The excitement from holiday travels and/or visitors has settled, but you’re left with wonky routines and babies or young children who aren’t sleeping well. You’ve finally decided to do sleep shaping. Maybe you’re even calling in the reinforcements and hiring a sleep consultant. Here are some steps you can take before you get started that can help you reach your sleep goals.
1. Get the green light from your child’s doctor.
Tell your pediatrician your plans and ask them to rule out any underlying medical conditions that may be contributing to poor sleep, such as reflux, asthma, allergies, ear infections, or sleep apnea. Most sleep issues are behavioral, but you never want to overlook a medical condition that could be a factor.
During the visit, if your baby is still getting nighttime feeds, ask the pediatrician if your baby still needs those calories, given your child’s age, weight, and health. Be sure to review how much your child eats during waking hours, so they have the complete picture.
2. Get your child used to waking up between 6 and 7:30 a.m.
Ninety-seven percent of young children and babies have a natural wake time between 6 and 7:30 a.m. Start waking your baby no later than 7:30 a.m., about a week before you plan to start sleep coaching. Allowing the baby to wake at different times, including later in the morning, like after 9 a.m., throws off the child’s schedule for the entire day.
3. Figure out your child’s ideal bedtime.
This is the period when a baby shows signs that she’s ready for sleep — yawning, rubbing her eyes, twirling her hair, getting fussy. Busy parents cleaning up the dinner dishes, shuffling through the mail, helping an older child with homework, etc., may miss these often subtle signs. A good rule of thumb is to pay close attention to your child’s behavior between 6 and 8:00 p.m. (and make sure she’s not zoning out in front of the television). You can recognize her natural bedtime as the time she begins showing drowsy signs, which is the time to put her down each evening going forward.
4. Create a relaxing bedtime routine.
All children, from newborns on up to school-age kids, need a set of comforting and predictable rituals to help them prepare physically and psychologically for sleep. These activities should be calming, like reading, storytelling, or lullabies. Tickling, wrestling, scary stories, TV shows, or anything else stimulating are best done at other times. Because you’re preparing your little one to be separated from you for the night, keep the tone serene and reassuring. Encourage an attachment to a “lovey,” a favorite stuffed animal or small blanket used to comfort himself when he wakes during the night if your child is old enough. And apart from baths and tooth-brushing, the bedtime routine should take place in the child’s nursery or bedroom.
• Install room-darkening shades if your child’s bedroom gets too much light, he wakes up very early, or has trouble napping.
• Consider using white noise if your child’s room isn’t very soundproof and you have a barking dog, loud neighbors, older siblings, live on a busy street, etc. Children learn to sleep through familiar household sounds, but some places are really loud, and some children are really sensitive.
TIP: If your child hates some aspect of bedtime, get that part over with first. For instance, if she can’t stand having her teeth brushed, do it right after her bath, not after you’ve read two books and gotten her all snug and cozy.
5. Keep a sleep-and-feeding log.
Sleep deprivation can do a number on our short-term memory. But to sleuth out how to solve your child’s sleep issues, you’ll need to have a clear picture of what’s happening by day, at bedtime, and during the night. You want to see what’s working, what’s not, how your baby responds, etc. You’ll do this by writing it down for several days in a row. Having a record in writing, instead of relying on scrambled mental notes in your sleep-deprived brain, will provide a more accurate picture of your child’s patterns and your own responses.
Some parents find it easiest to keep a log for scribbling on right next to their child’s bed. Look for signs of your little one’s natural bedtime window. Jot down when and how often the baby wakes up during the night. Note what you did to get your baby back to sleep, whether you rocked, nursed, sang, or brought the baby into your bed. To begin learning, compare your child’s daily schedule with schedules suggested by sleep experts.
Tracking your child’s sleep patterns will help you determine what’s working and what’s not and what tactics you should tweak once you start sleep training.
6. Make sure all caregivers are on board.
Anyone who regularly cares for your child must be on the same page and willing to learn each aspect of the sleep coaching plan so they can consistently follow through.
TIP: Consistency is the secret to sleep coaching success!
7. Pick a realistic start date.
Choose about three weeks of time to dedicate to the sleep training process. This should be a time when you are free from travel, not having visitors who could interrupt your ability to be consistent, or the arrival of a new baby. Some families decide to start sleep coaching during time off from work so they can fully focus on the sleep shaping.
