Dreading Bedtime: How to shift your mindset around the bedtime battle

Most parents I talk with want bedtime to be a peaceful, connected time they look forward to. They want their little one to fall asleep after a bedtime routine everyone enjoys. Sometimes bedtime comes, and that lovely shift from day to night becomes a bedtime struggle. When it happens enough times, it can feel like bedtime is a battle and there’s no clear path out of the pattern. They start dreading bedtime. When the days end like that, it can start to wear on your mental health. Here’s how to shift things when you start dreading bedtime.

Bedtime, EncouragementGuest UserNovember 22, 2021bedtime, bedtime routine, bedtimetips Comment

How to night wean: tools for making the transition

Deciding to night wean is a big step. If you didn’t see my blog post earlier in the month on the decision to night wean, check it out here. Once you’ve decided this transition is right for you, or even just to reduce nighttime nursing, how do you start to night wean?

There are many ways to support your little one through the night weaning process. Their personality, readiness, language skills, and preferences will all guide you in coming up with a plan. There are simple, low-pressure ways to cut back on nursing and more intentional strategies to eliminate feeds.

Toddler SleepGuest UserOctober 29, 2021night weaning, Breastfeeding, toddler transitions, weaning helpComment

When you think you are ready for night weaning: 8 things to consider

You are tired. Your little one feeds a lot over night. You aren’t sure if nighttime nursing is a help or making sleep worse. You think you might be ready for night weaning, but you’re not sure if it’s the right thing to do.

Infant Sleep, Toddler SleepGuest UserOctober 13, 2021night weaning, toddler sleep, nursing, BreastfeedingComment

What to do when you are feeling pressure to sleep train by family and friends

We live in a sleep training culture. There’s no doubt about it. Sleep training is the number 1 thing recommended to parents of infants and toddlers to both preventively tackle sleep or in response to sleep struggles. It is so much the default that many parents don’t even know that there are other ways to support sleep. Not all parents sleep train, however. Here are some things you can try when you’re feeling pressure from others to sleep train, and know you do not want to.

EncouragementGuest UserSeptember 25, 2021parenting encouragementComment

Separation anxiety and sleep

Older baby and young toddler sleep is a dynamic time with many developmental changes that can affect sleep. One of these phases that can make sleep more of a challenge is separation anxiety. Understanding separation anxiety, sleep, and ways to support your little one through it can make this phase less of a struggle.

Why feeding to sleep is a healthy sleep habit!

Feeding to sleep is a healthy sleep habit. The belief that it is not came from opinion not science. Feeding to sleep is normal, common, and healthy. If you want to feed to sleep do so with confidence. If you think it’s time to change things, that’s ok too.

Three things to do when you are feeling alone in your parenting

Being a responsive parent is parenting against the mainstream. It’s easy to feel isolated and as though you are the only one parenting this way when all your friends and family parent from a different philosophy. While they mean well, being the only responsive parent in your support system often means lots of unwanted advice, pressure, and even criticism. Here are three things to do when you’re feeling alone as a parent.

Let’s Talk Contact Naps!

So many parents reach out to me with concerns about contact naps. Sometimes they are worried about long-term sleep independence. Sometimes it’s more about sustainability. Sometimes is just an overwhelming need to start moving away from all contact sleep. Both my kids have been huge contact sleepers, so I know the struggle!

How to support a nursing parent with nighttime parenting

Sharing night time parenting is complicated for breastfeeding families

If you are the nursing parent doing all or most of the nighttime parenting, you may have a whole lot of mixed emotions. You may love the closeness of those quiet, snuggly feeds in the middle of the night or feel touched out. You may love feeling needed while also wanting some more freedom and to share the effort with your partner. You may cope ok with disrupted sleep or be desperately tired.

If you are the other parent in this dynamic, it’s easy to feel helpless. To want to support your partner, but to have no idea how.

What to do when anxiety keeps you from sleeping

Stress, worry, and anxiety have a negative impact on our sleep, regardless of how often our child wakes in the night. From everyday concerns to more intense clinical depression and anxiety, mental health and sleep are connected. And once you have trouble sleeping, you often add worry about your own sleep to the mix! There are things you can do to help when anxiety keeps you from sleeping.

EncouragementGuest UserJune 28, 2021get better sleep, how to fall asleep, tips for anxiety and sleep, bedtime tipsComment

How to help your family get better sleep without sleep training

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.

