This is the main focus of most new parents, in fact it can become an obsession. It is no surprise that sleep deprivation is used as a torture and among parents it becomes some what competitive, whose baby sleeps through the night first!

What is the secret? The answer is simply to establish a good routine and start establishing habits that will teach your child healthy sleep patterns and cues. A baby falls quickly in to a pattern and after about 12 weeks will learn patterns that can become difficult to break, so start as you mean to go on.

You need to give your baby a strong message that it's time to sleep. This is done by a repeated routine that baby learns to associate sleep with. Bath time followed by feeding in a dim lit room, burping and then bed, help baby to learn what is expected of them.

Ensure you place your child to sleep in the same place, giving them a strong cue to sleep. Make sure the environment around them is calm and the room is not over stimulating. Try to keep the room dark for night time sleeps, black out curtains are great for light nights. If your baby needs lights make sure they are night lights that are dim.

Some parents find a musical toy helps to establish a familiar calming sound, you can even buy ones that can be remote controlled from outside the room.

The biggest step to success is teaching your baby to settle themselves off to sleep. All of us rouse in the night many times with out realising, we simply settle back to sleep. A baby needs to learn to do this. Try to aim to put your baby into their crib awake, if they fall asleep on the breast or on the bottle gently rouse them before putting them in their crib. Try not to fall in to the tempting trap of cuddling them, swaying them or feeding them to sleep. These will become the cues your baby associates with sleep and will expect them whenever they wake.

The more you stick to a firm routine the more your child will learn healthy sleep patterns. You should try to do this for night and day time naps. Remember if you always push your baby out in the stroller for a daytime nap you may have to stick to this, regardless of weather or what you may have planned. If you know you are likely to be out a lot in the day, try to establish day time naps in a travel crib, you can take it with you to peoples houses and your child should accept the change of environment more readily.

Although it may seem somewhat tiresome at first you will not regret establishing a good sleep routine in your child, once established it is easier to relax on vacations etc and fall quickly back when you return home.