What is “camping out” in sleep training? As babies grow up, parents often wonder how to help them learn to fall asleep independently. One method, known as “camping out,” is a gradual approach to helping your baby learn to fall asleep independently. This is a great method to consider [...]
How do I help my toddler stay in bed without calling for me? Is your toddler calling for you after lights out? It’s hard for many children to tune out and go to sleep. A sleep-friendly room needs to be boring – calm, quiet, and dark. In other words, nothing too exciting or distracting going on. [...]
Should we start sleep training now that we are home more because of the coronavirus? Deciding to sleep train during the COVID-19 Stay-at-Home Order (if there is one in your area) will depend on what this time is like for your family. The timing of sleep training is a personal and unique decision [...]
What does “sleep through the night” actually mean? Not surprisingly, this means different things to different people and it strongly depends on the age of the child. Sleeping through the night involves several hours of consolidated sleep. For a 5-year-old this might be 10-12 hours. For a [...]
What are the top 4 sleep training myths? 1) If you sleep train, you have to let your baby cry it out There are many ways to approach helping a baby learn to sleep through the night, and the specific techniques we recommend depend on the age of the child and parent or family preferences. There are [...]
How do I get the television (and other electronics!) out of my child’s room without causing a week-long meltdown? In general, toddlers who have electronics in their room and use them right before bedtime get less sleep and have more sleep problems than ones who don’t. It may appear that the [...]
What are some baby sleep myths? There will be long-term negative consequences for babies who are sleep trained Parents are sometimes concerned that if they sleep train their infants there will be long-term negative consequences. However, there does not seem to be evidence to support this claim. [...]
What is Ferber sleep training? The Ferber method is a type of modified (or graduated) extinction approach to sleep training. In the case of bedtime, extinction (unmodified) is simply a fancy way of saying “ignoring a specific behavior (like crying) until it stops.” It does not mean ignoring [...]
My baby won’t sleep – what am I doing wrong? Parents (and others in their lives) may blame themselves when their little one doesn’t sleep well, but it is important to recognize that many aspects of a baby’s sleep are not related to parenting. Your baby might have a medical condition, such [...]
What should I know about toddler sleep? 1. It is normal for toddlers (and everyone else!) to wake several times during the night. 2. Most toddlers (over 80 %) stop taking naps between the ages of 3 and 4 years, but some will still need a nap at age 5 years and a few may even need a nap at age 6 [...]