What to Do When Your Newborn Won’t Sleep

Last updated on June 21st, 2025 at 01:01 pm

When you’re pregnant, you’re going to hear the same advice over and over: “Sleep when the baby sleeps.” In theory, this is great advice. If the baby is sleeping, then you have the opportunity to get some rest, which is important during the newborn stage especially. However, it’s not always practical or realistic. First of all, what happens if your newborn doesn’t sleep? Are you just never going to sleep? Second of all, what about all the other stuff that needs to get done? Laundry, bottle washing, eating, showering, etc.. When are you supposed to do all that? Well, let’s talk about it.

Working toward a solid sleep schedule

So, for the purposes of this blog, I’m going to assume you’re doing everything you can to get your baby to sleep. Paying attention to wake windows, focusing on the environment, swaddling them, etc. My assumption is you’re already doing these things, so we’re going to focus on practical survival advice for when your baby just isn’t sleeping or will only sleep with you.

One tip I will leave you with comes from the book Bringing Up Bebe (which I do recommend reading), and it’s called The Pause. When your baby wakes up and starts fussing, leave them for a moment. By picking them up immediately, you’re interrupting their ability to move from one sleep cycle to the next. You might actually be the thing fully waking them up. So, if they wake up and cry, give it a moment. You might find they go back to sleep. Obviously, if they’re escalating, you can pick them up. But give them a chance to get there on their own. Beyond that, I want to talk about what to do when your newborn won’t sleep.

Work within their initial schedule

When your baby is first born, they actually have a reversed schedule. This is because your movement would lull them to sleep during the day, and they would be awake during the night. Reversing this schedule is important, but for the start, it’s probably a good idea to work within it. Try and nap during the day if you can get away with it. It might not be the most restful sleep depending on, but it’s something. Then, if they’re awake all night, you’ve at least gotten some sleep.

Find something that keeps you awake when necessary

This can be really difficult if you’re beyond tired, but the key thing is to find something that will keep you awake if you’re holding the baby. Do not ever just sit there with the baby when you’re tired because you will fall asleep, which could be bad. So, you have to find something that will hold your interest for long enough and be intensive enough that you won’t fall asleep.

For me, that’s working. I will put my newborn on my chest where he will happily sleep, and then I will put my laptop on my lap and start doing some work. Whether it’s this blog or writing TikTok scripts or just journaling out my feelings, typing and going through tasks helps me stay awake.

For you, this might be watching new movies. It might be designing your dream home through Pinterest and Instagram. Maybe you’re someone who will be kept awake by the latest romance novel. Whatever it is, find the thing that will keep you awake when push comes to shove.

Just keep trying to get them in the bassinet

Here’s the thing. It might take forever, but I would always recommend continuing to try and get your baby into the bassinet or crib. I think sometimes parents hit a point where they just say, “This is never going to work,” and so they stop trying to get their newborns down in the bassinet. I completely understand this sentiment, but I think it causes more problems in the long run.

So, as frustrating and mind-numbingly hard as it might be, keep putting them in the bassinet. Get them to a sleepy point and transfer them to the bassinet. Even if you have to do it over and over and over, you’ll want to eventually get them accustomed to sleeping without you.

I don’t really believe that there’s a “best way” to do this. Every baby seems to be different in terms of if you should put them in the bassinet when they’re sleepy but not asleep or when they’re dead asleep. How you transfer them seems to change from baby to baby too. So, I think it’s really about repetition and dedication.

Even if they always wake up, at least it gives you thirty seconds of not needing to hold a baby. Just keep trying.

Baby wear for tasks

Baby wearing can be a huge help if your baby likes it. There are some tasks you can probably do while wearing your baby, and it might be a good idea to take advantage of some naps to get stuff done – things like laundry and eating. Cooking and washing dishes probably aren’t on the table, but there are some things you can do while baby wearing. This way, if you do manage to get them asleep in the bassinet, you can take advantage of that time to actually sleep.

Be sure to check your weight limit on your baby carrier though! It’s usually around seven pounds, so depending on your baby’s weight/your carrier, they might not be ready. But there are tons of different options out there. Personally, my go-to is the Ergobaby newborn baby carrier. I find it easy to get on by myself, and it doesn’t take forever to wrap. Three clips, tighten the straps, and you’re good to go.

Figure out what makes sense with your partner

If you have a partner, there are multiple ways to work this out. Working in shifts can be essential to getting everyone some sleep. Personally, my husband and I worked in 6-hour shifts for our second. I was better at getting up early, and he tended to stay up. So, he watched the newborn from 7 PM to 1 AM, and then I watched the newborn from 1 AM to 7 PM. This meant everyone was getting 5-6 hours of sleep, which is at least something to work on. (If you’re breastfeeding, this might mean pumping so your partner can bottle feed.)

I will say that now that we are on our third, we’ve switched this a bit. So, I’m doing nights basically by myself, so he can get a full night’s sleep, so that he can take primary care of the toddlers during the day. I personally do better with less sleep, whereas he is a disaster with less sleep. So, I handle the nights, nap during the day, and he takes care of our older children so I can do that. This works for us this time around.

So, the important thing is having a real discussion about what makes sense for your family and for you as individuals. How can the two of you show up in the best way possible?

The big thing I think you should keep in mind is that the two of you should never, ever both be up with the baby. If someone is with the baby, the other one should be sleeping. Both of you being up is a recipe for disaster. Sleep is too essential for you both to be sacrificing it at the same time.

Ask for help

This is crucial if your baby isn’t sleeping and you’re running on fumes. Ask someone you trust for help. They don’t need to be an expert to just hold your newborn for two hours while you sleep. If you have people who can really step up or have experience with children, all the better. But even a clueless friend can watch TV while holding a baby or get in some play time.

My friend has a story about asking her roommate to watch her newborn while she showered. She put him on a blanket on the floor, and her roommate played video games while she showered. It was enough. Someone just needs to have eyes on the baby.

Take time if you need it

We all hear about how we should be responding to baby’s every cry, and the mom guilt out there is so intense. But the reality is that your baby is not going to be permanently scarred for life by crying for ten minutes while you take a shower. It’s going to feel like it (especially if it’s your first), but they’re fine. You take a shower, you get dressed, and you comfort them. It might take them a second to calm down, but hey, you’re clean now, and that’s super important too.

This goes for eating too. You’ll probably learn to just eat while holding the baby, but if you need a second to shove food in your mouth, just take it. I promise it’s okay. They will be okay. But you have to be okay too. If you don’t take care of you, you cannot take care of them.

The reality is that there’s only so much you can do if your baby won’t sleep. If they seem like they’re truly struggling or crying all the time, take them to the doctor. There could be something wrong. If the issue is just that they won’t sleep anywhere but your arms, the above tips should help. Truly, good luck, and know that we’ve all been there at one point or another.