Don’t Start Sleep Training Until You’ve Read This
You’ve decided to start sleep training. Take a deep breath in, and let it out slowly. I know you’re probably feeling overwhelmed, and your mother-in-law thinks you’re crazy, but you’re taking a huge, positive, science-backed, biology-fueled step in the right direction for your child.
And I’m here to help you get started.
You’ve probably seen some great sleep training tips on social media, but before you jump in with both feet, I want to cover some ground rules and give you a solid foundation from which to work.
Here are some of the “must-considers” before I have any of my clients start sleep training their child.
Understand what sleep training is and isn’t
Sleep training is a broad term for any method that teaches your baby to fall asleep independently. There are many approaches to sleep training, ranging from the fast and furious Ferber method (yes, that one) to the gentler, slower camping-out method.
I want to help you find the sleep training strategy that works for your family, but in my personal and professional experience, a more direct approach works best. So, when I talk about sleep training, I almost always mean a strategy that involves setting your child up for successful sleep and giving them space to figure out how to fall asleep independently. This often involves crying; depending on your child’s temperament, it could be a lot of crying. But we’re not going to obsess over how long your child cries; instead, we’re going to look at the situation holistically and watch for a downward trend in your child’s protesting night after night. For instance, your child might cry for a whole hour the first night but only 45 minutes the next. That’s a major sign of improvement!
If this concept is completely foreign to you, that’s okay, and it’s why I’m here. I’d love to walk you through exactly what to expect from this approach to sleep training and help you feel more empowered and confident before you begin.
Make sure it’s the right time
There’s certainly no “easy time” or “magic age” to start sleep training, but I recommend starting sooner rather than later. No, your two-week-old can’t handle strict sleep training, but your two-to-four-month-old certainly can. Trust me when I say that sleep training gets much harder from four months on (not impossible, just harder). Their sleep associations are much stronger and much harder to break the longer they have them, so it’s best to implement sleep training on the earlier side.
When your baby reaches four months, it enters a period of development fraught with teething, regressions, introducing solid foods, learning big skills, separation anxiety, and the like. These are not the times you want to add sleep training to your plate.
But don’t worry about getting the timing just right. As long as you didn’t just get home from the hospital yesterday, your baby is probably ready to get on a program. Your baby may even show you they’re ready! Around two months is also when your baby’s circadian rhythm starts to kick in, and you’ll notice things like:
A more predictable bedtime
A long stretch of sleep after bedtime
Your baby falling asleep quickly at bedtime
Don’t put the pedal to the metal
Sleep training is a marathon, not a sprint, even if you’re opting for a faster approach to sleep training. Don’t overwhelm your baby with all new things all at once. Remember that your baby does know how to fall asleep and you’ve been “training” them since the day they were born. It just probably involved copious amounts of cuddling, nursing, and bouncing (how can I blame you when newborns are so squishy?).
All we’re doing now is introducing a new way to sleep with new techniques to set them up for a lifetime of healthy sleep (read “healthy” sleep, not “perfect” sleep).
Unfortunately, this new way of sleeping is often harder for your baby, which will undoubtedly elicit some level of protesting. If your baby cries during this process, don’t panic. You’re not a bad parent, and you’re not ruining your child.
Learning new skills is a tough business.
They’re going to cry when they can’t figure out how to ride a bike, they’re going to grumble when they can’t keep their food on their fork, and they’re not going to be happy about having to fall asleep without your help — until they can fall asleep without your help, which will happen I pinky promise.
Begin with bedtime
Bedtime is the best time of day to start sleep training because you have a powerful ally in your corner: biology. No other time of day is sleep drive as strong as bedtime. Your baby’s body starts producing melatonin, and their circadian rhythms are literally telling them it’s time to fall asleep for a long stretch.
This is in stark contrast to naptime, when sleep drive is considerably less potent, and melatonin is MIA.
Make sure bedtime is age-appropriate and consistent. If you don’t have a bedtime routine, start one tonight (and check out this blog on what to do). These are the key ingredients to mastering bedtime and will make the process so much smoother.
Team up with a sleep coach
Sleep training can be stressful if you don’t know the territory, but there’s no reason you have to figure it out by yourself. I can help you choose a sleep training strategy that fits your goals and preferences and your child’s age and temperament.
Let’s talk and see if we’re a good fit, or you can check out my sleep packages here.
