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On a recent episode of The Mommy-Muse Is In: Empowering Your Journey into Motherhood, I discussed the all important issue of getting your baby to sleep with Karen Pollak of Babies2Sleep.com. This perinatal counselor and sleep coach was quick to point out that there is a “magic ten week mark” that babies much reach before they are capable of sleeping for extended periods of time. She developed a 12 step program to help new parents get their babies to sleep. It seems that body weight and milk consumption can make all the difference in babies that sleep through the night and their crankier, night-owl counterparts. Simply adding more breast milk or formula to baby’s diet may be the trick. Your baby is likely to need two to two and one-half ounces per pound of weight.
As Karen puts it, “A twelve-pound baby should be consuming twenty-four to thirty ounces of milk in a twenty-four hour period. From wake-up to bedtime, if that child has only had eighteen, we know that waking from the middle of the night is nutritive in need. If your child has had thirty ounces of milk before bedtime, those wakeups are probably not nutritive, but that the child has not developed the skills to self-soothe.”
Baby’s environment also plays a role in his or her ability to sleep well. Factors such as temperature, noise, light, and distractions provided by nursery decor can determine whether or not baby is able to relax. Babies require a calm, soothing, and most importantly, consistent environment in which to relax and fall into a deeper sleep.
According to Karen, babies are born with cortisol, which is a “stress chemical,” but don’t start producing melatonin until around ten weeks after birth. Melatonin is a chemical that relaxes the body. At that aforementioned magical ten week mark, baby has “an internal tool to help with sleep.” She explained that these two chemicals compete for dominance: “I like to use the analogy of David and Goliath. Goliath is the cortisol and melatonin is David, with his little pebbles, throwing them up at the giant, trying to bring down this big, powerful energy to be able to get to sleep.”
Once your baby has passed the ten week mark, it is time to begin a routine for settling them down to sleep. Karen offers this advice: “Bring them into their nursery, make sure the lights are low, the room temperature is sixty-five to sixty-eight degrees, have a white noise element that is a background noise that the baby’s brain can plug into but it’s not really in their face and introduce a transitional object like a “lovey” or security blanket. Create a tool so when your child is developmentally ready to sleep with it, they have something in place that can help them get from that drowsy to sleep place.”
Another trap that many parents fall into in their desperation for baby to sleep through the night is keeping the baby up longer. I was surprised to learn that keeping baby up longer can have the opposite effect, causing your baby to be over-stimulated and over-tired, resulting in frequent waking during the night or early waking the next morning. The best remedy is to lay baby down between 6:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m.until they are three years old. This strategy makes perfect sense as babies usually operate on a 12-hour day. Up at 6 a.m. should mean down at 6 p.m.
What is most important for you as a new parent to remember is that sleeping patterns will become established over the next few months if you consistently and diligently promote good sleeping habits in your baby. The early weeks and months of parenting a newborn can be tough, but things will change for the better. Before you know it, you’ll be able to settle in a nice routine that will finally allow you more time for sleep as well.
For further information on addressing sleep issues, read these articles:
Elizabeth Pantley Solves Your Sleep Problems
Postpartum Survival Strategies: Sleep, Part One
Postpartum Survival Strategies: Sleep, Part Two
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