- Suitable for 6-18Months
Changing your baby’s sleep pattern
What’s the secret to a good night’s sleep for the whole family? Your baby learning how to go to sleep without your help. This approach is for dealing with persistent sleep problems in children six months or older.
- A new sleep pattern: in a nutshell
- Four steps to better sleep
- Older siblings
- Sharing your room or bed with baby
- Looking after yourself
- Relapses and other difficulties
- Recapping on baby sleep
It’s lovely cuddling your baby to sleep. But if babies go to sleep every time being rocked in your arms or having a bottle, they’ll expect to be rocked or fed back to sleep when they wake overnight. If they fall asleep in the family room, they’ll be surprised to wake up in their cots. And they’ll call out for your help with getting back to sleep.
A new sleep pattern: in a nutshell
- Put your baby into the cot awake. This way, baby can begin to learn self-soothing skills and how to fall asleep independently. Babies won’t learn to fall asleep by themselves if you do it for them.
- Usually, when your baby has learned to fall asleep independently at the start of the night, baby can get back to sleep without your help during the night.
- It takes 3-14 days to change a baby’s sleep patterns, just as it takes a few days for grown-ups to get over jet lag (when our sleep patterns are changed).
- You can change your baby’s sleep pattern, but do expect your baby to protest for the first few nights, until baby gets used to the change. Sleep will then improve for everyone.
Four steps to better sleep
The key is to change habits associated with going to sleep and allow your baby to develop the ability to settle independently. Here are the steps:
- Identify the habit associated with the sleep problem.
- Gradually phase out this habit.
- Establish a positive bedtime routine.
- Teach your baby to settle to sleep independently.
Usually, the way a baby falls asleep at the start of the night is the way that baby will expect to go back to sleep after waking during the night. Therefore, if a baby is rocked or fed to sleep at the start of the night, baby will expect to be rocked or fed back to sleep in the middle of the night. This becomes a problem when parents have to interrupt their own sleep to help baby get back to sleep.
The first thing to do is work out what habits your baby is associating with going to sleep. The following table has some tips to help think through your baby’s sleep habits over the last 24 hours.
| Sleep habits | Your child |
|---|---|
| Where is your baby normally put down to sleep? | Is this the same place where baby wakes during the night? If your baby is in the habit of falling asleep in the family room, or in your arms, baby might need this to get back to sleep after waking during the night. Possible habit: falling asleep in a different place. |
| If your baby cries when put in the cot, what do you do? | If you’re in the habit of picking up, cuddling or rocking baby to sleep, baby might have developed the habit of needing your presence to get to sleep. Baby is likely to need this during the night as well as at bedtime. Possible habit: being held or rocked to sleep. |
| Is your baby put into the cot asleep or awake? | If baby is awake, how do you settle your baby? The things you do when you settle baby for the night are the things that baby will want after waking during the night. Possible habit: being rocked, fed, patted or cuddled to sleep. |
| Is a dummy used? | Can baby replace the dummy without your help during the night? If not, baby might call you for help. Possible habit: falling asleep with a dummy that gets lost when it falls out. |
| Is a mobile or music used? | Do you have to turn this on again during the night when baby wakes? If so, it is likely that baby has developed the habit of needing music to settle. Possible habit: needing music to fall asleep. |
Some other things to consider
- Does your baby have a predictable bedtime routine? Do you do similar things together every night before bedtime? If not, introducing a routine will help your baby get ready for sleep.
- Is your baby getting enough sleep during the day? If baby isn’t having regular daytime sleeps, baby could be overtired. Overtired babies are more difficult to settle at night. That might sound strange, but settling is a learned behaviour. Like anything learned, settling is harder for your baby to do when exhausted. Consider re-introducing daytime sleeps.
| Sleep habit | How to phase it out |
|---|---|
| Night feeding | If your baby routinely falls asleep at the breast or with the bottle, baby might now depend on feeding to help get to sleep. Begin to change this habit by:
You can be confident that babies six months and older who are developing well and putting on weight as expected can be taught to re-settle overnight without a feed. |
| Dummies | If a dummy is causing problems (for example, baby needs you to find and replace it overnight), you can help your younger baby give up the dummy. You can teach older babies to manage their own dummies during the night. |
| Music and mobiles | In general, if your baby is having problems re-settling overnight, it’s probably best to stop playing music at bedtime. This is especially the case if re-settling means you climbing out of bed to turn the music back on during the night! |
| Baby monitor | In general, you won’t need to use a baby monitor when carrying out settling techniques. If your baby is a long way from your room, a monitor can be used. But avoid responding when your baby is only grizzling. |
More than likely, your baby will need some help learning to settle for sleep independently. A positive bedtime routine will make this easier.
Step 3: Establishing a positive bedtime routine
A positive bedtime routine helps prepare a baby for sleep. This means organising bedtime around a series of consistent activities and tasks, done roughly in the same order and at the same time each night. A positive routine is predictable and includes calming and soothing activities.
In addition, you need to make sure that your baby is getting enough sleep during the day. Babies who get overtired during the day can find it harder to settle to sleep at night.
