We all wake up in the middle of the night sometimes and fall back to sleep…it’s a part of life. However, we didn’t always know how to do this on our own. Until they go through sleep training, newborns won’t fall asleep on their own, which is why this period is very important in your baby’s development.
Typically around the four to six month mark, there comes an adjustment period where your baby will need to learn how to fall back to sleep on their own. During the day, you can soothe your baby with the help of a baby swing that rocks, bounces, or glides. For bedtime, however, it’s time to scale back on the sleep crutches like rocking and allow them to self-soothe for the first time. This can be a challenging transition period for parents, but it doesn’t need to be feared.
Below, we lay out the key methods to sleep train your baby. Find one that works for you and you’ll both be a whole lot happier. You may have on comfortable shoes, but running back and forth from their nursery to your bedroom every night is getting old. Without baby crying all through nap time and at night, you’ll finally have the time to do things like catch up on work, diy projects, and having friends over.
Cry It Out (CIO)
The original CIO, known as The Weissbluth Method, is a hands-off approach. To do this method, lay your baby down fully fed and in a safe and dark environment and leave the room. This method is also called the extinction method because you don’t come back throughout the night. Instead, you let your baby cry it out until they fall asleep.
The Ferber
Less intense, the Ferber method involves putting your baby down and then waiting a certain amount of time before returning to check on them. Night after night, you make the intervals between checking on them more spaced out until you don’t need to go in at all. This process, called graduated extinction teaches your baby to self-soothe in a gradual way.
Chair Method
Another more gradual method of sleep training is the chair method. In this method, you put down your baby for bed, then sit in a chair next to them until they fall asleep, then leave the room. When they cry, you return to the chair. Each night, move the chair a little further away from their crib or bassinet until you are no longer in the room.
Pick Up Put Down
With this method, you are allowed to soothe your baby after they start crying by picking them up and then putting them back down while awake. This little bit of comforting will help them fall back to sleep without making them too reliant on you.
Bedtime Hour Fading
This method is meant to train your baby to get used to bedtime, rather than crying on end when they are put down. It requires keeping a sleep diary and tracking when they are actually falling asleep. If you put them down and they cry for thirty minutes, start the next night by making their bedtime at the time when they actually fell asleep. You can gradually move their bedtime forward by 15 minutes until they are falling asleep at the right bedtime for both of you.
According to whattoexpect.com, the fastest methods are the CIO and Ferber method, which may only take 3-4 nights of sleep training. The other methods will take more time, so be patient with your little one. After nights of tears and crying, they will eventually learn and you both will sleep better at night!
I’m a 20-something stay-at-home mother and wife. I have an amazing husband, a beautiful daughter, two loving dogs, and a lazy cat. I wouldn’t change my life for anything! I love to read, listen to music, cook and blog!
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