Does this boy look like a night owl to you? Well he is not. We are so blessed to have good sleepers at our house. We lay Griffin in bed right about 10 and he puts himself to sleep and wakes up around 6:30 am. I went to a seminar when I was pregnant with Sydney titled "What every parent needs to know". The speaker was a male pediatrician and a father of five. The talk was all about things PAs need to teach their patients parents. One of the topics was how to get your child to sleep all night by a certain week (I cannot recall which week). Some of the recommendations are:
1. lay your baby down to bed awake (so they are familiar with their surroundings and learn to put themselves to sleep)
2. no late naps- no napping after 5 pm unless it is very short- 10 minutes
3. routine- same bed time and wake up time every day
So we have followed this advice and we have had two great sleepers. Sydney started sleeping 7-8 hours at night at 7.5 weeks old. Griffin was about 9 weeks when he started sleeping 7-7.5 hours straight and within a week of that time he was up to 8-8.5 hours at night. One thing we did with both kids is put them to bed in their own crib, own room from day one. No bassinettes at our house. I do not have anything against bassinettes I just feel like it is confusing for the baby to get used to sleeping in one place in your room and then to be moved at some point to a bigger crib in another room. Plus I did not have a bassinette so our kids went straight into their crib. I am going back to work next week and I am thankful for the rest I have been able to get and will continue to get once I go back to work.
Look at those arms up in the air, big stretch.
Notice his legs are crossed, he does this all the time. Usually when he is nursing he has his legs crossed. So cute. 
Do you have any tips on getting kids to sleep through the night? Were your kids night owls or great sleepers? Please share.
No one ever told me hints, but what you have listed is almost exactly what I did...and both our kids are great sleepers too. One thing I did different, though was I always put the kids down at a bedtime that they would have for a LONG time. I had the kids in bed as infants by 8, sometimes 8:30 if the feeding schedule was off. Even though it took longer for them to "sleep through the night", it was nice because Stephen and I still had time together, and it taught the kids the same time to go to bed. No offense to you at all, but I had no desire to keep my kids up until 10. But that is what worked for us - and worked really well!!
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