Archive for the ‘Sleep Training’ Category

Babies can begin to teethe as early as just a few months old, but it might take awhile before the actual tooth even appears. Some babies never show many signs of teething apart from drooling and chewing on everything while others will get fussy and cranky as the tooth is popping through. Some babies will sleep through it all while others will have numerous night wakings. Some experts have said it will not disrupt sleep, but I wholeheartedly disagree. As everything else, all babies are different and they will all have different pain tolerances. I know that my son did seem to be affected and since none of us can go back and know what it feels like, I believe it’s our job, as parents, to be sympathetic, while also making sure they get enough sleep.

Here are my tips for handling teething and your baby’s sleep:

• If baby is extra fussy during the day when he’s awake (i.e. he is not fussy because he is sleepy), make sure you make him extra comfortable at bedtime with a dose of Motrin or Tylenol or teething tablets and possibly, Orajel. Note: My pediatrician did not OK Motrin until 6 months old. I prefer Motrin because it lasts longer (6 hours) than Tylenol (4 hours), but you should check with your pediatrician about when you can give it.
• Given a baby teethes for what feels like a constant 2 years, you should figure out a plan for how you will handle it because you can’t allow too much sleep deprivation in the name of “teething”, since you may think something is a teething problem, but it’s really a sleep problem.

  My plan with my first son was that if he was extra fussy during the day, I’d give him Motrin and Orajel at bedtime. If he had any night wakings 6+ hours (give or take 1 hour) after the medication, I’d tend to him with another dose and then stay with him for 30 minutes until it kicked in and then put him back down. It was usually only about 2-4 days of super fussy times that he needed extra soothing until the tooth popped through. Other times, I’d have to be more stringent on my nighttime visits, because of the problems it would create.

• If you are nursing, expect baby to possibly nurse more frequently as it feels good on their gums. As always, you may have to set limits and be careful not to create a sleep association with nursing to sleep.

Should You Stop Sleep Training During Teething?

In general, my answer will be no. If you waited for all your baby’s teeth to pop through before you sleep train, you might wait over 2 years! Some baby’s teeth pop through at a few months old but others don’t until past a year old! Since you have no way of knowing, you need to just do your best and make sure you prioritize your baby’s sleep. Having said that, you may need to alter your plan a bit, as I suggested above, during the few days the teeth are about to erupt through the gums (you might notice them right on the surface of the gums and your baby is extra fussy), but otherwise, help them feel comfortable, but continue to be consistent and help them learn to sleep better.

Do you have any teething tips?

I get the question “Do you think I need to sleep train again?” a lot. My advice is not to think of sleep training as a quick-one-time-fix. It really begins to boil down to a parenting method related to sleep. More often than not, teething, traveling, illness, developmental milestones or simply the knowledge your baby gains (eventually) that crying gets him what he wants can throw a wrench in even the most peaceful sleepers. Once my first son was “sleep trained”, we had to revisit over and over because of his spirited personality. Then, we’d have a string of great times and then fall back, again. It was sooo frustrating! But, necessary.

So, my advice is that you need to tend to your baby when she is sick, teething, etc. but once she is well again, you may need to go back to your sleep training method of choice to get things back on track. Many times it’s more about setting limits and deciding what you will and won’t do all night long, and how much sleep you decide is too much for your child to lose.

I happened upon an article where a woman (and husband) was against cry-it-out and specifically, The Ferber Method, but ended up doing it anyway, because it was what worked. In that article, Confessions of a Ferberizer, she said that, in the end, her son stopped wanting to be rocked or cuddle. She did not seem to regret doing cry-it-out, I don’t think, but reading the article reminded me that many of us wonder whether doing cry-it-out will change our child’s personality, so I thought I’d reflect on that today.

Will Cry-It-Out Change Your Child’s Personality?

In some ways, it might, and some ways it won’t and of course, all babies are different. And, if your child’s personality changes, it could be for the better. I do stand by the fact that I do not choose one method of sleep training over another. I truly believe that everyone must find what works for their family. For help finding the right solution for your family, check out my sleep training series. What works for your family will take into account your baby’s temperament, your temperament, your philosophy and both of your personalities.

