pod ep 6 - should i sleep train
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[00:00:00] Welcome to the Sleep by Alex podcast. I am a certified pediatric sleep consultant and a mom of three, and I will be bringing you quick science backed sleep advice to get you and your baby or toddler sleeping well
We are post Mother's Day. I hope you had a lovely day and you got to spend it in whatever way it feels good for you. Whether that was with your kids or without your kids relax, relaxing, or going out and doing something fun. I hope you at least had a little moment to fill your own cup.
So that we can come back and be the best parents we can be. Right?
Okay. Today we're going to tackle a big question. Should I sleep, train my baby.
Let me start by saying you probably already know by now that it is hard to make decisions for your children.
I feel like the moment they are born, we are faced with so many decisions and many of them are really emotional [00:01:00] decisions, should I keep breastfeeding or should I formula feed? Should I start solids at four months or at six months?
Should I co-sleep with my child or should I make sure they always sleep in their bed? Should I homeschool my child or send them to public school or private school? Should my child go to daycare or should I hire a nanny? Or maybe I need to quit my job and become a stay at home mom. Like there are so many decisions that come with being a parent,
And sometimes in my experience, I find that some decisions are really hard to make. 'cause it doesn't feel so cut and dry. It doesn't feel like there's one decision that feels perfectly right. You know, we're going to end up making compromises in some areas in order to make, you know, a decision in another area.
So my goal for today is not to convince you whether you need to sleep, train, or you don't need to sleep train. My goal is just to lay out the information out there, , get nitty [00:02:00] gritty with like how this process can work. Why would you do it? Why would you not do it?
And talk about making the decision if it feels right for you or your baby.
I don't know about you, but sometimes it can feel like you look around and think, how can all of these people make these decisions? And I'm so stuck and I can't figure out which way to go one way or another. Let me just tell you, we are all in the same boat. Like even people who seem like they've got it all figured out, they went through this exact sort of thought process.
I am sure.
Even with me having three kids, the decision to sleep, train them felt very different each and every time. And each time I had to like re-go through, okay, what are my pros? What are my cons? When do I wanna do this? How do I wanna do this? Like, just because I had done something before with one baby.
Didn't mean that that was really going to help me in my decision for the next baby. It was so wild. When you're in the moment, these decisions feel big and emotional. So what I wanna do today is make this decision way [00:03:00] less scary for you, because I wish I had all this information at my fingertips when I had my three babies.
I didn't know all of this until my third was like. Nine or 10 months old. Right? That's when I started really diving into this stuff and becoming a sleep consultant. So I was with you and I, I was just like hanging on by Fred, , taking courses, reading books, like doing research and not understanding what to do for my family.
Deciding whether sleep training is right for you and your baby can feel overwhelming with the amount of advice and courses and methods out there, it can feel confusing and frustrating trying to make a decision for your family. So today what I'm going to do is break down the definition of sleep training, how I tackle sleep training.
Basically, we'll talk about the benefits of sleep training, we'll talk about some cons of sleep training, At what age should you do this? and then whether or not sleep [00:04:00] training is even the answer to your baby's sleep issues. And then what to do next if you're feeling ready for that process.
So let's start with the basics. Like what is sleep training Exactly, because sometimes people hear the words sleep training and they automatically think of the cry out method or extinction method, right? That's what they have equated. Sleep training two. This, of course, can then make sleep training feel really daunting or overwhelming, like, oh my gosh, sleep training, what?
No way. I can't just like let my baby cry it out for 12 hours all night long. There's just no way I can do that, or there's no way that my baby will fall asleep if I do that. It can just sort of automatically turn you off at the process. If you have the word sleep training coinciding with cry it out approach or the extinction method.
Really sleep training, in my eyes at least, is just the process of teaching your baby to fall asleep completely independently regardless of what method you use. So whether you're in the [00:05:00] room, you're outside of the room, you are popping in at intervals, you're not popping in at all. You are gradually reducing the amount of help you're giving your baby
over months or weeks, or you're tackling it in a week or two, I don't care which way you go about it. Sleep training is just that process of teaching your baby to be laid in their bed and fall asleep completely independently, regardless of how you get there.
That's why I often use the term sleep learning because like I said earlier, some people have sleep training sort of hooked onto one method and really the term sleep learning is going to more encompass like where your baby is developmentally tuning into their needs, tuning into their temperament, tuning into your needs and temperament, and finding a way that works for you guys to teach your baby to sleep on their own consistently.
