Sleeping Like a Baby: Sleep Tips for Babies

Guidelines and tips to encourage healthy sleep habits

The term "sleeping like a baby" can seem cruelly misleading. Parents may provide the world's most beautiful and comfortable crib, cradle, bassinet or Moses Basket, but all new babies will naturally wake up several times a night based on their internal signals and needs.

Night Feedings

Tiny newborns have very small stomachs and cannot take in too much food at once. But their fast rate of growth demands energy and very regular feedings. Keeping your baby in a bassinet, cradle, or Moses Basket near your bed at night may make the inevitable early morning feedings easier on both mom and baby, particularly after a Cesarean Section. Many sleep experts recommend returning the baby to the cradle or bassinet after feeding.

Distinguishing Day from Night Newborn babies generally have six or seven sleep/wake cycles that are evenly distributed over 24 hours. Keeping your baby in rocking baby cradle, a portable bassinet or "Moses Basket," can help keep him or her near you day or night for immediate attention to his or her needs. Another advantage of using a portable item such as a baby cradle or bassinet is that during the daytime, you can get your baby used to being in rooms with more light, with some noise and activity, to begin to distinguish daytime from night. Nighttime sleep should be dark and quiet and perhaps associated with a ritual like bath time or different pajamas. Remember, if your baby is still too tiny to feel at home in his or her big crib, you can always place he bassinet or Moses Basket inside the crib to avoid disturbing them.

Learning Your Baby's Signals

Many mothers quickly notice that babies make sounds when they are sleeping, which do not necessarily indicate a need to be picked up, fed, or changed. Being able to let the baby stay nearby in a bassinet or Moses basket where mom can see them rather than relying on a baby monitor near the crib in the nursery and helps reassure new moms. Proximity also helps them recognize which sounds are a call to parental action.

Also, the more time they can keep baby where they can watch them, the more quickly a parent can begin to pick up on their baby's individual "tired" signals such as quieting, eye-rubbing, and fussing.

This Too, Shall Pass

Early days with your newborn are precious, but when sleep is in short supply, understand they can be trying as well. Remember in a few short months night feedings, bassinets, Moses Baskets and nursing bras will become a thing of the past, and your little one will be charging around full of energy and sleeping& well, like a baby, all night.