New parents are bombarded with advice – solicited and unsolicited, qualified and unfounded, evidence-based and popular “wisdom.” Very often, baby sleep myths are rooted in a kernel of truth, but don’t tell the whole story. Let’s break down the top five baby sleep myths, so you’re not fooled by popular parenting traps around your baby’s sleep:
BABY SLEEP MYTH NUMBER ONE: IT TAKES MONTHS TO GET YOUR BABY TO SLEEP WELL
Yes and No. Yes, your baby needs to be at least four months adjusted age before you can establish good sleeping habits and a consistent schedule. But that’s not because it takes four months of sleep training for your baby to learn it!
This ends up in the baby sleep myths category because babies physically can’t establish a regular sleeping schedule until the parts of their brains responsible for circadian rhythms develop at – you guessed it – the four-month mark. At that point, it usually only takes a couple of weeks to get your baby on pretty solid sleeping ground, provided you have an age-appropriate schedule (check our our child sleep expectations guide to see where your baby falls), a safe and sleep-friendly sleep environment, and that you’re consistent.
BABY SLEEP MYTH NUMBER TWO: A SLEEPING BABY NEEDS A SILENT HOUSE
Ever see newborns asleep in their carriers or their parents arms on the subway…at ball games…at the church festival? Newborns can sleep anywhere. They’re just not developed enough yet neurologically to be too distracted by the sights and sounds more than several inches from their faces.
Once your baby is a few months old and you can tell he or she is newly aware of the big wide world surrounding you both (why is it always when you’re trying to feed them?), then this becomes less true. Even then, you don’t need to put your house on lockdown and threaten visitors for ringing the doorbell at naptime. A white noise machine can cover lots of noises in the house and neighborhood, allowing your baby to sleep undisturbed. Pink and brown noise, available options on some noise machines and apps, are also great for sleep.
BABY SLEEP MYTH NUMBER THREE: ROCKING OR NURSING YOUR BABY TO SLEEP IS A CRUTCH
This is another yes…and no. Yes, rocking, nursing, walking, bouncing, singing are all popular ways of getting your baby to sleep. Yes, your baby becomes conditioned to this, and it’s a habit that will eventually need to break if you either of you is ever going to get a solid night’s sleep again. But, at the same time, that doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing! These are completely appropriate ways to get a newborn to sleep! Spoiler alert: the key word here is “newborn.”
Everyone has sleep associations. A newborn’s associations are that of the womb. That’s why they like bouncing, shushing, and swaddles. As your baby nears and crosses that four-month mark, it’s time to start shifting these sleep associations: a consistent bedtime routine, a consistent sleep space, and consistent feedback from mom and dad all shape your baby’s idea of what healthy and normal sleep is. So, you may have to wean them off the nursing-bouncing-walking sleep dance, but that’s developmentally appropriate and doesn’t have to be painful, if you do it when the time is right.
BABY SLEEP MYTH NUMBER FOUR: IF I WAKE MY BABY EARLY FROM NAPS, HE OR SHE WILL SLEEP BETTER AT NIGHT
In the first few months, parents deep in the weeds of newborn parenting and desperate for some kind of order often resort to waking their babies from naps after a certain amount of time. If they sleep less during the day, they’ll sleep more at night, right? Unfortunately, this is almost never true. Trying to establish a schedule at this age is an exercise in futility. I know, you have a friend who swears this is why her newborn sleeps through the night: because they established a schedule early. It’s not why. She or he is just lucky, but it probably won’t last anyway.
Establishing a routine can be very helpful to parents trying to plan the day, or even just the next couple of hours. But a newborn’s body is not yet ready to adhere to an actual schedule yet. Stop me if you’ve heard this one, but not until four months of age, when their circadian rhythms kick in and their bodies produce melatonin at predictable times of day, can your baby be on an actual schedule. And when that happens, your friend’s baby will probably go through “the four-month sleep regression” and she’ll find her baby’s sleep is all over the place again anyway.
WAKE AFTER FOUR MONTHS
At that point, it absolutely can make sense to wake a sleeping baby at times. Part of helping your baby adjust to an age-appropriate sleep schedule may mean ensuring they don’t take marathon naps that make it impossible to fall asleep at night. Or waking them up at a certain time in the morning so they’ll be ready for their first nap on time. This would be a short-term means to an end, and only needed for a minority of sleep-training babies. The vast majority of the time, the opposite adage to this baby sleep myth is the one you should follow: (Almost) never wake a sleeping baby.
BABY SLEEP MYTH NUMBER FIVE: NEWBORNS WILL SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT IF YOU DO EVERYTHING RIGHT
That friend of yours who says she sleep-trained her newborn to sleep through the night? Or, even more mystifying, whose baby started sleeping through the night without the parents doing anything? She’s the exception, and very definitely not the rule. Be happy for her, but know that, while her baby is normal, he or she is not typical.
The vast majority of newborns will not, can not, sleep through the night no matter what you do. Again, this all comes back to the fact that their circadian rhythms have not booted up yet (say it with me: four months!). Their little bitty bodies don’t yet know the difference between day and night. Once their circadian rhythms develop, the eyes pick up sunlight, and the brain translates these wavelengths into guidelines for when to sleep and when to wake, and a sleep schedule begins to emerge.
YOUR NOT ALWAYS ASLEEP BABY IS NORMAL!
A baby under four months of age sleeps frequently and for brief stretches of time, and this is normal. This is not something you should try to change. Your job in those first four months is to heal from delivery (if you delivered your baby), bond with your baby, sleep when you can, and work on establishing a great feeding routine, whether breast or bottle.
What you can do is spend the last month or so of that newborn period beginning to practice putting your baby in the crib drowsy but awake. No need yet for a whole sleep plan, just practice. If he or she doesn’t settle down and fall asleep, go ahead and pick your baby up again and do your typical routine of rocking, nursing, or otherwise soothing your baby to sleep. Try again tomorrow.
At some point, you’ll get lucky and your baby will fall asleep independently in the crib. Now the brain begins to realize that the body doesn’t have to always rely on your soothing methods – it can self-soothe, too! Now you’re helping your baby create new neural connections that you’ll build on when the time for sleep-training comes. You’re laying down groundwork for self-soothing that will pay-off once you’re both ready for the next phase.
Keep these baby sleep myths in mind the next time you start to get some unsolicited advice at the grocery store!