An A to Z Guide on How to Sleep Train Your Baby

In your journey into parenthood, you are required to hit just about as many milestones as your baby.

One of these involves learning how to sleep train your child in a way that works best for your family.

Sleep training gets your child into the habit of falling asleep without your help and helps them self-soothe back to sleep in case they wake up.

Sounds tricky? Well, it sure is.

But know this: sleep training is a vital part of newborn care. It ensures a sound and restorative sleep for both the baby and the caregiver. So, if you’re ready to sleep train or just want to know a bit more about it, you’ve landed at the right place.

Read on to learn what sleep training really is, popular methods, and expert tips from those who’ve aced it.

What Is Sleep Training?

Sleep training is often mistaken for letting your child cry it out until they tire themselves to sleep. But it is an umbrella term for different techniques that parents use to make their babies fall asleep on their own without the need to be rocked, cuddled, or nursed.

While letting the baby cry it out is definitely an option, sleep training doesn’t have to be “cold turkey.” There are plenty of more responsive techniques to get the job done.

If you’re someone who worries that sleep training will give rise to emotional or behavioral problems in childhood, allow us to bust that myth. Studies show that sleep training, including the cry-it-out technique, does not threaten parent-child attachment or impact behavioral development.

Parents, of course, have a host of methods available to them, including gentler ones that don’t involve any tears, yours or the baby’s.

When Should You Sleep Train Your Baby?

According to experts, the right time to begin sleep training the baby is when they are four months or older. At this age, babies start having more regular sleep cycles and can snooze through the night without overnight feeds.

Remember, successful sleep training demands patience, consistency, and commitment from parents. So, you or your parent might want to hold it off for a while until it is fully ready.

While it may overlap with night weaning, phasing out night feeds is generally not a requirement for sleep training. You can nurse or formula feed your baby even while teaching them to sleep without your help.

Benefits of Sleep Training

There are plenty of reasons to start sleep training your baby. Here are a top few benefits according to parents and health experts:

Ensures a Good Night’s Sleep: Let’s be honest. A baby who can drift off to sleep without being cradled or rocked affects the sleep of everyone in the house in a good way. Sleeping for six to eight-hour stretches without diaper changes, nighttime feeds, and soothing leads to a restful and restorative sleep for both the baby and the parents.

Helps Baby’s Development: Medical literature suggests that adequate and restful sleep is critical for healthy growth and development in young children. That’s why sleep training is so important. It helps babies sleep through the night and teaches them to go right back to sleep without waiting around for someone to take them out of the crib and cradle them.

Reduces Stress on Caregivers: The initial phases of parenthood can be overwhelming and exhausting. And a stressed-out and sleep-deprived parent doesn’t do anyone any good. With sleep training, the baby no longer depends on you to soothe back to sleep. This means fewer sleep disruptions for the baby and the parents.

Top Sleep Training Methods

Figuring out the best way to sleep train your baby might require you to try more than one method or mix and match to come up with your very own technique.

Regardless, it’s good to know all the popular options that are available and vouched for by parents.

Cry It Out (CIO)

The cry-it-out method is what the name suggests. It involves putting a fed baby to bed in a safe sleep environment and not coming back until morning. It means not responding to the baby’s cries and letting them fall asleep tired from all the wailing.

Related Article: Protecting your baby from bed bugs

Cry it out, also known as the “full extinction” method, is a fairly controversial way of sleep training an infant. It represents an older way of thinking that may get you quick results but is tough on both the baby and the parents.

If you still want to try it out, we recommend establishing a gentle bedtime routine and putting the baby to bed when they’re still awake. And, of course, bracing yourself for a rough couple of days.

The Ferber Method

Named after its inventor, Richard Ferber, the Ferber Method or Ferberization is a more practical and gentler version of the CIO technique.

It involves letting your baby cry but checking in and consoling them in set intervals till they fall asleep. During these check-ins, you are allowed to pat and soothe the baby without picking them up.

The time intervals are gradually increased every night from five minutes to fifteen minutes, and so on. And soon enough, you’ll find a baby skilled in self-soothing with no need for your presence in the room.

The Chair Method

Moving on to gentler methods for anyone who thinks CIO and Ferberization are a bit harsh. In the chair method, you are required to place a chair close to the crib and keep sitting there till your baby falls asleep.

Each night, the distance between the chair and crib should progressively increase till you reach the door. If your baby is okay with you seated that far, then they’re likely to be fine with finding you out of the room.

That said, it might not suit every baby and could lead to teary fits when they wake up and do not find their parent in the room. ]

The Bedtime Fading Method

The bedtime fading method requires you to adjust your baby’s sleep cycle to one that works best for them and you. It’s known to work wonders for babies who keep crying for long periods before falling asleep, typically indicating they aren’t ready for bedtime.

The bedtime fading method helps you sync your baby’s circadian rhythm or internal body clock to a bedtime that suits you. Here’s a quick step-by-step guide on how to try this method:

• Record the time when they naturally nap or fall asleep. This is their current bedtime and what you will be working on modifying.
  