The goal of sleep learning is just to be able to lay your baby down awake. Allow them to fall asleep on their own quickly and stay asleep for longer periods of time. How you get to that goal looks [00:06:00] very different for every family and baby.
So sleep learning is really all about staying tuned into your baby's needs while giving them just enough challenge to learn a new skill.
As I touched on earlier, there are multiple ways to sleep train. There is not one way to teach your baby to fall asleep on their own.
The method I am trained in is the Peaceful Sleeper Method, and this method is different from a lot of those other ones you're gonna find online because it truly does teach you about remaining tuned in to your baby's cues. And it's really not like a one size fits all cookie cutter. Here's what you do.
This will work approach. We use signals. From your baby plus science to find the best approach for your family. Every single baby and family is unique. So the Peaceful Sleeper Method really breaks it down into four different methods to choose from. When teaching independent sleep,
and each of these really are gonna vary on how long they [00:07:00] take, if we're in the room or outta the room, how long we're even out of the room, what we're doing when we pop in. I really give you options that are gonna meet the needs of you and your baby.
It's never gonna be like a one size fits all. Here's your answer approach. This method is also unique in that it really breaks the process into bite size, like doable phases. So what I mean by that is we're not gonna throw your baby in the deep end and push them too far, too fast. We really want to stay tuned in to your baby's zone of proximal development.
That's the space in which your baby will learn best. You wanna give them a just right challenge. That means that you wanna challenge them enough to learn something, , but you don't wanna just like throw them to the wolves and expect them to do something that there's no way they can do on their own on the first night.
This really allows you to teach your baby a new skill in bite-sized pieces without feeling completely overwhelmed, right? You don't need to drop middle of the night feeds right away. You
don't need to drop like every single contact nap right away. [00:08:00] There's really ways in which we can challenge your baby and teach them a new skill while supporting them in other places.
It's broken into four phases. The four phases are first optimizing daytime sleep, so good daytime sleep is really gonna help with that nighttime sleep. Teaching a baby to fall asleep independently if they are completely overtired or under tired is going to feel near impossible. So we really wanna make sure we're optimizing daytime sleep first.
We spend some time on that. The second phase is independent sleep initiation. So this is that piece where we teach your baby to fall asleep independently at nap time and bedtime.
Now the third phase is nap lengthening. So if we get through phase two and your baby's still hanging onto those crummy, sort of like short cat naps, this is where we teach them to take those one to two hour naps consistently. And then the last phase, phase four, is cutting nighttime awakening.
So depending on when you or your baby are ready, you may be keeping a couple night feeds or you may need to cut a night feed or two. So by the time you get to phase four, [00:09:00] if or when you need to cut a night, wake up, this is where we can tackle that.
So we really break it down into bite-sized pieces. We don't just like go all in and do all of these things day one.
Okay. Now that I've touched on the method I use, let's just talk about the benefits of sleep training in general. Like why even go through the process of sleep learning? What are some good things that can come out of this, and why would it be worth my time and energy?
Right.
Well, let's start with the obvious one. Okay. Better sleep quality. This is the biggest benefit, improved sleep for both you and your baby. Obviously right. Your baby will sleep longer, stretches get deep, restorative rest, they're gonna have fewer night wake up, better naps. This in turn will lead to better sleep for you, right?
Uninterrupted, longer stretches of sleep for you. Better sleep is going to lead to improved overall wellbeing for both you and your baby.
This kind of moves me right into the next benefit of sleep. Training [00:10:00] a better mood. Both you and your baby will be happier after sleeping better,
and if you've ever had to try and be a happy go lucky parent or partner, when you are on very little rest, you probably know exactly what I'm talking about. Okay. Sleep training will help your baby feel well rested and more content. . You will have more patience and capacity to care for your child and yourself, or your other children.
A better mood for both you and your baby will actually lead to improved social interactions, which help build a strong attachment between the two of you.
The next benefit of sleep training is self-soothing skills. Your baby is going to learn how to fall asleep without the need of any external help or aids, so no more rocking for hours on end. Endless pacifier pop-ins, relying on nursing to sleep only. Whatever it may be, you're gonna be able to lay your baby down for bed knowing they will fall asleep on their [00:11:00] own within a few minutes.
