In last week’s post, I shared my top three priorities postpartum, none of which had anything to do with baby’s sleep. So this week I’m going to focus on my top three newborn sleep tips for when baby arrives!

Being able to establish a solid sleep foundation with my second and third girls was a game changer for our family, so we definitely want to do the same with baby boy. So oue top three newborn sleep priorities for when baby boy arrives include:

• Following awake windows
• Doing our best to keep baby awake during feeds
• Aiming for one bassinet nap a day, plus of course bedtime/overnight

After I show those three tips, I’ll also explain when we’ll actually start implementing them.

If you’re looking for more newborn sleep information, check out our newborn sleep course, Newborn Sleep from A to Z. It’s basically 26 newborn sleep tips, as I go through every letter of the alphabet. It’s everything I wish I had known with my oldest, and everything we applied with our other girls, and everything we plan to do with this baby boy. Whether you’re just looking for more knowledge and confidence, or you’re looking for actionable steps, it’s all in there. And also lots of grace and examples of different babies and their needs!

Priority #1 Pay Attention to Awake Windows

My top newborn sleep priority is paying attention to awake windows. To learn more about awake windows, read this blog post (or listen to the podcast!), but in short, awake windows are essentially the age-appropriate time babies can handle being awake before getting in the zone of overtired, which makes sleep much harder.

With newborns, those windows start the moment their little eyes pop open, and when the awake window is over, we want to be moving them toward sleep – whether that’s laying them in their bassinet, snuggling them in your arms, or going for a carrier or stroller walk. They don’t have to be asleep at the end of the window (although they might be!), but we want to be giving them the chance to fall asleep at that time.

I share this story in Newborn Sleep from A to Z, but after our second daughter was born, my parents were visiting. My dad was holding our new baby on his legs so he could really look at her and smile at her, and I saw that it was the end of her awake window. I certainly could have snagged her to go lay her down, or wrap her in the carrier, or cuddle her to sleep myself, but I wanted him to enjoy her.

So I simply said something like, “Hey dad, if you could just put her on your shoulder so she can try to sleep, that’d be awesome.” He may have patted her a bit, I don’t remember, but within a few minutes she was asleep. She probably could have stayed content for longer before becoming fussy, but then she would have quickly reached an overtired wall that would have been harder to come back from.

So by simply keeping an eye on the clock and then putting her in a position that was much easier to fall asleep in, rather than being smiled at and coo’d at and therefore stimulated, helped her fall asleep!

Keeping an eye on awake windows isn’t about crib naps or sleep training or co-sleeping versus not, it’s about helping give your baby what they need before they may know it or may be showing it, to prevent overtiredness and overstimulation that could make the rest of the day/night that much harder.

And if you’re curious what those newborn awake windows are, snag our free newborn routines guide!

Priority #2 Try to Keep Baby Awake During Feeds

My second priority after baby arrives will be trying to keep him awake during feeds! This is especially challenging the first six weeks, as newborns are just sleepy, so there’s lots of grace there. But while I’m nursing him, or if he’s getting a bottle, I might tickle his toes, tickle his cheeks, or open his onesie and blow on his bare skin as he eats.

This is one, to help make sure he’s getting in nice and full feeds. And two, so he doesn’t have feeding and sleeping so closely associated. He’ll know he doesn’t have to nurse in order to fall asleep, he can also rock, or be patted, he can lay down in the bassinet, use a pacifier, etc.

The end goal here (I’m talking four months and older) is that he will be an independent sleeper. So there’s zero pressure there now, but this seemingly small step of trying to keep him awake during feeds helps make sure he doesn’t get accustomed to always nursing to sleep!

Making sure I wait a few minutes to feed him after he wakes up, as well as leaving some space between when he’s done eating and is asleep again, will also help keep feeding and sleep separated.

Priority #3 Practice One Nap in the Bassinet a Day

My next big priority will be aiming for one nap a day to happen in his bassinet/pack ‘n play. We’ll definitely aim for as much overnight sleep as possible to happen in his pack n play, but that one nap a day in his bed will be one more step toward helping him get used to sleeping by himself, on his back, in his own space.

And sure, sometimes we might rock him to sleep for this nap or if he passes out nursing I may try to just lay him down in the pack ‘n play for that to be his solo nap. And that’s still great! But ideally, this would be a nap where I help him fall asleep in the pack ‘n play – I call it having that “final eye close” happen in the bassinet, so again, he’s getting practice not falling asleep in mom or dad’s arms or in the carrier or car.

There will be lots of space for those snuggles, because they’re important for all of us, which is why this is just a once a day goal. And whether that ends up being a 20 minute nap or a 2 hour nap, it’s a solo nap, which is a big step forward!