Let’s look at a baby who is sensitive to being overtired and is chronically sleep-deprived because he is waking up every 1-2 hours all night long and only napping in 20 minute stretches. He might be very whiny and clingy all day long because HE IS TIRED! Let’s assume that mom is adamantly against crying methods, but has not yet found a no-cry method that has worked for her and her baby. Now, let’s assume she reluctantly uses The Ferber Method and her son begins to get enough sleep and is well-rested. It’s possible likely that her once fussy and clingy little boy is now happy!! This would be a “personality change” for the better. It is very common for a baby who is sleep deprived and fussy, to start being a very happy baby after he starts getting more rest, regardless of the sleep training method you choose.

So, what about the other way around? You have a baby that actually takes his sleep deprivation in stride and is, overall, a fairly happy baby. He just doesn’t sleep much. I don’t have to remind you that sleep problems can lead to obesity, depression, behavior problems, or that there are a variety of other reasons to get your child enough sleep. What might cry-it-out do to this baby?

Depending on his temperament, it can go one of two ways. The first way is that he is so easy-going that he cries for 5 minutes and sleeps all night like some books want you to believe will happen to your child. I do know that there ARE really babies like this! It isn’t a myth. My eldest son just wasn’t that way, that’s for sure! I don’t think anyone would say that 5 minutes of crying would do harm to any child. After all, you can be in the bathroom for 5 minutes.

The second type of baby does not have such an easy-going temperament and might cry, let’s say an hour at bedtime. Will this baby stop being as happy during the day? True, sometimes there are a few days that babies are clingier during the day after cry-it-out. This is due simply to the change in routine and adjustment to the new way to fall asleep and for the really sleep-deprived, they begin to catch up on their much needed sleep and therefore, are more tired during the day. It generally goes away after just a few days, if it was there at all. So, will an hour of crying make this particular baby damaged for the rest of his life? I guess we all need to decide for ourselves whether this is true, but I personally don’t believe it.

Now, back to the article. When I sleep-trained my eldest son, we did end up using a crying method, in the end, and I never regretted it. I actually did not notice any change in personality whatsoever. Not in a good or bad way. He was always pretty happy, when he wasn’t tired and he wasn’t clingier during the day, either. The only thing I saw was that he became more rested so I guess you can say he was happier for more of the day, since he wasn’t so tired. He never once seemed to “remember” the previous night’s bedtime. In fact, once he became a toddler and could talk and occasionally would have a tantrum right before bed, crying himself to sleep once again, the next morning he was always bright and chipper and never even seemed to remember what happened. And, for his entire first 2 years of life, until we transitioned him into a room with no rocker, we rocked EVERY night. We cuddled EVERY night (and still do!). I nursed him EVERY night until we weaned at 13 months. Nothing changed but the fact he could fall asleep without me and continue to sleep all night. I, of course, am not saying that the woman in the article was making it up. I’m only telling my story to show that all babies are different and it’s possible her baby’s personality didn’t really change. Maybe he never really did like to rock to sleep but didn’t know how else to go to sleep. I don’t know.

As I’ve said many times before, when we were pregnant with our little ones, we didn’t decide one day “You know what. I’m going to let him cry so he can sleep, even if it takes an hour.” before he was even born. No parent wants to do that! But, unfortunately, for some of us, it truly is what works for our child’s temperament and personality. My second son started going to sleep on his own at bedtime without cry-it-out. All babies are indeed different, even within the same family.

Children are very resilient and our relationships with them are very complex. There have been no studies that show cry-it-out has long-lasting effects on our children. There is not ONE thing you can do (or not do) for your child and make THAT be what makes your relationship positive or negative (apart from the purely heinous crimes like child molestation, of course!). There is not ONE thing that will violate his trust in you. If that was the case, the ONE time you didn’t catch him when he was learning to walk and bumped his head would cause him not to trust you anymore. The ONE time you were late changing his diaper and he was cold and crying and you didn’t know would cause harm to him.

It is all the love, affection, and care you give him all day, day-in and day-out, that builds the relationship between mother/father and child. THAT is what is important. Just as your child might cry and scream he can’t put a fork in an outlet or eat a cookie before dinner, he does not really know what is best for himself and he trusts you to do what’s best for him. You are not making him cry, you are letting him cry and it’s an important distinction as he grows into a toddler and young child. Just remember, sleep deprivation is no better for him as it is for you! Just something to think about if the only thing standing in your way to a better night’s rest is your worry that your child’s personality will change.

Read more about the lack of evidence that cry-it-out causes permanent damage, from a co-sleeper, in fact.

So, what do you think?

If you are just joining us, you should start at Part 1 of my sleep training series.

