Sleep Training - What is it and what isn’t it?
Sleep training. It’s a hot and often contentious topic in parenting, but it really doesn’t have to be. Parent on parent judgement and the spreading of misinformation have given sleep training a bad reputation – one it doesn’t deserve. In this blog, I am going to address what sleep training is and what sleep training isn’t in an effort to clear up some of the confusion.
Let’s start with what sleep training is. It’s pretty simple. Sleep training is teaching your child to fall asleep independently, that is, without assistance from movement or a prop. I would say that 95% of the families I work with enlist my help because their child has become dependent on something to fall asleep, whether it be motion, nursing, a bottle, a pacifier, a parent in bed with them, etc., and parents don’t know how to break the cycle. With these families, we create opportunities for the child to practice being put in their safe sleep space with the absence of their usual crutch and implement strategies for how the parent is going to respond, usually offering some degree of support for bedtime and wake ups until the dependence on that crutch no longer exists.
This is the part that I think parents have a hard time with and where the misinformation begins. The crying. Babies are creatures of habit, and inevitably, when you change some element of their routine or do things in a new way, they’re going to have feelings about it. They also only have one way of communicating their feelings and needs until they are verbal; crying. But I say this to my clients all the time and it really is true: Not all crying is the same. Not all crying is communicating fear, pain, or abandonment. In fact, crying is a very healthy form of communication and it’s important for children to be given the right and space to express themselves rather than being immediately pacified in order to stop the noise. It’s also important for parents to tune into the crying to learn what their child is trying to communicate. I can’t tell you how many clients I’ve worked with that have learned through the process of sleep training that they were misinterpreting their child’s cries as true distress when their child was actually communicating “I’m tired and I don’t know how to fall asleep,” or “This is new and I don’t prefer it.” So many of my clients have reported being able to better discern what their child’s cries truly mean as a result of the sleep training process, which is always one of my favorite pieces of positive feedback!
I’ve sort of begun to allude to this, but now let’s talk about what sleep training is not. Sleep training is not necessarily leaving your child to “cry it out” as you will often hear asserted. Is cry it out, or extinction, a method of sleep training? Yes. Is it appropriate for every family, for every child, for every age, for every circumstance? Absolutely not. Are there moments where it is appropriate? Absolutely. And the only person that can judge what is and is not appropriate for an individual family is the family itself (with the guidance of their pediatrician and their sleep consultant should they choose to seek my input in their method selection). Period. If you’ve heard that sleep training is synonymous with cry it out, you’ve probably also heard that allowing your child to cry for any amount of time will damage them in some way or affect the parent-child attachment. This is not true. Please reference this post for more information on the topic.
I hope this helped clear up some confusion and dispel some myths about sleep training. Sleep training is perfectly healthy and can be game-changing for parents and children alike, both in terms of mental and physical health.
If you have questions about sleep training or would like to schedule a discovery call with me to discuss the process of working together to sleep-train your child, please click here.
The (Dreaded) Four-Month Sleep Regression
If you’re reading this, your baby is likely going through the four-month sleep regression, or they’re about to and you’re trying to get ahead of it (way to go!). There’s no way to sugar coat this: The regression sucks. It happens to every baby, although not always at four months on the dot, and there isn’t a whole lot parents can do to prevent it or make it go away. But there are definitely things you can do to mitigate it and set yourself up for success. In this blog post I am going to discuss what the four-month sleep regression looks like, why it happens, and what you can do to survive. And you will survive, I promise!
Let’s start with what it looks like. If you’re already in it, no doubt you are very familiar with this. The four-month sleep regression is characterized by short naps and frequent overnight wake ups starting between 3-5 months, which generally lead to increased fussiness. You may notice that your baby is extra irritable during the day, harder to put down for sleep, unable to stay asleep for very long, waking up many times overnight, and waking up earlier in the morning. It’s pretty terrible. But it’s also normal, and here’s why.
