When learning how to get babies to sleep, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. Rather, it often involves trial and error, plenty of perseverance, and sleep training advice from the experts.

While finding the right way to get your baby to sleep may seem daunting, there are simple steps and approaches you can try to help your baby fall asleep in no time.

Keep reading to find out how.

At first, getting baby to sleep may seem like an impossible, exhausting task, but these tips, and some trial and error, may help your baby fall asleep in no time.

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1. Try Different Techniques to See What Gets Your Baby to Sleep

Common sleep training methods include the cry it out (CIO) method (or extinction sleep training) and Ferber sleep training. While both involve similar techniques, each offers slightly different approaches, with the latter often a better choice if you don’t like letting your baby cry themself to sleep.

The CIO method is as it sounds–you leave the room and allow your baby to cry themselves to sleep. That’s why it’s often thought of as one of the hardest methods (more so on the parents than the baby!), but it is also one of the fastest. Within three or four nights, you should find that your baby can sleep alone without too much fuss.

In contrast, the Ferber method offers a slightly softer approach to sleep training. Here, you gradually leave your baby to cry for longer and longer periods, but can comfort them at regular intervals. As this method progresses, your baby learns to soothe themself to sleep.

2. Introduce Sleep Training Methods at the Right Time

Even though sleep deprivation may leave you feeling in desperate need of a sleep schedule for your baby, it’s advisable to wait until four or six months old before you begin.

Sleep training a four-month-old is highly recommended, as it’s at this age when they’re ready to teach themselves how to self-soothe. Your baby is old enough to develop this skill, yet still young enough not to have gotten used to mom or dad nursing or rocking them to sleep.

3. Develop a Sleep Schedule that Works for You and Baby

When you start sleep training, you’ll begin to take note of your baby’s feeding schedule and wake windows. This is key to creating infant sleep routines that work.

You may find that your baby sleeps better with a firm routine that’s exactly the same every day. Or, you may find a schedule with a little more flexibility helps your baby fall asleep with greater ease.

4. Wait Until They’re Fighting Sleep Before Leaving the Room

Now that you’ve got the right technique for you and developed a routine you’re both happy with, it’s time to really start teaching baby to self-soothe. This involves leaving their bedroom when they’re fighting sleep, rather than when they’re asleep.

Why?

If you sit by their crib until they sleep, they may feel anxious or alarmed when they wake to find that you’re no longer there. Leaving them when their eyelids are getting heavy helps them get used to falling asleep on their own and should remove the risk that your baby won’t sleep in their crib without you around.

5. Create Your Own Sleep Environment

A great way to help your baby drift into the Land of Nod each night is to have a relaxing ritual that induces the feeling of sleep. This may be having a bath before bed, talking to them softly, singing a song, or rocking them in your arms. Not only does this help establish a great sleep routine, but it’s also a wonderful time for you and baby to bond.

Over time, and as they get older, this routine may change slightly. You may read books together or recite nursery rhymes, for example. Regardless of your routine, it will still provide that parent-child bonding time at the end of the day. Try to take turns putting the baby to sleep, too, as this should help them associate both mommy and daddy with bedtime.

Enjoying a Good Night’s Sleep for Everybody

At first, getting baby to sleep may seem like an impossible, exhausting task. But with the aforementioned tips, advice from your baby sleep expert, and some trial and error, you should all be enjoying a great night’s sleep in no time at all.