Your FAQs About Sleep: Answered By a Certified Sleep Consultant
I absolutely love doing free question Friday but it’s impossible to keep up with it every week (which is why I moved it to every other week). When I can’t do FQF, I do a question box in my stories. And I hate that I can’t answer all of them! I try to find the ones that I see multiple times so that most people can benefit, but I’m going to try to compile questions in a blog when I can’t answer them in stories (you know, since instagram punishes you for using the app and won’t show my stories to people when I answer their questions 🙃)
I hope you find an answer below to really popular questions that I get all the time!
**remember, while I am a certified sleep consultant, I may not be YOUR child’s sleep consultant. The information provided here is generalized information and can’t be specific until I know the complete details about your child. If you’d like to dive deeper, make sure you check out my current packages for sleep support!
“How come baby learned to go back to sleep after sleep training at 5 months but at 1 year doesn’t fall back asleep?”
My assumption is probably some habit crept in after a hard bedtime or night and baby isn’t independent with sleep any more! In those cases, a quick little refresher to swap those habits out again can be helpful.
“How do you train for naps? Can I still let him CIO (cry it out)?”
You can use extinction for nap training if that’s what is working for you! In that case, naps have a limit of one hour before you discontinue that nap. You can try again in 20-30 minutes or so. For a step by step on nap training, check out this mini course.
“My 1 year old was sleep trained but after a week of being sick, he wants to be held now. Do I sleep train again?”
Similar to the first answer, sleep training is just changing habits. If new preferred habits come into play, then yes you’ll likely need to do a refresher!
“How much crying is normal for first few days of sleep training?”
“Are there signs from baby that naps shouldn’t be conquered with nights?”
If you can get in some day time sleep at least with supporting naps at first, then it’s helpful to do that to keep them rested for bedtime. If you cannot get them any day time rest no matter what you do, then starting naps is fine because you have nothing to lose.
“When do night terrors happen and how do you know that’s what it is?”
“Recommended time to start sleep training?”
Whenever you want to work on them falling asleep independently, you definitely can! This doesn’t mean you have to use CIO or Ferber and that you can’t respond to their cries or even stay totally present while sleep training. Not to mention you can make very very gradual changes to sleep over a longer period of time so that you can support younger babies with mastering the concept.
“What is a reasonable timeframe for a sleep trained baby to fall asleep when placed in crib?”
5-20 minutes is a normal sleep onset time!
“What’s reverse cycling?”
Essentially where baby is getting the majority of their feedings/calories/ounces during the night instead of the day.
“Baby is nearly 5 months, waking 6/7+ times for dummy. No feeding at night.”
If they can’t find and replace it themselves (which isn’t likely at 5 months) then I’d sleep train without using the paci! Here’s a blog about pacifiers.
“Why does my baby keep waking up within the first 10 minutes?”
It’s usually either 1) baby doesn’t know how to fall asleep independently or 2) their schedule needs to be investigated (over or undertired).
“What would be your recommendation for a baby with a floor bed?”
Like to make it safe? Clear out the room of any nonessentials, make sure the room is totally childproofed, keep blindcords out of reach and anchor all furniture. If you’re sleep training while in a floor bed, you’ll likely need to do a search for gradual methods!
“15 month old still wakes in the middle of the night for milk bottle!”
First I’d make sure they’re falling asleep independently without the bottle at the start of the night, and from there, you can gradually reduce their ounces in the night bottle or offer water for a couple of nights, then no longer offer the bottle and just sleep train through it. Here’s a link to our night weaning mini course!
“Can I sleep train and continue cosleeping?”
If by cosleeping, you mean bedsharing then you’d have to be more specific about what you’re trying to accomplish with sleep training! Usually for me, that means falling asleep independently. I’m not usually too comfortable with having them fall asleep unsupervised in an adult bed because they could roll out, climb out, etc.
“How do you room share and sleep train?”
The majority of sleep training happens when you’re still awake. You can tackle night time wakings later, to see if they resolve themselves or move yourself temporarily out of the room like to the living room for a few days to finish it up.
