Sleep Learning: Four-Phase Sleep Training Guide
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[00:00:00] Welcome to this 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 a toddler sleeping well
Holy moly. 16 weeks the week we've all been waiting for. Boy, do I have some updates for you this week that I am very, very excited to be sharing and I've been looking forward to this episode. So here's how it's going to work. I am going to start with a little sleep training Learning 1 0 1.
My goal today is never to convince you whether or not you should sleep train. My goal is to just give you all the information you need to make an informed decision for your own baby and family. I'm going to talk about what sleep learning is slash sleep training. The pros and cons of it, how [00:01:00] I do it.
When to do it, so on and so forth. Everything you kind of need to know about the process. I'm going to get into the nitty gritty. Make this decision less daunting and scary for you. And then after that, at the end of the episode, I am going to give you an update on Hank's sleep, and this is my favorite update yet because we did start some sleep training.
So spoiler alert at the end, I'm going to tell you exactly what I've been doing and how it's been going. I am about a week in as of today, so stick around to the end to hear all about how little man is doing.
. Deciding whether sleep training is right for you and your baby can feel like a lot. There's so much advice, courses, Instagram accounts, mine included, methods, books all out there. It can feel confusing, frustrating, you name it, trying to make a [00:02:00] decision for your family and for your baby.
So I'm really just going to break this down for you into a clear and concise. Consolidation of some information you need to know about sleep training. Let's start with the basics. What the heck is sleep training? Exactly. Because sometimes people hear the word sleep training and they automatically think of one thing.
They think of the cry it out method or what? What's called the extinction method, right?
That's what they have equated sleep training to. This, of course, can then make sleep training. Feel really like daunting and overwhelming. Oh my gosh, sleep training. No way. I can't just let my baby cry for hours all night long. There's no way I can do that. There's no way my baby will fall asleep if I do that.
It can just automatically turn you off to the process if you sort of equate the word sleep training with Cry It Out or Extinction Method. But really sleep training, [00:03:00] in my eyes at least, is just this process of teaching your baby to fall asleep completely independently, regardless of what method you use.
So whether you are in the room, you are outside of the room, you are doing pop-ins at certain intervals. You are not popping in at all. You are gradually reducing the amount of help you're giving your baby over weeks or months, or maybe you're tackling the whole thing in just a week or two. I really 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 on their own. Regardless of how you get there, that's how I sort of see sleep training. So when I use those words, sleep training, that's what I'm talking about. Just teaching your baby to fall asleep on their own, regardless of what method you're thinking about using.
That's honestly why I often also say the word sleep learning. Mainly because people have the [00:04:00] word sleep training sort of hooked onto one method, and really the term sleep learning is going to encompass where your baby is developmentally tuning into their needs, tuning into their temperament, tuning into your needs and your temperament, and finding a way that works for you guys to teach your baby to fall asleep 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, stay asleep for longer periods of time, and how you get to that goal is going to look very different for every family and baby. So sleep learning is really all about just staying tuned in to your baby's needs while using a method that is challenging them enough to learn a new skill, but supporting them where needed.
So you'll hear me sort of just you sleep training and sleep learning interchangeably. I'm talking about the same exact thing here.
Now I'll touch on the method that I use for sleep training, and I truly believe this [00:05:00] method is different from a lot of the other ones you're going to find online because it does teach you about staying tuned into your baby's cues, and it's really not like a one size fits all cookie cutter. Here's exactly what to do. This will work approach. We're actually going to use signals from your baby, and we're going to combine those signals with science to find the best approach for your family. So every single baby and family is unique, and my method really breaks it down into four different methods to choose from.
And each of these methods is going to vary on how long they take. If we're in the room or we're outside of the room, how long we're outside of the room, what it looks like when we pop in to Soothe Baby. I really give you a lot of options so that we're gonna meet the needs of you and your baby.
It's never going to be a one size fits all cookie cutter approach.
This method is also unique in that it really breaks the process down into [00:06:00] bite-size, doable phases. And what I mean by that is we're not going to throw your baby in the deep end, push them too far, too fast. We really want to stay tuned into our baby's zone of proximal development.
That's the space in which your baby will learn best. We want to give them a just right challenge. That means we're going to challenge them enough to learn something, right? If there's no challenge, they won't learn, but we're not just going to throw them in the deep end and expect them to do something.
There's no way they're going to do all on their own. On the first night, we're going to teach your baby. In small bite-sized pieces without completely overwhelming them or overwhelming yourself. You don't need to drop middle of the night feeds right away. You don't need to get rid of every single contact nap right away.
