Newborn Baby Sleep Schedule
A baby is considered a newborn from birth until about 3 months of age. During the first 3 months of life, your newborn’s sleep patterns will look nothing like yours – your baby will sleep in short bursts (anywhere from 30 or 45 minutes – 3 or possibly 4 hours), and then eat between sleeps. In this way, newborn’s don’t follow a typical day/night sleep schedule. Their circadian rhythms need time to adjust – in fact, some newborns come out of the womb having their days and nights completely mixed up! This is called day/night confusion, and babies who struggle with it tend to sleep a lot during the day and then wake up frequently at night.
WEEK 1 of Newborn Sleep Schedule
How to keep them awake long enough to feed:
- Rub their feet and hands
- Wipe their forehead, neck, and face with a wet wipe
- Strip baby down to their diaper and un-swaddle or wrap them so they are not too warm and snug (Psst… here are more tips to help your newborn sleep well now and for years to come)
- Burp thoroughly when you change nursing sides, or halfway through with the bottle
WEEK 2 of Newborn Sleep Schedule
How to clear up day and night confusion:
- During the day when baby is awake and feeding, open windows, turn on lights, and keep things very bright
- At night, 8:00 pm and later, do all feeding, hugging, cuddling, diaper changing, in very dim or dark conditions
- After feeding your baby during the day, attempt to keep them awake for at least a few minutes by singing, cooing, playing, and bonding.
- If your baby seems fully awake in the middle of the night, try turning on very bright lights which will cause baby to shut their eyes.
- Don’t allow more time than 3 hours between feedings during the day, even if they are still sleeping. Wake them up and feed them again if they continue sleeping.
- At night, feed them whenever they wake up and are hungry, but let them determine how frequent that is
- At night, avoid stimulating, playing, cooing, singing, or any other behaviors that will encourage baby to stay awake.
- Work on your swaddling with these must know swaddling tips for newborns
WEEK 3 of Newborn Sleep Schedule
- It’s time to start thinking about teaching your baby to fall asleep on their own.
How to get baby to go to sleep on their own:
- Do not let your little one get overtired
- Learn the fine art of putting your baby to sleep awake but drowsy. This means before your baby has fully conked out, but while they are yawning, doing the “eye roll” or rubbing their eyes, you can set them in their crib to do the final hard work of falling asleep on their own
- Give the baby a pacifier. This is one of the best ways to help your baby learn to calm down on their own. The pacifier also becomes a positive sleep association and gives your baby a way to soothe themselves into sleep.
- Perfect your nap time or bedtime routine as another positive sleep association. Songs, rocking, hugging, and patting are great ways to help baby calm down. Diaper change, lights down low (even in daytime), and white noise communicate “sleepy time.”
- When baby is well fed, changed, and not overtired, simply put the baby in their own crib while they are drowsy and let them learn to fall asleep on their own. They will likely stare off into space for a time, if not fall right to sleep.
- In the meantime, you can even help them to sleep in and take longer naps.
WEEK 4 of Newborn Sleep Schedule
How to find a good rhythm or routine:
- Determine the average time between feeds. If your baby usually goes between 2.5 to 3 hours between feeds, create a routine based on those times.
- Start your day at a consistent time. Choose a time each morning (say, 7 a.m.) and feed the baby every single day at that time. Soon your baby will sleep until 7 and that’ll be your normal start to the day.
- Write down a feasible schedule that allows 2.5 to 3 hours between feedings with nap times in between each feed.
- Make sure general feeding times don’t coincide with other major activities you can’t change like car pickup, dinner time, or the bedtime routine of older children. Of course, you’ll have to be flexible, but take these times into consideration and attempt to feed before or after those events.
- Make sure to wake baby up to maintain your routine during the day. Don’t let baby sleep for 4 hours during the day because, inevitably, she’ll need to feed twice during that period at night to make up for it. At night, let the baby sleep as long as they are able between feeds. You determine day, they determine night.
WEEK 5 of Newborn Sleep Schedule
The dream feed is one of the most important feeds of the day. Or night, rather.
Because it’s what will help baby get a longer stretch of sleep through the middle of the night and it’s what’ll help you do the same! A dream feed is essentially a feeding you give the baby between 10:00 pm and 11:00 pm or so.
Dream Feed Basics:
- Baby will not likely wake for this feed since they’ll have had a couple of feeds just a few hours earlier in the night. This means you will wake the baby, likely right before you go to sleep, and feed her.
- Babies can be historically sleepy at this feed and not drink very much. When you wake baby, do a diaper change, re-swaddle, and try to feed the baby as much as they’ll take. If they nod off after a few minutes, use a wet wipe to wake them up and get them drinking again.
- If your baby won’t wake up, wait 20 minutes and try again.
- Feed in a dim or dark room so baby does not associate this feed with stimulation, but simply feeds half asleep then goes back down in their crib fast asleep. These are part of a basic good wind down routine.
- This feed will be maintained until baby is sleeping fully through the night until morning. And I don’t mean 5:00 am. I mean 6:00 am or later. You’ll drop early morning feeds and be left with the dream feed. When you feel confident your baby can sleep through the entire night without milk, then you drop this feed.
WEEK 6 of Newborn Sleep Schedule
If you feed them at a consistent time each morning, that’s the time they learn to sleep until. So, if you feed your baby at 5:30 am and then start the day… their metabolisms and body clocks will get used to waking up for good at 5:30 am.
How to choose a morning wake time:
- Choose a time that is suitable to your family routine and consistently feed them at this time.
- Every morning, aim to feed your baby at this time even if they’ve fed as soon a 1.5 hours before.
- If need be, gently rouse your baby up around 4 or 4:30 am and feed them as full a feeding as they will take, then wake them up again at the time you’ve determined is their “morning wake time.”
- If they wake earlier than this time but are not crying for milk, cuddle, hold, play with, and rock baby until that time comes. If the baby is extremely hungry, feed baby of course. Try to get a full feed in there and then get back on routine throughout the day.
- Remember consistency is key. Your baby’s body will get used to eating at a certain time and will slowly but surely start sleeping a lot closer to that time.
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