The No-cry Sleep Solution (35 page)

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Because you are reading this book, I know that you would like your baby to sleep better. This is a key idea, so it may be worth trying it out to see what the results are for you.

Some working parents find that when their baby goes to sleep earlier, and sleeps better, he awakens in a pleasant mood, eager to play. Because you, the parent, have gotten a good night’s sleep, you can consider getting up earlier in the morning and saving some time before work to play with your baby, as an alternative to that late-evening play session. You’ll both enjoy that special morning time. Later, when your baby is consistently sleeping all night, every night, you can then move bedtime a little later and judge whether the difference affects your baby’s sleep.

Finding Your Baby’s Best Bedtime

It can take some experimentation to find your baby’s best bedtime. If you have been putting your little one to bed too late in the evening, you can approach this adjustment in one of two different ways:

• Adjust your baby’s bedtime to be earlier by fifteen to thirty minutes every two or three nights. Pay attention to how easily your baby falls asleep as well as his awakening time and mood to gauge the effectiveness of the changes until you settle on his best bedtime, or

• Beginning at around 6:30 p.m., watch your baby closely. As soon as he exhibits any signs of tiredness, put him right to bed, even if his previous bedtime has been 11:00 p.m. (For a list of the signs, see page 111.) When you do this, keep your home quiet and the baby’s room dark so that it resembles his usual environment in the middle of the night. If this bedtime is substantially earlier than usual, your baby may think he’s going down for a nap and awaken after a short snooze. If he does this, respond very quickly so that he doesn’t fully awaken. Follow your usual method for helping

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The No-Cry Sleep Solution

Mother-Speak

“I had been waiting until 10:00 to put Brooklyn to bed because that’s when I go to sleep and it seemed easiest. But your suggestion made so much sense that last night I put her down at 8:00. I loved having the rest of the evening to spend with my husband. We haven’t spent that much time alone together in months! And the baby actually had a better night’s sleep. I’m happy that all our needs can be met in such a pleasant way.”

Tammy, mother of seven-month-old Brooklyn

him fall right back to sleep, such as rocking or nursing; keep the room dark and quiet as you do during the middle of the night. It may take a week or more of adjustment to settle into a new bedtime.

Follow a Flexible Yet Predictable Daytime Routine

This idea may help everyone.

During the first year of life, a baby’s biological clock slowly matures. According to Dr. Dement, “As the weeks go by, the baby starts sleeping longer and being awake longer. This is caused by the consolidation of sleep periods. Then, around the fortieth week, the baby has started waking and going to sleep about the same time each day. His biological clock becomes in tune with the twenty-four-hour day.”

Yes, you read that correctly. He wrote
the fortieth week
! That’s ten months old! In other words, we cannot force a baby to con-form to a parent’s desire for a pleasant day, a lengthy nap, and a long, uninterrupted night’s sleep. We need to make baby’s world conducive to sleep in every way we can. We must remove any obstacles to peaceful nighttime sleep, and wait patiently for

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nature to do what’s best. Yes, some babies do consolidate their sleep earlier than forty weeks (lucky you if you had one of those!) and some require longer. (OK, I’ll say it—some, much longer.) Even given the constraints of your baby’s natural sleep consolidation schedule, you can help this process along by making sure that when baby wakes in the morning, he is exposed to bright light (preferably natural daylight) and that the hour before sleep at night is dim and quiet. Waking up at about the same time every morning can help set your baby’s biological clock, too. Yes, that means that
you
have to get up at the same time every morning, but this will help set
your
biological clock as well as your baby’s.

Routine Days, Routine Nights

Keeping a regular feeding, napping, and activity schedule helps set your baby’s internal clock. As an example, while you may enjoy sleeping in on the weekends, this can disrupt your baby’s regular schedule; he neither knows nor cares what day it is. Any changes to his normal sleeping pattern prevent his biological clock from working properly. (By the way, this is true for adults, too. One of the best ways to treat adult insomnia is to set a wake-up time and adhere to it seven days a week. You can read more about that in Chapter 11.)

As I have said before, I am not suggesting a clock-watching program. Such regimens only put unnecessary stress on you and your baby. Instead, set up a typical daytime routine and adjust it daily based on your baby’s cues, your mood, the weather, and any situations that arise. What you want to avoid is a haphazard week of events—awaking Monday morning at 7, Tuesday morning at 9; lunch on Wednesday at 11, on Thursday not until 1; naptime on Monday at 11, on Tuesday at 1. When your schedule (or shall I say, lack of schedule) looks like this, your baby’s biological clock isn’t able to work properly. It’s much better to have a predictable pattern, allowing for flexibility.