Peaceful Parent Sleep Coaching -- baby and child sleep consultant for parents of young children in Brooklyn and globally
  • About
  • Services
  • Free Consult
  • Sleep & Parenting Hacks
  • Success
  • Videos
  • Life Coaching
  • About
  • Services
  • Free Consult
  • Sleep & Parenting Hacks
  • Success
  • Videos
  • Life Coaching

Sleep & Life Hacks

“Is There A Way To Teach My Newborn How To Be A Great Sleeper So I Don’t Have To Sleep Train Later On?”

9/29/2021

0 Comments

 
Sleep training a newborn
It's never too early to start establishing great sleep habits.
This was a question I received from Fatimah, my first client in Saudi Arabia. 
​

She hadn’t sleep trained her older son until he was a year old. At that point, he was waking up seven times a night to nurse. And sleep training him was excruciating.

Now eight-week-old Farris seemed to be following in brother’s footsteps. Fatimah really didn’t want to endure the same nightmare again.


Also, Farris was heavy, and rocking him and nursing him to sleep multiple times a night was really hurting Fatimah’s back. She has almost no time with her older son because Farris seemed to need her all the time, and she was feeling a lot of guilt about that. And of course, she was exhausted from nursing and not-sleeping all night long.

But she didn’t want to do anything that would harm him, of course. So she scheduled a free call with me, and we decided to move forward in a gradual, gentle progression. Neither of us wanted him to cry for long periods of time. Older babies can handle this but newborns aren’t ready for that.

Newborns have immature nervous systems and often need a lot of help falling asleep…. But that doesn’t mean they can’t learn to take over the job.

Here’s some of the strategies we used. None of them involved crying:


  • Gradually increasing the intervals between feedings, with the goal of spacing them at least three hours apart.

    This helps because when babies are snacking frequently, they never really fill up their bellies. Which means they can’t nap very long because they get (a little) hungry again.


  • Using the Soothing Ladder to gently reduce Farris’ need for help falling asleep. So when Fatimah had the energy for it (not every time he slept), she put him down awake in his bassinet and gave him a chance to fall asleep on his own. She stayed next to him and gradually offered more and more support, eventually working up to feeding him to sleep if he needed it.

    With lots of practice, Farris got better at putting himself to sleep. With zero crying. In his final day of our two-week sleep training program, he put himself to sleep all by himself three times. Amazing progress for a newborn who previously needed intense nursing and rocking to sleep every single time he slept!

    He also got faster at putting himself to sleep – by the end, it took just five minutes.


  • Dramatically shortening his awake intervals. Fatimah started watching for early sleepy cues like a hawk, and putting him down to sleep much sooner than she had been previously doing.

  • Creating a much earlier bedtime. It will come as no surprise to any of my former clients that an earlier bedtime helped Farris get more total hours of sleep.

  • Maintaining an ideal sleep environment for most of Farris' naps. Using darkness, white noise, and the bassinet (almost) every time created strong sleep associations that made it easier for Farris to sleep. 
    ​
  • Having a lot of patience and consistency. None of these strategies are a quick fix. In the short-term, a lot of patience, consistency, and hard work are required. But with these three ingredients, huge changes can take place. 

Here’s what Fatimah told me today about her experience, “I never imagined that we could reach this point in just two weeks.”

Some of the changes she noticed in Farris, “He actually now prefers to fall asleep on his back in his bassinet instead of in my arms. He often wakes up happy now, whereas before, he was really fussy. Sometimes I don’t even realize he has woken up because he wakes up happily, without crying!”

And about herself, “I have so much more energy now that I am sleeping more. I would never have been able to do this on my own. It was scary at first, because I never sleep trained my older son at this age. I am so glad that I could message you with questions, or even just to rant! That really helped.

Farris sleeping independently will make it so much easier for him when I go back to work. I am so excited that his sleep habits will continue to grow and I will never have to sleep train Farris like I did with my older son!

It's also great having some time to relax and connect with my husband in the evenings. 

I am so happy I did this!"


If you would like to help gently guide your newborn to better sleep, it is absolutely possible! Better sleep is in your future. Schedule a free chat and let’s get your family the sleep you deserve. 

0 Comments

Why Your Toddler Looks Like a Train Wreck After a Late Afternoon Nap

9/13/2021

2 Comments

 
Picture
Poor little Elian looks miserable because, well, he is.

He fell asleep in the car at 4 pm and woke up after 5.

No doubt he needed the sleep, but the problem is that the timing was all wrong.

You know how you adult feel terrible if you take a nap at 5 pm? Cranky and groggy and miserable?

That’s how Elian was feeling too. Because the timing was off.

Our bodies produce melatonin at predictable times. For a two-year-old like Elian, his body produces melatonin the middle of the night and again in the early evening.

When we sleep at those times, we generally fall asleep easily and wake up easily (assuming we don’t have other sleep issues, of course). So a toddler who naps in the middle of the day
should wake up fairly cheerfully.

