When you first bring your baby home from the hospital, you'll likely let her determine when she's going to go to sleep and when she's going to be awake for a while. Before her sleep consolidates, she'll wake from a sleep cycle, probably hungry, and nurse or have a bottle. She'll stay awake for two hours or possibly even longer and then go to sleep again on her own or perhaps with the aid of another bottle or nursing again. Then she'll sleep for a few hours before waking again. Once she begins to sleep for longer stretches at a time, her sleep cycles may become more manageable.

You can try putting her to bed at an earlier hour or a later hour to help modify her schedule so that it's more convenient for and compatible with your family's schedule. Sometimes you need to try to maneuver your baby into sleeping when you want her to, even before her sleep begins to consolidate. This is particularly true with the baby who wakes in the middle of the night and seems unable to go back to sleep.