Posts Tagged ‘baby sleep’

A common theme when I read the first e-mail in a one-on-one consultation or when I first talk on the phone with a new client is that the parent feels somehow responsible for the sleep trouble they’re in. Either they were first time parents and didn’t know what they were or weren’t “supposed” to do or they knew they weren’t supposed to do it, but didn’t know what else to do.

This is also a common theme in many of the sleep books out there, too. Many of them make you feel guilty for nursing your baby all the way to sleep or using a pacifier or co-sleeping or not co-sleeping. If you don’t do it their way, you are not a good parent or you have failed your baby.

I’m here to say that it IS your fault your baby won’t sleep. Here’s why:

When your baby was 3 days old, your baby wouldn’t fall asleep any way but breastfeeding or with the bottle. You fed him to sleep every nap and night after that until you thought he’d outgrow it.

When your baby was a few weeks old, you decided to try a pacifier and that worked quite well, too. You started to wonder whether you should be feeding baby on a schedule or feeding her on demand.

When your baby was a couple of months old, sleep was fine, so you felt like super mom (or dad). Or, sleep wasn’t great, but you made do. Some of your friends might have started claiming their babies were sleeping through the night and you wondered when yours would too.

When your baby turned 4 months old, for many, sleep started to go downhill and you didn’t have the foggiest reason why. If you were lucky, you were starting to wonder what it would be like to sleep for more than 6 or 8 hours in a row again. If you were unlucky, 3 hours straight sounded pretty good.

When your baby was 6 months old, you might have started dreaming about what it would be like to be able to plan activities in the day. You might have dreamt about a baby’s schedule that was almost the same every day or you enjoyed going with the flow, throwing a strict schedule to the wind. You might have started to wonder if your baby’s naps would start to lengthen like other babies you heard about.

When your baby was 9 months old, you wondered if your baby still needed night feedings or not.

When your baby is now a toddler and hasn’t outgrown the sleep challenges you thought she would, you start to wonder if it is your fault. You realize you’ve helped some habits to remain habits, but haven’t been able to break them, no matter how many things you’ve tried and now that it’s been so long, is it really fair to just let her cry it out?

You see, all of these things are your fault. You became a loving mom who decided to breastfeed to sleep when your baby wouldn’t sleep any other way. You were a loving dad when you rocked your baby to sleep every night when she cried bloody murder any time you stopped. You replaced that pacifier ten times per night, so your baby could get the 12 hours of sleep you heard he needed every night. You sacrificed your sleep to help your baby get hers. That doesn’t make you a bad parent, that makes you a loving parent!

My advice today is to embrace the fact that it IS your fault! You are a loving parent. You did what you had to do to transition to parenthood or to tend to your older children when your newest baby wouldn’t sleep. This is NOT a bad thing. We all do what it takes when we can barely see straight, trying to figure out how to even be a new mom or dad. We don’t want our babies to cry (or scream as some of us would have it) and we do what we can to make sure we have babies who will become well-adjusted young adults one day. We are afraid we will make a million mistakes (and we will), but there is no way to predict whether you will have a baby who will miraculously sleep all night at 8 weeks or will be rocked to sleep for 5 minutes every single night and sleep 12 hours straight. Did I know I’d end up rocking my son for 2-3 hours every night at bedtime and repeat it every 2 hours later (or nurse him to sleep)? Nope. I did what I felt was right and I don’t regret it for a second.

Nothing is a problem until it is a problem and only THEN do you need to decide to make a change. Only YOU know when that time is and when you have a problem. No one else in your life knows what you are going through every day, but you and your baby. You will know when it’s time.

So, from now on, when you start an e-mail to me or start a phone conversation, instead of saying something like you’ve failed as a mom or that you made a lot of mistakes, say something like this:

“Damn right I rocked and held my baby to sleep every night and I enjoyed the cuddle time! But, now it’s time to make a change.”

How is it your fault your baby won’t sleep (or wouldn’t sleep)?

