Does the term "sleep training" conjure up images of wailing babies and agonized parents? If so, then I hope what I'm about to say next will help paint a different picture for you: sleep training does not have to involve hours of crying. Sleep training does not have to mean you listening to your baby wail because you're not "allowed" to offer any comfort. Simply put, sleep training does not mean letting your baby cry it out. So what does sleep training mean? Sleep training is merely the
no cry sleep method
Will Your Baby Be Spoiled If You Don’t Sleep Train?
A client e-mailed me not too long ago concerned about what a co-worker told her about her baby. Her co-worker told her that if she didn't sleep train and let her baby cry it out, her baby would grow up to be spoiled. She alluded to the fact that by the time he was 7 or 8 years old, he'd be "running the show." This particular client has experience with two very different cultures, one being in the West and one in the East. In the West (where she lives now) she feels tremendous pressure to let
How Sleep Training Progress Looks
When parents update me on their sleep training progress, sometimes it is a little frustrating for them if their baby has a good night one night, then a bad night and some back and forth. I thought it would be a good idea to talk about that in today's post and why it happens. If nothing else, I know it helps to have realistic expectations while sleep training. One of the biggest lessons I learned when I was struggling with my own son's sleep problems is that when the books implied all of our
Can You Mix Attachment Parenting With Sleep Training?
Before I had a baby, I did not know anything about "attachment parenting" nor had I ever heard the term. It is a little "weird" considering I am an avid reader (well, before kids and this website when I used to have time), but I guess none of my friends ever mentioned it and I was never exposed, even though Dr. Sears coined the term with his wife over 20 years ago. I did know I wanted to breastfeed. I did know I didn't want to co-sleep (though we did anyway out of necessity for a
Taking the Cry Out of Cry It Out
All of us are looking for ways to help our babies sleep with as little crying as possible. No crying would be ideal and surprisingly (when I look back at our long and difficult journey), the first few nights I actually helped my challenging sleeper of a son learn to fall asleep with virtually NO tears. It took TWO LONG HOURS for TWO LONG NIGHTS, but by the third night, he did it in just 20 minutes and then on the 4th night with no tears into his crib (we were trying to stop co-sleeping because