Its effects on parenting around sleep are powerful, and parents feel that pressure. When you dig into the research on sleep training, however, you find that it isn’t as soundly supported as many parents and professionals believe. In this post, I’m highlighting 10 facts about sleep training research that everyone should know to make informed decisions about how you support sleep for your children.
This article features an outline of realistic expectations for your child’s sleep in the first 5 years, updated for 2022. It can be hard to know what healthy sleep patterns even are at each age. This article will cover healthy and developmentally appropriate sleep expectations for infants and toddlers by age. Download this as a PDF for an easy reference.
Bedsharing is a wonderful, biologically normal way to care for your baby at night. It’s also a big controversy in safe sleep. Since many pediatricians only focus on a “just don’t” attitude towards bedsharing, parents are stuck trying to navigate safe sleep messages and the reality of nighttime parenting. In this guide, I’ll answer some of the many questions I hear from parents about sleeping with their baby, cosleeping safety, bedsharing, and many questions that I also asked as a new parent.
There’s so much conflicting and confusing information on baby and toddler sleep. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed and stuck between what feels right and what everyone says you should do. So often parents feel as though they have two options, sleep train or do nothing and struggle along until time improves things. However, there are a range of gentle, responsive ways to support sleep without sleep training.
Here are three shifts you can make to improve sleep while decreasing overwhelm.
Read MoreThe other day I was talking with a client about how hard it is when your little fights naps! It reminded me of my own struggles with a toddler who won’t nap. My daughter was fighting her nap so hard, even though she was tired. This wasn’t the first or last time she refused a much-needed nap, and every time the struggle is real!
Read MoreSo many parents start asking “When will my baby sleep through the night” early on in their child’s life. Our culture places a strong emphasis on babies sleeping through the night. This view shapes new parent’s focus and expectations. From friends to family to pediatricians the questions and messages are the same. It is your responsibility to get your baby sleeping through the night as soon as you can. If your baby doesn’t sleep for long stretches, then you are doing something wrong, hurting their development, and undermining their ability to sleep forever!
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In an ideal world, parents talk through major parenting decisions and values ahead of baby’s arrival. However, we don’t live in an ideal world. It’s hard to know all the things you should discuss, and even when you do, it’s hard to know how you’ll feel once baby is here. The reality of your emotions and experiences can be hard to predict.