6 Science-Backed Baby Sleep Strategies

Everything about baby sleep can seem frighteningly high-stakes at 3 A.M. in the morning.

Make one tiny mistake in his or her training and your child’s development will be seriously affected: he’ll either end up waking in the night well into his high school years, or worse, develop anxiety, depression, or mood swings.

And with every sleep expert offering slightly different advice on the ideal timing and method for sleep training you may be unsure about who to believe, how to proceed, or which sleep training method you should follow.

That’s where this article fits in – I’m going to help you separate sleep fact from sleep fiction by zeroing in on 6 science-backed strategies that have been proven to promote healthy sleep habits in babies and young children.

Strategy #1 – Learn to Spot Your Child’s Sleep Cues

Like the rest of us, your child has a sleep window of opportunity, a period of time when he is tired, but not too tired.

If that window closes before you have a chance to tuck your child into bed, his body will start releasing chemicals to fight the fatigue and it will be much more difficult for you to get him to go to sleep. So how can you tell if your baby is getting sleepy? It’s not as if your one-month-old can tell you what he needs. Here are some sleep cues that your baby is ready to start winding down for a nap or for bedtime:

-Your baby is calmer and less active – this is the most obvious cue that your baby is tired and you need to act accordingly.

-Your baby may be less tuned-in to his surroundings – his eyes may be less focused and his eyelids may be drooping.

-Your baby may be quieter – if your baby tends to babble up a storm during his more social times of the day, you may notice that the chatter dwindles off as he starts to get sleepy.

-Your baby may nurse more slowly – instead of sucking away vigorously, your baby will tend to nurse more slowly as he gets sleepy. In fact, if he’s sleepy enough, he may even fall asleep mid-meal.

-Your baby may start yawning – if your baby does this, well, that’s a not-so-subtle sign that he’s one sleepy baby.

When your baby is very young, you should start his wind-down routine within one to two hours of the time when he first woke up.

If you miss his initial sleep cues and start to notice signs of overtiredness – for instance, fussiness, irritability, and eye-rubbing, simply note how long your baby was up this time around and then plan to initiate the wind-down routine about 20 minutes earlier the next time he wakes up. (The great thing about parenting a newborn is that you get lots of opportunities to practice picking up on those sleep cues—like about six or seven times a day!)

Learning to read your baby’s own unique sleep cues is the first step to a more rested and more content baby.

Here’s something else you need to know about babies’ sleep cues, something that can toss you a major curve ball if you’re caught off guard:

Babies tend to go through an extra-fussy period when they reach the six-week mark. The amount of crying that babies do in a day tends to increase noticeably when babies are around six weeks of age.

You aren’t doing anything wrong and there isn’t anything wrong with your baby. It’s just a temporary stage that babies go through.

If your child becomes overtired, your child is likely to behave in one or more of the following ways (results may vary, depending on his age and personality):

-Your child will get a sudden burst of energy at the very time when you think she should be running on empty.

-You’ll start seeing “wired” and hyperactive behavior, even if such behavior is totally out of character for your child at other times of the day.

-Your toddler or preschooler will become uncooperative or argumentative.

-Your child will be whiny or clingy or she’ll just generally fall apart because she simply can’t cope with the lack of sleep any longer.

You will probably find that your child has his or her own unique response to being overtired. Some children start to look pale. Some young babies start rooting around for a breast and will latch on to anything within rooting distance, including your face or your arm! When nothing seems to be wrong (he’s fed and clean), but he’s just whining about everything and wants to be held all day, he’s overtired and needs help to get to sleep.

Learning to read your baby’s own unique sleep cues is the first step to a more rested and happier baby.

Strategy #2 – Teach Your Baby to Distinguish between Night and Day

Because our circadian rhythm (our internal time clock) operates on a 24-hour and 10-minute to 24 hour and 20-minute cycle (everyone’s body clock ticks along at a slightly different rhythm) and all of our rhythms are slightly out of sync with the 24-hour clock on which the planet operates, we have to reset our internal clocks each and every day – otherwise, we’d slowly but surely stay up later and sleep in later each day until we had our cycles way out of whack.