So, we’ve made it through the holidays in one piece. Phew! Sleep seems to be back on track in our house, given we had some late bedtimes and off-schedules surrounding Christmas. If you are still struggling with the holiday upheaval, make sure you review your post-holiday sleep recovery tips, and if you’re a member, be sure to listen to the tele-seminar recording from 12/29. One member e-mailed me this about it:

“LOVED the Recovering from the Holidays and Nap Transitions taping. I missed it yesterday b/c it was the last of the in-laws… and so I was very grateful to hear this today! Perfect taping!”
-Lily

New Year’s is a time to reflect on the last year and how you want the next year to be. Multitudes will make new year’s resolutions and only a small percentage will achieve the goals they set for the new year.

A look back at 2009

This past year has been a big year. In December 2008, this website (formerly picknicksbrain.com) had around 15,000 visitors. This past December 2009, the website enjoyed over 36,000 visitors who viewed over 71,000 pages! I’ve gone from having just a few clients to ten times the number. I get many e-mail messages that thank me for the site and helping their child sleep, even if I’ve never talked to them directly. We’ve added a Members Area, a new book, and a Facebook fan page. I also hired an assistant to help me manage it all and help me get our name out there. It is beyond phenomenal how wonderful it has felt to help you and your families get more sleep and I can’t even put it into words.

This year I also learned just how determined I am to help new parents in many different ways. I became the majority owner of Babble Soft and took over operations from my business partner, Aruni, who is a serial entrepreneur. She is so great and it’s so hard to believe we only met in person for the first time last week!

On a personal level, I celebrated my five-year wedding anniversary, my 4-year old started pre-school and my almost 2-year old started talking in sentences a few weeks ago.

Fortunately, it has been a very good year for me and my family. I am able to fulfill my passion to help other parents with their sleep struggles like I’ve been through myself and be home a lot with my kids (with help) so I can avoid missing too much of these early years.

It has not all been positive, unfortunately. My father and brother had a falling out, my two older brothers were really sick earlier this year (and both had strokes), and just over the holidays I struggled to help my family understand my son’s spirited temperament and strong-willed personality. I’m sure some of you might relate.

It was difficult to explain how my older son is slow to adapt and how his first reaction is often no (unless you can make him think it was his idea ). It’s hard when someone wants to interact with him, yet his first reaction is no. It can hurt feelings and the fact he is slow-to-adapt makes him prefer familiar (mommy and daddy) over someone new (like a visitor who sees him infrequently even if the visitor is someone like grandma or grandpa). He has grown up a lot and matured SO much in the summer before he turned 4, but if you don’t know him very well, you really don’t know how far he’s really come and I only expect great things from him as he gets older (though I still worry what his persistence will be like when he’s a teenager). His younger brother, who I’m sure looks to his big brother to guide him, is much easier-going but is VERY stranger-averse. He takes a long time to warm-up to new people. Though we sometimes wish they would warm up faster, we are not sad that they won’t let just anyone cuddle with them. I know maturity will make a big difference, so we’ll just have to be patient.

Goals for 2010

Professionally, I hope, with the new name of the website, many more babies will find their sleep. I plan to keep writing new material that will be new and different for parents to help their babies find their sleep and, you never know, I might even start on that published book I’ve been thinking about. I also plan for the Helpdesk to remain busy the rest of the year (it’s surely starting out that way!). I plan to enhance the Babble Soft suite of baby care software and help even more parents gain insight into their baby’s rhythms and help manage their baby’s schedule.

Personally, I hope my Dad and brother mend their rift and my two older brothers stay healthy now that they are on the mend and on blood pressure medication. I hope my husband has a fabulous 40th birthday and my boys, who will turn 2 and 5, stay so very cute and the light of my life.