The next benefit of sleep training is a consistent routine. So sleep learning will allow you to get on a consistent nap and nighttime schedule. You'll be able to have those predictable breaks throughout the day. You know, like, okay, I know my baby's gonna nap around nine and noon and three, or whatever it ends up being.
It's easier to plan appointments that way in activities when you know your baby's going to nap at a certain time. You're not gonna approach each nap in nighttime with that like awful, anxious feeling of not knowing what to expect. You know, the nighttime scary is like, oh, what's tonight gonna look like?
That feeling gets to go away over time through sleep training.
The next benefit to sleep training is flexibility when your baby can fall asleep on their own. It's gonna matter a whole lot less who is putting them to sleep. It's gonna be easier for grandparents, daycare, babysitters, nannies to put your baby to sleep if you cannot be there for every single [00:12:00] nap or bedtime, traveling or transitions to the sleep environment, moving to a different room.
All of those good things are often much easier when your baby is sleep trained.
Another benefit of sleep training is improved relationships. . I kind of touched on this a little bit earlier with the better mood piece, but when you and your family are sleeping, it's gonna lead to better social interactions with each other.
When your baby can sleep independently and consistently, you can even have more time to care for yourself and like reconnect with your partner after bedtime. Spend one-on-one time with your other children while your baby naps. These are all ways that you're gonna be able to improve your relationships.
In your family or with your friends when your baby can sleep more consistently. Okay. Like honestly, I could go on and on about like all of the ways sleep learning can be life changing, but I think you're getting the picture right for the most part. We're gonna get more consolidated rest. That's gonna help with our mood, that's gonna help with our self-care, that's gonna help with [00:13:00] our baby's mood.
That's gonna help with flexibility and predictability. And all of that good stuff.
Okay. That's going to lead us to some cons to sleep training. What are some downsides of doing this process? I have to admit, this list was a little bit trickier for me to compile. But of course many people have different thoughts than I do.
So I'm going to definitely dive into what are some downsides that you may find if you do choose to sleep train. The reason it was a little trickier to make a list of cons is because most of the like quote unquote cons people think of are actually just like click beatty myths.
Like, for example, sleep training. My children will harm them in the long term, like it's going to cause harm to them by not being there next to them or allowing them to protest for a certain amount of time, it's going to stress them out long term damage our attachment. Something along those lines.
[00:14:00] And honestly, the science just doesn't support these sort of claims and fears. There are literally no scientific studies to back up these sort of claims.
Like the studies really show that there was no harmful effects. There's really no difference between the children who were sleep trained and who weren't sleep trained.
That doesn't mean that you have to sleep train if it doesn't feel right for you, but you definitely don't need to feel guilty that you're going to hurt or harm your baby in some way.
Another con I can think of just from my experience, and this could just be primarily like my babies and how I've set up our sort of routine. But if we're not napping at home in our bed, like let's say I want a car nap or a carrier nap, like I can pretty much guarantee my kids will sleep like 20 or 30 minutes for a nap like that when at home in their bed they're gonna sleep, you know, two hours.
So that can be one con is your baby's used to sleeping in their bed and. That means that on those days that you choose to do [00:15:00] something different and you're not home for a nap and you're on the go, like maybe they have a hard time falling asleep. Or maybe if they do fall asleep, you know, they sleep for 30 minutes in their car seat and then they're up and they've had a shorter nap than they're used to.
So you have to really think about your lifestyle and what you want your days to look like. For me, I'm a stay at home mom and most of my days are spent at my house. Like, yes, we go out and about, we go to the park or we go to the library, or we go to the store.
But for the most part, you know, 80% of the days I am home at nap time. And for me, it's worth it to be home in those moments so that they can have a nice, good nap in their bed. And everybody's happy, well rested, and I get my break. And then of course I have to take into account like events that are gonna pop up and whether they're worth missing.
Nap time for, plenty of things are worth missing Nap time for. I will go to the zoo and miss nap time, like that's okay. I'll go to a birthday party and miss nap time. Just knowing that [00:16:00] those days sleep might be a little bit off. So think about your lifestyle. Do you have the lifestyle where predictability of naps and like knowing that they're gonna sleep one to two hours in their crib is really helpful and life changing for you?