There's ways in which we challenge your baby and teach them new skills while supporting them in other places.
Okay. Now that I've covered a little bit about the [00:07:00] method I use, so you kind of know what I'm talking about as I break this down, let's just talk about the benefits of sleep training. Like what are the pros to sleep training? What are the reasons why this might be a good idea?
And I will get into the cons as well after this.
Let's start with the most obvious one. Better sleep quality of a course. This is going to be the biggest benefit, improved sleep for both you and your baby. Obviously , your baby will sleep longer, stretches get deep, restorative rest, they'll have fewer night wake ups, better naps. This will in turn lead to better sleep for you too, right?
Uninterrupted longer stretches of sleep. Better sleep is going to lead to improved overall wellbeing for both you and your baby. That brings me right into the next benefit of sleep. Training a better mood, right? You and your baby will be happier after sleeping better, and if you've ever had to try and [00:08:00] be a happy-go-lucky parent or partner when you have had a very little sleep, you probably know exactly what I'm talking about.
Sleep training will help your baby feel well rested. More content and you as well can feel like you have more patience and capacity to care for your child, yourself, 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 to sleep training is self-soothing skills. Your baby is going to learn how to fall asleep without needing any external help or aids. No more rocking for hours on end, endless pacifier pop-ins, relying on nursing to sleep, whatever it may be you're doing. You're gonna be able to lay your baby down for bed knowing they're going to fall asleep on their own in just a few minutes.
. The next benefit of sleep training is a more consistent routine. So sleep learning is going to allow you to get on a more [00:09:00] consistent nap and nighttime schedule if that's one of your goals. You'll be able to have more predictable breaks throughout the day. You're going to know what your baby's going to nap around the same time each day.
That makes it easier to plan appointments or activities. You won't approach each nap time with that awful, anxious feeling of not knowing what to expect. You know that sort of like nighttime scary feeling, what is tonight going to look like? That feeling gets to gradually go away through sleep training.
The next benefit of sleep training is your baby will have more flexibility about who is putting them to bed. It's really going to matter a whole lot less who exactly is putting them to sleep at bedtime or naptime. So that will make it easier for grandparents, daycare, babysitters, nannies, partners, whatever, to put your baby to sleep if you cannot be the one to do it every single nap or bedtime.
Another benefit of sleep training is [00:10:00] 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 going to lead to better social interactions with each other. If you've ever been sleep deprived while trying to get along with your partner or your children, then you know exactly what I'm talking about, right?
When your baby can sleep consistently on their own, you can have more time to care for yourself. Reconnect with your partner after bedtime. Spend one-on-one time with your other children while your baby naps. These are all going to help improve your relationships in your family or with your friends.
When your baby can sleep more consist. Okay, obviously I could go on and on about all the benefits of sleep learning and how it's life changing and blah, blah, blah. You get the picture.
Long, long, long, long, long story short, we're going to get more consolidated rest. That's gonna help with our mood, that's gonna help with our self-care, that's gonna help with our baby's mood. It's going to help with flexibility and caregivers predictability with sleep, all of that. Okay.
I am gonna [00:11:00] shut up about that because we do wanna hear from the other side, right? I am of course, biased because I have sleep trained all my babies, and I've seen the benefits of it. But I do know that there are some cons to sleep training, and there are reasons why people would choose not to do this, right?
If there were only pros, everybody in the world would do it. So let's talk about some of the downsides of going through this process. I have to admit, this part was a little bit trickier for me to compile
because most of the quote unquote cons people think are actually just click baby sort of myths. For example, um, let's see. Sleep training in my children will harm them in the long term. It's going to cause harm to them by not being there right next to them at all times, or by allowing for them to protest for a certain amount of time.
This is going to stress them out cause long-term damage to our attachment. Something along those lines. I'm sure you've heard before, and honestly. This is hard to even put [00:12:00] on the cons list because the science just does not support any of these claims or fears. There is literally no scientific study to back up these sort of claims.
The studies really show there are no harmful effects. There was really no difference between the children who were sleep trained and who weren't sleep trained. Now, does this mean that you have to sleep train if it doesn't feel right for you? Of course not. Just because there's no scientific studies to something doesn't mean you have to agree or disagree with it, but I just want you to know, don't feel guilty that you're going to hurt or harm your baby in some way.
If it's something you're interested in, this is not required. You do not have to do this, and you get to follow your own parenting philosophy, but just go into it knowing there's no evidence whatsoever that you're going to harm your baby.
