Sleeping Through The Night

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

Waking a Sleeping Baby

My instinct as a behavior analyst is to meet a child's needs before a problem behavior occurs. Once I became a parent, I was always aware of habits that might shape into the kinds of problems that I am hired to resolve when a baby is older. When it came to feedings or in general, I wanted to avoid the possibility of her crying just to get my attention. It felt natural for me to wake her up when I knew she needed to eat, rather than waiting for her to cry. The idea being if she cried and I brought her food, she would learn crying is a communication for me to come in and/or feed her. So, whenever possible, I would wake her up before she realized she was hungry, so I could avoid shaping up that behavior. The pediatrician told me to feed her every two hours at first, so I would wake her every 2 hours, regardless of whether she was sleeping. Yes, I know a new mother needs sleep and it is a common rule to never wake a sleeping baby. However, I felt this built a trusting relationship with my daughter that she never wanted for anything and I anticipated her needs. She currently sleeps through the night (13 consecutive hours), and I still do the same thing. If I put her to bed at 6pm, I will set my alarm for 7 and wake her up. Sometimes she may already be awake and smiling, waiting for me to get her. Or on days when I just need my sleep and decide to not set my alarm, I still wake up to hear her simply talking to herself. But I was lucky enough to never shape that behavior of crying to communicate. She rarely cries to eat or wake up. The last time she did was a few weeks ago, when she had an ear infection, and we knew something had to be wrong because it was so out of character and routine for her. Overall, I am very fortunate that I went with my gut and tried my best to avoid shaping that behavior.

Colleen Williams