Sleep Training Alternatives

If you’ve stumbled on this page, you may be looking for alternatives to sleep training, or wondering if sleep training alternatives even exist. If that sounds like you, then I’m so glad that you found your way here so that I can show you that there are other ways!

“100 years of rapidly changing infant care fashions cannot alter several million years of evolutionarily derived infant physiology.”

-Dr. Hellen Ball, Baby Sleep Information Source

This quote really sums up the problem. The gap between cultural expectations and biological norms has widened over the past 100 plus years. Parents are bombarded with unrealistic messages about how there baby or toddler should be sleeping and then told the solution is sleep training. Even when it doesn’t feel right, or doesn’t work, parents aren’t given any other support.

You can support sleep in a responsive and sustainable way without sleep training. Having realistic expectations based on development and your child’s temperament as well as optimizing your routines, environments, and daily rhythms can support sleep in a way that works with biology. And when larger changes need to happen, there are responsive ways to move through the process.

Resources

 

Need more personalized support? I’m here to help. Schedule a quick intro call, so we can talk about how to approach your sleep struggles!

 
Mother holds her baby close to her chest and lifts his cheek up against hers.

Holistic Sleep Coaching

The Sleep Training Alternative You Never Knew You Needed

 
Close up image of an infant's hand gently grasping its parent's finger

Supporting sleep after sleep training doesn’t work

One client’s story

Close up image of a baby's feet as he lies in his crib awake

History of Sleep Training

Unpacking sleep training’s history and roots.

Newly postpartum mother hugs her newborn close to her face. In the background, her dog is sitting on the family bed.

Getting better sleep

WITHOUT sleep training!

 
Mother and child sit in a window seat reading a book. The child is reaching up to touch his mother's cheek.

Responsive Parenting

What is it and why it matters!

Close up image of the face of a sleeping baby.

Baby Sleep Schedules

Schedules, Routines, and the difference between them.

What to do when you’re pressured to sleep train

Responses to friends and family

 
Newborn lays swaddled in a blue blanket on a white bed.

Developmentally Appropriate Sleep Expectations

Birth to age Five

A father holds his baby close on his chest as the infant takes a contact nap.

Let’s talk contact naps!

Answering common questions I get about contact naps.

Need more personalized support?

I’m here to help. Schedule a quick intro call, so we can talk about how to approach your sleep struggles!