Okay. Another con, and this had definitely happened with me and my babies, is your baby can get really used to napping in their bed in the dark with their sound machine and their whole setup. And they nap really [00:13:00] well in there.
But if you want to have a nap on the go in the car, in the carrier, in the stroller, it's probably not going to be as great. Like I can guarantee pretty much all of my babies who were asleep trained if we were going to have a nap on the go, especially as they got older, I was lucky if I got 20 or 30 minutes for a nap like that when in their bed they're gonna sleep like two hours.
So that can definitely be a con as your baby gets used to sleeping in their space, and that means on those days you choose to do something different. You're not home for a nap, you're on the go. They might have a hard time falling asleep. Or if they do fall asleep, maybe they only sleep for 30 minutes in their car seat and then they're up.
They've had a shorter nap than they're used to. They're a little tired and cranky. So you really have to think about your lifestyle and what your days typically look like. For me, I am primarily a stay-at-home mom. Besides this gig, of course, most of my days are spent at my house for the most part. Yes. [00:14:00] We go out and about, we go to the park, we go to the library, we go to the store.
I have older kids who have practice we have to be at, and school pickup and all of that. But for the most part, you know, 80% of the days I'm 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 everyone's happy while rested.
I get my break. And then of course there are going to be times and events that are gonna pop up when it's okay that we're going to miss nap time. You know, we're gonna go to the Zoom Miss nap time. Great. Totally fine. We're gonna go to a birthday party, miss nap time. Great. I go into those days knowing sleep is gonna be a little bit off.
They're gonna take a shorter nap or not nap at all. They're gonna need early bedtime tonight. They might get over tired. And that is a trade off that I made by sleep training. Do you have the lifestyle where predictability of naps and knowing they're gonna sleep an hour or two in their crib is really helpful in life changing for you?
Or does it make you feel trapped? Do you have a lifestyle where [00:15:00] you're literally never home and your baby sleeps for two hours easily in the car seat while you're out and about and that works for you? Then that would definitely be a reason not to sleep, train.
Along those same lines. Another con might be that you do need some sort of consistency when it comes to sleep training, especially those first couple weeks you are working on laying a foundation for independent sleep, and I always tell the people I work with, I don't expect you to be home for two weeks straight, all day long.
Sleep training, every single nap, every single night. That's not realistic and not doable for anybody. Consistency doesn't need to look like rigidity. We're going to have some contact naps here and there. We're going to go in the stroller here and there. We're going to skip a whole bedtime because we went out to dinner.
These things are going to happen. But we do need some sense of consistency for the most part. Can we get like an 80 20 rule going on here? Because if you're not consistent enough, it's going to make the process [00:16:00] take a lot longer than it needs to. It's going to cause more protest, and we just don't want that.
So again, look at your lifestyle. Can you be consistent for a couple weeks? Great. If you feel like, no way, that's not for me. I really enjoy like just kind of flying by the seat of my pants. It's not worth it for me to hunker down and be consistent, then it's probably not for you.
Finally, my last con is it's not fun. It is not fun to switch up your sleep habits no matter how you're going about it. Whether you're taking a really gradual approach, whether you are taking an accelerated method, um, short term, you're probably going to end up getting less sleep. Those first couple weeks, if you have children, you know that changing habits is hard.
It's like when I had to take away the pacifier from my toddler
the first couple days. My toddler cried all day long for that pacifier, and it was a lot harder than just giving him the pacifier. But for me, I [00:17:00] had an important why. It was more important for me that he dropped the pacifier than it was to just make these couple days easy. So I had that why behind me so that I could make it through those first tricky days and get to the other side.
It is the same thing with sleep training. You really need a solid why behind why you're doing it. Because at first you're gonna be like, well, it's a whole lot easier for me to grab my baby and bring them into my bed and fall back asleep right away. But if them being in your bed is not what you want long term.
You have to be thinking long term and go through the short term, not so fun part of changing up your sleep habits, those first handful of days to get over that hump. The first few days, they're going to feel a little all over the place. Things usually fall apart a bit before they fall back together, but when you trust the process, this is usually a quick hurdle.
You will have to overcome the [00:18:00] results are usually well worth the amount of time and effort you're putting into it, but it's definitely a con, right? It's just not fun.
So we've talked the pros and cons of sleep training. Now let's cover.
If this is even right for your baby, when are you supposed to do this? Is this what's going to fix your baby's issues?