In this final part of the series, I am going to share my story. I’m doing this for a couple of reasons. First, I want you to get to know me and my story, so I’m not just some name on the internet claiming to have gone through something similar to what you might be going through. I want you to know you aren’t alone. Sure, I suppose, I could be making up my story, but believe me I wish I were, but I’m not. LOL Second, I want to tell you my story because it shows that “experts” don’t have all the answers. You know your baby best! And, away we go!

Sleep Training My First Son

Donovan (in photo above), my eldest son, is a spirited child. He was high-needs basically from the beginning. He needed a LOT of soothing, whether it was me nursing, rocking, or holding him or my husband rocking him or walking him around (and he never took a pacifier - we must have tried 20 of them!). But, thankfully, he was not colicky. He didn’t cry a lot unless he was tired and we weren’t walking, rocking, nursing, etc. He was and still is very sensitive to becoming overtired. I/we had to watch him like a hawk to see if it was time to sleep again. Once he was overtired, it was much harder to get him to sleep.

Around 6 weeks old it was taking me upwards of 2-3 hours to put him to bed at night. I am NOT exaggerating. I would rock him and put him down ever so gently and he’d wake right up and I’d start alllll over! It was so exhausting. After I’d finally get him down, I’d start all over 1-2 hours later when he woke up again. Of course, now I know about sleep associations and why he was doing that. At 8 weeks old, I went back to work and simply could not keep up, so we started co-sleeping, something I never planned to do. I knew it worked for other people, but just wasn’t what I planned or wanted. But, it got us both more sleep…sorta. Since he had to nurse every 1-2 hours, he had to sleep with me and I was so fearful of rolling on him or my husband covering him with covers that I really didn’t sleep well, not to mention it wasn’t always so easy for me to go back to sleep after he nursed (and I never got good at nursing on the other side without physically switching sides! LOL). Anyway, it was better than what I was doing before, though.

Fast forward 8 weeks and he was 4 months old. I was getting depressed going to bed every night at 7pm and never seeing my husband that I had to do something to transition him back to his crib, where he originally started.

I needed to formulate a plan, but I didn’t just want to put him in a room to cry when I had been sleeping with him every night. I didn’t think that was fair. So, first I used the method I described in Part 2 of this sleep training series. The first night, it took TWO LONG HOURS and was very frustrating for both of us. He surprisingly didn’t cry too much, either. He took to sucking on my sheet to soothe himself. The next night it took another TWO LONG HOURS. Ugh. But, by night 3 he did it in just 20 minutes and then the 4th night in the crib with NO CRYING! I was ecstatic!!

But…a week later he decided he didn’t like this arrangement. He had a revolt. LOL I had given him a light receiving blanket that I slept on to suck on, but by the end of the week I guess it just wasn’t enough. So, at that point, my husband and I decided to let him cry-it-out. At this point we knew he could do it and we decided he was protesting the change (like he’s done for other things for years now LOL). It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. No mother plans on letting their baby cry to learn how to sleep. I made myself a mantra to get through it and reminded myself why I was doing it. Like I said, he’s spirited, so he didn’t cry just 5 minutes and then sleep through the night like some books want to make it seem! But, we got through it in just 4 nights and on the 5th he went to sleep with NO CRYING.

I only focused on bedtime, at this point, and promptly responded to all other wakings. Thankfully, after he learned to fall asleep AT bedtime, he could go BACK to sleep throughout the night during sleep transitions. He still woke to eat twice until he was 7 1/2 months old and then he only woke once until I tried to night-wean at 8 1/2 months. Even though the “experts” will tell you babies don’t need to eat at night after a certain age/weight/whatever, he continued to wake in the 5 o’clock hour 3-4 times per week for a feeding. I tried to extend him, but decided it was just best for both of us to continue to nurse and put him back down for 1-2 hours up until he was a little over a year old when he stopped waking on his own. But, even then it was difficult for him to go 12 hours without food and he’d want breakfast immediately upon waking. All babies are different in this regard. Heck, I know some adults would have trouble with going 12 hours without food! :p

Alas, sleep training was not a cure-all for us but it did make things 10 times better. We had many many ups and downs after that. He would slip back into bad habits and all of a sudden I’d find myself rocking him for an hour again. I don’t know how it would happen, but I suppose it was during a teething episode, illness, etc. and things would just start to unravel again and we’d have to let him cry-it-out again. Some might say that this means cry-it-out didn’t work, but I don’t regret my decision one bit…EVER. It *was* our only option. We had tried everything else and it would land us in a big abyss of not-enough-sleep-for-any-of-us and when he didn’t get enough sleep, he was a BEAR! It wasn’t good for him. It wasn’t worth it for me to rock him for an hour to avoid 10 minutes of crying. That was robbing him of 50 more minutes of sleep and believe me, he needed it.

