How to Get a Newborn to Sleep
How to Get a Newborn to Sleep
Please don’t believe this newborn sleep advice – “You must teach your newborn to sleep independently in the first few months or they will have lifelong bad sleep habits” !!!
It’s disheartening to hear how many parents of newborns are told that if they don’t sleep train their newborns by leaving them to cry it out that their baby will have lifelong “bad habits”. There seems to be this belief that leaving your newborn to cry it out will teach them to self-soothe– better known as self-regulation.
Let’s break this down and dispel this myth about newborn sleep! Here is an excerpt from my upcoming book The Sleep Lady’s Newborn Sleep Guide– coming out on March 21st, 2023.
Part of self-regulation is your baby’s ability to filter out stimuli. Plus manage their own behavior and emotions, in response to their surrounding environment. Whether it is putting themselves to sleep, signaling to their parent that they are hungry, or turning away from a loud person who is too close. Or eventually crawling over to get a new toy because they’re bored. And self-regulation is crucial for babies’ ability to put themselves to sleep. But self-regulation isn’t something babies are born with. It’s something they learn over time.
You’ve probably heard the terms sleep shaping, sleep coaching, and/or sleep training tossed about when it comes to getting babies (and toddlers) to sleep well. Let me share some definitions. So that we’re all on the same page when we talk about Baby-Led Sleep Shaping and Baby-Led Sleep Coaching– my approach for how to get a newborn to sleep.
Newborn Sleep Shaping
Sleep shaping is the process of supporting sleep with a parent or caregiver’s help and a healthy sleep environment and practices. It is the newborn sleep approach I recommend for the first 3 to 5 months of a newborn’s life.
A safe, sleep-friendly space is the foundation of effective sleep shaping. But sleep shaping also includes regulating a baby’s morning wake time and night bedtime. It includes the various pre-bed routines you can put in place to let a baby know what to expect next: sleepytime! It sets the stage for learning to sleep independently when your baby is developmentally ready. The world usually calls anything more than this sleep training. For what I do, however, I find the term sleep coaching much more accurate.
Baby Sleep Coaching
Sleep coaching is gently easing a baby into the sleep process. Once they reach a developmentally appropriate age, you support them as they learn to put themselves to sleep. Like a coach in sports, you can teach, direct, and support your baby. But a coach doesn’t play the game, and it’s the same with sleep.
Sleep coaching is built upon the foundation of sleep shaping. It includes continuing to support your baby each night as they practice putting themselves to sleep, slowly. Doing less and less as they eventually master the skill themselves. It also includes tailoring your sleep coaching plan to accommodate your baby’s unique temperament.
Under the traditional sleep training umbrella, you’ll find the extinction method (also known as “cry it out”) and the graduated extinction method. The extinction method involves putting a fully awake baby in a crib on their own. Then leaving the room with the idea that it will teach them to fall asleep on their own.
The graduated extinction method adds timed intervals after which a parent can pop back into the baby’s room to soothe or check on them when they are crying or fussing. The origins of the extinction method go way back to the 1920s. When American psychologist Dr. John Watson proposed the concept of behaviorism, which states that a child is a blank canvas and any behavior they exhibit is caused by external stimuli and not related to their own internal thoughts or feelings.
The practice of letting babies “cry it out”—leaving them alone all night with no feedings or “check-ins,” as some American pediatricians recommend as early as 6 weeks. This is based on the theory of behaviorism. The thought is that this teaches a baby that their crying doesn’t get a response. And that this “lesson” will lead the baby to modify their behavior. Meaning they will no longer cry and simply go to sleep.
Unfortunately, this method and its behaviorism roots ignore several big factors:
- Babies are not blank slates. Every baby exhibits their own unique temperament that determines how they respond to their external environment.
- Young babies are not physically or mentally capable of self-soothing. They can’t roll over or bring their hands to their mouth to suck their fingers. The ability to self-soothe, at least at a basic level, is required for all humans to put themselves to sleep. No matter their age.
- A baby learns best when they are experiencing low levels of frustration. Enough to motivate them, but not enough to dysregulate them. If they get too fussy or are hysterically crying, they can’t learn the new skills that would help them self-soothe.
Do I Need to Let My Newborn Cry-It-Out?
I don’t recommend the “cry it out” method to get a newborn to sleep. They are not developmentally ready to learn to put themselves to sleep independently. This means that the whole purpose of the method is lost on them. Also, all humans need to be in a calm state to be able to fall asleep. Letting a baby get into a state of hysterical crying (a dysregulated state) makes it almost impossible for them to fall asleep without assistance. Additionally, regular, prolonged hysterical crying (crying that can be recognized as a call for help) can lead to a baby’s stress response system being negatively affected for life.
Parents often share their fears that if they soothe their baby rather than letting them cry, they’ll create “bad habits”. And that these “bad habits” will be difficult to break in the future. I tell them not to worry about creating bad habits in the first 6 months.
In her research on sleep interventions, Dr. Pamela Douglas found that sleep training during the early months does not decrease crying. Or prevent sleep and behavioral problems later in childhood. The fact is, sometimes the opposite can happen: Crying can increase and breastfeeding might stop earlier.
In my new book The Gentle Newborn Sleep Guide (pre-order here) I’ve got some great tips for how to sleep shape and support your baby as they learn to sleep, starting right from birth, but I recommend waiting to gently sleep coach them until they are developmentally ready. In the book and course, we’ll help you assess when that is, based on your baby’s unique temperament and current capabilities. And we’ll teach you the tools and techniques you need to create a strong foundation for future sleep success.
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