Do you want to rock your baby to sleep – or wake up in the middle of the night and ask for a breast, bottle, or cuddle before bed? When your little one is at least 4 months old, it may be time to start sleeping exercises. At this age, babies can and should be able to fall asleep or settle down on their own.
If you're afraid of sleep training (also called sleep lessons), you know that it's often accomplished faster than many parents imagine and isn't always associated with a lot of tears. Here's how and when to train your baby to sleep so everyone can sleep well. The experienced baby sleep specialist can train the parents to make their babies sleep at time.
Sleep training teaches your baby to fall asleep without your help. This means that the baby is placed in bed and moves away without being rocked, cuddled, nursed or pushed. Sleep training also teaches babies to fall asleep if they wake up during the night (because waking up at night is a normal part of the sleep cycle, even for adults).
First, sleep training and nighttime weaning don't have to go hand in hand. You can still feed your baby once or even twice a night, depending on his age and stage. Talk to your pediatrician about when it is appropriate to stop breastfeeding your baby at night completely.
This is one of the many ways sleep training is not as difficult as it sounds. You don't have to close the nursery door and let the baby cry all night long. In fact, before offering soothing songs or a soothing back massage, you can adjust the number of screams you leave for your baby to your comfort level.