Hi! I’m Dana Obleman, creator of The Sleep Sense Program. If you’d rather read than watch, I’ve transcribed the text of this video below.

This week’s question comes from Natalie:

“Do premature babies have more problems with sleeping than full-term babies?”

She has a seven-month old, corrected age, who’s not sleeping through the night, and her doctors said it’s because he was premature. And she is wondering if that really is the reason he’s not sleeping through the night.

I do find that premature babies or babies with colic or reflux tend to have a more difficult time learning the skills for sleeping well. Colic, for example, in those first few weeks of life, especially if you’re a new parent, you’re just trying to get through it. I’m thankful I didn’t have colicky children, but I’ve had enough clients with colicky babies to know that really there’s nothing much worse. It’s prolonged periods of crying and all you’re trying to do is just get through it with a little bit of sanity.

So that usually means there’s lots of rocking, bouncing, holding, feeding, and using a pacifier. A few months of that and, when the colic passes, you’ve got a child who really has a lot sleeping props, and you’re going to have to train that baby to learn to sleep without them. Premature babies can fall into a similar category where there’s a lot of holding and rocking. Again, there’s nothing wrong with those things, and they’re necessary when you’re dealing with babies who have some more challenging things going on.

So I don’t want you to blame yourself at all for what’s happened. I usually encourage people with babies who have reflux to wait until the reflux is either managed with medication or the child has outgrown it, and then know that it’s going to be a little more of a difficult road because those things are so a part of his or her current strategies.

The good news in your note, Natalie, is that you say he can self-soothe, that he does self-soothe very well for bedtimes and naps and that he doesn’t use the bottle or the breast to fall asleep. So that’s great; you’ve conquered 90% of the hurdle, so that’s wonderful. But the fact that he’s waking up twice a night looking for food—you might want to have a discussion with the doctor on his weight and find out if he has a good enough weight that he could go the night without food. And some babies just become habitual nighttime eaters, meaning if you’re going to offer a bottle at 2:00 and 4:00, then the baby just continues to wake up at 2:00 and 4:00 expecting a bottle. And sometimes that doesn’t go away until you decide to take it away, and that would just mean you don’t offer the feed. You either leave and check, or stay and say your key phrases and use some careful touch until the baby goes back to sleep without the feed.

The fact that he already has his own skills for sleeping well is really good, and that means it won’t take too many nights to get him sleeping through, because he can do it at bedtime. Those skills will transfer over to the rest of the night with a bit of a push on your part. So that would be the first thing I would do: just discuss with the doctor about his health and his general well-being. You said he’s seven months corrected age, so there’s no real reason he shouldn’t be able to go the whole night without waking.

I would encourage you to give it a go. And for those people with children with reflux—again, it’s not impossible, but do wait until you have the situation under control and then go ahead and start the Sleep Sense program. Keep in mind, though, that I do find it’s a bit more challenging with babies who had reflux.

Thanks for your question, Natalie, and sleep well.