Congratulations! You're probably reading this as you've brought your precious little baby home. Its a great step in life and you'll enjoy it. Many people struggle with sleep the first couple of weeks when their baby first comes home and don't really understand how to get their babies to sleep. Well I'm here to let you know that its not that hard to get your baby to sleep. With a little knowledge you'll know how to get your baby to sleep with little effort, which means more sleep for you. Both baby and parents win!

Many babies wake up because of hunger and because they are used to being fed in the hospital every four hours. Once you get your baby home, you can either continue in this manner or allow the baby to sleep as long as they can without waking them to be fed. If you feed them as much as they want just before putting the down for the night, they will have a full belly and are more apt to begin sleeping through the night. Most doctors tell you not to feed them solid foods such as cereal or baby food until they are at least six months old. How would you like it if you could only drink for six months? You most likely would not like it and could not sleep longer than a few hours without your stomach needing food.

As any Thanksgiving will show, people generally get sleepy after eating. This happens because your blood sugar levels change and because your body pushes blood to your stomach, thus taking it away from your brain. Babies are no different.However, letting babies fall asleep after eating creates a bad habit - it unconsciously forms a routine of only being able to fall asleep after eating. In the beginning this might not be an issue, but think about a few months from now. Do you want to have to feed baby every time she wakes up?

Another way to get baby to sleep through the night is to make sure that some one-on-one snuggle time is in your routine. You don't want to just dump the baby into his or her crib without another word. Take advantage of your baby's attachment to a blanket or cuddly animal. If they haven't established this yet, help them to find something that will make them feel comfortable when you are not there. An object like this, often called a transitional object, can give your baby comfort and help him or her to get to sleep, both when first put to bed and also on waking during the night.

As a parent, you can help to encourage your child to enter into a consistent sleep pattern if you follow certain steps to encourage her to sleep alone. The first is to observe when and for how long she sleeps, feeds and rests. You might think you know this, but make out a chart and write it all down. This lets you do two things: you will be able to detect a pattern of how long she spends on each of the above activities, and at what times she does it. You will also be able to detect changes to the pattern as you train her to change her sleeping habits.

Read about Parenting and also read about Baby Sleep Patterns and Sleep Baby Need