Nowadays, sleep is still ever important in this house for him. He is still a bear if he doesn’t get enough sleep only now he whines more, cries more, and has more tantrums. I *know* that as he goes through life and goes to school, it will be IMPERATIVE that my husband and I get him adequate sleep or he will be one of the kids with behavior problems. I think many parents probably struggle with this and not realize their child simply needs more sleep. I can imagine that if you haven’t really been able to tune into the relationship between sleep and behavior, you might miss it. I know the fact he is spirited makes a big difference.

Of course, I need to mention that my sweet son is just that, too. He is much more challenging without enough sleep, but boy is he one of the brightest lights of my life! He is so smart (I’m not exaggerating LOL) and such a sweetheart giving me kisses and telling me he loves me and kissing his little brother and…I could go on and on. At one point he knew over 30 signs for communicating before he could talk, he could point to over 30 U.S. states when he was just over a year old, knew his ABC’s before he was 2, and so on. Allowing him to cry-it-out in no way damaged him or his self-esteem. He is still ever so strong-willed and negotiates EVERYTHING (I swear he will be a lawyer!). He still trusts us and loves us to pieces.

Sleep Training My Second Son

Nicholas (photo to the right) is my 2nd son and now just 4 months old. Completely different than Donovan. We haven’t had to do much with him and he has started to sleep well. You might think it’s because I know more this time. I disagree. I have not done things THAT much different with Nicholas. Because I seem to birth screamers (not fussers), when he came home from the hospital I had to hold him all night for at least 2-3 weeks. I sat upright on the couch while he laid on the boppy . He just couldn’t be set down much at all. Then, I just HAD to get off the couch, so what did I do? You guessed it. We started co-sleeping, only this time I bought a The First Years Close and Secure Sleeper. That lasted just 3 nights because he was such a loud sleeper and even when he wasn’t awake, I’d reach over and pat his back probably waking him up. So, I decided to try to put the sleeper in the crib with him and voila! He’s been in there ever since (we removed the sleeper about 2 weeks later or so).

For awhile, we still rocked him to sleep (and still do for naps, for now), but then we slowly stopped that and started letting him fall asleep on the boppy on our lap in the rocker and then eventually was able to just put him in the crib and he sucks on…yep…a light receiving blanket. Naps might be a different story, but overall, he’s simply learned how to soothe himself much easier than Donovan did. I really don’t take credit. He’s just different (and not as sensitive to over-tiredness). Pure and simple. And, that’s why those with “easy” babies won’t ever understand how someone like me could allow my son to cry or how some people would find it strange to even have a whole website dedicated to sleep for babies. It’s simply not easy for all babies!

I hope sharing my story has given others either a) hope that they can also have a good sleeper, b) strength to make a change, c) comfort they are not alone, or d) all of the above. There really isn’t just one way to help your child sleep better. There really isn’t a “right” method for all of us. We all must find what works for our personalities and for our children’s temperament. I hope you can find information on this website to do just that.

What’s Your Sleep Training Story?

My husband is finished with school this week, which means summer is upon us. This usually means family vacations. How fun! But, what to do about your baby / child’s sleep? We have been on numerous trips with our eldest son and it gets easier every time. I thought today I’d give some tips for traveling this summer with baby:

• Depending on age, prepare a “fun” pack for the car or plane trip. Have snacks (special occasion snacks became a hit like fruit snacks when he got older), books, new toys, crayons, TaDoodles First Markers, some sort of travel drawing toy like the Aquadoodle Travel N Doodle, and a book of photos to remind him/her of home. If you are not opposed to them watching TV, a portable DVD player is a lifesaver, at times, especially for very long trips or layovers. I recommend this player, the Sony DVP-FX820 8″ Portable DVD Player. I really like the Brainy Baby DVD seriesand love the Leapfrog Learning DVDs.
• Of all the things in your “fun pack”, take one thing out at a time and drag it out as long as possible. (Like I had to tell you that!)
• Try to plan your snacks around take-off and landing, if possible. At least offer milk or water to help with the ears popping. My son never had any problems, but you just never know.
• Plan your travel time accordingly with nap or bedtime. If your baby / toddler sleeps in the car, plan to be on the plane or in the car during the naptime. But, if your child is like mine and won’t sleep in the car, prepare to leave right after his first nap of the day. That first nap is usually the most restorative and the most needed in terms of overtiredness for the rest of the day.
• Unless you are co-sleeping, you can bring a Graco Pack ‘n Play or travel crib. Even if you have somewhere for baby to sleep at your destination, bring along any sheets, familiar stuffed animals, or loveys to make a “foreign” place as much like home as possible, for sleeping.
• Call ahead to make sure your flight is on-time, if you are flying.
• Decide whether to bring your car seat. If you are leaving the country, you might check to make sure the car seat will even work. When my son was about 9 months old, we went to Mexico and wouldn’t you know the back seatbelts didn’t “lock” like they do here in the U.S. I later found out you are supposed to bring something to “lock” the seatbelt with the carseat. Plan ahead for that, unlike me.
• Board early or not on an airplane? If you have a carseat, you probably want to board early to get it installed. But, at the same time, that is just longer you need to entertain your baby on board while everyone else gets seated and the plane takes off. Keep it in mind, depending on the age of your baby / toddler and energy level.
• Sleep train or not during vacation? It depends on where you are going and for how long. If you are going to grandma’s for a month, it is unlikely you want to undo all your hard work and risk overtiredness for a whole month. If you are going camping in the woods for 4 days, it is unlikely you won’t do anything you have to in order to make sure your baby does not wake the neighboring campers. Overall, I’d say you try to stick to routine as much as humanly possible, but also have fun!! The good news is a previously sleep trained baby will bounce back after vacation fairly quickly.
• Here is a packing checklist for babies and for toddlers.

My #1 tip is to relax and have fun! Most of the time your child will surprise you just like mine did. And, even if you have a rough trip, you will never see those people again, so don’t worry too much about it and just focus on you and your family. You deserve a nice vacation, so try not to stress out too much about it.

Do you have any travel tips you’d like to share?

This post will outline the last two sleep training methods, both crying methods. It only makes sense to combine them since one is just a variation of the other. If you are just joining in, you may want to start from the beginning at Part 1 of the Sleep Training series.

I very much doubt most mothers or fathers set out to implement a crying method to help their baby or child sleep. I’m sure all of us try as we might to avoid it. Some of us will succeed and some of us will not. Or, some of us choose between letting our child cry and just allowing him/her to sleep less than needed. I know I don’t need to remind you of the various reasons it is not recommended to simply allow your child to be robbed of sleep simply to avoid some crying. After a baby is over 4 months old, (s)he is capable of soothing himself to sleep on his own. Some people will argue with that and it’s true that all babies are different and some will be able to do it sooner than others. That is why it is up to YOU, who knows your baby best, to decide when the right time is. If your baby / child is suffering from sleep deprivation and you are too, it’s time to do something, even if it means some protest on your baby’s part. They will not like this change, but as you know, there are many things we, as parents, must do even when our child does not like it and even when they don’t understand now that it’s best for them (e.g. running in the street or eating candy before dinner).

The Check-and-Console Method
(aka The Ferber Method or Ferberizing)

This sleep training method entails allowing baby to cry while checking on him/her at intervals. The goal here is to reassure him/her ever so often to a) make sure baby is okay and to reassure yourself and b) reassure him you hear them and are there for them. When you go to check on baby, you are not supposed to pick him/her up nor engage them much, but simply reassure using your voice and a loving pat for 2-3 minutes, tops (watch the clock!). The goal is NOT to help baby to sleep! That is what (s)he is learning to do on his/her own! The idea is that (s)he falls asleep in the same “environment” in which (s)he will awaken periodically throughout the night (we all do!). The knowledge of how to fall asleep unassisted at bedtime will pave the way for him/her to go BACK to sleep throughout the night.

Here is an example of how night 1 might go:

• Bedtime is 6:30 pm (make sure bedtime is sufficiently early and don’t make the mistake of “tiring him out” first. This leads to more crying, not less)
• You do the bedtime routine, as usual, starting at 6pm. At 6:20 p.m. you put baby down DROWSY, BUT AWAKE
• Baby begins to cry immediately and you set the timer for 5 minutes.
• At 6:25 p.m. you go in and reassure him/her.
• If (s)he is still crying, you go back in at 10 minutes and then every 15 minutes until (s)he falls asleep.