Sleep-wise, I hope my 4 year old will stop having as frequent nightmares as there is nothing that breaks your heart more than a pre-schooler who says “I hope I don’t have a nightmare tonight” and you can’t do much about it. He’s at the age where fear is normal and they are learning about mortality. Other than that, his sleep is in pretty good shape, now, thankfully (though it’s never perfect)! For my almost 2-year old, I just hope he does not need to transition to no-napping like his brother did at 2 1/2. Otherwise, he is napping well and sleeping well most nights (again, not perfect every single night especially with 2-year molars coming in). I do plan to determine whether chocolate really is a sensitivity for him or if it’s purely coincidence that nights he has had chocolate during the day, he wakes at night. We will also transition him to a toddler bed in the next 6 months and start potty training (have you calculated how many diapers a baby uses, yet? Scary stuff!).

I believe the key to successful new year’s resolutions to keep them realistic, so I’ll finish this by saying my new year’s resolutions are to exercise more often, help more parents with sleep problems, and go to bed earlier myself (I am writing this after midnight so I’m not off to a great start here! LOL). I hope, if you’re still struggling with your child’s sleep, that you make one of your resolutions is to help them sleep better. I promise you, it’s realistic!

What are your new year’s resolutions (sleep or otherwise)?

Happy Thanksgiving!!! (at least to the U.S. readers)

This week is a good time to find the silver lining and say what we are all thankful for, sleep-wise. I’ll start:

• I am thankful that my once challenging son, who inspired this site and is now 4 years old, can now be walked up to bed, put on his PJ’s, brush his teeth, cuddle in bed for a few minutes and he falls right to sleep. No fuss. No muss. (most of the time) Gone are the days where it took me an hour to put him to bed. Hooray!
• I am thankful that I can put my 21 month down for a nap by proclaiming it is “nap time” and he walks up the stairs, I put him in the crib, say night night and walk out.
• I am thankful that, most nights, my 21 month old wakes briefly, sits up in bed, and lays back down without needing anything.
• I am thankful that I can now check on my son before bed, since he sleeps with the door open and can stare down at him for a few seconds watching him sleep peacefully. I couldn’t do that when he was a baby because he’d wake up when I opened the door, yet he couldn’t sleep through noise, so I couldn’t keep the door open, either. I look forward to when my younger son’s door is open, too.
• I am thankful that I didn’t have to break a pacifier habit or thumb-sucking habit for either boy and, most of the time, they can find their own blankies (occasionally I’m woken up by my older son because he can’t find it and it’s buried in covers or on the floor).
• I am thankful that we figured out that if our sons don’t have a snack before bed that they sometimes wake up earlier in the morning or in the night.
• Mostly, I’m thankful to have two wonderful boys who are the light of my life.
• I am thankful that the fact that my boys are imperfect sleepers has given me this unique opportunity to meet so many parents out there and allow me to help them with their troubled sleepers. It is truly one of the most rewarding things in life I’ve ever done, so far.
• I am thankful that I can do my Black Friday Shopping online this week, so I can sleep a little more on Friday, one of my (very) few days off.

It doesn’t hurt to get some things off our chest, too, so we don’t bottle them up inside. I am NOT so thankful for:

• I am not so thankful that sleep is still not perfect for my eldest son (who inspired this site).
• I am not so thankful that my son is so sensitive that our imaginative play or something that seems “ok” to see on TV causes nightmares for three nights in a row this weekend (hoping for a good night tonight).
• I am not so thankful that if we think our younger son has eaten enough, but he hasn’t, that he will sometimes take longer to fall asleep or wake in the night (this is finally getting less common as he gets older).
• I am not so thankful that with two boys who aren’t the perfect sleepers that sometimes it still feels like I will never just sleep well every day again and that I’m commonly waiting for that wake-up call, even on “good nights”.
• I am not so thankful that one day my boys will be older and not need mommy anymore and I will probably be sad because now they don’t need me anymore and I will wonder why I worried so much about their sleep, yet I would love not to worry about it and it is so ironic that one day they will be teenagers that I will have to drag out of bed and I’m not so thankful that it all makes me sound so crazy.

What are YOU thankful or not-so-thankful this year, sleep-wise (or not)?

Happy Thanksgiving! Have a very joyous and safe holiday. And, sStay tuned for a BIG announcement in the next week or two!