Or do you have a lifestyle where you're literally never home and your baby sleeps for two hours in the car seat and that works for you? Like that may be a reason not to sleep, train.
I hope that makes sense. I feel like I'm not making sense, but hopefully you kind of get where I'm going here.
Along those same lines, one con might be that you do need some sort of consistency when it comes to sleep training. So especially those first couple weeks, you're gonna be laying a foundation for independent sleep. And I always tell my clients, I don't expect you to be home for two weeks straight, all day long, sleep training, every single nap, every single night.
Like that's just not realistic and not doable for everybody. Consistency doesn't need to look like rigidity. We're gonna have contact naps here and there. We're going to go in the stroller here and there. [00:17:00] We're going to skip a whole bedtime practice because we're going out to dinner. Like these things are totally gonna happen, but we do need some sense of consistency.
For the most part, we need like an 80 20 rule going on here because if we're not consistent, it's just going to prolong the process cause more protest and that's not fun for anybody. So once again, look into your lifestyle, like can you be consistent ish for a couple weeks? Great. If you feel like, no way, that's not for me.
I like flying by the seat of my pants and it's not worth it for me to sort of hunker down and be consistent to get better sleep then great. It's probably not for you.
Finally. Another con may be that it's just not fun to switch up sleep habits. Like no matter how you go about it, whether you're going a super gradual approach or a more accelerated approach, like in the short term, you're probably gonna end up getting less sleep those first couple weeks, like if you have children, you know that changing habits is hard. Same as when I had to drop the [00:18:00] pacifier, , oh my gosh, my toddler just like cried all day long those first couple days. And so those first couple days were a lot harder than him just having the pacifier. Right. But for me, I had a big enough why I had like a more important why, like, no, no, no, we need to drop the pacifier, so I really need to make it through these first couple days that are tricky.
It's the same with sleep training. You have to have a solid why behind why you're doing it, right? Because at first you're gonna be like, well, it's a lot easier for me to grab my baby and bring them into my bed and fall back asleep. But if them being in your bed is not what you want long term, you have to be thinking long term and kind of go through the, uh, short term, not so fun, changing up your sleep habits first handful of days to like get over the hump.
The first few days can feel a little bit all over the place. Things tend to fall apart before they fall back together. But when you trust the process, this is a super quick hurdle you will have to overcome, and the results are well worth the small amount of time and [00:19:00] effort.
Okay, so you've heard some pros and cons of sleep training. Now let's chat about, is sleep learning even right for your baby? Like, when are you supposed to do this? And is it even the answer to your baby's sleep issues?
So first, you'll wanna consider your baby's age. You can really sleep terrain anytime after four months old. Before four months old, your baby most likely is not developmentally ready for sleep training. It is normal for newborns to need help getting to sleep and staying asleep. They really aren't ready to learn that skill of self-soothing until at least four months old. So instead of sleep training your newborn, you really wanna focus on laying a solid foundation for future independent sleep. If you're wondering how to do this, I'll link my first four months guide. It's just a quick, downloadable guide to sort of help you lay that foundation in the first four months, so that sleep training is so much easier after that.
The best time to sleep train is between four and [00:20:00] six months. So this is kind of a sweet spot where babies tend to pick up on it really quickly. They're not super set in their ways. They usually protest less. As babies get older, after six months, the older your baby gets, it usually can get a little trickier.
It can take longer. There's going to be more protest. I will say, don't worry if your baby is older than six months. It's absolutely never too late to do this. Up until like 24 months, you can really use similar methods that you use for a four or five or six month old. It's just going to look a little different.
Like I said, it's gonna take longer. They have new skills. They're really set in their ways. So although you have those things to work with, it is still 100% possible to sleep train after six months. A majority of the babies I work with are older than six months probably.
That being said, like if it's even on your radar, the earlier the better. If you're ready, I would do it as soon as possible if you're feeling ready for it. If you're in that four to six month mark and this is already [00:21:00] something you're really thinking about, you may consider doing it in this sort of sweet spot window.
Another thing about your baby's age is around the age of two. I'm really not going to use traditional sleep training methods that I would with a baby around the age of two. I'm sort of gonna flip the method on its head and take a totally different approach with your toddler.
So if your baby is two or older, I would not do the traditional sort of sleep training methods you'll read about online or in my four to 24 months course.