As far as age goes, you can really sleep train anytime after four months old, or technically 16 weeks old is the earliest that I would recommend doing it. Before that, your baby is just most likely not developmentally ready for learning how to self-soothe. It is very normal and okay that newborns need a lot of help
getting to sleep and staying asleep. They really aren't ready to learn that skill of self-soothing until around four months old. So instead of sleep training your newborn, you're really gonna wanna focus on just laying a solid foundation for future independent sleep. If you're wondering how to do this, I will link my first four months guide in the show notes, [00:19:00] and of course, you can always join the Sleep by Alex membership instead and have access to the guide and.
The ability to send me messages. It's a quick downloadable guide, just sort of help you lay that foundation in the first four months. So that sleep training is a lot easier for you after that point. Now the best time to sleep train the sort of sweet spot is between four and six months. Most babies in this age range are going 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 old, the older your baby gets, it can usually get. A little bit trickier. It can take longer. There's more protest. Don't worry though, if your baby's older than six months, it is never too late to change your sleep habits up until around 24 months.
I actually use really similar methods that I would use with a four or five, six month old baby. It's just going to look a little [00:20:00] different. It might take a little longer. They have new skills. They're more set in their ways. So while it's possible to sleep train after six months,
if it's even on your radar, the earlier the better. So if you're ready right now, I would do it as soon as possible if you're feeling ready for it.
Another thing to mention is around the age of two, I'm really not going to use the traditional. Sleep training methods I would with a baby younger than that. I'm going to sort of flip the method on its head and take a totally different approach with your toddler. So if your baby is two years old and older, I would not recommend the sort of traditional ways of sleep training that you'll read online or in my four to 24 months course.
If you're struggling with your toddler who is two years and older. I highly recommend sending me a message in the membership, and I will definitely help you out and get you started, but it's going to look a little different than it was before the age of two.
Okay. Another thing to consider if you're wondering if sleep learning is right for your [00:21:00] baby is your baby's current sleep patterns. So is it getting harder to get your baby to sleep? Maybe you used to feed or rock them to sleep pretty easily. Took maybe 10, 15 minutes max, and now the process is turning into a battle.
They don't wanna lay down. They're taking 45 minutes of rocking to fall asleep. Or you fed them to sleep. You laid them down, they woke up 10 minutes later, you try feeding them again. You can't get them back to sleep. Does it feel like getting them down? It's becoming harder and harder, or taking longer.
Maybe your A baby is waking frequently at night. Maybe your baby wakes 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. Is your baby taking short naps?
If your baby's snapping for less than an hour, they're stuck in these sort of 30 minute nap loops all day long.
Then sleep training may be for you. Is your baby sleep super unpredictable? Some nights you can rock them to sleep and lay them down [00:22:00] and they sleep maybe seven hours straight, and the next night they're up every hour wanting you. If you're experiencing even just one of these issues, short naps, night, wake up, unpredictability, bedtime battles, it really doesn't need to be all of this.
It could just be one of these things that's pushing you towards sleep learning. This is most likely a good fit for your family.
Another thing to consider is your family's needs, so your baby is not the only important person in this situation. I always encourage parents to consider their own needs as well. If you are sleep deprived, exhausted, tapped out, depleted, you are most likely not being your best tuned in patient caregiver during the day that you could be.
And it's 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 [00:23:00] consider if you're wondering if sleep learning is right for you.
I know this was a lot of information, but I just want you to be equipped with. Everything you need to know so that you can make an informed decision for you and your family. I know this episode is probably going to end up being longer than my typical episodes, but we're kind of at the grand finale here, and I want you to have all the information that I feel like you deserve to have so that you can make a good decision for you.
Before I get into Hank's sleep update, if you've gotten through all of this and you're kind of feeling like, Hmm, maybe sleep learning is a good fit for my family, maybe this is something that could change our lives and we could benefit from you really don't have to go through this process alone. I know there's so much information on the internet.
You can absolutely go tackle it yourself and see how it goes, but it can also be hard to find something that feels sustainable. And that you can stick to and that matches your baby's temperament and that you [00:24:00] can like stay consistent with and do without ongoing support. So that's why I've created a lot of resources for you.
I really break this process down step by step for you.
So when you join the Sleep by Alex membership, you automatically gain access to my four to 24 months sleep learning course. This course includes over 20 detailed bite-sized videos. They're gonna guide you through all of those phases of sleep learning I talked about earlier. You're going to get multiple methods to choose from.
I answer a ton of frequently asked questions. I give you, you know, a sleep log, a nap schedule guide. Each method has a printable PDF to keep handy while you implement. I dive deep into what sleep learning is and how attachment plays a role in sleep learning and nailing down your why.