November is March of Dimes Prematurity Awareness Month! Many babies (roughly 1,400 per day!) are born premature in the U.S. alone and unfortunately, the numbers are increasing rather than decreasing. Please take a moment to learn more about prematurity and what you can do in pregnancy to reduce your risks by reading When Babies Are Born Premature on the Babble Soft website this week. You can also read about premature development and your baby’s sleep here on this site. Please also consider forwarding the information to friends and family as you can save a life of two sharing the knowledge! Thank you for doing your part in this very important matter.

This topic “How long to cry it out?” has come up a few times in the last few weeks in one way or another, so I thought I’d talk about it this week. I always preface any discussion about cry it out by making sure that everyone understands that I’m not a “Cry It Out Pusher” and I’m very much NOT an extremist or a hard-core “sleep trainer”. I try to be realistic and just know that all babies are different and all family structures are different and what works for one won’t work for everyone. I even debated Pantley about this very topic, because while I think she has some good ideas, they simply will NOT work for all challenging baby types…at least in time before you go crazy from sleep exhaustion. I also don’t recommend cry it out for long-term co-sleepers, either.

If you are adamantly against cry it out, please do NOT do it! It probably won’t work and you’ll just feel bad about it. At all times in my sleep consultations, I work with parents on helping their baby sleep with as few tears as possible. Why? Because who wants their baby to cry? We all do what we can to limit our baby’s tears and as your sleep consultant, I understand that. My son’s sleep struggles are still very near and dear to my heart and I pretty much relive them every day in every consultation, so I very much remember where you probably are right now.

So, how long do you cry it out if you do choose that path?

First, make sure your baby is at an appropriate age for cry it out, he is no longer swaddled, and if you are feeding baby on a schedule that you have set a realistic schedule. One thing that I can’t emphasize enough is that my philosophy is that some parents might use cry it out to fix sleep problems, but please don’t make your baby go hungry if she still needs night feedings. One thing that really does make my skin crawl is hearing about letting a two month old cry throughout the night to avoid two feedings, which is hardly a “sleep problem.”

Another reason I recommend exhausting all other methods before trying cry it out is that you must be 100% committed to cry it out for it to really work. So, typically, I recommend that you feel like you’ve “tried everything” first. If you let your baby cry for a set length of time and then you “give in”, you have basically set a precedent and he will cry that long (or longer) next time (if there is a next time). Many babies respond well to non-crying methods (highly depends on your baby’s temperament) and only a small percentage of my clients really have to go full blown cry it out, so make sure you’ve truly given it your all on the other methods.

Once you 100% commit to cry it out, there really isn’t a length of time that you really stop, when you’re working on nights (though you want to limit nap time crying). The goal is for your baby to fall asleep without said sleep association and every parent will need to decide what is “too long.” I recommend deciding that before you start, if possible. Having a plan (do you visit or not, how long between visits, do you stay in the room, etc.) is of utmost importance so everyone is on the same page and will stick to it. Once you decide to stop said crutch, it can’t really be an option to change your mind, otherwise, you go backwards and might even make things worse.

Many people against cry it out will paint a picture that cry it out is cruel because a baby can’t communicate what she needs. This is true, to an extent, in that you can’t ignore all your baby’s cries and I would never recommend that. That’s irresponsible parenting. My argument is that if you give your baby a pacifier ten times per night and that’s all she “needs” then you know why she’s crying. Does that mean you give your baby everything just because she cries? Not to me. If it had, my son would not have sat in a car seat for his first year of life. Your baby only thinks she needs a pacifier to sleep because that’s all she’s known. It doesn’t mean she can’t learn a new way to sleep. Enter…the parent.

Down the line, after initial “sleep training” is over, does this mean you never go in to your baby at night? ABSOLUTELY NOT!! We all do pretty crazy things to get our baby to sleep, but when you’re ready to make a change, it’s important to commit to your plan of action. Whether you succeed in finding a no crying sleep method or try cry-it-out, babies are destined to change. Cry it out is NOT a cure-all and it doesn’t mean your baby won’t need you during an illness, when she’s getting new teeth, growth spurt, etc., so it doesn’t mean never go to your baby or use your instincts. It also doesn’t mean that cry it out “didn’t work.” because your baby needs you at night for something.

