Hi. I’m Dana, creator of the Sleep Sense Program. Today, I want to talk a little bit about newborns. There are some steps that you can take right from the start with a newborn baby to guide them down the right road to sleeping well. Now, people e-mail me and say things on Facebook. I am not talking about sleeping through the night here. No, absolutely not. This newborn baby will wake many times in the night requiring feeds. Let’s just get that off the list right now. I’m not talking about that.

I’m also not talking about sleep training in the sense that so many people consider what their definition of sleep training is. I’m not talking about that either. I’m talking about skills. I’m talking helping a newborn baby learn some skills, so that as she grows and gets better at this, sleep just comes naturally. Sleep is a naturally occurring event. Let’s be honest here. It’s biological, but if we help encourage the right skills, then a baby just start sleeping wonderfully right from the start.

I’ve done it with my own two children after I started Sleep Sense. They were both beautiful sleepers, pretty much from day one. Obviously, having feeds in the night. I want to give you a couple tips here today just to get you started. Just something to think about. Number one is that newborn babies cannot tolerate a lot of time awake. I did not know this fact. I can remember with my first son, he would be awake for hours at a time and I would be trying everything; bouncing him, rocking him, driving him around, feeding him, desperate to try to get him to go to sleep and he wouldn’t. He would get more and more overtired as time went on.

Then inevitably we … And with a huge crying festival on his end, because he’s so overtired that he just can’t cope anymore. I see that a lot with newborn babies. Newborn babies can only tolerate about 45 minutes of time awake. That’s it. That’s surprising isn’t it? That is so short. Basically, you get a feed in, change a diaper, have a little bit of cuddle and play time, and it’s going to be time for that baby to go back to sleep.

If you keep that in mind and you keep an eye on the clock and you time it right, putting a baby down at the 45 minute mark is much easier than waiting an hour or two. Now overtiredness is setting in and baby is getting cranky and then it’s really tough to get baby to go to sleep at that point. I would just encourage you to at least try on occasion, okay it’s been 45 minutes. Let’s put her in the bassinet and see what happens.

You’ll be surprised that on occasion, she will just peacefully fall right to sleep in that little bassinet and sleep until her next feed time. Then you can try it again. Keep an eye on the clock. 45 minutes, boom, let’s try for another nap, and off you go. That is honestly the best little tip that I can give you about getting a newborn onto the right track.

Another thing to keep in mind, another tip would be that a bedtime routine is a great thing to start right from day one. It’s a cuing system for our body and our brain. It gets us ready for the night to come. If you start that road with your newborn baby, then absolutely she she will know that I get a bath, I have a jammy change, I get a feed before bed, maybe we read a story. Now, it’s nighttime. That’s different than day. You’ll find that just giving her that little bit of a prep for the body and the mind and get everything in line with that, she will start sleeping longer and longer stretches at that bedtime put down.

I love to start with a bath. I know the first couple of baths with a newborn baby, they do not like it. The more you do it, the better able they are to cope and they start to really enjoy it. It’s something that’s so different than anything else that goes on in a newborn baby’s day that it’s a great cue. It’s an awesome first step, so I would encourage you to do that as well.

I also want to encourage you to get a lot of daytime sunlight into your baby as much as you can throughout the day. Going for walks, awesome idea. Even just sitting by a window to let some sunlight come in. This is going to really help get your baby’s body clock in line with daytime alertness, nighttime consolidated sleep. Obviously, there’s going to be lots of daytime sleeping going on too, but just helping her body clock get in line with the cortisol levels and the melatonin levels. It’s really going to help get your baby’s body clock cooking along with yours.

A lot of people say their newborns have their day and night mixed up and some do for the first week or two, so lots of daytime exposure is really going to help with that. Then dim the lights, calm things down about an hour or so before bed, so that melatonin starts to kick in and you can get this baby sleeping more soundly through the night. A couple of tips. Try them. You might find that it really helps get your baby down the right road. Thanks so much for watching. Sleep well.