Daylight is one of the mechanisms that regulate our biological cycles.

Being exposed to darkness at night and daylight first thing in the morning regulates the body’s production of melatonin, a hormone that keeps our bodies’ internal clock in sync to that we feel sleepy and alert at the appropriate times.

By exposing your baby to daylight shortly after he wakes up in the morning and keeping his environment brightly lit during his waking hours, you will help his circadian rhythm to cue him to feel sleepy at the right times.

Moreover, he’ll start to associate darkness with sleep time and bright light with wake-up time – you’ll find that it works best to take advantage of sunlight (as opposed to artificial light) whenever possible.

Studies have shown that exposing your baby to daylight between noon and 4:00 P.M. will increase the odds of your baby getting a good night’s sleep.

Strategy #3 – Let Your Baby Practise Falling Asleep on His Own

Some sleep experts recommend that you put your baby to bed in a sleepy-but-awake state whenever possible from the newborn stage onwards so that he can practice some self-soothing behaviors.

Others say that you should give your baby at least one opportunity to try to fall asleep on his own each day.

Lastly, some others say that there’s no point even bothering to work on these skills until your baby reaches that three-to-four month mark (when your baby’s sleep-wake rhythm begins to mature so that some sleep learning can begin to take place).

Sleep experts claim that the sleep-association clock starts ticking at around six weeks. They claim that this is the point at which your baby begins to really tune into his environment as he’s falling asleep.

So if he gets used to falling asleep in your arms while your rock him and sing to him, he will want you to rock him and sing to him when he wakes up in the middle of the night – that’s the only way he knows on how to fall asleep.

This is because he has developed a sleep association that involves you – you have become a walking, talking sleep aid.

Some parents decide that it makes sense to take a middle-of-the-road approach to sleep associations during the early weeks and months of their baby’s life – they decide to make getting sleep the priority for themselves and their babies and to take advantage of any opportunities to start helping their babies to develop healthy sleep habits.

Regardless of when you start paying attention to the types of sleep associations your baby may be developing, at some point you will want to consider whether your baby could be starting to associate any of the following habits or behaviors with the process of falling asleep:

-Falling asleep during bottle-feeding

-Being rocked to sleep

-Having you rub or pat his back, sing a lullaby, or otherwise play an active role in helping your baby to fall asleep

-Having you in the room until your baby falls asleep

-Relying on a pacifier

Here’s something important to keep in mind, particularly since we tend to fall into an all-or-nothing trap when we’re dealing with the subject of sleep.

You can reduce the strength of any particular sleep association by making sure it is only present some of the time when your baby is falling asleep.

If, for example, you nurse your baby to sleep some of the time, rock your baby to sleep some of the time, and try to put your baby to bed just some of the time when he’s sleep but awake, he’ll have a hard time getting hooked on any sleep association.

Sleep experts stress that the feeding-sleep association tends to be particularly powerful, so if you can encourage your baby to fall asleep without always needing to be fed to sleep, your baby will have an easier time learning how to soothe himself to sleep when he gets a little older.

Most babies are ready to start practicing these skills around the three- to the four-month mark.

Strategy #4 – Make Daytime Sleep a Priority: Children Who Nap Sleep Better

Scientific research has shown that babies who nap during the day sleep better and longer at nighttime. While you might think that skipping babies’ daytime naps might make it easier to get them off to bed at evening, babies typically end up being so overtired that they have a very difficult time settling down at bedtime and they don’t sleep particularly well at night.

And rather than sleeping in so that they can catch up on the sleep they didn’t get the day before, they tend to start the next day too early and they have a difficult time settling down for their naps, as well.

Simply put, it is important to make your child’s daytime sleep a priority, just as you make a point of ensuring that he receives nutritious meals and snacks on a regular basis – your child needs nutritious sleep snacks during the day in addition to his main nighttime sleep meal in order to be at his very best.

In addition, babies, toddlers, and preschoolers who nap are generally in a better mood and have an improved attention span as compared to their age-mates who don’t nap.

Strategy #5 – Know When Your Baby No Longer Needs to Be Fed At Night

Your baby may continue to wake up in the night out of habit even when he’s outgrown the need for a middle-of-the-night feeding.

