A Tear-Free Solution to Setting Your Baby's Sleep Schedule

Kim West: My method, which my publisher and the public fondly call "The Footie Shuffle," is basically a gentle, more gradual method of sleep coaching for parents who feel either that they personally can't follow through with crying out, or they feel that it's not a good match for their baby's temperament or their own parenting philosophy. Or perhaps they tried it and it didn't work.

You know, there are so many times that parents hear about other parents who sleep coach their child and "Oh, we let him cry it out and he only cried for three minutes, and it only took one day" . . . and [it's like] they're miraculously cured. So, for those parents that didn't happen for, or they can't muster up the confidence to do that because it is too challenging, I've created a more gentle method. You stay with your baby. Like everybody else, I'm going to recommend to put your baby into their crib drowsy but awake. More awake than drowsy so that they're aware that they're being put down after a good day of naps (anyway they can get them!), so they're not overtired. Then I have the parents stay with them, sitting next to the crib or bed and offering physical and verbal reassurance until they're asleep, and then slowly moving away every few days as their child begins to incorporate the skill of putting themselves to sleep.

KW: I really think — and I don't mean this to be — but I really do think it's sort of a little bit of both. Yes, a healthy, mellow, or angel-like temperament baby definitely has an easier time falling into a sleep and eating schedule and is going to sleep easier. Most babies need gentle guidance from us, their parents, to learn how to put themselves to sleep and back to sleep once they're old enough, which usually is around 16-18 weeks if they haven't already started to do that on their own, which some "angel babies" do. Usually though, even those angel babies' parents have inadvertently done some things differently, like occasionally put them down on the more awake side than the sleep side.

KW: Yes, there's no research that supports sleep training babies under four months of age for multiple reasons. I mean, a lot of their sleep is not developed, and they also don't have self-soothing abilities. Many of the babies can't even roll both ways, which is what the first step is in being able to self-soothe. So, you can imagine if you're lying on your back and you want to change your position, you can't.

The sleep is not developed on top of it. So, we sort of wait for a more developed night's sleep and morning nap, then an afternoon nap, and then in the midst of all of this we have this four-month sleep regression, which sort of throws everything up in the air. That's why waiting until 16-18 weeks gives the baby some time to kind of get through that regression, and then the parents are able to gently guide them. Before that, our role as moms is to, of course, heal our bodies; establish breastfeeding if you're doing that; and just focus on our baby's growth. Our next task is to help them differentiate between day and night. It's not really sleep training or coaching but helping them to understand that during the day we're awake more, we feed more, and nap, and then we have our one longer chunk at night, and then eventually that chunk gets longer. So, that's our primary goal in the first four months.

KW: If you've been able to help them differentiate day vs. night in the first three to four months, oftentimes we start to see a glimmer of a "schedule" with our babies under six months. What's happening in that sleep development is that babies produce and secrete melatonin, which is the drowsy-making hormone and also the hormone that regulates our internal clock. Often moms will start to say to me, "Oh yeah, I noticed my baby's starting to wake up at 7, 7:30 in the morning, and they tend to have a nap in an hour, hour and a half later . . . " and so then that ends up driving your day — watching those sleep windows. By the end of the afternoon or oftentimes, especially if you have older children, you end up being out and about, and then our babies maybe nap in the stroller or the car — you just catch it when you can. It's not ideal, but I think it often happens, and since that sleep is the last to develop, I am supportive of parents using motion sleep if that's the only way they can get the baby to nap.

KW: For smaller babies, you want to just make sure they're really well-napped (anyway you can get them) so that you can perhaps try to move bedtime a little bit later. For a baby who's say 5-6 months and older, who is napping two or maybe three times a day, I would want to have the parents ideally four to five days prior, start to move naps, meals, and bedtime later in 10-15-minute increments. We're talking small increments because they're younger and it's easier to get them overtired, which will make bedtime harder for night wakings and so forth.

For older toddlers and preschoolers, especially the ones who are already well-rested, they may be able to move their bedtimes later in either one soft swoop or [over the course of] two days, like half an hour later Friday night and half an hour later Saturday night.

At the very least, you're going to want to make sure that on Saturday, your child is very well-napped so that ideally they can get to a slightly later bedtime on Saturday night, and then on Sunday.

The clock will say 6 a.m., but our bodies will think it's 5 a.m. So, we want to adjust to the new time on Saturday, which will help everyone. It may mean that they need a bonus nap on Sunday to make it to the new, later bedtime on Sunday night. Remember, overtired, poorly napped babies are more likely to wake up early, and it's really important that their "daytime sleep tank," as I like to call it, is full.

KW: A lot of parents ask me for minutes, like there must be a rule or a formula of how many minutes they should wait. I usually think that it's better to go with your intuition, because most parents know the different cries. So, let's say it's in the middle of the night, your baby cries enough to obviously wake you, and you open your eyes, and you wait. If another cry comes, and you sit up, and you can tell, "Oh, this is one of those ones where they're going back to sleep. It was like a whimper, and they're quiet now," then I wouldn't go. I mean, I don't recommend that you run, of course, unless it sounds like something serious has happened. I recommend using Pampers diapers, which offer up to 12 hours of overnight protection and are three times drier than ordinary diapers. If you know you're baby's dry, you don't have to worry about that being the cause of a waking.

I think that [following your intuition] tends to be better than a blanket rule, because, you know, life happens, and you never know why they're waking up.