According to pediatrician Dr. Alan Greene, each baby develops its own sleep schedule during the later stages of pregnancy. This schedule generally stays with the baby following birth until the "internal clock" of the infant brain learns to associate daylight with wakefulness and darkness with sleepiness. Without parental interference, this conditioning may take a period of several weeks. However, following certain steps, you can accelerate the transition of your baby sleeping throughout the night.
Avoid Stimulating Contact
Certain environmental stimuli can trigger your baby to wake up whether during the day or night. These triggers include direct eye contact, bright lights and noise. In fact, whenever a parent looks into their baby's eyes, the baby's heart rate accelerates, blood pressure rises and alertness increases. Similarly, the background noise of human talking may increase brain activity. Avoiding any such stimuli during the night will prevent the disruption of normal sleeping. DrGreene.com even recommends avoiding eye contact while nursing and using a soft, whisper-like voice for communication to prevent inducing wakefulness.
Encourage Daytime Activity
The more active you keep the baby during the day, the more tired she will be at night. To increase daytime stimulation, place bright lights throughout the house during the day and play with the baby in the sunlight as possible. The Mayo Clinic recommends regular singing, talking and household noise to promote the association of light with activity and induce greater sleepiness during the night.
Reduce Extended Napping
Babies require an average of 16 hours of sleep a day as regular napping is important to brain development. However, the Mayo Clinic warns that lengthy naps may increase wakefulness at night. Indeed, much of this has to do with a baby's circadian rhythm, or internal clock, which can be tuned to sleep longer periods at specific times. The shorter the daytime napping periods, however, the longer the baby will sleep soundly at night, especially as the brain learns through association to take shorter naps during the day and longer naps at night.
Create a Relaxing Sleeping Environment
Associate Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at the University of California, Dr. William Sears, offers new alternatives to the common practice of a letting a baby "cry itself to sleep." Start by building relaxing associations leading up to nighttime rest: a warm bath, a gentle embrace, a feeding and a secure tucking into the crib. Make sure the room temperature is neither too cold nor too hot. Repetitive background noise, like a fan or an air conditioner, may help to lull the baby into sleep and muffle outside noise throughout the night. Lastly, remove any physical discomforts like a dirty diaper or room odor and avoid any final eye contact, which may wake the baby up.