When we sleep at the wrong times, we feel terrible.

I didn’t know this when my daughter, Calliope, was a toddler. I loved having long mornings to do things so I would put her down around 2 pm for her nap. And I couldn’t understand why she was waking up absolutely hysterical a couple of hours later. There was nothing I could do to coax her out of it. It was at least 30-minutes of kicking and screaming from my otherwise super chill toddler. It was horrible.

So sticking to a strict naptime schedule may be inconvenient to us parents, but if the payoff is a cheerful, alert child, I think you’ll agree it’s usually worth it. Save your exceptions to the schedule for days you really need them.

If you have optimized your child’s schedule and sleep is still a mess, set up a free discovery call and let’s get your family the rest you deserve.
2 Comments

"Drowsy But Awake Is a Vicious Myth Designed to Make Parents Feel Bad About Themselves"

9/6/2021

0 Comments

 
Drowsy But Wake Doesn't Work
A parent told me this recently and I had to laugh. And agree. 

Every sleep book out there will tell you to put your child down in the crib “drowsy but awake.” 

And parents the world over strive for this goal and then wonder what they are doing wrong when they carefully rock or feed their baby to a state of drowsy calm, gently place said baby in the crib… and the baby erupts in angry howls of protest.

Parents, it’s not your fault. 

It’s bad advice.

Forget you ever heard “drowsy but awake.” It doesn’t work. 

You have two choices. You either feed/rock/bounce/walk your child fully to sleep, or you put them down fully awake. 

If you do the former, your child will more than likely wake up at some point, wonder where your loving arms -- the last thing they remember -- went, and start to cry for you to come back and repeat the process. It’s not your child’s fault. He or she just doesn’t know how to put themself back to sleep.

Imagine if you went to sleep in your cozy bed, surrounded by fluffy pillows and your soft comforter, and woke up on the hard living floor. You wouldn’t know how to go back to sleep either.

The same is true for your child. If she went to sleep in your warm embrace, she doesn’t know how to go back to sleep without the same conditions. 

This is why I always recommend putting your child in his bed fully awake. If this is new to him, yep, he’s probably going to cry. 

But not because he’s afraid, or feeling abandoned (pro tip: children can’t even understand the concept of abandonment before late toddlerhood), or in pain, never mind traumatized.

He’s crying because he’s tired and he doesn’t know what to do, becuase you’ve always helped before, and he’s probably angry that you’ve changed up the routine that he liked so much.

Imagine if someone told you, “from now on, you will no longer be having coffee in the morning. Good luck.” 
You’d be pissed as hell. And so is your confused kiddo. And being that he’s so little, you can’t explain.

Don’t feel guilty. He’ll get over it. The best thing you can do to help him is to be strong and consistent. Don’t cave. Ever. Well, at least not two weeks. Otherwise, all that crying will be for naught. After two weeks, once the new habit is strong, you can make the occasional exception.

I promise that if you stay strong, he’ll get it, and not only that, he’ll be happier than ever!

Of course, if you are able to rock/feed/bounce/walk your child to sleep and she stays asleep, rock on. (No pun intended.) But if that was working for you, you probably wouldn’t be reading this blog post.
​

This is not an easy transition. Be kind to yourself. Know that it's supposed to be hard. Remember when you started a new exercising or organizing or flossing habit? It was super hard at first, right? But then you started to get used to it and little by little, it got easier and easier until it was second nature, at least most of the time.

The same is true for your child. She'll get there. She just needs time and your loving consistency. 

You don't have to make the change alone. Let me help. Set up a free discovery call and let's get your family the sleep you deserve. You got this!


0 Comments

    Author

    Abby Wolfson is a pediatric nurse practitioner, certified child sleep consultant and certified life coach for parents. She divides her time between Brooklyn, NY and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. 

    Archives

    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019

    Categories

    All
    Achieving Your Impossible Goals
    Adolescents
    Breastfeeding
    Coaching
    Developmental Leaps
    Early Waking
    Illness
    Life Coaching
    Living Internationally
    Naps
    Newborns
    Overtiredness
    Positive Reinforcement
    Postpartum Depression
    Preschoolers
    Self Soothing
    Setting Limits
    Sibling Challenges
    Single Parents
    Sleep Crutches
    Sleep Deprivation
    Sleep Essentials
    Sleep Obstacles
    Sleep Schedules
    Sleep Training Methods
    Sleep Training Success
    Sleep Transitions
    Strong Attachment
    Tantrums
    Thought Work
    Time Changes
    Travel
    Twins
    Vulnerability

    RSS Feed

SCHEDULE A FREE CONSULT
Picture
Every child deserves a great night's sleep.
​© 2019 Peaceful Parent Sleep Coaching. All Rights Reserved. Storybrand Website Design by Red Door Designs