Today, I have a question from a mom who downloaded my free 5 tips from my website. She writes, "I've been working on implementing your tips for about a week now, but I'm having a really hard time keeping my baby awake through her bottle at the bedtime routine. What can I do?"

Well, that's a great question. Really, when you're working on helping your child sleep well, the number one rule is to make sure that you keep your baby wide awake through any feeds. That's the breast or the bottle.

This week I wanted to talk a bit about the bedtime routine, and the number one mistake parents make when they are creating a bedtime routine. Nowadays, if you go to any baby site on the Web, search “my baby won’t sleep,” or whatever you’re looking to resolve in regards to sleep, almost every single site will tell you about the importance of a bedtime routine. I absolutely agree!

I think a bedtime routine is a crucial first step in creating predictability to your baby and teaching your baby that it’s time to make that transition from day into night. Even adults have routines. We all do things in the same order before bed every night. Without them, we would feel a little anxious or out of sorts, and it would be harder to sleep. So it definitely is important, but there is one mistake that parents make.

Do you want to know something that really gets me fired up?

It’s when Moms (either online or in real life) are talking about sleep, and I hear comments like this:
“You should just enjoy getting up to nurse all night – someday he’ll be all grown up and you’ll miss it.”

Or…

“It's all part of having children. Going without sleep is par for the course!”

Or my all-time favorite…
“Well, you’ll just have to figure out how to deal with it!”