How to help a baby sleep through the night

While each baby is different in the timing of their developmental milestones, most parents look ahead to the days when their baby sleeps through the night. 

While trying to get a baby to sleep through the night, parents must always keep in mind that the baby might not be ready for it.  Forcefully altering a baby's sleep patterns is not always in the baby's best interest.  However, there are things that you can do to help encourage a baby to sleep through the night.

1. Try to relieve anything that may make your baby uncomfortable while they sleep.  This includes things like teething pain, allergies, too cold or hot of a room temp, problems digesting due to introduction of solids or rice cereal added to baby's bottle.
2. Encourage more daytime feedings.  Especially if your are breastfeeding, babies tend to wake up in the night for nutritional needs just as much as the nurturing contact that comes with breastfeeding.  Longer and more frequent daytime feedings can help meet a baby's need to be connected to mother and lessen the need for such occasions during the night.
3. Before you go to bed, feed the baby.  This prolongs the time until the next feeding and lets the baby "tank up" for the night.  Even if your baby is asleep when you go to bed, they will still get a significant amount of milk if they are fed in their sleep. 
4. Consider co-sleeping.  Co-sleeping has many benefits, and most babies sleep better when they are near their mother.

For more information about babies sleeping through the night, check out my library of articles about babies and sleep.