Each night, you increase each interval by 5 minutes. If you can’t start with intervals 5, 10, and 15, start with 3, 7, and 10. It doesn’t matter as long as you increase intervals nightly and be CONSISTENT.

Cry It Out (aka CIO or Extinction)

This is basically when you follow the same rules above, only you leave baby completely alone to fall asleep. Some feel this is cruel, however, many feel this leads to less crying, overall, and not cruel since you have already implemented a bedtime routine and (s)he knows what to expect. Again, this will depend on your philosophy as a parent and your baby’s temperament. At night, you do not put a limit to the crying because if you allow him/her to cry for let’s say 30 minutes and then “rescue” him/her, you have all but guaranteed that much crying or more next time and you also don’t want them to learn to cry for a predetermined amount of time. It is imperative that you be 100% consistent and follow through. If you don’t want to let your baby cry, that is 100% OK, just choose another method.

You can use one of these methods or a variation of your own. You can try one and then switch to another after a few days. For some babies, going in there periodically only “teases” them and they get angrier that you won’t rock them or nurse them or do whatever you’ve been doing to “help” them to sleep. I do not have hard-core facts to say how long your baby will cry, on average. All babies are different and temperament and level of strong will definitely plays a part. In my experience in helping other parents, the average seems to be around 30 minutes. Some babies cry 5 minutes and sleep the rest of the night. Others might cry over an hour and wake several times in the night. Unfortunately, there is no way to know what yours will do, but I’m sure up to this point you have a good idea about the personality of your child. Many people are pleasantly surprised by how “little” their baby cries and wonder why they didn’t try sooner. They were prepared for the long haul and (s)he may have “only” cried 20 minutes. Of course, as you know, 20 minutes to a mother or father can be excruciating, especially at 2am.

Crying methods generally take 3-4 nights to see marked improvement, however, it isn’t always a cure-all. Sure, there are some babies you read about who, after 4 nights, sleep through the night forever and ever. And, then there are those who don’t and you have to keep letting them cry it out. Well, the important thing is to consider what your alternative is. If rocking/nursing/etc. to sleep was not working, there is a reason you started down this path and thus, you may just have a challenging sleeper who requires more “work” than others.

Do either of these methods appeal to you?

In part 6, the last part of this sleep training series, I will share my story.

I am excited to announce that Pick Nick’s Brain will now be offering affordable sleep consulting services! We have been working hard developing custom helpdesk software that will help me streamline giving sleep advice to tired parents across the world (who speak English ;)). Now that my software is complete, I can now begin doing what I do best, helping tired parents help their baby / child get more sleep! I’ve helped hundreds of parents before this site was created, and now I want to help YOU! In the helpdesk, you fill in a profile that will help me know your child’s schedule and some other pertinent information such that I will be able to really get to know you and your child and be able to concentrate most on giving you advice and not taking precious time asking general questions. This also enables me to refresh my memory should you go long periods between consultations such that I will have our entire history at my fingertips! You will receive my responses via e-mail or you can login to your account and view everything right there.

I will be offering e-mail packages, unlimited e-mail, private chat and telephone consultations. Here’s how it will work:

• You will be able to enter as many helpdesk “tickets” as you wish and you are only “charged” for my responses. In other words, if you start an e-mail and decide to add to it later, you will not be charged. You will also not be charged for every e-mail I send to you. I get really involved in the cases brought to me and thus I would never charge you to say “That’s great little Lucy slept all night!”, for example. Honestly, I am not looking to get rich (though it would be nice!) off of your sleep deprivation. I only wish to be able to continue providing sleep advice to weary parents.
• The unlimited e-mail option will enable us to exchange as many e-mail as the length of time you purchase. In addition, if you purchase an unlimited e-mail subscription, if you purchase more services before your expiration date, you will automatically get a discount off any service! (fine print: promotions may change)
• The private chat will be by the hour where we will meet in a private chat room and have a discussion. The nice thing about the chat over the telephone is, at the end, I will be able to e-mail you our transcript for you to review later.
• Last but not least, I will also offer telephone support and consultations. You can purchase a certain number of minutes and we talk about the sleep problems your child(ren) are having. These options also come with unlimited e-mail for a specified amount of time!

Wait, there’s more! For the first 10 customers, I am offering $19 off which essentially gets you started with a 2-email package for less than $1!! You can also use this coupon for any other service package. When purchasing services, simply enter “FIRST10″ in the promo box, where indicated before you pay.