And then as a member, you're going to be able to send me messages every day, all day if you [00:25:00] want to. So you'll let me know where we're starting, what issues are you having with your baby. I can help you pick which method to choose.
I can help guide you through every single phase. I can be there to answer those little questions that are going to pop up while you are implementing your method.
So again, I will link that in the show notes if you decide to join our community, I would like to thank you for being a listener to the podcast. So use the code podcast at checkout. It'll get you 50% off your first month in the membership, and there's no time commitment. You can stay for one month, you can stay for six months, whatever works for you.
Now, let me tell you how it's going with Hank. If you haven't been following along on Instagram. So one week ago, Hank had turned 16 weeks and I was so ready for some independence at nap time. He was really fighting his naps. All of a sudden, I could barely get him down for a crib nap. He didn't want me to rock him to sleep, but if I laid him in his bed and just stood with him, he would never go to sleep. He would just look at me with all these [00:26:00] cute VAs and stay awake and get overtired. Most of his naps were just resorting to a carrier nap because it was easier to get him to fall asleep, and I don't have all of this time to spend in the nursery trying to get him down for a crib nap.
And this was really starting to wear on me. I had literally zero breaks from holding him all day long, and I just. Was feeling really burnt out. So 16 weeks on the dot, I was like, I'm definitely going to be doing some sleep learning, at least at nap time.
. I went with a modified gradual approach, which means that day one, I was going to lay him down awake for nap time and I was going to pop in and out at short intervals. So some babies are using longer timers, some babies are using shorter timers. This really depends on your current situation and your baby's temperament.
I chose a modified gradual approach where I wouldn't be gone for very long at a time because I knew he was just freshly 16 weeks, and I wanted to just experiment a little bit.
And it has been absolutely [00:27:00] life changing. In a matter of the first couple days, he was already going to sleep at nap time without any crying.
He's a bit of a FOMO baby, so he does let out a little squeal every time I put him in his crib, but the moment I go to leave the room and shut the door, he stops crying and he goes to sleep. This is already so life-changing. No matter how long he sleeps in there, at least I was able to just lay him down, say goodnight, and go do something, even if it's only for half an hour.
But once we got through the first few days, he even started lengthening some of his naps. So we were stuck on 30 minute naps for a couple weeks, and all of the sudden, just a few days into sleep learning, he was starting to sleep 45, 50 minutes, an hour, an hour, 15, an hour and a half.
Naps are gradually getting better and better, which is so promising and exciting because some babies will hang onto these short naps for quite a while.
And finally, just two nights ago, I decided to implement it at nighttime as well. And in the last two nights, we've completely [00:28:00] dropped the swaddle at nighttime. He's just in a sleep sack all night long.
Last night he did a seven hour stretch without making a peep, and then I fed him and he went back down again without a peep for another few hours. Just in a matter of the last week, my life feels completely different. I feel more energized. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I have time to cook and eat lunch.
I have time to get some work done. I can do a workout in the middle of the day while he is napping. played a board game with my toddler today while he was napping. Yeah, just so many things are already so much better, and he is happier. He's just getting better naps. Those 30 minute naps all day long, we're starting to wear on him day after day.
Now he's getting more consolidated, daytime sleep, more consolidated nighttime sleep, and he's just happier to stay up for his wake window. Now so that's my exciting Hank sleep update.
What I will say about the podcast is we may be [00:29:00] phasing out here. Now that I'm sort of through the newborn months and I'm going through sleep learning right now, like probably after the next week or so, I won't really have weekly updates for you because my hope is that sleep just stays pretty consistent.
I'll probably just keep updating you on how he's doing. On Instagram, so I'm not quite sure how much longer the podcast is going to be around. My goal with this podcast was to get it started. So I did a lot of episodes before he was born and then sort of take you week by week through the sleep journey.
But once we kind of get to four plus months and he sleep trained, things will become a little bit boring, to be honest. So, I don't know. Stay tuned. I at least have a couple more episodes in store because we're definitely not out of the woods yet.
We're only one week into sleep learning. But make sure you follow me on Instagram at Sleep by Alex if you don't already, because if we sort of start phasing out these podcast [00:30:00] episodes, you can keep in touch with me there. Okay. I know that was a long one. I'm so sorry I talked your ear off. I just like to give you everything in your arsenal so that you can make a good decision and that you can get the sleep you need if that's something you're interested in.
Thank you so much for being here, and I will see you next week.