The History of Sleep Training

Depending on your social circles, sleep training is a given, a tool reluctantly used to improve sleep, or something to strongly oppose. In all the controversy surrounding sleep training safety, efficacy, necessity, and whether or not it’s moral, we rarely stop to consider how the concept got started. Sleep training, however, is a relatively new entirely western idea. It is a concept that emerged from changing values, shifting cultural norms, and the beliefs of prominent physicians in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

We live in a sleep training culture. Over the last 200 years, our values and beliefs have shifted leaving few parents and professionals familiar with biologically normative feeding and sleep patterns. Even modern pediatricians have minimal training on developmentally normal sleep and lactation. Modern life makes these norms difficult to support, and the response by our systems has been to push change on babies rather than develop new ways of supporting families.

Taking care of yourself as a bedsharing, breastsleeping parent

Bedsharing and Breastsleeping are wonderful tools to support better sleep for the whole family. Most babies and even toddlers often sleep better snuggled up next to their parent. When you have a frequent waker or high touch need child, bedsharing can be the answer to surviving the intensity of the early years. You still need to make sure you’re taking care of your own needs!

Guest UserMay 21, 2021Comment

How to transfer baby from arms to sleep space

You’ve finally gotten your baby asleep in your arms. Success! Now if you can just put them down. The second you start to move them to their crib or bassinette, their eyes pop open and they start to cry. Back to square one! What to do?

This is such a common struggle. And I want to first assure you that you aren’t doing anything wrong or creating any bad sleep habits.

Infant SleepGuest UserMay 8, 2021transferring baby, safe sleep, infant sleep tipsComment

Baby Sleep Schedules: What you need to know about routines, schedules, and the difference

These questions come up over and over again from parents of newborns through older babies. It’s easy to understand the appeal of getting your baby on a schedule. Schedules promise predictability and control over something that feels very out of control, your babies feeding and sleeping. Strict schedules, however, are generally not the best approach for children of any age, but especially babies.

I often recommend routines rather than schedules. So, what’s the difference between a routine and a schedule?

Infant SleepGuest UserApril 23, 2021sleep schedules, baby routines, infant sleep tips, infant sleep specialistComment

Supporting sleep after sleep training doesn’t work: a client story

Some parents seek out my support because it matches their established responsive parenting values and are excited to find sleep support without sleep training. Other parents tried sleep training, and it didn’t work. They somehow find their way to me, and it takes a leap of faith to try something very different.

X and R took that leap when a friend recommended me to them after trying cry it out and still struggling with sleep. I’m so thankful they were open minded and curious, because working with them was a great experience!

TestimonialGuest UserApril 14, 2021sleep training doesn't work, sleep training alternatives, testimonialComment

Normal newborn sleep: what’s going on in the 4th trimester

What does normal newborn sleep really mean?

“Sleep when the baby sleeps.”
“You’ll never sleep again!”
“Newborns sleep a lot.”
“Is baby a good sleeper?”

Are these comments familiar? So many people like to share comments about normal newborn sleep, but it rarely comes with realistic, practical information to help parents understand normal sleep in these intense early months. However, understanding sleep in the early months through a developmental and evolutionary lens can dramatically change your perspective on your baby’s sleep. When your perspective shifts, you can support sleep in a way that works with your baby’s biology and leads to more sleep for the whole family.

Infant SleepGuest UserApril 7, 2021newborn sleep, fourth trimester, normal sleep, sleep advice, infant sleep tipsComment

What to say to bad sleep advice

Everyone loves to share their opinions when it comes to parenting around sleep. Whether you ask for their input or not, you get a lot of advice. So, what do you say when the advice is unwanted or at odds with your parenting approach?

EncouragementGuest UserMarch 21, 2021sleep advice, bad sleep advice, how to respond to advice, unwanted adviceComment

Holistic Sleep Coaching: The Sleep Training Alternative You Never Knew You Needed

Holistic sleep coaching is an alternative option that is based on biologically normal sleep, responsive parenting, and gentle, family-centered methods. When you are struggling with your baby or toddler’s sleep, knowing the right path forward for your family can seem daunting. The internet and baby books are full of strict schedules and sleep advice that conflict with parenting instincts. You may feel like you have no other choice except to sleep train to improve your family’s sleep, but sleep training isn’t the only option.

Your bedtime routine questions, answered.

I get a lot of questions about bedtime routines. They are a popular and important part of supporting sleep, but there’s a lot of confusion around what’s helpful when it comes to a good bedtime routine.

Simply saying start a bedtime routine and do x, y, and z every night isn’t helpful. Children are unique and they don’t all respond to the same routine in the same way. I think it’s more helpful to understand the ideas behind a bedtime routine then to tell you a formula for one.

BedtimeGuest UserFebruary 24, 2021bedtime, bedtime routine, bedtime tips, infant sleep, toddler sleep, bedtime routine questionsComment

Helpful Resources

Sharing night time parenting is complicated for breastfeeding families

What does normal newborn sleep really mean?