Why doesn't my baby sleep at night?
There are several reasons why your baby may not sleep at night. The first is if your baby has confused day with night. If he sleeps during the day but wants to play through the night, he probably has mixed up day and night, and needs to be taught to turn them around.

If it isn't an issue of day vs. night, your baby probably just hasn't been properly taught how to sleep. That's right - babies are not born knowing how to sleep. It is our job to teach them, and the effort required to teach them properly, now when they are little, pays off in a big way later on!

Okay, you say. But HOW do I teach my baby to sleep? The first step is to put your baby on a schedule. This word, "schedule," can be easily misunderstood, so let's discuss its meaning for a minute: We do not recommend, for example, buying a timer and setting it for every 3 hours - and when the timer goes off, it is time to put the baby to sleep. The schedule we use is much more flexible than that. Times are approximate and can vary somewhat from cycle to cycle and day to day.

How do I get my baby on a regular sleep schedule?
The first step to a good sleep schedule is to have an integrated schedule for the whole day. What is an integrated schedule? It contains several cycles, and each cycle has three components:

• sleeping
• feeding
• playing

Here's how you figure out the typical cycle for your baby: Newborns typically need to eat every 2 to 3 hours (closer to 2 for smaller babies, and closer to 3 for larger ones). This feeding schedule is extended as the baby gets older: babies feed every 3 hours or so by 6 weeks old, and about every 4 hours by about 4 months of age. Your baby's eating schedule will effectively determine his sleeping schedule. So, if your baby is 2 months old, he should have an approximate 3 hour cycle of sleeping, feeding, and playing. Once he his 4 months old, he'll have an approximate 4 hour cycle.

This sounds simple, but just understanding this much gets you well ahead of most parents.