The first couple of months, newborns don’t have any sleep associations. This means that you can’t “spoil” them by rocking them to sleep or holding them while they’re sleeping. Enjoy those newborn snuggles (make sure you stay awake to prevent SIDS of course)! However, there are some things that you can do to make sure you get more restful sleep at night and to start building routines to benefit you and your new baby in the long run. This helps set a nice foundation for future sleep habits!

Day Time Naps

For the first 2 weeks, everything is a whirlwind and a free for all. When the baby wants to sleep, he would sleep, and when he wants to eat, he should eat. I didn’t care how long he slept for as long as he was getting rest and so was I!

This didn’t seem to affect his night time sleep; everything was really inconsistent and sometimes I’d get an hour and 40 minutes of sleep and other time I’d get 3 hours. By around 3 weeks, I started to use things like a baby wrap that would keep him more comfortable during the day time so he would take longer naps on me. Because he started to sleep longer during the day time, I noticed a correlation between that and slowly getting more wake ups at night! It was causing him to wake up a little less than 2 hours at a time the entire night which was extremely exhausting. Especially considering that that count down time starts at the beginning of a breastfeeding session, I was getting maybe an hour of sleep at a time.

Once I realized this, I started to wake him up from his naps once he had been sleeping for 2 hours. I’d change his diaper, give him milk, and he would either stay awake for a bit or go right back asleep. but at least this little bit of time awake was enough to break up the naps! After this, I noticed that he started to give me more stretches of time in the evening asleep. I started consistently getting a little over 2 hours of sleep and sometimes 3 hours at night! I know this doesn’t sound like a lot of sleep at once, but this felt like a really nice change after getting less than 2 hours at a time.

💡Tip: Too much sleep in the day time can hurt night time sleep! Keep day time naps shorter than 2 hours at a time.

When I put my toddler to sleep for his afternoon nap at 12:00, it tends to line up with my newborn’s nap. I take advantage of this and put my newborn in his swaddle right before the feeding leading up to this nap. This way, after that feeding he will fall asleep nice and cozy in his swaddle and I put him in his bassinet for a well deserved break. If I try and put him in the swaddle after his milk, the movement itself wakes him up. Usually around this time, the milk will put him right to sleep!

The swaddle is key to allowing me to take a nap while my baby is in a safe sleeping space. The swaddle is helpful because I don’t have to worry about having a loose blanket on him since I wouldn’t be able to leave him unattended with that. The swaddle also helps him sleep for longer since it stops his startle reflex from waking him up and he feels nice and secure in there which also helps him sleep for longer. Basically, I treat this afternoon nap like how I would treat night time sleep! Other than making sure he doesn’t nap for longer than the 2 hours.

Since I have 2 floors, I have a small bassinet on the first floor so I can sleep on the couch and not have to go upstairs for the nap or worry about not being able to see or hear my baby upstairs while I’m downstairs. This is especially helpful since I had a section and stairs are not fun. I use this bassinet daily and I highly recommend it to have around the house if you have 2 floors!

💡Tip: Swaddle your baby for nap times and get a small bassinet for downstairs if you have 2 floors.

Newborn night time sleep

We also start his night time at 7 pm. This is the same time we put our 2 year old to bed. After our baby’s last breastfeeding session before 7 pm, we swaddle him up and put him in his bassinet to sleep. If he wakes up during the night time for milk, I treat it as if it is night time (even if it’s 10:00 pm and I’m awake and keep the lights off/low, use quiet voices, feed the baby, and put him right back to sleep.

Bedtime routines

Is it too early to have a bedtime routine? Absolutely not! You don’t need a 10 step Korean skincare routine version of a bedtime routine, but something simple like a bath, a swaddle, a song, and white noise before being placed in a bassinet can help your baby build associations between day time and night time. I actually follow the same routine before every nap (aside from the bath of course) so baby’s brain can send them those sleepy time signals.

To change or not to change at night

I don’t change the diaper unless he has a poop or it feels really full because this just wakes him up more. In the beginning when he was peeing a lot I did change it every time but once I noticed he started to have diapers that weren’t very full, I would change it every other feeding if he woke often. This really varies on how often your baby wakes and how much they pee! This is a double edged sword because if you wait too long, they can get a rash and if this happens too often they can get a yeast infection so you know your baby best.

When does morning time start?

I usually treat any wake time after 6/7 am as morning time. Any sleep after that wake up is a nap time. This is helpful to keep in mind because you can treat that feeding as day time. I let my baby tell me whether it’s morning or not as well. If I see that he goes right back to sleep after I feed him, I let him sleep.

Summary

At the newborn stage, sleep is really flexible. They sleep a lot and are asleep for more time than they are awake. Let your baby sleep as long as they need. You only need to start keeping nap lengths in mind if you start to notice a shift in their routine. If you notice more night waking consistently after naps longer than 2 hours at a time, consider cutting naps after the 2 hour mark.

Routines are helpful even now to build healthy sleep habits. Treat 7 pm as night time and follow a simple bedtime routine to help baby know the difference between day and night time sleep.