To get a baby to sleep through the night, several strategies can be effective:

Key Tips for Helping Baby Sleep Through the Night

• Follow age-appropriate wake windows: Ensure your baby is awake for the right amount of time between naps. Too little or too much awake time can disrupt nighttime sleep

• Provide sufficient daytime nutrition: Make sure your baby gets enough calories during the day to reduce the need for night feedings, which can interfere with sleeping through the night

• Establish a consistent bedtime routine: A calming, predictable routine such as a bath, putting on pajamas, feeding, and reading a story signals to your baby that it’s time to sleep

• Put baby to bed drowsy but awake: This helps the baby learn to self-soothe and fall asleep independently, reducing night wakings

• Create a comfortable sleep environment: Keep the room dark, cool (around 68-72°F), and use white noise or a sound machine to mimic womb sounds and block out disturbances

• Encourage self-soothing: Gradually reduce how much you soothe your baby to help them learn to fall back asleep on their own when they wake at night

• Wean night feedings when appropriate: For babies older than 4 months, slowly shift calories to daytime and reduce night feedings to avoid “reverse cycling,” where babies rely on night snacks and wake frequently

• Be consistent: Consistency in routine, responses to night wakings, and sleep environment is crucial to establish healthy sleep habits

Sleep Training Methods

• Pick up, put down: Comfort baby when they cry but put them back down awake to encourage self-soothing

• Cry It Out (CIO) or Ferber method: Put baby to bed awake and let them cry for set intervals before comforting, gradually increasing the intervals

• Check and Console: Parents check on baby and soothe before crying escalates, gradually increasing intervals between checks

• Fading/Chair method: Parents stay in the room while baby falls asleep and gradually move away over days or weeks

• Gentle/No Tears method: Uses consistent routines and soothing to help baby fall asleep without crying, but may take longer

Pediatricians often recommend starting sleep training around 4 months, when babies are developmentally ready to sleep through the night without needing feedings and before they develop object permanence, which can make sleep training harder

. By combining these approaches-age-appropriate wake times, good nutrition, bedtime routines, sleep environment, self-soothing encouragement, and consistent sleep training-you can help your baby learn to sleep through the night