In my opinion, there is a right and wrong way to approach “sleep training”. If you’re doing cry-it-out, it might take you a few nights or a couple of weeks, but please expect things to pop up and change on you, because they will. Just remember, that cry it out won’t change your baby’s personality, there is no proof that cry it out is harmful, not even by Harvard, it’s not always clear when you’re done sleep training, and being a mom is an every day challenge.

How many days did cry it out take for you and your family?

Awhile ago, Shauna commented on one of my posts about the moon affecting her baby’s sleep and I thought that would make for an interesting article to research. This past Sunday, June 7, 2009, was a full moon and lo and behold both my sons woke up at night. Did I ever tell you how one kid waking up is bad, but both, especially at different times, is downright brutal!? (bowing down to those of you with multiples right now!)

My youngest around 12:20 started crying and I went in, cuddled him for a couple of minutes and put him back down with his crib music on and left. No more peeps out of him. Around 3 something, my preschooler came running into my room saying he had a bad dream someone was chasing him (Reminder: I will be doing a series on nightmares and night terrors this summer). After I gave him a few minutes and took him back to bed, he called out for me later to turn his fan on. Interestingly enough, I had also turned on my youngest’s ceiling fan a few hours earlier, too. I thought they were both hot (I was too), however, I remembered I wanted to do an article about the moon’s effect on our sleep, if there was any, so I looked it up and what do you know? It was a full moon that night.

So, does the moon affect our baby’s sleep?

Mostly what I found was that the moon affecting human behavior and sleep, in general, is not proven and generally accepted as untrue among scientists. In theory, it sounds like it could be likely the moon affects us as it does have an effect on the oceans / tides and the human body is made up of 65% water. However, the amount of water in the oceans is so much greater than our “small” human bodies and the water in the ocean is considered “unbounded”, that it has been said that a mosquito on our arm would have more of an effect than the moon. It’s been said that the term “lunatic” comes from our history that at one time we did believe the moon was to blame for strange behavior, but this has remained unproven by numerous scientific studies. I might have to track my sons’ sleep for the next month and see what happens during the next full moon on July 7th. For now, I’ll stick to reading Goodnight Moon to my boys.

So, tell me, for my own informal research…

Did your baby wake up during the full moon?

A parent recently mentioned to me something about her mom making her feel guilty about the things she was doing to help her baby sleep and I thought this would be a good article topic to write about.

There are co-sleeping parents whose loved ones believe in cry-it-out and don’t understand why they wouldn’t let their baby cry-it-out. Then there are parents who do cry-it-out whose loved ones don’t understand how they could let their baby cry. And, of course, there is everything in between.

I am an optimist (at least I think I am) and try to find the good in people, so I remind myself that people are only trying to help and honestly feel they are giving their best advice. Those without kids that give advice, I definitely take their advice with a grain of salt. I mean I know *I* had all the answers before I had kids. It seemed so simple didn’t it? Little did I know what a loop motherhood would put me in! I guess I didn’t have as many answers as I thought, so now I don’t expect non-parents to have as many, either.

When I would mention to people what a challenging sleeper my son was I got ALL kinds of advice! From a lady (a stranger!) on an airplane asking me if my baby needed a bottle when my son was overtired and needed a nap and I was frantically trying to “hard rock” him (as we called it) into a slumber to my mother-in-law telling me to keep him up late so he’d sleep better, anybody and everybody thought they knew how to help my son sleep:

“You need to make more noise when he sleeps” – He can’t sleep through noise!

“Don’t let him nap” – Less naps meant more over-tiredness which meant more night-wakings!

“Keep him up late” – See above

“Give him a pacifier” – Yeah because I didn’t try that when he was up every hour last night. Thanks.

“Breastfeeding is not enough” – Yes it is! He’s not hungry. He’s tired. (I went on to breastfeed both sons for a year and didn’t start solids until close to 6 months)

“Put cereal in his bottle” – No solids until 6 months old, thank you, and it can be a choking hazard*. And, see above, he was not hungry.

