It is bliss when you can get your baby to sleep through the night. Imagine you spent the whole day feeding your baby, changing diapers, making him sleep, and repeat until it was the glorious night time. What if you could sleep through the entire night without the baby waking up? Wouldn't that be a dream come true?
Though everyone would love to have their baby sleep through the night, it is not possible due to many reasons. Maybe your baby is a newborn and less than 6 months old, the baby is still confused with day and night, or something else. But, through my experience with my daughter, I have found that this baby schedule worked like a charm ever since she was 4 months old and I have never swayed her to sleep. I never had to take her in my arms for the night and rock her to sleep.
I started following a routine for my baby since the 4 th month. This meant there was a fixed time for everything. Though she woke up at her own sweet time, everything that followed after her waking up was a routine that was repeated day after day. Not many mums might agree to this way of child-rearing, but I feel that if you give the right habits at the right time, kids will assume that is how life is to be lived. Now, after 1 year my daughter expects things to follow a set order, be it at home or at someone else's place.
Here is the schedule I have followed with her. This is not a rigid schedule and you can change the timings here and there, but the order must always remain the same.
- 8:00 am - Wake up, milk bottle
- 10:00 am - solid purees
- 12:00 am - milk bottle, nap time
- 12:45 am - water sipper
- 1:00 pm - solid purees
- 2:00 pm - nap time
- 4:00 pm - wake up, milk bottle
- 6:00 pm - bath time
- 7:00 pm - solid purees, water sipper
- 9:00 pm - sleep time
In between all the timings mentioned, since she had just started sitting, we used to play games or encourage walking or standing. Now even today my routine remains the same. Of course, the food has changed and nap time is reduced to one, but the order remains the same. How has this helped me in making her sleep through the night? Well, ever since I followed the routine, she used to sleep within 15 minutes of lying on the bed. How I made her sleep and techniques to avoid rocking the baby to sleep calls for another article.
If you want to go ahead with this technique, start maintaining a diary for around 10 days. Write down when your baby woke up, when she ate food, when she had a nap, and when she fell asleep in the night. After 10 days, you will start identifying a pattern. Your routine should encompass this pattern. Try this technique and do share how it worked out for you or why it did not.
