How We Trained our Baby to Sleep through the Night

This post is part of our series “Facebook Q&A about Parenting” where we went to our friends and family on Facebook to get advice on parenting.

The Question: How did you train your baby to sleep through the night?

The Answers:
We’ll start with our own experience, and then share one of our friend’s answers.

Our Experience
At 10 weeks we started sleep training Alena. We followed the guidelines in “On Becoming Babywise” by Gary Ezzo and Robert Bucknam (affiliate link). There are mixed reviews on this sleep training, as some say that this is too early for sleep training. But we found that it worked well with Alena.

Here’s the basic idea:
1) Move the baby to a 3-hour feeding schedule during the day
2) Take out the baby’s middle of the night feeding

To give you a better idea of the difference that it made, I’ll lay out how Alena was before and after sleep training.

Before Sleep Training:
– 10 feeds per day (feeding every 2 hours during the day, every 3-4 hours at night)
– 750ml of breastmilk fed per day (we knew exactly how much our baby drinks every day because my wife pumps breastmilk and we bottle feed her)
– 12 hours of sleep per day total
– longest chunk of sleep at night was on average 5 hours
– evening schedule: 10pm feeding, 2am feeding, 6am feeding

After Sleep Training:
– 6 feeds per day (feeding every 3 hours during the day, and none at night)
– 750 ml of breakmilk fed per day (no change)
– 14 hours of sleep per day total
– longest chunk of sleep at night was on average 8 hours
– evening schedule: 7pm feeding and put to bed, 10pm dream feeding, 6am feeding

In the Babywise book, it says that if your baby wakes up at the same time in the middle of the night, it is out of habit and not out of hunger. If this is the case, then you can sleep train your baby by letting them fall back asleep. For us, the first night we tried this, Alena  woke up at her usual time of 2am. Instead of feeding her at that time, we gave her a pacifier and let her go back to sleep. The next night, she didn’t wake up at 2am and slept straight through.

It was so nice for us to get 7-8 hours of sleep at night again!

Now at 5 months old, we are taking out the 10pm dream feed and training Alena to sleep straight from 7pm until the morning. We just started last night so we’ll let you know how it goes!

Anna’s Experience 
The Becoming Baby Wise schedule suggests that for the first 2-3 weeks of baby’s life they eat anytime they need to. This is to gain body fat, and also to get a good grip on nursing for mom and baby. 3 weeks on, I started to institute the schedule below (except there was an additional 3am feeding).

At 5 weeks we started sleep training by using the schedule below.  After that schedule is established, you can start cutting the last feeding [this being the 1 am one] by 30 mins each week.  So at week 6, he at 1230pm, week 7, 12pm. week 8 1130pm, week 9 11pm, week 10 1030pm, etc.  You keep the 830pm feeding always, until you hit about week 11/12, where you can maybe set the last feeding to 9pm, and then the baby should be able to sleep through the night.  My son will be 4 months soon, and he will be done eating at 830pm and then up at 830am to eat.

5:30 – Feeding #1
6:00-8:15 – Sleep
8:30 – Feeding #2
9:00-10:00 – Awake time
10:00-11:15 – Sleep
11:30 – Feeding #3
12:00-1:00pm – Awake time
1:00-2:15 – Sleep
2:30 – Feeding #4
3:00-4:00 – Awake Time
4:00-5:15 – Sleep
5:30 – Feeding #5
6:00-7:00 – Awake Time
7:00-7:30 – Bath
7:30-8:15 – Awake Time
8:30 – Feeding #6
9:00-12:45 – Sleep
1:00am – Feeding #7
1:30-5:30 – Sleep

Babies go through growth spurts, where they may want an extra feeding.  I think 3 months,  4 month 6 months and 9 months.

Key is to be diligent and stick to the schedule for 2 weeks, and even if baby cries, if it is bed time, put her to bed.  This can be hard, but it teaches the baby to soothe herself to sleep, and a pattern of sleep, feed, awake t ime, sleep, feed awake time, etc.  After 2 weeks the pattern becomes predictable and the baby then knows what is coming [it is also then easier to figure out what she wants.  If it is awake time, and she is fed, but it is not time to sleep, and she is fussing, then maybe she needs a diaper change, etc.]

Also, in awake time, you want to keep her alert and up until it is time to sleep.  Then she will get a good rest.

My son eats less at the 530pm feed. Then I try to keep him up from 530 pm until his next feed (530 pm to 830pm) hence the awake time, bath, etc. Then I make sure he has a FULL feed and burp at the 830pm feed. Then he sleeps through the night. He is going thought a growth spurt so for the past 2 days I have gotten up to feed him at 530am but other than that he has slept through.

Key is to get the baby on a good day schedule, and then your baby will transition into sleeping thought the night. It is about routine – your baby needs to learn that when you put them down, it is time to sleep. It took me about 2 weeks to get my son’s day schedule in.

photo credit: Nicolas Hoizey via photo pin cc