Tips from PEPS parents

Prioritize your own sleep over chores and other responsibilities

Recognize that sleep deprivation sucks for parents AND babies, making everything harder, from regulating our own emotions/anger/depression to alertness and cognitive development in babies.

Pause before rushing in at the first noise. Or, turn down the volume on the baby monitor.

Observe your baby's usual awake times. Give or take 30 minutes:

• Newborns typically stay awake for approx. 45 minutes at a time
• 6 week to 6 month old babies stay awake for approx. 90 minutes
• At the 1 year old age, the window increases to approx. 3 hours

When baby is no longer taking the third nap of the day, typically around 6 months, shift to an earlier bedtime

Adopt a bedtime routine. It will set a pattern and pace for your baby, helping them to recognize cues that it's time to rest. There is the Eat, Play, Sleep technique. Or, the 4 B’s: bath, breast/bottle, books, then bed.

Aim to make the bedtime routine as portable as possible, so that it can be repeated by other caregivers or outside of the home.

Gear that may help you and baby: a video monitor with night vision, an inclined sleeper that rocks, a co-sleeping pillow, sleep sacks, an app or device to track diaper changes/naps/feeding, pacifiers, black out shades