If you're struggling with your two plus year old with sleep, I highly recommend scheduling a 60 minute phone consult, and we will totally walk you through getting your toddler sleeping. It's just gonna look a lot different than a baby sleeping.
Another thing to consider if you're wondering if sleep learning is right for your baby, is your baby's current sleep patterns. So is it getting harder to get your baby to sleep? So maybe you used to feed or rock them to sleep pretty easily, like maybe it took. 10 minutes, 15 minutes at the max, [00:22:00] and now the process is turning into a battle.
They don't wanna lay down. They're taking, you know, 45 minutes of rocking to fall asleep. Or you fed them to sleep and you laid them down and they woke up 10 minutes later and you're trying to feed them again and you can't get them to go to back to sleep. Does it feel like getting them down is becoming harder and harder, or taking longer?
Does your baby wake frequently at night? So is your baby maybe waking every two hours, every three hours wanting their pacifier or wanting a feed or wanting to be rocked back to sleep or wanting to come into your bed? This can be a reason that you'd wanna sleep. Train.
Is your baby taking short naps? So is your baby napping for less than an hour? And they're sort of stuck on these 30 minute, maybe 40 minute cat naps all day long. Is your baby sleep? Unpredictable. So maybe some nights you rock them to sleep and you lay them down and they sleep seven hours
and then the next night they're up every hour wanting you.
If you're experiencing even just one [00:23:00] of these issues, short naps, frequent night, wake up unpredictability, bedtime battles, it doesn't need to be all of this. If you're experiencing even just one sleep, learning is most likely a good fit for your family.
Another thing to consider if you're wondering if sleep learning is right for your family is your needs. So your baby is not the only important person in this situation. I always encourage parents to also consider their own needs as well. If you are sleep deprived, exhausted, tapped out, depleted, you are most likely not being like your best tuned in patient caregiver during the day that you could be. It is really hard to do that when your own basic needs are not being met. You also deserve sleep and predictable breaks. Being a martyr does not make you a good parent,
So those are some things to consider if you're wondering if sleep training is right for you.
Okay. If you've got through all of this and you feel like, Hmm, maybe sleep learning is a good fit for my [00:24:00] family, like maybe this is something that could change our lives and we could benefit from, you really don't need to go through this process alone. I know there's so much information on the internet.
It's hard to find something that is sustainable that we can stick to that jives with our baby's temperament. That's why I have so many resources for you. I break down this process step by step in my four to 24 month sleep learning course. So this course includes.
Over 20 detailed bite-sized videos that are gonna guide you through all four of those phases of sleep learning that I talked about earlier. Like I said earlier, you get multiple methods to choose from. I answer a ton of frequently asked questions. I give you resources like a sleep log, the nap schedule guide, the four methods to choose from.
Each method even has a printable PDF to keep handy while you implement. I dive deep into. What sleep learning is how attachment plays a role in sleep learning and nailing down your why.
If you're wanting some [00:25:00] ongoing support while implementing your plan, joining the Sleep by Alex membership will actually give you instant access to that course and all of those resources I just talked about. But you also have the option
of attending my live q and a calls of sending me your questions every day if you'd like to, and getting a response from me. Within 24 hours, , you're gonna have C community support, a group of parents going through this sort of same process as you and I will guide you every step of the way.
If you're like, okay, I don't wanna watch another freaking course, I don't wanna read a PDF, I don't wanna sit there and go through those four methods and try and figure out which one I should do. I just want somebody to sit here, listen to my sleep situation and help me find something really quickly that will work.
If that's your case, we can always hop on the phone for a consultation. So for something like this, I usually recommend the basic support package. It's my most popular one. We're gonna meet for an hour. We're gonna nail down a step-by-step plan that's [00:26:00] individualized for your specific situation. You're gonna have the plan in your email, and then we're gonna check in along the way over the phone, just you and I.
If you're curious about any of these resources, I've linked them all in the show notes.
Thank you so much for coming back each week. I appreciate each and every download. If you found this helpful at all, please consider giving a five star review or subscribing to the podcast. It really helps me reach other parents. And finally, remember, if you have a question or you wanna share what's going on with your baby's sleep or your toddler's sleep, please send me an email at Sleep by Alex [email protected], and I may answer your question on one of my next podcasts.
Thanks everyone. I hope you have a lovely rest of the week. See you next week.
