With All the Developmental Leaps. Teething, Travel & Illness, When Is The Best Time To Sleep Train?

Are You Waiting for the ‘Perfect Time’ to Improve Sleep? Here’s Why That’s a Trap

It was 2:30 AM. Again.

You rocked your baby for the third time that night, trying to remember what the pediatrician said about wake windows and wondering if the next sleep regression had already started. “Maybe we should just wait until this phase is over,” you whisper to your partner, even though you’ve said the same thing for three months now.

Sound familiar?

You want better sleep. Desperately.

But you’re not sure now is the right time. Your baby just started teething. Or you’ve got a trip coming up. Or they’re hitting a developmental leap (or five). So you wait.

Then one day turns into a week. A week turns into months. And before you know it, you're still exhausted, your baby still isn't sleeping, and you're still telling yourself the same thing: “As soon as [insert challenge here] is over… then we’ll start.”

As a pediatric nurse practitioner, certified sleep coach, and mom of three, I hear this every week. And I get it. You want your baby to have the best chance of success—and you want to feel confident and calm when you begin.But here’s the truth: there’s no perfect time to start. And waiting might be making things harder, not easier.

The All-or-Nothing Mindset Keeps You Stuck

Parenting already asks a lot of you. And when you’re running on fumes, your brain naturally looks for reasons to delay. “Let’s just wait until this leap is over” feels like a wise, patient decision. But often, it’s actually rooted in fear—fear of making things worse, fear of failing, fear of it not working.

That all-or-nothing thinking (“I need the stars to align before I can fix sleep”) keeps so many families stuck in survival mode far longer than they need to be. (I talk to families who have literally be suffering for years before they reach out to me. So if this is you, don't feel guilty, you are in good company.)

What If Sleep Helped With the Leap Instead of Needing to Wait It Out?

Yes, babies go through regressions, leaps, teething, growth spurts, travel, new siblings, daycare transitions… all of it. But those challenges aren’t going anywhere. In fact, they’ll keep coming no matter when you start.The difference? A well-rested baby can handle those transitions better.

Better naps and consolidated nights mean:
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• More emotional regulation during leaps
  
  
• Easier transitions with travel
  
  
• Less clinginess or meltdowns from overtiredness
  
  
• More peace and predictability for you
  
  
• And even, less (or no) crying from teething
  
  

Sleep isn’t something you fix after life settles down—it’s the foundation that helps everything else feel more manageable.

When Should You Wait?

If you have travel coming up in the next two weeks and your baby will be older than 9 months by the time you're home? Okay, then it probably makes sense to wait and begin once you're back.

But in almost every other scenario, starting now will make the next phase easier. Not harder.

You Don’t Have to Be Ready—You Just Have to Start

You can start with incremental small changes if that is what feels doable to you. Believe me, in today’s stressful times, I can understand that an entire overhaul of your nights might feel just a bit overwhelming. (Start just with moving bedtime earlier!)

Because here’s the secret: sleep improves faster than you think. In just two weeks, your nights can feel radically different.

Want to talk about what it might look like to get real sleep--now, not someday?

Let’s hop on a quick call. We’ll figure out if now is the right time for your family, and I’ll walk you through exactly what support would look like. (And if now is not the right time for your family, I promise I’ll tell you the truth about that, too.) You’ve waited long enough. Let’s make this the moment it starts to get better.