Last night Olive had one of the best nights of sleep she’s had in awhile. I gave her a bath at 5:15pm, nursed her, swaddled her and she was in her crib, drowsy but awake at 5:45pm — an hour and 15 minutes after she woke up from her last nap. She woke up at 9:00pm and I nursed her again, but she was up to her usual antics of being wide awake. I decided to give the good old 5 S’s a shot because a friend with a newborn recently told me I saved her life by giving her The Happiest Baby on the Block dvd. I swaddled Olive, held her on her side, shushed her loudly in her year, and swung her while she sucked on my arm. And wouldn’t you know it? She fell asleep after a couple of minutes, and stayed asleep — the first time in over a week!

For the past couple of weeks, Olive has been making mischief most evenings anywhere between the 6pm – 12am hours. During that time, it’s been difficult to get her to stay sleep no matter what I do (nurse, hold, rock, pat, swing, stroller, carrier, etc.), and she’s often awake for hours. Olive sleeps pretty well during the day and after the midnight hour, but I couldn’t figure out why she was so fussy and wide awake in the evenings. I’ve been obsessed with infant sleep since Charlie was a baby, so I knew that I was doing as many things “right” as possible. Still it’s been difficult to be as consistent with Olive, because we can’t always accommodate her schedule like we could with Charlie. But I’ve been working hard to use as many baby sleep tricks as possible to get her on track, and I think it’s finally starting to come together.

I’ve implemented most of these tips, and hopefully they can help your baby sleep better too!


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1. Keep baby’s room bright during the day. This is important in the early days of your newborn’s life because they often have their days and nights mixed up. Expose them to light and sound in the day, so they know daytime is for play.

2. Keep baby’s room dark at night. Babies should be exposed to dark, quiet, and as little stimulation as possible at night so they know night time is for sleep. I even covered the little light coming from the wipes warmer!

3. Use black out shades. I’m a huge fan of blackout shades because they’re such a powerful sleep cue, and they can help your baby stay asleep longer.

4. Change your baby’s clothes in the morning. This is something I’ve been lazy about, but making a big deal about the start of the day by opening the curtains and changing your baby’s clothes first thing in the morning helps them separate day and night.

5. Don’t pick up your baby every time they make a sound. Babies make a lot of noise. Olive was truly the gruntiest baby of all time! I’ve watched her open her eyes completely on the video monitor, only to take a couple of minutes to settle down and go back to sleep. If you go to your baby too quickly every time they make a sound, you may be unnecessarily waking them up.

6. Have an early bedtime. It may be counter intuitive, but babies sleep better with an earlier bedtime. We try to keep Olive’s bedtime anywhere between 5:30pm – 6:30pm depending on when she woke up from her last nap, but I have to admit that it’s been difficult keeping her on schedule sometimes when we’re out and about with Charlie. She always falls asleep when we’re out, which invariably pushes her bedtime later. As a second child she’s just going to have to be more flexible than Charlie was, but now that she’s a lot more alert, I’m trying to be more strict about keeping her on schedule.

7. Play white noise + use a double draft dodger. Charlie is a very noisy boy, and our apartment carries a lot of sound into her room. So we use our Marpac white noise machine and a double draft dodger to muffle noise at bedtime (he’s not home when she naps).

8. Nap in the crib. Olive almost always falls asleep when she’s outside in a carrier or the stroller, but most of her naps are in her crib so that she associates the crib with sleep, instead of her stroller or car seat. Crib naps are also more restorative than naps on the go.

9. Prevent your baby from becoming overtired. Once a baby is overtired, it’s harder for them to fall asleep, so you have to be attuned to their ideal awake intervals and their sleepy cues. Olive usually gets tired after being awake about an hour… sometimes even less. The absolute maximum amount of time she’s awake at this age is 1 1/2 hour. Preventing her from becoming overtired hasn’t been a huge issue yet because she still falls asleep pretty easily like a newborn, but I do always keep my eye on the clock to make sure she’s not being overstimulated close to nap time.

10. Have a strong nap/bedtime routine. It doesn’t matter what the routine is, as long as you do the same sequence of events each time. This helps your baby know that it’s time to sleep!

11. Give your baby a massage. I’ve never tried this myself, but many babies sleep better if their night time baths are followed by a baby massage.

12. Swaddle. The vast majority of babies sleep better when they’re tightly swaddled. Olive has discovered her fists and loves putting them in her mouth, but anytime she gets her arms out of the swaddle, she wakes up. She definitely sleeps longer and deeper when she’s tightly swaddled.

13. Don’t change diapers at night. I used to change Olive’s diaper in the middle of the night because she was such a sleepy newborn, she easily went back to sleep. But as she became more alert, I think the diaper changes just unnecessarily stimulated her. I will change a poopy diaper, but she doesn’t seem to mind going all night with a wet diaper.

14. Avoid eye contact at night. Olive loves to give me the hugest goofiest grins in the middle of the night, so I have to avoid eye contact otherwise it stimulates her. But sometimes it’s impossible to avoid her eyes, and I crack up when she gives me one of her patented smiles!

15. Don’t burp at night. I always have to burp Olive in the day because she is a very burpy baby. But when I nurse her in the middle of the night, she’s usually in a half awake state so I can gently put her back in bed without burping her, and possibly waking her up.

16. Keep the bedroom cool. Babies fall asleep better when rooms are cool — under 72 degrees. Our apartment is on the warm side so it’s difficult for us to keep the room cooler than 72-75 degrees, but we do dress Olive lightly in just a footed romper.

17. Turn on a humidifier. I monitor the humidity in Charlie and Olive’s room with this hygrometer. Winters here in New York are dry and cold, and humidifiers can help your baby breathe better at night… especially when they’re sick.

18. Put your baby into the crib awake. When I first heard that you’re supposed to put babies into their cribs awake, I thought it was an impossible task! We were able to do it with Charlie after sleep training, but with Olive we practiced putting her in her crib awake early and often. We didn’t let her cry since she was a newborn, but by putting her in her crib awake regularly when she was drowsy but not too drowsy, and definitely not overtired, we allowed her opportunities to learn how to put herself to sleep. She is pretty good about putting herself to sleep, but she definitely needs more practice. As she gets older, I’ll probably allow her to cry a couple of minutes before going to her, so she learns how to put herself to sleep for all naps, bedtimes, and night wakings instead of relying on me to rock/nurse/hold her to fall asleep.

19. Good naps = good night time sleep. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had childcare providers tell me that since a baby didn’t sleep well in the daytime, they would probably sleep better at night. But sleep begets sleep, and getting good naps means your baby won’t be overtired and will be able to sleep better at night.

20. The 5 S’s – Swaddle, Side/Stomach, Sucking, Shushing, Swinging. The 5 S’s work. I used them with Charlie and I thought Olive might be too old for it, but it worked last night and she’s 3 months old!

21. Feed your baby frequently during the day. I make sure that Olive is getting as many calories as possible during the day so that she wakes up less at night for feedings. She gets 4-5 ounce bottles every 3 hours in the daytime, and nurses only at night. I also only offer one breast to make sure that she’s getting as much of the rich, fatty hindmilk as possible to fill her up.

22. Wake your baby up in the morning if they sleep past a certain time. If Olive continues to make mischief at night, I’m going to start waking her up at 7:30am. This will help set her internal clock since she usually likes to sleep in during the mornings when she makes mischief at night.

23. Do a dreamfeed. Some moms wake their babies up between 10-11pm and do a dreamfeed to fill their babies tummies and get them to sleep longer stretches at night.

What are some of your best tips for improving baby sleep?