Our daughter sleeps through the night and she has been since she was 6 weeks old (she was sleeping 5 consecutive hours a night at 2 weeks). I credit it to advice from our pediatrician: to NEVER let our daughter fall asleep in our arms. Our pediatrician explained that babies need to learn to fall asleep on their back in order to sleep through the night. Babies wake up in the middle of the night naturally, and need to be familiar with being on their back so they can drift right back to sleep. If a baby is accustomed to falling asleep in a person's arms, when they wake up in the middle of the night in their crib on their back they will not know what to do. They will need to be held to drift off asleep again because that's how they learned to sleep.
Behaviorally, this made perfect sense, so we took what she the doctor to heart. We just wanted to give our daughter independence as a baby so her bedtime routine wouldn't be a problem for her (or us) in the future. Every night, we put her to bed on her back while she was sleepy, and let her put herself to sleep. That way, if she wakes up in the middle of the night, she is on her back and it is familiar to her so she knows what to do to drift off again. We never let her learn to be dependent on us for bedtime. Boy does it work! Everyone compliments us on how well she sleeps, and I truly feel this is the major factor in her success. It is so wonderful as a mom to be able to put the baby down to bed and not have to rock or hold her for an hour, etc. I am especially glad I do not have to have that feeling of quiet caution after letting a baby fall asleep on my shoulder and trying to put her in the crib without her waking up. Giving her independent sleep habits young makes my life so much easier.
When and if I am blessed with another child, I will follow this strategy again and make her as independent as possible early on, so she sleeps through the night without needing us to rock her back to sleep.
Colleen W
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