matter if your child is having trouble falling asleep at night. This, too, can be a symptom of overtiredness. If you miss the ideal window for falling asleep, falling asleep can be much more challenging. A good way to know if your child is overtired is if they get a second wind of energy in the early evening, or around bedtime. A hyperactive child at this time of day is an overtired child. If this is your child, do not add any extra afterschool activities yet. Wait a few weeks, until your child seems more himself again. The need for the extra early bedtime often fades away after a few weeks of adjustment. You can add afterschool activities once this happens. If it’s not possible to skip them all, limit them as much as possible and streamline bedtime so your child still gets to bed extra early. If you’d like to make this school year a well rested one for your family, schedule a free consult and find out how we can get your family the rest you need to truly enjoy your time together. We took Valentina to the pediatrician last week because she hadn’t been feeding well.
She had had a cold the week before and I was worried she might have an ear infection. She was fighting the breast and especially refused the left side at nearly every feeding. We were away at the beach for a week and I was especially concerned about dehydration because it’s very hot and humid on the Pacific coast of Mexico in August. Luckily, her physical exam checked out perfectly with no ear infections to be found. The pediatrician told me about the Three Months Lactation Crisis, something I had never heard of before, despite both a pediatrics background and training as a lactation consultant. At three months, your baby can effectively remove the milk she needs much more quickly than as a newborn, sometimes in as little as 5 minutes. Your three month old is also becoming much more distractible, and by 4 months, may need to be fed in a quiet, dark room in order to focus. This is especially true if there are fascinating older siblings around. Your baby may pop on and off the breast at this age and cry. This happened to us! I thought I didn’t have enough milk… but when I pumped, or even tried to express by hand, there was always at least a bit of milk. The pediatrician says that babies at this age can also become a bit lazy. In my case, offering bottles probably contributed, since bottles are so much easier than breastfeeding, especially at the end of the day, when there is less milk (but it is higher in fat and thus, more filling). This crisis can last as long as a full month. I wish I had known so that I would have been less anxious! Also at 3 months, breasts have become much more efficient at knowing when milk is needed, and will ramp up and down production at different times of day, based on demand; there is less milk stored in between. This is tricky for me at the moment because I can’t quite figure out how to have more milk at bedtime; I have been pumping before I go to bed and giving a bottle of pumped milk after breastfeeding at HER bedtime, but I am not currently making as much at my bedtime as she needs at hers. I am going to try pumping after each morning feed for a few days and see if that helps without leaving her needing more bottles during the day. Most breastfeeding resources recommend not going long stretches at night without breastfeeding or pumping but that’s where I draw the line! If my baby sleeps all night, so do I. (She recently went from 9 hour stretches most nights to 10+ hours most nights… delightful!) I am also making a concerted effort to drink a LOT more water, like at least 100 oz a day. And I am eating a bowl of oatmeal each day, with protein powder and peanut butter added to make it not spike my blood sugar so much. Oatmeal supposedly helps with breastmilk production. If you are struggling with how to make breastfeeding (or bottle feeding) work effectively to create great sleep habits, you aren’t alone. Schedule a free consult and let’s chat about how you can have a delightfully well fed baby who also sleeps great! The single best thing you can do to get your kids ready to go back to school and daycare is to get them on their school schedule ahead of time.
Start waking your child up now at the same time that they will need to wake up for school. If they are hard to wake up, do it anyway. That will help them be sleepy earlier in the evening, which will help them get adjusted. If you have older kids or children who are sleeping quite late AND have ample time, you can make the change gradually. Otherwise, go ahead and wake them and let them be tired. It’s far better to be tired at home than to be tired at school, where there are a lot more demands on them. Get them outside if you possibly can. Fresh air and activity will help to reset their circadian rhythms. Do not let non-nappers take a nap on those days. If your young child still takes a daily nap, time the nap for the same time as it will be during the school week, and wake your child after a reasonable amount of time, no matter how deeply they are sleeping. It is of utmost importance to induce your child to go to sleep at the correct time, and that means that daytime sleepiness may be required. Do not let them sleep late on weekends, either. If you have to wake them in the morning, they need an earlier bedtime. And the only way to make that earlier bedtime happen is to wake them in the morning. This advice may sound obvious but in my experience, most parents do not make the adjustment to wake times ahead of time. Leading to misery for the entire family the first 1-2 weeks of school, a time where there’s already plenty of stress to go around. If you need help getting your family back on track with sleep, schedule a free consult today and have a well-rested family this school year, guaranteed. Yesterday went GREAT in terms of naps. Valentina put herself to sleep independently every time. It's amazing how just one night of cry it out at bedtime helped naps so much.
Last night, not so much. She was dozing during her evening feed and her older sister was having trouble falling asleep (because her sleepover buddy and her were having too much fun fooling around) so I rocked and swayed Valentina for thirty minutes while I made sure Amelie stayed in her bed. And then as soon as I laid her down, she woke up and started to wail. I had been hopeful that after the day's excellent naps, cry-it-out wouldn't be necessary but alas, she wouldn't calm down even after her pacifier was reinserted. Listening to her cry was stressful all over again. I distracted myself with a phone call. By the time I was off the phone, she had stopped crying, about 20 minutes. She woke up when I came to bed, around 10 pm and the back of her head was soaking wet again so I decided to change her pajamas as well as her diaper. This time I put the fan on, too. She slept from 10:40-5:10 am! I'm always so happy when the wake up time starts with a 5. It's never been later than that thus far but I am holding out hope. Then she took a very long nap while we hiked in the green mountains of Vermont so she ended up waiting almost 4 hours to eat -- not intentional on my part -- and then took her largest feed ever, 6 ounces. She went down independently for the next nap and I'm hoping she'll make it to the four-hour mark again before eating. When I put my older children on this schedule as babies, it immediately led to longer stretches of sleep at night. Fingers crossed! Valentina is my last baby and I've been loathe to night wean as a result but if she naturally starts sleeping longer at night, I won't be sad... PS Putting in a plug for the Miracle Blanket. Still the best swaddle I've ever tried. For non-rolling babies only. It's like a tiny straitjacket. Valentina stops crying as soon as she's bundled into it. I don't receive any compensation for my recommendation! |
AuthorAbby Wolfson is a pediatric nurse practitioner, certified child sleep consultant and certified life coach for parents. She divides her time between Brooklyn, NY and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Archives
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