If your baby is going without that nighttime feeding some of the time or doesn’t seem particularly interested in nursing once he gets up in the night, it might be time to eliminate that nighttime feeding and use non-food methods to soothe him back to sleep.

Eventually, of course, you’ll want to encourage him to assume responsibility for soothing himself to sleep, but the first hurdle is to work on breaking that powerful food-sleep association.

With some children, it happens quickly. With other children, it’s a much slower process.

Once you break that association, he may stop waking as often in the night and may be ready to start working on acquiring some self-soothing skills.

Strategy #6 – Remain as Calm and Relaxed as Possible about the Sleep Issue

If you are frustrated and angry when you deal with your child in the night, your child will inevitably pick up your vibes, even if you’re trying hard to hide your feelings.

Accepting the fact that some babies take a little longer to learn the sleep ropes and feeling confident that you can solve your child’s sleep problems will make it easier to cope with the middle-of-the-night sleep interruptions.

Scientific studies have shown that parents who have realistic expectations about parenthood and who feel confident in their own abilities to handle parenting difficulties find it easier to handle sleep challenges.

The Developmental Importance Of Napping For Babies

Baby naps aren't just sweet moments of parental respite – they're also developmentally vital.

For new parents, gettine more sleep doesn’t just have to be a dream. There are ways to make it happen, starting with getting their baby on a consistent sleep schedule, both at nigh and with daytime naps.

This may not look to difficult, but in reality, it is. Putting a baby to sleep in a softly manner requires a precise and planned approach.

Sleep experts have proven that setting babies’ internal clocks to a routine nap cycle is more than just a smart way for parents to free up time to work or recharge their own batteries – it’s also vital to early development.

Regular sleep is an essential physical and cognitive aid to a baby’s brain and body. And naps play a vital role.

According to clinical studies, children who have regular, adequate daytime naps settle to sleep at night easier, have less night walking, are less accident-prone during the day, and show better performance on cognitive tasks.

The negative side effects of poor napping are equally noteworthy. Children who lack adequate sleep duration, which is more likely if naps aren’t taken regularly, are at increased risk for obesity during preschool and early school years, have more difficulty with emotional, social and physical functioning in early school years, and are more likely to exhibit hyperactivity. For babies to truly reap the many benefits of sleep, nature alone isn’t enough. Parents play a huge role and their first question is almost always, “How many hours of sleep does my kid need each day?”

Experts have reached a consensus, agreeing that a six-month-old will need 13 to 14 hours of sleep, while a 12-month-old will need 12 hours of sleep.

That amount remains pretty consistent until age four, when kids usually stop napping. Then it drops down to about 11 hours of sleep.

Of course, that’s really helpful to know out of the gate but still not super helpful for establishing consistent nap schedules. Because infants’ daily sleep needs can fluctuate a lot in the short-term – day to day or week to week – parents can feel like they’re shooting at a moving target.

The mindset of “How many hours has it been since the last sleep?“ doesn’t establish solid, daily sleeping times. That’s best achieved through active parental involvement and intervention.

Let’s take the following example – if your baby will sleep 10 hours at night, from 8 PM to 6 AM, that means you aim for bedtime at 8 every night and plan to wake them up at everyday at 6 in the morning.

It might sound crazy, but that’s what helps set that internal clock.

The same goes for naps.

Yes, though it seems counterintuitive, sometimes the best strategy for getting babies on a regular sleep schedule is to wake them up from a nap.

If you don’t wake them up, however, you can start a snowball effect. What this means is that they’ll nap for, let’s say 3 hours, but then they won’t be tired enough to go to bed at night. It’s hard, but having a balance helps.

That’s why some babies hit all the right numbers in terms of daily totals but still struggle to sleep through the night – they’re just not tired enough.

Instead of letting them sleep as long as possible during the day, the more effective approach is to make sure they get a few consolidated hours of good sleep.

Simply put, naps are a matter of quality over quantity – an hour or two goes a long way. So does a strong routine.

How Much Daytime Sleep Do Babies Need?

Newborns: Until they’re about 3 months old, infants are napping machines. They can sleep up to 18 hours a day, and typically only spend an hour or two awake at a time.

