How to Handle Sleep Training Critics and Holiday Recovery 🔔

Published: Tue, 12/24/19

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Happy Christmas Eve, if you're celebrating! If you're not, Happy Tuesday! Today we have your route back to better sleep after the upset of the holidays, and advice for how to handle sleep coaching critics at the dinner table, too!

Sleeping Child

- of the week -

"I wanted to give you a little update. It's been a month now since Hannah was born, and things are going great! Andrew did really well with my mom when she came to stay with him (while Jonathan and I were in the hospital). He even slept all the way through the night for her! And he's done that almost every night since we brought Hannah home as well! To be honest, we were kind of expecting him to regress, but the opposite has happened! It's like he grew up overnight. He's been doing so great (naps as well)!

And Hannah has given us an 8 hour stretch the last two nights! It's hard for us to believe, but she's just very different from her brother in this way, and we're so thankful for that! :-)

(Also, we know that it may not continue. She'll have sleep regressions, etc. But we're so glad for it at the moment!)

So, all in all, we're quite well-rested for having a newborn and a toddler! Better rested than we were for most of the pregnancy, actually.

Blessings"

Libby R., California

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Question

- of the week -

Q: Hi there. I really need some help with my almost 19 month old. How can I get her to sleep through the night? She wakes usually twice a night and is very difficult to get back to sleep in her cot. She has started waking before midnight and can take up to 2.5 hours sometimes for me to be able to leave her room and her stay asleep. The second time she wakes I'm so exhausted I usually sit on the bed and cuddle her back to sleep, around 4-5am and stay until morning when she wakes by 6.30. If I try to put her back in the cot at this time she just wakes up. Do you have any suggestions on what I can do to get her sleeping better? Many thanks, Helen

A: Helen, you are not alone as we work with many families with toddlers who don't sleep through the night. Many people hope their baby will outgrow their sleep problems, but families show us every day that it's just not the case! Based on your description, you don't have a strategy that is sustainable and so you falter and do inconsistent things depending on how you feel in that moment. Inconsistent responses lead to inconsistent sleep and inconsistent results. Instead, you need a strategy you can feel good about and then stick to it 100%. Once you decide upon a plan to follow that encourages her to be the independent sleeper I know she can be, follow it for 1-2 weeks and she should be sleeping through the night in no time! We have many resources to help you make a plan, which is often the first step. Good luck!

VIP Member Resources

- of the week -

I know many of you are fully in the swing of the holidays at this point; that's why I wanted to remind you that we have a couple of audio recordings in the Members Area that I think you may find very helpful. If you're traveling over the next week, check out Traveling With Your Baby or Toddler Over The Holidays, featuring yours truly! And while you're there, don't miss my recording on Recovering from the Holidays and Nap Transitions to get started on the road back to great sleep today!

Not a VIP member yet? Not a problem! Join today for instant access to our virtual library of sleep consulting resources.

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Blog Posts

- of the week -

How To Handle Sleep Training Critics

'Tis the season for time with family and friends - how fun! That is, it's fun until your loved ones start asking you about that "sleep coaching thing" you're working on with your little one...and until they start offering their unsolicited opinions and advice. ;-) So how should you respond to your critics?

Holiday Sleep Recovery

With the close of the holiday season comes a stark reality: "normal" life resumes, and your family is off-schedule, tired and cranky. If you're lucky, getting back to your normal routine will be a piece of cake, with just a little nudge. But for many of us, it will be a week or more before our little ones snap back to the norm. Not to worry, though – we have help! Click through for 5 tips to help your kiddos recover from wacky sleep schedules brought on by the holiday!

Nicole's Note

- editor -

Hello,

I hope you are enjoying a lovely Christmas holiday (for those of you who celebrate!). For us, while Christmas is always filled with fun, it is also exhausting! When my boys were younger, they didn't know to wake up early, but now they do! And, babies generally don't know to sleep in on any holiday. Let's just say that we parents often get some nice gifts on Christmas morning, but sleep isn't usually one of them!! ;-)

And next Tuesday, of course, we look forward to celebrating the end of 2019 and the beginning of the New Year. When the boys were babies, we stayed home for New Year's Eve, enjoyed a good home-cooked meal, and made sure we went to bed early knowing our babies wouldn't sleep all night or sleep in the next day. Things are different now, of course, since they are older, but if you are planning to stay home and get some sleep, I don't blame you one bit!

I hope reading through our weekly newsletter has helped you realize that you are not alone, and that there is hope, and a light at the end of the tunnel. Forward this to a friend, so they know they're not alone, either!

Until next week,

Nicole Johnson, MBA
President and Lead Sleep Consultant
The Baby Sleep Site®
[email protected]

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