  
• Shift any naps that are happening later in the day, say past 4 pm, to earlier time slots. Early naps will have them ready for an early bedtime.
  
  
• Watch out for sleep signals like rubbing their eyes, fussiness, and yawning. This tells you your baby is ready for bed.
  
  
• Now, establish a routine that is in sync with their current bedtime - the one that you’re hoping to change. Use the routine to shift the bedtime by 15 minutes every day till it matches with what you had in mind.
  
  
• Follow this new and ideal bedtime every day.

Bedtime Fading can be used to describe any technique that works to reduce a baby’s reliance on the parent’s presence to fall asleep. In that way, the chair method is also a type of fading technique.

Snuggling, singing, rocking - it doesn’t matter what you do to help your baby drift off to sleep. The goal is to decrease the time you spend doing it and fade it out.

Pick up, Put Down Method

This might be one of the gentlest sleep training methods out there. While trying the pick-up, put-down method, you’ll be required to place your baby in the crib when they’re drowsy but still awake.

If they fuss immediately, wait for a few minutes to see if they are able to self-soothe. Otherwise, please pick them up and comfort them before putting them back.

Leave the room if they seem calm. Come back and repeat the steps if they start crying again. The goal of this method is to let your little one know you’re around whenever and gently orient them into sleep on their own.

Needless to say, this one requires a lot of patience, but you’ll gradually notice a drop in the number of times they’ll need you to soothe them.

Essential Sleep Training Tips Every Parent Must Know

Once you’ve picked a method you’d like to try, follow these tips to make the transition smooth and stress-free.

1. Establish a Sleep Routine

When it comes to sleep training, consistency really helps. Work on a 30 to 60-minute routine that you can follow every day. It could include anything calming, from a bath to using a swaddle blanket.

Avoid anything overstimulating.

Stick to the same set of activities every day, starting around the same time. A routine sends signals to the baby that it’s time for bed since they can’t tell day from night.

2. Watch Out for the Sleepyhead Cues

When your baby is tired, they’ll give out cues like yawning, rubbing their eyes, and becoming irritable. If you’ve done your job well in establishing a bedtime routine, the sleep cues would most likely come at the same time every night.

Put them to bed immediately to avoid overtiring. We don’t need to tell you how difficult it is to make a cranky, exhausted baby sleep.

3. Place the Baby on the Crib When Drowsy But Awake

Parents who are trying the fading method should transfer the baby to the crib when they are sleepy but still awake. They won’t learn to self-soothe if you cradle them in your arms till they sleep.

4. Don’t Rush In Immediately

This might sound harsh, but resist the temptation to dash into the nursery at the first noise. Sleep training is a process. If you drop everything and rush whenever they make a sound, you might end up undoing the progress.

Give it a few minutes, and keep checking on the baby monitor. You might find your baby has self-soothed to dreamland.

5. Avoid Overstimulating the Baby

Skip anything that’s overstimulating as a part of the baby’s nighttime routine. Make sure your check-ins are quiet and calm, even when you’re feeding or changing the diaper.

6. Use White Noise

Ever noticed your baby nodding off to sleep in the noisiest surroundings? To them, any white noise mimics the sounds of a womb.

It reminds them of the rhythmic sound of a beating heart and blood rushing through the body. It’s why they find white noise, like sounds from a vacuum cleaner and a blowdryer relaxing.

A white noise machine that can block out external sound can soothe the baby and help them sleep for longer periods without interruptions.

7. Create a Safe Sleep Environment

Since you’ll be leaving the baby on their own, ensure their nursery and crib is free of any safety hazards. Put them to sleep on their back in a Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) compliant crib. Ensure the mattress is firm with a tight-fitted sheet on it.

Remove any loose or soft that the baby can roll over into, including pillows, blankets, bumper pads, or stuffed toys, to reduce the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).

Dress the baby in comfy, breathable clothes to avoid overheating.

Consider offering them a pacifier, as it can help a fussy baby go back to sleep, not to mention lower the risk of SIDS.

8. Use Soft, Hypoallergenic Crib Bedding

Soft, skin-friendly bedding can do wonders for restorative sleep. This is especially true for babies whose ultra-sensitive, brand-new skin can be irritated by synthetic textiles.

Opt for high-quality hypoallergenic all-natural organic cotton crib sheets. Our crib sheets are made from 100% pure and organic cotton.

They are buttery, soft, sustainable, airy, and non-toxic, perfect for your baby as well as the planet.

Final Thoughts

Sleep training is a process, and how long it takes depends on the method you’ve chosen and the efforts you’re putting in. If a particular technique isn’t working out for you despite time and effort, don’t hesitate to ask for help.

You can always reach out to experts who can work out a customized training approach for you.

Remember, patience and consistency can go a long way when it comes to sleep training your little one. There may be good days and frustrating ones, but you’ll be glad you put in the hours once you’ve got a sound sleeper in the crib.