How To: Teach Your Baby or Child to Sleep Through the Night
Whether your child is a few months old or a few years old, sleep is inarguably an essential part of their development. It allows them grow, heal when they're sick, retain and process information, and so much more.
Parents may choose to pursue improving their child’s sleep for various reasons; maybe your child is waking a zillion times a night and crying, maybe you’re bed sharing and no longer want to, maybe they’re getting out of bed or you’re hostage to rocking your child at every waking.
Here’s a PSA- your child CAN sleep through the night and they CAN love sleep. Now, that doesn't mean they need a night wean if you have a young baby, but I can assure you that sleeping through the night is possible (night feeds included).
The first step towards teaching your child to sleep through the night, is to make sure that your child has an age-appropriate schedule. This might not seem crucial but it truly is. Your child’s schedule can help sleep or it can hinder sleep. For example whether your child is not getting enough daytime sleep or whether they’re getting too much daytime sleep, can affect their nights. Naps and night sleep work hand in hand. We want to offer your child an optimal daytime schedule to foster nighttime sleep.
If you would like a break down of sleep schedules by age, download your free Sleep Schedule Cheat Sheet here.
Once you've made sure your child has an age-appropriate schedule you can focus on teaching them independent sleep skills. For some children, changing their sleep schedule can fix sleep entirely but for many children, waking up overnight is habitual. Are they waking up to eat but they're not actually hungry and don't actually need a night feed? Are they waking up to look for you, or something to help them fall back asleep because they don't know how to fall asleep on their own? Are they waking for a pacifier or for you to rock them back to sleep?
Anything that a child is dependent on to help them fall asleep that they cannot recreate themselves, will ultimately contribute to night wakings. If your child is dependent on something like rocking, feeding, bouncing or needing you to sit with them or lay with them to help them fall asleep, transitioning off of those crutches is going to be a key factor in them sleeping through the night.
Here’s why;
Put yourself in your child's shoes. Imagine, you fall asleep in your room and then as you're transitioning through a sleep cycle in the middle of the night, you check your surroundings and realize that you're in a completely different room and you don't know how you got there! Instead of just rolling over and going back to sleep, you’d likely wake up confused and irritated. You, as an adult, have the skills to verbalize your confusion; your child does not. In this scenario, they cry out. Imagine that you as a young child fall asleep feeding, rocking or with your mommy or daddy rubbing your back. Suddenly you drift off to sleep and then hours later as you transition through a sleep cycle, you are awakened by the fact that your surrounding is different. Why did the rocking stop? Why did the feeding stop! Instead of you going back to sleep you're going to wake up confused as to why the assistance you had at bedtime, has suddenly disappeared. Toddlers in particular are going wake up more frequently due to the anticipation that their parent is going to sneak out of their room which then exacerbates night wakings. But can you blame your child? They’re responding appropriately given the circumstances.
Given that your child is healthy, clean, fed and their schedule is on par, having a sleep training plan of action is the next step in the process of teaching your child/children how to sleep through the night and sleep independently.
There are four methods of sleep training. Let’s look the methods in order from least parental presence to most parental presence:
Extinction: This is true Cry It Out (CIO). With this method, you do not go to your child overnight when they wake up. You put them to bed and greet them in the morning! You can still include night feeds with this method.
Timed Intervals: This is also known as Leave and Check, Check-ins, Ferber, or simply just Intervals. This is when you quickly “check-in” with your child after an allotted amount of time has passed. Some children do better with shorter intervals (3-7 minutes or so), many do better with longer intervals (15+ minutes).
In-room or Camping Out: This is when the caregiver starts near their child’s bed and works toward moving away from their bed over a period of 2-3 weeks, until they are completely phased out of the room and the child is falling asleep independently.
Pick Up/Put Down: This is typically used for babies under 5 months and involves picking up, soothing, and putting the baby back down repeatedly. The reason this is not ideal for older babies is because it is often much too stimulating for them. This method can take several weeks or even months.
Within my own practice I use a timed interval method or an in-room method, depending on the family’s needs.
The sleep training process takes about 2 to 3 weeks total. Often, the older a child, the longer it can take, but this is not always true. It's important to know that there's no right or wrong way to sleep train, every family is different, and every parenting philosophy is different. So, what might seem “gentle” to one family, might have the opposite effect for another child or another family.
By having a plan of action and being consistent, you will absolutely see success! For more on why being consistent is SO important during the sleep training process, click here!
Sleep training can be difficult to navigate; many families choose to work with a sleep consultant. If this is something you are interested in, please book a free 15 minute assessment call with me HERE and view my Sleep Packages HERE!
Feel free to ask questions below in the comments!
Sweet dreams,
Lexi