Are you ready to have your baby sleeping through the night?
I know your pain!
Having your babies waking up multiple times in the night can be a huge burden and weight on us as mothers. With this topic, there can be two very extreme opinions. I’m not here to fight my opinion and try to convince you to do so. I’m writing this post to offer help for those moms out there who do desire advice in this area.
I now have five children and was able to get each of my babies sleeping through the night by two months old. I would give majority of the credit to Baby Wise by Jackie Mize. This book helped direct my strategy in putting effort towards getting my baby to sleep through the night at an early stage.
*This post may contain affiliate links. You can read my full disclosure here.*
Here are 6 Proven Ways to Get Your Baby Sleeping Through the Night
1. Sleeping on stomach
Disclosure – I know there are statistics out there about SIDs, so I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY SID incident.
Every time I switch my babies from their back to their belly, they fall asleep so much faster and sleep longer.
So far, every single baby has ended up sucking a thumb or a finger. Sometimes I wonder if putting them on their stomach is easy access for them to place their fingers in their mouths. The thing I liked about them sucking a finger is that it easily soothes them and helps them to sleep once laid down.
2. Noise Maker
I use a fan or a humidifier in the room. The noise helps soothe the baby to fall asleep and to keep them sleeping. Then, when the baby sleeps in a strange place, making sure there is some kind of noise maker in the room often helps them fall asleep right away and adjust well to a new environment.
3. Routine
I’m a structured kind of person, so I need routine in my baby’s life to keep my own sanity. Again, Baby Wise laid this out very well for a routine/schedule. This book helped me understand the best routine for my baby.
A baby’s routine consists of – feeding, wake time, nap… repeat.
After 1 or 2 months, all my baby’s caught onto the routine. Warning: it does involve a lot of effort on your end as the mom. But through perseverance, you will eventually see the fruit. Once babies are on a routine, it becomes so much easier to know exactly what baby needs when crying.
4. One last full feeding
If you snack feed, then most likely the baby will wake up because of being hungry every few hours. Again, Baby Wise claims that at eight weeks, your baby’s stomach is able to go eight hours without a feeding. So make sure that the last feeding before bedtime is a FULL feeding.
Breastfeeding and having trouble bringing that milk supply in? –} Check out this post for 4 simple, practical tips on how to increase your milk supply!
The question then comes, “What do you do if your baby wakes up before 6-8 hours?” Well, that leads to the next point.
5. Crying it out
If my baby is not sleeping by two months old, I usually pursue the route of having my babies cry themselves back to sleep. I know some moms struggle to do this more than others, and some also have a very controversial opinion about this. I full well understand the struggle the mom experiences during this “cry it out” stage. It is NOT easy, but with each child, it only took 2-4 days of them crying it out through the night for them to not be waking up. (Setting aside the occasional wake ups because of teething, sickness, etc.)
In no time I had baby sleeping through the night….and so was I! Plus, I noticed my baby was so much happier in the mornings if they got a full night rest, which means a happy mom and a happy baby!
6. Praying and Declaring over our children
I believe one of the greatest effects we can have on our children is praying for them and declaring positive declarations over their lives. Every night as a couple, lay hands on your baby before you lay him/her down. Speak peace over their spirits. Have specific declarations you say every night over your baby. You’d be surprised at how the spiritual realm is effected by our words.
I provided for you a set of prayers for yourself to speak over your home. I also created a separate gender prayer for sons and daughters. With these, you can pray them over your child, or you can choose to have your child speak them over him or herself. Follow the links to gain access to each FREE prayer printout! These can be powerful tools used in the home in declaring the kingdom over you and your family.
This concludes the strategies that I used to get each of my five children to sleep through the night when they were a baby. I’m not here to say your baby must sleep through the night. I’m here to share my tips to those who want help in this area.
If you have any other tricks or strategies that you use, please share them in the comments below!
My baby is 8 weeks old and I have this problem. I have tried it all and nothing seems to work. I will try this tonight hoping for a change.
I really hope this works for you. Don’t expect change overnight. It takes several nights to train them. Let me know how it goes!
Wow there are some mean spirited comments on here! I appreciate that you put yourself out there. As a fellow mother of five, I have come to realize that God gives each of us our own unique nature inside our mother’s womb. Some babies can handle sleep training better than others. My first cried and screamed unless he was touching me from the moment he was born. He only slept on my chest tummy to tummy until he was 3 months old. And then he graduated to sleeping in the crook of my arm. We went on like this for months and he actually slept with us for years. When he turned 2 and our second was born, it didn’t feel right for me to sleep away from her. So we had a baby and a toddler in our bed. Each of our babies has slept with us well into toddlerhood. And you know, I just love it. I love the closeness and I know I’ll never get to go back to those early years. Our kids are well adjusted and they eventually do sleep on their own. I choose to push through the exhaustion and cherish those nighttime moments. As our family continues to grow, I find myself loving those one on one moments at night. And I hope that my attentiveness to their needs in infancy makes it natural for them to reach for me in their tumultuous teen years (our oldest is 10, so I have yet to find out). I think the conversation about this is so polarized because people don’t have enough babies anymore to realize that what is damaging to one may be a tiny blip on the radar of another. Motherhood is hard. Let’s not make it any harder by judging the choices of an obviously loving mother.
