I am currently caring for a 6 week old baby and doing some gentle sleep shaping techniques to help him learn to sleep well. One night the Mom and Dad were on their own with the baby and reached out the next morning to ask what to do when the baby made noise at night. Does this mean they are hungry? Should they check the diaper? Re-swaddle them? I am writing my response here because she can’t be the only Mom with this question!

From having been with babies overnight for over 12 years I can tell you that this is so common. Babies make all sorts of noises during the night. It’s amazing how loud they can be! Often, parents assume that when a baby starts crying at night they are ready to eat. They immediately pick them up and begin to feed them. While there is nothing wrong with responding immediately to a baby’s cry, you might be working against your baby learning how to sleep.

This is definitely what I did with my first daughter! As soon as she made any noise at night I picked her up and helped her back to sleep or fed her. I never gave her any space at all to see if she was truly waking or if she was just making some noise. I felt like if I let her cry even for 30 seconds to a minute I was a bad and unresponsive parent. She woke constantly throughout the night for over a year. Fortunately, between my daughters I learned a lot more about sleep while working overnight with other babies.

With my second daughter I took a slightly different approach. I gave her just a little bit of space to see if she was truly waking or if she needed something. I realized that she often put herself right back to sleep and didn’t need my intervention. Of course when she was truly waking I would feed her or take care of her needs. This slight shift in my reaction made such a huge difference in her ability to sleep long stretches throughout the night. She was so much happier during the day because she was able to get the sleep that she needed at night.

My advice is this: when babies seem like they are waking at night just give them a bit of space (30 seconds to 2 minutes). This does not mean we are not caring for them or being unresponsive to their needs! When a baby begins to grunt a lot or cry during the night I walk over and stand close to the baby’s bed but a few feet away. I make sure they are safe, but I don’t immediately do anything. I stand a few feet back and just listen. I give them time to see if they are truly waking up. Well over half the time they will go right back to sleep on their own. In fact, they were not actually waking up but coming out of a sleep cycle or maybe just dealing with some gas and needed a bit of grunting to help themselves get back to sleep. If after a minute or two they are still crying then I look at the time to determine if they are possibly hungry. If it’s time for a feed then I feed them and meet all their needs and put them bak to sleep.

If it feels like it’s too early to be hungry (45 minutes-1 hour after the previous feed) I’ll try to help them back to sleep by simply putting a hand on their chest while shushing them. Often this will work. If it doesn’t work I’ll offer them a pacifier (if they take one) and then if all those don’t work I will pick them up and help them back to sleep with rocking or some type of movement. And obviously if they are truly hungry after all of this then I will feed them and meet their needs and help them back to sleep.