How to weed out the good advice from the bad can feel near impossible when you become a new mom? New parents are bombarded with old wives' tales and the heavy suggestions that are loaded with judgment. Try rice cereal in the bottle, it will make him sleep longer. Or, waking 5 times in the night is normal, and not sleeping for 2 years is part of being a mom. Both are 100% untrue and the latter really gets me riled up.
Sleep is not a luxury, it’s a necessity.
Adults need 7-9 hours of sleep to be happy, healthy people. In fact, sleep deprivation is comparable to intoxication. Making your sleep a priority often starts with teaching your little one to become a fantastic sleeper.
So let’s start debunking just a few of those crazy baby sleep myths
If my baby wakes at night, he must be hungry
The correct answer is sometimes. If your baby (who is no longer a newborn) is waking up multiple times a night to feed he’s probably using the feed to help get back to sleep.
Does your baby wake to feed, but after only a few minutes fall to sleep on the feed? Is feeding the last step of your bedtime routine and baby gets drowsy or falls asleep feeding? If these things are happening, your baby is most likely needing help linking sleep cycles and the feed is his “go-to”.
Try moving the feed to the first step of the bedtime routine and making sure baby is awake and alert during the feed and entire bedtime routine.
Some babies are taking full feeds multiple times a night, which leaves mom thinking he’s truly hungry and needs to eat. He might be hungry, but there’s also a good chance he’s consuming a large number of his calories at night instead of during the day. Those calories can be pushed into the daytime hours which will help both baby and mom get adequate, restful sleep.
2. .Babies younger than 6 months of age cannot be sleep trained
My definition of sleep training is teaching a baby to confidently fall asleep without relying on something external to help get them to sleep. That means a baby can fall asleep without needing a feed, pacifier, rocking, bouncing, etc. It does NOT mean that you cannot feed your baby during the night.
Thinking that sleep training means that you cannot keep a night feed is why some people believe you cannot sleep train before 6 months of age. Let’s be clear, a baby younger than 4 months old does not have the capability to self-soothe. Newborns do need pacifiers, rocking a bit, etc. to help get them to sleep. You can, however, shape a newborn’s sleep from the get-go and they grow into amazing sleepers. Thus, never actually needing to sleep train. It’s brilliant.
If your baby is healthy, gaining weight, and thriving AND 6 months or older, he can most likely sleep through the night and drop night feeds.
3. My baby isn’t sleeping because he’s teething
If this were true there would not be one baby sleeping through the night until 2.5 years of age. Yikes!
Babies experience some discomfort with teething and it’s typically for just a few days while the tooth is breaking through. If your baby hasn’t slept well in months, teething is not the culprit.
Symptoms Teething Does NOT Cause
The list below is things that teething does not cause and are often reasons to reach out to your baby’s pediatrician.
Fever (104 degrees or higher)
Diarrhea
Rash
Excessive crying
Runny Nose or congestion
Rejecting breastfeeding or bottle-feeding
If your baby won’t sleep, is it teething? If it’s ongoing, probably not.
4. Babies should nap in brightly lit rooms
Wrong! Science proves we all sleep best in a dark, cool, quiet space. Think cave-like. I get that people would love to have a baby be able to sleep wherever, but take a moment and think about it. You CAN sleep on an airplane or in a car, but it’s not that comfortable and definitely not conducive to great sleep, right?
Darkness helps our bodies produce the sleepy hormone, melatonin. If you want your baby to have the best sleep environment possible, block out every bit of light and cover up any blue light.
Two of my favorite blackout solutions are blackoutez and sleepout (use code: andimetzlersleep)
Conclusion
Sleep is not a luxury, it’s a necessity so please make your health a priority. Find a few reliable and trusted sources for parenting tips and throw out the rest. You’ll find your parenting style and it might mean you subscribe to more than one parenting camp. Take what is good for your family. Cherry-picking is allowed.