Baby sleep – What is true and what is not

It is more common than not as a new parent to feel overwhelmed with all of the well-intended advice, tips, suggestions when it comes to caring for your new baby. It can contradict each other and here you are left to figure it out. I remember a good friend of mine told me the trick to get my baby to sleep through the night was to never let her nap after 5pm. She followed that with her two boys, and they slept through the night right away. So, there I was keeping my exhausted newborn awake after 5pm, completely overstimulated myself with a fussy baby, my husband coming home from work, and trying to get dinner together. It came to the point where I would start to feel the anxiety creep in as the 5 o’clock hour got closer and closer. Luckily, almost 5 years later, I can laugh about it.

With so much solicited and unsolicited advice that you get, I would like to focus on my area of expertise and set some of these sleep myths to rest once and for all!

1. Too much daytime sleep will prevent your baby from sleeping well at night.

Unless your baby has day and night mixed up, this is not likely. Newborns especially, need A LOT of sleep all day and all night. In fact, they can only handle about 45-60 minutes of awake time between naps, and up until about 6 months no more than 2-2.5 hours between naps.

The most common culprit for poor night sleep is overtiredness. One way to ensure you avoid an overtired baby is to get enough daytime sleep! Good naps help with good nighttime sleep. If you are still concerned about too much daytime sleep, track the naps lengths and if the overall time of sleep during the day is within 5 hours for a baby that is 6 months and under, you are well within the sleep needs!

2. Sleep is a something your baby will develop and cannot be taught.

Sleep is natural and a baby will fall asleep, eventually. What we need to teach them, is how to fall asleep independently. They are born with the ability to fall asleep independent, but when we step in as new parents and rock them, feed them, lay them in a swing, they learn that they need this assistance to fall asleep.

I am in no way telling you to not hold your newborn while they nap. I would never take that joy away from a new mom or dad. My goal is to help educate parents on infant sleep and the why behind what is happening. There can be a happy medium for newborn snuggles and help them realize they have the skill to be laid down and fall asleep on their own.

It is natural for each person to wake several times a night, and as adults you don’t remember waking because you have learned how to fall asleep on your own. The same is for our children. They will wake several times a night, and if they don’t know that they can fall asleep on their own, because they only know falling asleep in your arms, the swing or nursing, they will need that to fall back asleep. When they know that they have the ability to fall asleep they will string together those sleep cycles and their nighttime sleep will lengthen.

3. Sleep training is stressful for the baby and can affect the parent-child attachment.

Aside from the studies done that show there is zero effect on parent-child attachment. Don’t believe me, check out the American Academy of Pediatrics study from 2016 conducted by eight of their top researchers, behavioral intervention, (A.K.A Sleep training) “provide(s) significant sleep benefits above control, yet convey(s) no adverse stress responses or long-term effects on parent-child attachment or child emotions and behavior.” Not a whole lot of gray area there.

I will take it one step further. A well-rested parent and a well-rested child will have more meaningful attachment. When everyone is feeling their best, they will enjoy each other more. Plain and simple.

4. Babies are not meant to sleep through the night.

Well, yes and no. Every baby is different and when your baby will sleep through the night depends on several factors.  However, most babies I have worked with will start sleeping through the night on their own when provided with the right amount of nutrition throughout the day. If a baby grazes all day and doesn’t consume enough calories, they will wake up overnight to feed to ensure they consume enough calories. But I have found that once a baby’s schedule is on track providing the right amount of daytime sleep and the right amount of calories, they will naturally sleep through the night all on their own.

Our children are brilliantly created. It can be difficult to drown out the unsolicited advice and not second guess your mama gut on what to do and if it is the right thing to do. Just know that your baby has all the tools, and it is your job to help them understand what to do with each of those tools they are born with. While sleep is just one part of raising a baby, I hope this helps calm down the external noise.