Every baby is different.

My son is almost nine months and has slept through the night on a regular basis for a while. Here are some of the things we do to encourage sleep (though who knows if this is why he sleeps through the night!)

1) When he wakes up at night it is VERY boring. We turn on one little light, check his diaper and put him back down. We don’t talk to him or even make eye contact. It is sleeping time.

2) During the day we encourage him to nap but don’t close the blinds or turn off the radio or TV or phone. It’s daytime and it’s ok that he sleeps lighter then.

3) We try to let him tire himself out before bed. He plays in his jumper, splashes in the tub or sits on the floor and plays with his toys before he goes down. When we have gone for car trips sleeping becomes very difficult.

4) We try to remove any distractions. Until he was 3 months he slept in his bassinet beside our bed—as soon as we moved him to his own room he started sleeping much more soundly. I suspect we were waking him when my husband snored.

The trick might be to look for patterns you are setting now to make sure you aren’t set up for disaster later. I have some friends that have super elaborate bedtime rituals that work, but then suddenly the baby is three and can’t sleep without a story, a song, a warm blanky, mom sleeping beside her, the nightlight on, the lullaby cd playing and a cup of milk…

Good luck!