Some great tips for smoothing this transition gently and get baby to sleep without sleep training!

There are a whole host of reasons why parents may consider moving siblings into the same room from economic to emotional. Some families will have no option but for siblings to share and for some they will actively choose this route.

While there are common ages babies and toddlers tend to go through nap transitions, it’s really best to look for the signs vs. waiting for an arbitrary age. Every child is different!

False starts are emotionally hard, especially if they go on for months and months.

There are some things that stand out to me as a sleep specialist which I call “red flags.” These red flags might be signs that there is something underlying (often medical but not always serious!) that is causing your little one to wake more than what I would consider to be “normal” for their age. I encourage parents to look into these red flags, to trust their gut, and to get second opinions when needed.

False starts can be a common, and frustrating, issue for parents when it comes to their baby's sleep. There are many common causes of false starts, including lack of sleep pressure, overtiredness, discomfort or pain, connecting sleep cycles, separation anxiety, and hunger. In this article, I’ll break down what false starts are, why they happen, and what you can do to help your baby get to sleep easier.

If sleeping next to our babies was inherently dangerous, many species, including humans, would have gone extinct long ago. Parents and babies have slept in close proximity since the beginning of time; only in fairly recent years have parents been encouraged to distance themselves from their babies during the night.

Given all of the persistent medical advice that was emerging in the mid 1900’s, parents came to see feeding as the enemy of sleep and were encouraged not to respond to any hunger cues given by their baby at any time the parent defined as nighttime. This ultimately led to a decline in a breastfeeding mothers’ milk supply, thus prompting the need for formula supplementation, and eventually exclusive formula use.

Have you ever thought about where it all began? The pressure to sleep train, and all of the guidance that you receive from your pediatrician to avoid night feedings and other “sleep crutches?” This two-part blog post looks at where it all began and provides some historical context for how and why sleep training became a highly sought-after technique in infant care. 

Around four months is when your baby’s sleep cycles change. However, this can happen anytime between months 2-6. First, a basic explanation of sleep architecture. Why does the 4 month regression happen at all?

How many of you thought you had to swaddle your baby? I was definitely under the impression that swaddling was standard practice for babies. I assumed it's just something you do and that all babies love it. Of course, I learned early on in my parenting journey that those types of sweeping generalizations are not realistic or helpful.

Teething can be so rough on both baby and parent. Have you ever stopped to think about just how much it must hurt? Keeping this in mind, of course your baby is going to be extra fussy and irritable when they’re teething. And of course sleep might suffer for a little while, especially if the teeth are coming in back to back or multiple at a time!

While sleep location recommendations differ across cultures and countries, a baby seeking sensory proximity to its mother is universal. In North America, where an infant sleeps has become a topic of contention among parents, health care providers, and sleep experts. This contention may partly be due to different cultural practices of infant sleep coming to light in America.

I hear from parents who are going through various sleep regressions (or as I like to call them- PROgressions), and some babies experience them much more than others.

In general I like to keep things minimal, but there are some must-haves for a great sleep environment that I just don’t want to live without. While I can’t promise that these baby sleep gadgets will instantly give you a perfect night of sleep (especially if baby is in the midst of a sleep progression!), they might make those night time wake-ups a tiny bit easier.

Completely sleep deprived and desperate like many new Mamas, I finally caved and bought one of those pre-made sleep guides from a very popular “celebrity” sleep coach when he was around 3 and a half months old. It was geared towards newborns but I figured I needed to start from scratch. I got a generic e-book sent to my inbox ready for download. I opened it and read as it started outlining all the ways I had already failed.

If you've tried to get insight into your baby's sleep, you've likely come across the phrase "sleep associations." But what are sleep associations, really? And why are they so important? Sleep associations are basically anything we associate with sleep! For us adults, a sleep association might be an eye mask, a special pillow, a meditation app, white noise or a fan, silk PJ's, etc. Babies need sleep associations, too!

We can’t control everything when it comes to how our babies sleep- but these are tips for things you CAN control to help optimize it!