‘Sleep training’ simply refers to the act of teaching your child to sleep independently. However, this does NOT necessarily mean allowing your children to cry themselves to sleep while you wait helplessly outside the door!

Here’s the thing: children, and even adults, wake often throughout the night as they transition between sleep cycles. As adults, we are able to easily put ourselves back to sleep and don’t often notice the wakings. However, a baby who is dependent on their parent or sleep props to fall asleep will wake fully between their sleep cycles and need assistance falling back to sleep. It is important to help your baby learn how to fall asleep independently, not only because you as a parent are exhausted from constantly helping your baby back to sleep, but because children rely on restful sleep for their growth and development.

You know the feeling after a long night of assisting your baby back to sleep every two hours, right? You're tired and irritable and probably surviving on coffee. Now imagine how your baby is feeling after waking every two hours, unable to go back to sleep without a snack or snuggles, and not even able to have coffee the next day. Independent sleep is the greatest gift that you can give to your child!