Babies: After the newborn stage, but before they reach their first birthday, babies need two to four naps a day. They may rest anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours at a stretch.

Toddlers: Children this age should get 12 to 14 hours of sleep a day, including naps. Somewhere between their first and second birthdays, most toddlers drop from two naps a day to one, which usually takes place in the early afternoon. When that happens, the remaining single nap can be long: up to 3 hours.

Preschoolers: After age 2, not every child needs a nap, though some 3- or 4-year-olds will still benefit from one. Preschoolers need 11 to 13 hours of sleep a day, but it’s more important for them to get a solid night’s rest than it is for them to nap. So if your child can’t fall asleep at night on the days when she naps, it may be time to shorten his afternoon snooze. But make sure to compensate by pushing bedtime earlier.

School-aged kids and older: After age 5, most kids no longer need naps. But a mid-day rest can work wonders for kids and teens who are dragging. Try to keep them short -- about 30 minutes -- and make sure they wake up by late afternoon. That way, the nap won’t mess with their bedtime.

4 Fascintating Facts About How Babies Sleep

When people use the phrase “sleeping like a baby”, they’re probably not being literal, and that’s because new parents are usually tired and exhausted trying to find the best strategies for getting their little ones to sleep.

While we can’t erase the exhaustion that comes with taking care of a baby, we can help you worry a little less, and take some comfort in the fact that some of your baby’s sleep habits are not a cause for alarm, but are actually markers of good health. These are:

#1 Baby Sleep Patterns Are Different from Adult Sleep Patterns

We adults depend on circadian rhythms to regulate our sleep patterns – that is, the timing and duration of sleeping hours – but babies aren’t born with a built-in biological clock already ticking.

The rhythm takes time to develop, which is why newborn sleep schedules are so erratic and unpredictable. A normal infant won’t have a regular sleep pattern until they’re about 3 to 6 months old.

Moreover, even after sleep patterns are established, babies will still sleep differently, because they don’t go through the stages of sleep the same way adults do. We go through one sleep cycle – from light sleep to REM sleep – every 90 minutes or so.

For babies, it only takes about 50 minutes, and they don’t catch up to the adult standard until they reach their toddler years.

#2 Babies Are Light Sleepers

You probably know this already, but have you asked yourself why?

For one, it has to do with those shorter sleep cycles. Infants, particularly newborns, may actually wake up between full cycles, so it’s not so much light sleeping as it is actually learning how to sleep properly.

On top of this, babies spend about the same amount of time in both non-REM (quiet) and REM (active) sleep; compared to adults that spend only about 20% of their slumber in REM sleep.

Deep sleep actually occurs right before REM sleep, and is the last of the three stages of NREM – the other two being part of light sleep.

What does this all mean?

Not only is the infant sleep cycle shorter, but it also includes a lower percentage of deep sleep.

It can take up to 20 minutes of light sleep before your baby sleeps into a deep slumber, and even then, REM sleep ensues shortly after.

This is part of why they need to sleep so often.

#3 When It Comes to Daytime Naps, Every Baby Is Different

Let’s settle this, before doctors and other health professionals get into an uproar. Yes, there are ideal numbers: A good nap is generally considered to be at least about an hour and a half in length. There are also commonly prescribed amounts of naps per day, depending on age range—three to four naps from three to five months, two to three naps from six to nine months, and up to two thereafter and into the toddler ages. Newborns don’t nap, as much as they have short windows of waking moments, in between sleeping periods of two to four hours at a time throughout the entire day.

Your baby’s actual sleep habits may be close to this, or completely different—depending on factors such as temperament, environment, daily routine, and more.

If your baby’s naps are unusually short, but they nap more often or sleep through the night with relative ease—waking only to feed—that’s fine.

If your baby naps for more than an hour and a half but takes less naps overall, that’s fine, too.

What’s most important is the total number of hours spent sleeping in a day—about 11 to 18 hours, depending on the baby’s age.

The point is that your baby hasn’t read the baby books you have, and they don’t understand what their pediatrician says during checkups.

As long as they’re happy and healthy, deviating from standard daytime sleep habits isn’t such a big deal.