In Newborn Sleep from A to Z, I go into detail about how I recommend helping newborns fall asleep in their bassinets or pack ‘n plays from early on, and how both my second and third kids had their preferences in how we helped them.

The short of it, you’re shhhing, patting, doing a brief pick-up, maybe offering the pacifier, repeat, until those eyes close while they’re laying in that bassinet or crib. If this feels like a pipe dream or you just have no clue how you’d even go about getting your newborn to fall asleep in their bassinet, again, that’s what our newborn sleep course is for!

When We’ll Start Implementing these Newborn Sleep Goals

Before I wrap-up, I want to chat about when we might realistically do all of these things. Because as I shared in last week’s post, these are not my day one priorities.

So when will we start focusing on awake windows? It’s probably going to be on my mind right away – I can’t not think about it. But also, baby boy might not even make it a whole awake window awake when he’s first born, and he’ll hopefully be so snoozy that we’re not doing much about awake windows.

But if he were to for some reason be wide-eyed for 45 minutes within those first few days, we’re certainly going to start moving him much more intentionally toward sleep.

When it comes to keeping him awake while nursing or drinking from a bottle, we’ll likely start focusing on it around the 1-2 week mark? There is a space where keeping a baby alert during feeds is just important. I want him filling his little belly and gaining back the weight he will naturally drop after birth!

As a nursing mom, I’ll also want him telling my milk supply what he needs. There will definitely be some cluster feeding in there, as that’s a normal part of newborn life and milk supply, but again, it’s also important for him to stay somewhat alert while feeding to try to get as full of a feed as possible.

I’m also not at all concerned, however, about “bad habits” or him falling asleep while nursing, especially at the beginning. Because again, newborns are sleepy and sometimes truly do just eat, sleep, and poop!

So basically when I’m ready to start keeping him awake during most feeds, and his feeding is in a place where it’s going well and I can poke him a bit while he’s eating and it won’t mess up his latch or anything, we’ll start doing so.

And finally, when we start pracitcing bassinet naps really depends! Our second was born at a birth center, so we were home four hours after she was born. And I remember laying her down for that first big snooze, hoping we’d all get a bit of sleep before my parents arrived, but maybe 20 minutes in my husband and I heard her making a strange noise. He snagged her quickly as she was spitting up a dark and kind of thick liquid, and it totally freaked us out.

We called our midwife right away and it was basically because she was born so fast, she didn’t get the benefit of a nice squeeze through the birth canal to help clear her lungs. So for a good five days or so, pretty much any time she laid flat (even to change her diaper!), she‘d start spitting up. So we essentially held her upright for almost a whole week straight, and then slowly started practicing bassinet naps with one of us sitting right there to make sure she was okay.

And then once she was good, she was more than good and was a little champion of a pack ‘n play sleeper, both day and night!

With our third, she wasn’t coughing anything up, but she made the strangest little gurgling noises when we laid her down, and again, I just wasn’t comfortable with her laying flat for the first two weeks or so. I remember it felt like a long time. So we took turns holding her upright overnight (thank you Jesus, for Grandma’s help, too!), and all of her naps.

And then we slowly got more comfortable and she started taking naps in her bassinet and slowly started adding on more nighttime stretches in her bassinet.  Turns out that weird gurgling was all connected to her lip and tongue tie, and we got it all sorted out!

With our oldest, she had no physical issues laying flat, she was just a classic newborn who had no clue how to sleep on her own, and we had no clue how to help her, so there were lots of ups and downs, and again, thank goodness Grandma was always ready to take night shifts to help us.

So all that to say, every baby is going to be different. Who knows if this baby boy will be in his pack ‘n play day three or week three, we will decide according to how he’s doing and how comfortable we are. But we will start that practice as soon as we’re all ready!

Conclusion

Hopefully this is all helpful to hear, as a sleep consultant who’s not only worked what seems like magic on her own newborns, but who’s also worked with countless newborn families on implementing the same goals. Which means I’ve worked REAL babies and REAL families and seen how every baby is just different!

The goal of this post is to share with you, real mama and parent to real mama and parent, plus sleep consultant, what our top sleep goals will be after baby boy arrives.

And I hope you hear all the grace in what it might realistically look like to prioritize awake windows, feeds, and bassinet practice. And the grace in when we’ll actually start implementing these things, as it largely depends on baby boy and how we’re all doing!

If you want to hear more, don’t forget to snag our newborn sleep course, Newborn Sleep from A to Z, and per usual, thanks so much for listening!

With Grace,

Lauren