Building a team of great little sleepers
Sleep Impacts the Whole Family
Setting a solid sleep foundation for your child is something you can do early on that will have a noticeable and meaningful impact on you, your child and your family unit. It's one of the first times your child will learn to do something independently. I truly think that as a parent, if you can get your child's sleep under control early on, it has one of the biggest positive impacts on your ability to cope with all the ups and downs that parenthood can throw your way. Sleep has such an important impact on so many areas of our child's lives. So let's get started.
WHAT IS SLEEP TRAINING
It’s giving your child the time and space for them to learn to initiate sleep on their own and self-soothe themselves when they wake between sleep cycles. This means that parents have removed any sleep associations (themselves, physical items or behaviors) that the child relies on to get to sleep that they cannot do themselves.
As with learning a new skill, it takes time and each child has their own unique temperament. There’s no “no cry” sleep training approach, but it doesn’t mean your child will be crying all night long without your reassurance and support. There are different methods I can coach you through that range in levels of parental involvement. Any potential crying is controlled and by teaching your child this new skill of falling asleep independently, it provides long term benefits and a likelihood of less crying, protesting and fussing down the road.
KEY FACTORS
Three important elements that have a critical impact on your child's sleep.
1. Sleep Environment. We want your child to sleep in the same consistent space (as much as possible). Key factors that help to make their space conducive to sleep are darkness, a comfortably cool temperature and calming white noise to drown out background sounds,.
2. Routines and schedules that align with your child’s biological sleep rhythms. We want to prevent over-tiredness as it makes it harder for a child to fall asleep & stay asleep. By paying attention to your child’s sleepy cues as well as looking at their amount of awake time, you can start to find that sweet spot to time their sleep. This helps to get them solid restorative sleep. Routines also help to cue a child’s brain as to when it’s time to be awake and when it’s time to sleep. Consistency in routines and your responsiveness is a critically important factor.
3. A child’s ability to independently fall asleep and self-soothe themselves. This is where sleep training techniques help to give your child time and space to learn this skill. It's a game changer!