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seems to work; rather than "breaking a bad habit," the baby has resigned herself to being ignored by you. This is not something you want to bring into your parent-child relationship.

Another thing to realize is that because they're so neurologically different from older children or adults, infants simply don't have the same sleep cycles. It is important to distinguish sleep cycles from sleep habits. Your baby can barely control his own hand and head movements right now; don't expect him to be capable of adopting any social habits at this stage, either, including the sleep habits of the rest of the household. You will simply have to accept that having a baby brings major changes, and that your baby needs to be awake when he's awake and to go to sleep when he's tired. When he gets older his sleep patterns will change to become more like yours, and eventually he will sleep through the night all on his own. When this happens will vary from child to child, too, so while asking your friends when their children reached this milestone may be helpful, it's more of a loose guideline than anything else.

One thing that helps the process along is to have a consistent bedtime routine. Whether you bathe your baby every night (not strictly necessary in the early months), read a book to your baby, sing a song, play a certain kind of music, rock your baby or nurse her to sleep, it helps if you do the same things in the same order every evening around the same time. This is not going to make much of a difference in your child's sleep cycles in the beginning but as she grows older, this sequence of bedtime events will become a signal that says to her, "It's time to sleep now." Eventually your little one will get the message-in a loving, gentle, and supportive way.

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