As you can tell, I’m very excited about this and can’t wait for us to get started! Come on in and create your account now!

If you have not read the other parts of this sleep training series, I suggest you start at Part 1.

In part 3 of my sleep training series, I went over the Fading method, a no-cry (or limited crying) sleep training method. Today, I will discuss “The Chair Method”. This is the first of what I would call a “crying method”, however, you don’t leave your baby unattended in the room at all. The idea is that you start by doing your normal bedtime routine and putting the chair very near the crib and sit on it while your baby falls asleep. The goal is not to help your child fall asleep, nor help him/her calm down or anything like that. You are generally not supposed to give your child any attention. The reason you are in the chair is only to reassure them that you are there with them. If you have successfully implemented a bedtime routine, your child will very well know what he/she is supposed to do at this moment. Each night you move the chair further and further away from the crib until you are right outside the door, and eventually, when you no longer need the chair, at all.

As you might suspect, this method can be very difficult, depending on temperament, and can take many days or weeks. It can be difficult to avoid engaging with your child and it will likely be a little confusing to the child (particularly younger ones) when you don’t. However, with time and consistency, this can be a good option for parents who do not want to leave their child alone to cry but other methods have not worked, either. As with any sleep training method, it’s important to commit to it 100% for at least one or two weeks before you decide it isn’t working. Consistency is still key!

Continue to Part 5 of this Sleep Training series.

In this sleep training series, so far I’ve talked about the importance of a bedtime routine and gone over how you can sleep train while co-sleeping. In part 3 of this series, I will be discussing the “fading” method of sleep training.

Fading, The Method

This method I would consider one of the no-cry (or very little cry) methods. As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, when you change the rules how baby falls asleep (usually by breaking a sleep association), it is usually not done without some form of protest. Your baby is sleepy and wants to be sleeping and you aren’t doing what you’ve always done! He or she might get a little mad here! How would you feel if you had to learn to sleep without your pillow? But, with practice, time and commitment we can all learn a new way to sleep.

With this method, you help your baby fall asleep, but you set up “rules” as to how you will slowly take yourself out of the equation. If you think about how you have done most of the work up until this point, now you will develop rules to follow that will shift the “work” to your baby/child. If you have always rocked baby all the way to sleep, you might rock him/her less time and put him in the crib drowsy, but awake and let him/her try to fall asleep on his/her own. If he/she gets worked up, you try to quiet and soothe them using other methods until he/she is asleep. Each night, you do less and less “work” and your baby should do more of it.

How long will it take?

As you can see, this method can take a lot of time and patience on your part. And, depending on the temperament of the child, it might be very difficult to follow it through until the end. But, if you do not want to allow your child to cry alone and you also don’t want to continue the path you’re on now, it’s a great first step! After all, how do you know whether it will work or not if you don’t try it? The amount of time this method will take will be directly related to your ability to be CONSISTENT and your child’s temperament and personality (how strong-willed is he/she and will he/she “outlast” you?). It is imperative that you remain consistent because if you falter 1 hour in, for example, then it will only be that much harder next time. I highly recommend writing down the plan you hope to follow such that you can refer to it and really stick to it 100%.

Does this sound like a good method for you?

I am pleased to announce that the FREE Quick Guide I wrote about last week is now available! You can receive this guide by signing up on our mailing list (Don’t worry, I hate spam as much as you and will never sell your information!). For those who signed up on the mailing list and have not received your guide, please sign up on the mailing list again as I had a technical problem about a week ago. I apologize for the inconvenience. The Quick Guide is a 4-page document outlining a variety of information helpful to parents with challenging sleepers. It’s a short document to give you pertinent information at your fingertips without requiring you to take a lot of time to read it. And, it gives simple instructions to start a sleep training process to help your child sleep.

Topics include quick facts pertaining to:

• How much sleep your child really needs
• Napping and schedules
• Sleep routines
• Explanation of sleep associations
• Night-weaning
• When and how to sleep train
• Descriptions of a variety of sleep training methods (No-Cry to Cry)

If you like the Quick Guide or have questions, you may desire even more detail in the above subjects and more, so please see our e-Book, Detailed Guide to Help Your Child Sleep.

You may also notice a change in the navigation of our site. After some feedback after our initial launch, we decided to make some changes. I hope you like them and I’d love more feedback!