#4 Babies Process Information and Learn Even During Sleep

Contrary to what some may believe, babies get a lot of sleep.

This is good news, because sleep influences learning and memory; and if that’s true for adults that spend one third of their lives asleep, what more for babies that spend up to 75% of their time in slumber? From training themselves to recognize their parent’s voices, to figuring out working non-verbal cues to express feelings like hunger or pain – and much, much, more – babies learn and test the limits of their environment continuously when they’re awake.

What they learn is then consolidated and bolstered by periods of sleep in between their waking moments.

And even though there’s no conclusive proof that learning while sleeping works with adults — most studies on this actually refer to memory reactivation, which requires previous learning while awake — it can actually work with babies.

Interview Mary-Ann Schuler

Today I had the pleasure – and honor – to speak with Mary-Ann Schuler, child psychologist and world renowned baby sleep training expert. Her impressive rise to fame started when she discovered a very efficient method of putting any baby to sleep – no matter how stubborn or active he may be – in a short time and with no stress. Since then she has helped thousands of babies and families help get good quality sleep, day and night. Here is some of the brilliant advice she had to share with me today:

Me: Hello Marry-Ann. Thank you for accepting my invitation.

Mary-Ann: It’s a pleasure. Hope I can answer all your baby sleep training questions and help more parents along the way.

Me: Let’s begin with a short introduction. Did you ever think that you would provide this much-needed help to so many people?

Mary-Ann: The truth is, I didn’t. But I knew somehow that I had to. Baby sleep issues are among the – if the not most – common problem parents face with their babies.

Being a mother at home and a child psychologist at work and still being unable to solve the problem made this even more frustrating.

Me: That’s really inspiring. The fact that this interview will reach out to a lot of parents who are at their wits’ end not knowing how to address this problem makes it invaluable.

Mary-Ann: I truly hope so.

Me: If you were to choose a word to describe the process of sleep training a baby, which one would it be?

Mary-Ann: Rewarding.

Me: Wow! I’m convinced that parents love hearing that. Can you tell me exactly what you mean by “rewarding”?

Mary-Ann: Yeah, sure. Rewarding in the sense that babies and parents are equally benefiting from it. The reward is a good night’s sleep for both.

Me: And if parents want very fast results?

Mary-Ann: The truth is, nothing ever happens overnight. They need to remember that consistency and persistence are the keys here.

They are the building materials that support the whole structure. Take one out and the building falls to the ground.

Me: How about positivity? Is it important?

Mary-Ann: Surprisingly, children can sense if you’re truly happy. In other words, if you’re not happy when you’re teaching them, they won’t be happy learning from you.

Me: There is an old debate if children need to cry out until they fall asleep or not? What do you think of this?

Mary-Ann: I have to admit this is among the most common questions I receive. The short answer is no. Children shouldn’t be left alone crying out until they fall asleep.

The reason for this is simple: children need affection. If they don’t receive it now, they won’t show it back later in life. Affection, however, doesn’t mean rocking them to sleep every night.

The good news is that there is a third way, which is both soothing and efficient. I describe it in detail in my book.

Me: You wrote the book on how to sleep train every child. If parents pick it up, can they really have a sleeping child in a short amount of time?

Mary-Ann: As I clearly explained in the book, each child is unique and there are certain differences between each developmental phase. You can’t sleep train a 2-month old baby in the same way you would train a 1-year old. In general, any baby can be trained in a short amount of time, but it all depends on a parent’s consistency in following the routine.

Me: What is the shortest time someone has ever sleep trained their child using your method?

Mary-Ann: I receive mails from parents telling me they achieved fast results on a daily basis, but the most amazing mail I read was from a very happy mom who told me that she managed to sleep train her baby in three short days.

Me: Wow, that’s amazing. So if parents want to use your method and see that kind of fast results, where can they find out more about your program?

Mary-Ann: They can visit my website! It’s the only place they will find out exactly how I discovered this method and get their hands on a copy for themselves. (Click Here To Visit Mary Ann Schuler’s Site)

Me: Thank you very much for your time Mary-Ann.

Mary-Ann: Any time!