Hi, I’m Dana, creator of ‘The Sleep Sense Program,’ and I’m here today to share with you three things that everyone should know about newborns.

Number one, and this surprises a lot of people, is that newborns have a very low threshold for overstimulation. They can really only tolerate about 45 minutes of time awake before they’re going to need to sleep again. And that’s not a lot of time when you’ve got to feed them, change their diapers, get them into clean clothes, have a little bit of playtime or cuddle time with them. And at that 45-minute mark, that is usually when most newborns need to go back to sleep for naps or for the night. A lot of people will wait until the baby’s getting fussy, and then think, “Oh, maybe we should try to get her down.” But if you watch the clock more than your newborn, and if you time it just right, right before fussiness starts to set in, and put them down in the bassinet, they will often drift off to sleep without a lot of intervention from you. And that is the first step down the road to great sleep habits.

The second thing I want everyone to know is that hunger and fatigue look almost exactly the same in a newborn. So what happens, and this happened to me, I can remember with my first son; any time he got fussy, the first question everyone asks is, “Is he hungry?” Even strangers would ask me if he’s hungry, and I’d be thinking, “Well, I don’t know. I guess he’s hungry.” So, I fell into this really vicious cycle of feeding him every hour, hour and a half, because he was constantly snacking for 10 minutes and then sleeping for 20. And on and on this would go all day, so he was never really getting sufficiently full, and he was never getting sufficiently rested.

So, how can you tell the difference? Well, that’s the tricky part. But let’s look at timing. So, if you fed your baby, and you feel like it was a good, solid, full feed, and they’ve had a little bit of time awake, playing or just hanging out with the family, and an hour’s gone by, and they’re getting fussy, the temptation is to think, “Oh my gosh, how can he be hungry again? I just fed him.” But resist that temptation and look at fatigue instead. So, “I just fed him. It’s been about an hour now that he’s awake, let’s try putting him down first. Let’s see if sleep is the signal he’s really sending.” And some of the time, that’s exactly it. They need to sleep. That’s the signal that they’re sending. So getting them down in some way.

I don’t even mind if you rock him or you wear him in a carrier, or you put him in the stroller for a walk, but you try sleep first. And the good news with that is that if he does fall asleep, then when he wakes from that nap, he will be legitimately hungry again. So, that is what I want everyone to think about.

The third thing is darkness. I know a lot of people worry that newborn babies will have their days and nights mixed up, and that can happen for the first couple of weeks of life. So, my advice is during the day, you get lots of sunlight and stimulation, and cue the baby that it’s daytime. But when it comes to naps, we all do better in a cool, dark environment. So, don’t worry too much about the fact that you’re napping your baby in a nice, dark, cool room. That’s optimal. That’s really what we want because if we can encourage a longer nap, then again, he or she is going to wake up from that nap very hungry, very rested, and ready to eat.

The trickiest thing about a newborn baby is that they tucker out really quickly. They get tired very fast. So, if we’re doing the best we can to make sure that they’re having nice long naps, restorative naps, then you’re going to have an easier time getting through that feed with them before they start falling asleep again.

All right. If you want more information, ‘The Sleep Sense Program’ has a newborn chapter dedicated to all the steps you need to get your newborn sleeping well on the right road to great sleep habits. Thanks so much for watching. Sleep Well.