Oh and I also meant to say that I think He gives us those motherly feelings for a reason. I know I am supposed to give into them. I feel it in every fiber of my being when my babies cry and I know they should be crying in my arms. I also think it’s possible that He chooses different mothers for different reasons. There are many ways to raise children in a God honoring fashion. So I appreciate the fact that you advise people to take a prayerful approach rather than telling them there is one right way.
Thanks for sharing your heart, Meg. So glad this worked for you. And yes, “let’s not make it any harder by judging the choices of an obviously loving mother!” Thanks for that encouragement!
You are what is wrong with the internet. Cry it out? You mean mommy and daddy are too busy on netflicks to care? Children need to be nurtured, not locked in a room to learn nobody is coming for them because mommy can’t deal and needs her wine. Selfish.
Sorry you feel this way. It’s all in the heart. I care for my babies and also want them to get a full nights sleep (and me getting it is a bonus!). Now, if my attitude and heart was what you described, then yes, I would be selfish, and it would be wrong. (And honestly, I never drink wine.) I believe Jesus gave me discernment for each of my children on how to deal with this. It does not effect children’s emotions in a negative way, which many people think. I’m not here to neglect them, or look forward to just letting them cry so I have my own time. It’s hard, very hard! But I know the benefits are great for my child and for myself.
Hi Denise
I only have one baby so far and we’re eventually did the cry it out method, after many conflicting feelings and opinions, when he was around 8 months. We want to have at least 4 children and I’m not sure I’ll handle waking up every two hours for so long again! I’ve heard that leaving a baby to cry so young can lead to abandonment issues, rejection and depression in their spirit. I really don’t want to do that but I also realise that those articles are written by people who believe in treating toddler tantrums with an ice cream instead of discipline. I was just wondering, do you see any evidence of that theory in your children or are they all secure in their identity and your love? I know we’re supposed to have authority over our children but I also know babies sometimes just need comfort, how did you know when they needed to cry and when to pick them up?
Very good perspective and question. I appreciate you being honest in this area with your experience. I’ve heard many people as well speak about the abandonment spirit children could experience from allowing them to cry it out. No, I DO NOT see evidence of that in my children. They ARE secure in their identity and the love we pour on them. Children are loved through our discipline and through our serving, giving, affirming, and cuddling with them. I started letting them cry it out around 2 months old. At that age, they are physically able to go through 8 hours in the night without food. So, it can be a gradual process, 4 hours, then 6 hours, then 8, 10, and 12 hours (at around 12 months old). I wouldn’t say I never went in to comfort my babies. Just because I let my babies cry it out, doesn’t mean I don’t battle with my emotions and just wanting to go in and hold them and feed them and comfort them. It’s a constant battle with every baby I have! You do have a mothering nature in you, so allow that to help guide you in times of going in to comfort and then having them cry it out. Just remember though, when you go in several times in a row, you could create a habit of the baby relying on you again that you will come in that next night; so keep that in mind. I recommend starting around 2 months, because the older that baby gets, the stronger the cry becomes and the more mobile that baby will be. This will all make it harder in your emotions to have the baby cry it out. Like I said in my post, most times it takes only 2-4 days for the baby to realize that you won’t come in, that baby and you will then get a full nights rest! All of my babies have been so easy during the baby stage, and I’m confident that it’s because they get a good nights sleep every night. I hope this helps and makes sense to you! Feel free to email me if you have any more questions. I’d love to keep this conversation going with you one on one — deniserenae27@gmail.com. Be blessed!
Babies aren’t event out of the 4th trimester by this point. The fact that you make them cry it out at this age is disgusting and heartbreaking.
Right now, I am going through this stuff. It’s really exhausting. I am only using a noise maker to help sleep, my baby. But it wasn’t helping that much. Your article holds some pretty important information. I am going to apply these tips. Hopefully, these will help them sleep.
I hope it works for you as well, Tammy! I highly encourage you to read that Baby Wise book I had mentioned in my article. It helped me a lot during this stage of my first two children.
These are great tips Denise!
I have soon to be 9 children and stomach sleeping has worked well for us in addition to running a fan outside of their bedroom door.
Hi Tiffany! Thanks for stopping by! Yes, those two things have had a huge effect in helping my babies to sleep soundly.
I’m so glad I am past this stage but these are great tips. I have pinned this to our Family Pinterest board to help other moms. I have a sister who has had many friends apply what you have shared from Babywise so it does work.
Thanks Timberley for stopping by and for pinning this post!