The four-month sleep regression is thought to be caused by several things, all taking place at once, which is frustrating because it makes sleep so hard to achieve, but also, Mother Nature is kind of killing several birds with one stone here as opposed to introducing a new disruption every month for the first year of life. Silver linings, right?
One cause of the four-month sleep regression is that your baby is going through a massive growth spurt, physically, but also cognitively and socially. This physical growth spurt may cause them to need to eat more frequently day and night, leading to more wake ups (although not all wake ups overnight are necessarily due to hunger). Socially and cognitively, they are really starting to blossom – engaging with their surroundings more, interacting with others, learning new skills, and realizing that their actions cause reactions. It’s really amazing to watch! But it can also lead to some serious FOMO.
Another cause of the regression is that around this time, babies transition from a two-phase sleep cycle to a five-phase sleep cycle like adults. This can be a challenge for babies because a brief period of arousal takes place between stages four and five of the sleep cycle as we transition from deep sleep to lighter REM sleep. Adults experience this arousal too, we just don’t recollect it come morning because we are proficient at getting ourselves back to sleep quickly. Babies, on the other hand, often do not know how to put themselves back to sleep, particularly if they are used to being assisted to sleep, so this period of arousal usually results in crying and the request for mom and dad to help get them back to sleep.
Lastly, around four months is usually when babies are beginning to roll and therefore ditching the swaddle. The swaddle is an amazing tool – one that replicated the womb-like sensation of being hugged and perhaps more practically, one that curbed the Moro, or startle, reflex. Since it is unsafe to swaddle a baby with their arms down once they are rolling, it is around this time that parents transition to a sleep sack where baby’s arms are out. This, of course, is a safety necessity, but it also results in some sleep disruption because it is new, and because the Moro reflex can remain intact until up to 6 months of age, so babies often still startle awake at this time. Again, waking up isn’t problematic in and of itself, but if a baby does not know how to put themselves back to sleep, you’re likely to hear crying.
Finally, the info you’ve been waiting for – what can you do to mitigate the regression and help get your baby sleeping soundly again? Well, you have a few options. You can take a more passive approach, which will likely see you through the regression but will take more time. Or you can take a more active approach, which will require some specific strategies and action on your part, but will result in quality sleep for you and baby much quicker.
For a more passive approach, I recommend that you:
1. Use white noise. You may already be doing this, in which case, keep it up. But if you’re not, this can be super helpful in soothing babies and helping connect their sleep cycles.
2. Offer full feeds during the day. Some babies are more snackers or grazers, and while that’s technically ok as long as they are gaining weight appropriately (consult your pediatrician if you are unsure about this), from a sleep perspective, it’s helpful to give your baby as many calories during the day as possible. Look at it like this: Babies need the calories they need in a 24-hour period. The more they consume during the day, the less they require at night.
3. Get baby outside during the day! As I mentioned, at four months babies go through a massive cognitive growth spurt, causing them to take in their environment in new ways. Allow them to explore and engage with their environment. Have stimulating wake time with them. This will not only support their growth and development, but will tire them out.
For a more active approach, I highly recommend sleep training. As I discussed, babies and adults wake overnight. That much is normal. But the frequent waking and crying overnight can generally be attributed to not having the skills and tools necessary to put themselves back to sleep independently. The good news is that due to the massive cognitive growth taking place at 4 months, babies actually pick up new habits and routines really quickly! I see it with my clients all the time. My clients who sleep train during the four-month sleep regression consistently see faster results than those who train at other times. There is of course some variation based on what methods my clients choose, but this cannot be overstated: four months is a GREAT time to sleep train.
If you have questions about what sleep training is, visit my blog post on the topic here. If you would like to sleep train your little one but don’t know where to start or feel you could use some coaching through the process, set up a free discovery call with me here. I work with families to provide options for sleep training along with coaching, encouragement, and accountability throughout the process. Let’s get you and your little one the sleep you need.