A daytime bed routine and the two strategies described below can assist you in improving daytime sleeps for your baby.
Step 4: Teaching your baby to settle back to sleep
A good bedtime routine sets your baby up for success. But you will need a strategy for managing crying out at bedtime or during the night when baby wakes.
If you are confident that you are giving your baby enough attention throughout the day, but you feel your baby has become dependent on you to fall asleep, you can use a behaviour management technique such as controlled comforting or camping out.
Research has shown that behaviour management techniques are the most effective in solving sleep problems. These techniques are based on the observation that babies who cry when waking overnight have not learned to self-soothe and fall asleep by themselves. These techniques aim to teach babies to fall asleep without the help of an adult.
Choose the approach you are most comfortable with and try to use it consistently for a period of time:
- Controlled comforting: this is sometimes called ‘controlled crying’. Controlled comforting has been practised since the 1970s. It is a systematic way of gradually reducing your attention to crying and calling out. It takes longer, and can involve more crying in total, but some parents find it easier to withdraw attention more slowly.
- Camping out: this is based on the idea that parental presence is reassuring to a baby. It involves the parent staying in the room, gradually reducing the amount of help baby needs to settle. It’s a good option for a parent who wants to stay near. It might not be the best idea for a parent who is easily upset or frustrated when the baby cries. Research suggests that the process involves less crying than the controlled comforting strategy.
Things to consider
- Consider your timing before you begin. Both approaches can be demanding and tiring. If your child is ill or you are going through a major upheaval such as moving house, wait until later.
- Stop using a behaviour management strategy if you or your child becomes ill during the program.
- If you can’t take any time during the day to have a rest and catch up on some sleep, you might be better off to wait until you can.
- Choose the approach that you are most comfortable with, and that fits best with your family and situation. We know this is an important part of success. Although we know that these approaches are successful 80% of the time, we don’t know why they don’t work with every baby.
Follow-up studies have shown that babies who have undergone controlled comforting are more likely to sleep better in the short term and are as well adjusted as their peers in terms of behaviour and sleep in the long term. Despite concerns about potential harms to the baby, no studies have shown any psychological or physical harm from using the behaviour management techniques described here.
Older siblings
Parents are often concerned that a baby’s crying might wake a sibling during the night. There are a couple of possible approaches to this problem:
For settling
- Tell your older child that you are going to settle the baby five minutes before you do so. Make it clear to the sibling that they either need to stay out of the baby’s room or remain quiet if they are going to go in.
- Find something to keep the older child interested and engaged in while settling the baby. For example, food, a different toy, video/TV or settling a toy baby (best done outside the baby’s room).
- Reward the older child for staying out of the room or remaining quiet in the baby’s room.
For waking overnight
- Keep in mind that crying babies rarely wake older children overnight. If you’re concerned, you can pre-warn the older child that the baby might wake and cry. Tell your older child not to worry because mummy and/or daddy are taking care of it.
- If crying does cause problems, it might be helpful for the older child to sleep in a room further from the baby (if possible).
Sharing your room or bed with baby
If you share a bed with your baby, you can pat baby briefly to encourage settling. Turn away when baby is quiet to allow baby to settle to sleep. See Sharing your bed with baby for more information on safe co-sleeping.
Looking after yourself
Changing a baby’s sleep patterns is a challenging and tiring task. You need to look after yourself as you see it through.
- Rest at least once a day. Even if you don’t go to sleep, resting can help restore your energy and ward off fatigue.
- Go to bed at night soon after your baby has gone to sleep. This is to ensure at least 2-3 hours of unbroken sleep for yourself.
- Accept offers of help.
Relapses and other difficulties
About 20% of babies who learn to re-settle during the night will begin to wake again for no apparent reason. If your baby is otherwise well, persist with your settling program. Usually babies will go back to their good habits after a couple of nights. A burst of night waking usually occurs two weeks after babies have learned to re-settle during the night.
If you are still having problems after seven days of controlled comforting or two weeks of camping out, talk to your doctor or child health nurse. These health professionals might be able to help you tailor a program that will work better for your baby. You might also wish to contact an early parenting centre in your state or territory where you can receive more support and help.
Recapping on baby sleep
Here’s what you need to know about your baby’s sleep before starting out on a change program (for babies six months and over):
- Your baby usually needs the same amount of sleep from one day to the next.
- Babies differ in their sleep needs.
- Both adults and babies cycle through ‘quiet’ and ‘active’ sleep during the night.
- The first few hours of your baby’s sleep is usually quiet (deep) sleep.
- The rest of the night has more active (lighter) sleep. This is when babies usually wake up.
- Waking during the night is normal, but it can cause problems if your baby can’t get back to sleep without your help.
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- Last updated19-08-2010
- Last reviewed12-08-2009
- References
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- Acknowledgements
Adapted from: Centre for Community Child Health (2004). The Infant Sleep Study: Managing Sleep Problems in Babies: A Training Manual. Melbourne: Royal Children’s Hospital.