“When my baby was 6 weeks, I just put her to bed and didn’t get up again until morning. (even if crying)” – No thank you. Not for me.

“Does he have to go to sleep now?” (when people wanted to visit) – Yes. Yes he does, because the ramifications of not getting him to bed now is not pretty.

The advice was endless and much of it might work for other people, but just not for me. The beautiful part is that these are my children and I’m the one who gets to decide what’s best for them. Well, okay, my husband does have a say, too. So, I nodded my head or said we tried it and, okay, in some cases e-mailed all the benefits of breastfeeding to educate my mother-in-law people (by the way, I am pro-breastfeeding but not a breastfeeding nazi and feel formula feeding moms are just as loving and their babies will be just as smart as mine).

When you’re struggling with your baby or toddler’s sleep and everyone around you either has “the answer” or the baby or toddler who is that perfect sleeper, it’s easy to lose confidence and wonder if you’re doing everything wrong. You might question your ability to parent. But, what I tell my clients a lot is that sometimes you do EVERYTHING right and your baby just. won’t. sleep. You can only do so much. You can lead a horse to water, but can’t make him drink is how the saying goes and it is so true when it comes to your baby’s sleep.

Your job is to provide the soothing sleep environment and to give the opportunity for sleep and the rest is up to them (unfortunately in many of our cases!). When my son, now older, tells me at bedtime “I’m not tired” (when he says that every night and I know is not true and just that he doesn’t want the day to end), it is my job to set firm limits that lights are out at 8:30, no matter what. Most of the time he is asleep in a few minutes and other nights he might take 10-15 while he listens to a CD playing. Either way, I’ve done my job. And, when he was a baby, my job was to make sure we stuck to routine pretty regularly because of his temperament and get him the sleep he needed because of the ramifications if we didn’t. Sure, family members didn’t understand why we had to skip the barbecue for his nap (among many other things), but his sleep and well being came first and we knew him best. AND, we were the ones who had to get up at 10pm, 1am, 3am, etc. when he wasn’t sleeping from being overtired. They weren’t going to do it! There are many things to help promote sleep, of course, and that’s what this site is all about, but at some point you do have to let go and realize they are just going to do what they are going to do and they will have good days and bad days just like we do.

All in all, YOU KNOW YOUR BABY BEST! You are the one with them day in and day out (even working parents like me!). And, you know what you can handle as a parent. We knew the result if we kept our son out too late, so we chose our special events very very carefully. They would always set us back at least a week. Our second son has been much more go-with-the-flow, so I can definitely see how people do it. It just wasn’t going to happen with our first son and it’s not because he was first. It’s just his personality, temperament, and sleep needs. It’s just how the cookie crumbles.

How do you handle the guilt?

* Note: Some pediatricians will recommend some cereal in a bottle for severe cases of acid reflux, but please check with your pediatrician.

Across this site, I quote age a lot in terms of when a baby might sleep through the night or how long she might need to eat at night. But, premature development might change the way you approach your baby’s sleep.

According to HealthDay News and the magazine, Pediatrics, even babies born just 2 to 3 weeks early can be developmentally delayed. The risk is small for any ONE child, but as a group, even babies born at 34 to 35 weeks can be affected.

The earlier your baby is born, the more you need to make adjustments in terms of brain maturation. Premature development is complex, but most do catch up by the time they reach kindergarten and “85% of premature infants have catch-up growth and land on the regular growth chart by two years of age.” However, problems can show up early or later, so if you have any concerns at all, talk to your pediatrician. That’s what they are there for and always trust your instincts!

When it comes to sleep, premature development does not affect sleep any more than other areas, except that your premature baby will likely sleep like a newborn longer than if she was born full term. For example, you do need to keep in mind that when your baby turns 4 months old, you might not see the same changes that other parents have and instead, you might see them when your baby’s adjusted age reaches 4 months old. It depends on the baby and it depends on their unique premature development.

