As new parents, Nick and I have found that the number one thing people warn you about is a lack of sleep! We mentally prepared ourselves for it, but now that baby Teddi is here, we have actually fallen into a new bedtime routine that has slowly helped our baby to sleep longer and longer at night!
It’s important to know the difference between a routine and a schedule when it comes to your baby. We aren’t regimented during the day with specific feeding times or nap times, but we do have a routine of steps that we do before bed to prepare our baby for a restful night’s sleep.
During the day, Teddi naps when she wants to and we just listen to her natural circadian rhythm for when to feed her. But before bedtime we noticed that she would usually be awake from 7 – 10pm at night. Since her body was naturally keeping her to this schedule for a few days in a row, we decided to aid that natural cycle by creating a night routine!
From 7 – 8:30pm we take our time feeding her a 5 oz. bottle in between burping her, bouncing her in our arms, and talking to her.
From 8:30 – 10pm we find time to let her soak in a warm bath for 20 minutes. This keeps her up, but also helps her wind down.
Then, if she is no longer hungry and her eyes are slowly looking sleepy, we change her diaper right before we put her down to bed around 10 pm. Then we go straight to bed too, to get as much sleep as possible as new parents!
5 Ways To Help Your Baby Sleep Longer at Night
- Give your baby a warm bath before bed
- When you give your baby a warm bath and it’s time to take them out of the tub, their body temperature automatically starts to cool. This slight drop in temperature can help prepare the body for sleep. Doing this also creates a routine, and repeating this routine will cue your baby’s brain that bedtime is coming up and it’s time to wind down.
- Change your baby’s diaper before the nighttime feed
- Doing this helps your baby feel more comfortable and lessens the chance of you having to change their diaper in the middle of the night, waking them up again.
- Coterie diapers are the best and most absorbent! They are designed to minimize blowouts and rashes, and they hold up to 70% more liquid, so diapers will stay dry longer.
- Create a calm environment with blackout curtains and white noise
- We invested in an air purifier for the nursery that hums like a white noise machine. It’s quite calming! We also made sure to get blackout curtains to help keep her space stimulation-free and as calming as possible.
- Set a bedtime and stick to a night routine
- I kind of talked about this above, but we like to put Teddi to bed at 10pm each night to create consistency. She will naturally stay awake from 7 – 10pm which is wonderful, so she tires herself out and sleeps soundly starting at 10pm.
- Turn off the Tech
- Even though my newborn is not watching a screen directly, having it around her while I am feeding or rocking her can still affect her sleep. Children are more sensitive to light because they have larger pupils. When our brain registers light, it releases a hormone called cortisol, which gives our bodies a small boost of energy and makes our brain think it’s time to take action!
BABY NIGHTTIME FAVORITES – THAT WE USE!
