How dark or light is your baby's room?
Make sure the room is sufficiently dark. Our bodies need to have a dark room so our circadian rhythms do not get confused. Also, our body knows to release the light-dependent hormone called "melatonin" from the pineal gland in the brain only when it is dark, not light. What is the ambient light situation in the room? I recommend you do not get into the habit of using a night light of any kind, and if there are any toys, clocks, or glow-in-the-dark items in the room, you may want to think about removing them immediately.
How warm or cold is your baby's room?
Too warm a room and the baby will sweat and be uncomfortable; too cold a room and the baby will need to use and finally waste high-priced calories through shivering in order to stay warm. Our first daughter was premature by five weeks and fairly lean, with slight body fat. Until our midwives pointed out that she was permanently colder than she should have been, we did not think about how she was using the calories in the breast milk to shiver to stay warm. They recommend we time the end of the feed as intimately as inherent with warming up her swaddling blankets in the clothes dryer. As for the climatic characteristic of the actual room and maybe your wide house, there seems to be magic in the 17- to 20-degree range.
Where is your baby sleeping in the room?
What we have done is to have our children sleep in a bassinet immediately next to our bed. This seems to have worked well for both the child and my wife, who has breastfed both daughters. When your child is eating more solids and no longer having any "nighttime" feeds, normally after the six-month mark, you can position the bassinet, cradle, or crib more at the foot of the bed. By doing this, your baby will not see you as undoubtedly and, therefore, will learn not to depend on you to help them get back to sleep should they awaken.
What about co-sleeping with your child?
Never co-sleep with a child who is under three months old or when you are over-tired. Many habitancy do not tell the truth when asked if they co-sleep because they do not want to have the stigma or disgrace of doing something that many habitancy frown upon. Any way well this technique may work for you, I strongly urge you to try separate methods. Co-sleeping could potentially cause future issues with a toddler not able or wanting to be alone when sleeping.
Background noise engine as an option.
Many habitancy swear by the effectiveness of vacuum cleaners and "white noise" machines to soothe their baby. The law is that when the baby is inside the womb, it experieinces a fairly loud environment. By month seven, the baby tends to be startled by loud, nasty sounds but soothed by more gentle white noise background sounds like a vacuum cleaner in use.
Humidifier for baby's room.
I have found that a humidifier and/or air purifier is very useful when a newborn is having a difficult time sleeping. However, I 'm not quite sure if it's the gentle, low-level white noise or the cleaner air. Whatever is helping the baby sleep, I welcome it if you have gone over all the "quick-check" points and determined that a sleeping qoute is not something obvious.
Understanding baby's sleep program and optimizing it for your life.
When you start logging your baby's sleep pattern from the very beginning, you have an benefit over the parents who bypass this step and very rarely get to it later in the child's first year. Why not optimize your life and undoubtedly get to understand patterns?
If your baby always sleeps from 1 p.m. To 4 p.m., as our second daughter seems to be doing, then use this to your advantage. This is when my wife goes out or showers or naps, or I go to the gym on the weekends or grocery shop if needed.