To find your baby’s adjusted age, take the # of weeks early and subtract from their actual age. For example, if your baby is 24 weeks old (6 months old), but born 8 weeks early, her adjusted age is 16 weeks old, or 4 months.

Since the age that a baby can sleep through the night is a developmental milestone, you can imagine that the length of time a parent of a premature baby has to feed at night is longer than other parents (by the adjusted age). Since even waking once per night to feed for months on-end is downright exhausting, I feel for parents that need to do it even longer than I did (about a year with both boys).

Premature development is probably one of the biggest things that worries parents. After all, there is already a lot to worry about being a parent. It’s also common for parents to compare their children to others, when they were rolling over, crawling, walking, etc. and I’m sure it’s harder for the parent of a premature infant to resist that temptation. If I compare my sons to each other, if I didn’t believe so much in the fact that each child is unique, with their own time table and their own temperament, I might worry about my younger son. After all, although he sat up early, he didn’t crawl until past 11 months (!) and now at 14 months he is only now just taking some steps to walk. His brother, on the other hand, crawled late too but walked 3 weeks later around 11 months. They are just different.

While reading my website about baby sleep, please use your premature baby’s adjusted age, as sleep is a lot to do with brain development. You may also want to track your premature baby’s development, immunizations, sleep, etc. by using an online tool. You can share your baby log with other caregivers and see the big picture when it comes to your baby’s premature development. You may also be interested in my newborn sleep tips.

Share your premature baby’s development story. How did it affect his sleep?

Is it always clear when you are done sleep training? Not for everyone, unfortunately. Success in sleep training, like so many things in our lives, is on a continuum and what is success for you might not be for someone else. It also depends on your expectations and what your goal is from sleep training.

For some parents, sleep training is allowing their baby to fuss a few minutes and voila, they sleep 10-12 hours a night ad nauseum luckily for those parents. For other parents, it won’t be quite as smooth. They might take 2-3 weeks using a no-cry sleep training method and then have a baby who pleasantly sleeps 10-12 hours per night or parents might use cry it out and in 2-3 nights, they are also sleeping through the night.

Still, there are the few of us who don’t fall into either camp. We struggle on and off for the better part of a year 2 years however much time it takes. We get on a path that starts to work and then baby gets sick. We start seeing some improvement and baby gets teeth. Our toddler has a language explosion, starts to walk, or begins to use his imagination and starts to have nightmares, and we fall back once again. We have a new baby and our 2 year old stops napping, but is a mess before bedtime. The setbacks can be numerous.

How do you know when you’re done?

For many, it will be obvious when you are done because you will be well-rested and, most importantly, so will your baby. You may have temporary setbacks, but your baby bounces back to normal quickly. But, what if you’ve done cry-it-out and your baby is still crying every night? What do you do? Does that mean it didn’t work?

As a general rule, if your baby fusses or cries lightly for 5-10 minutes, drifts off to sleep and you don’t hear a peep for 10-12 hours (or just for feedings and they go right back to sleep), you most likely just have a baby who unwinds a little before sleep. When my baby was in a good place, he would often unwind, not so much by crying, but almost moaning or humming himself to sleep. I think it’s possible that a stranger might think he was crying or fussing, but I knew him best and I know he wasn’t crying (we had plenty of experience to know the difference, unfortunately). He would sleep well at night (possibly with a feeding or two, depending on age) and there was a time that I’d go in too early in the morning where he’d be “talking” and would fuss at me for coming in too soon (I would have bet you a million dollars that wouldn’t happen!). Most importantly, he was very happy in the morning with a good night’s rest.

If your baby is crying hard for 10 minutes, then settles down, it’s still possible you are at a point that it’s going to be as good as it gets for the time being. We have been at this stage, too, unfortunately. We went through a time my son would cry hard for 5-10 minutes, we’d go in and re-settle him and he’d go right to sleep. It was a little frustrating, but fairly easy to deal with. Knowing him today, no doubt it was the same reason as now that he just didn’t want the day to end, even though he was exhausted.

If your baby is crying hard for over 10 minutes (I am generalizing — you know your baby best) and it’s been longer than a week of sleep training, most likely you have a lingering problem. In babies, this problem is probably over-tiredness and you need to bump bedtime EARLIER. Even after sleep training, my son would get over-tired and over-stimulated and cry and cry at bedtime some nights “for no reason”. He was fed, dry, etc. and was just T-I-R-E-D! It was very very frustrating. We couldn’t really soothe him all the way to sleep every time (though we’d go down that road, too) because that led to our 3 hour rocking marathons every. single. time. or worse, waking every so many hours for re-rocking / re-soothing. We were still basically at the best place we could be at the present time. We tried with everything we had to keep bedtime early enough. Even now, he will get cranky when he’s tired, but insists “I’m not tired!” and then promptly falls asleep 5 minutes later, literally.

For toddlers, crying at bedtime or resisting a bedtime could be over or under-tired, depending on the toddler’s schedule and temperament. Unfortunately, without knowing the specific details, it’s difficult to know which one it is. In general, if your toddler was going to bed fine and all of a sudden started fighting the routine, you might consider she needs longer wake-time before bedtime. If she recently transitioned naps, you might need to consider less.

There are many times you might have setbacks, but in general, if things haven’t improved in 2-3 weeks, regardless of the method (closer to 2 for crying methods and 3-4 for no-cry), you might want to re-evaluate your chosen method to get your baby or toddler to sleep.

How did you know when you were done?

A common question is what toys, if any, you should have in the crib with your baby. This article will go over some pros and cons to having baby toys in the crib when it comes to your baby’s sleep.

Baby Toys in Crib – Newborns

To keep SIDS risks low, you should refrain from putting any soft objects in your baby’s crib, and that includes soft plush toys, blankets, pillows, etc. Make sure you read all information to reduce SIDS risks.

A mobile is a good toy to put above the baby’s crib, away from her face. A mobile provides visual stimulation and promotes brain development. Keep in mind that some mobiles are meant to stimulate baby and others are meant to soothe baby to sleep. Make sure you use it at appropriate times. If your baby gets too excited by the mobile, he might take longer to fall asleep or have trouble settling down.

Baby Toys in Crib – 8 to 12 Months

As your baby gets older, you may start to feel more comfortable adding more toys to your baby’s crib. You might consider introducing a baby lovey for comfort and adding a crib toy he can interact with such as this Ocean Wonders Musical Aquarium. The nice thing about a toy like this is that a) The music is soothing for sleep, b) It gives him something to play with if he isn’t quite ready for sleep, rather than cry, and c) once he is old enough, he can turn it back on himself in the middle of the night.

Baby Toys in Crib – Toddlers

There is one drawback to the crib toy mentioned above once a baby becomes a toddler (or sooner), depending on your baby’s perceptiveness. Too much to play with and it can get in the way of your baby or toddler going to sleep. At one point my son started playing with his aquarium (above) for up to an hour before falling asleep. He loved that toy, though, and he’d often turn it on in the middle of the night to help himself go back to sleep (bonus!), so I hated to remove it. One thing we did do, though, is make sure the light was off on the toy (there are 3 settings) because too much light made him stay up too long at night and stimulated him too much and we kept the volume low. We kept the aquarium until he went to a toddler bed around the age of 2 and I phased it out to avoid that “play factor”. We later got him a Cloud b Twilight Constellation Night Light along with a music CD to “keep him company” while he falls asleep (it stays on for 45 minutes with stars on the ceiling). It’s nice to cuddle at night “under the stars”, but thankfully there is nothing for him to “play” with, just his imagination.

The bottom line with baby toys in the crib is to find a good balance that is not too stimulating, but keeps her happy while falling asleep or when she wakes up in the morning or from a nap. Amazingly, there was a phase in my first son’s life where I actually would go in *too soon* in the morning while he hung out and relaxed. Coming from a time when he was a 4 month old baby who hated to be alone EVER in his crib, I was shocked to say the least!

What baby toys do you have in the crib?