Tag Archives: gentle sleep methods

Do you want nap time success?

March 9, 2015 Janelle Leave a comment

Almost all parents at some stage of their child’s life find naptime difficult. Some naptime issues include:

Your child needs your help to nap;
Your child finds it difficult to fall asleep at all; or
Your child only catnaps.

There are many more nap problems that I haven’t included here but these are definitely the most common. If you are experiencing difficult naps, here are my tips for better nap time success:

1. Sleeping independently

This is a big one. What I find is if you are helping your child to fall asleep (rocking, patting, feeding, dummy, bouncing etc) to sleep, often these sleep associations have an expiry date of usefulness. With a newborn the rules are different. Feeding to sleep was fine, but eventually that will stop working for you, so you move on to say, rocking to sleep. Now your child is too heavy so you change to patting. Suddenly you realise that your ‘bag of tricks’ is empty and your child still isn’t sleeping on their own. Now it is time to place your child into the cot completely awake without your help so they can begin to establish their own tools to fall asleep. Easier said than done right? If you need some help, contact me here.

2. Provide a ‘sleepy’ environment

Again, newborns can usually sleep anywhere. Once your baby passes this newborn phase, it is important that the majority of the time they are sleeping where it is dark and fairly quiet. If you have a noisy house during they day, white noise can help. Try to make the room as dark as you can. Why? Darkness helps the body to produce melatonin that makes us sleepy. The temperature of the room needs to be on the cooler side (not cold). If you cannot change the temperature, dress your child in lightweight clothing. If your child is too hot, it is harder to sleep.

3. Send the message it is “sleepytime”

Most parents have the bedtime routine down pat, but forget to send the same message at nap time. Your child needs the cue that it is “sleepytime”. It may seem obvious to us the cot is there, so it must be “sleepytime”, BUT babies need time to unwind and understand what is happening at that moment.

Here is an example of a nap routine:

Go into the bedroom
Change nappy
Sit and read a quick story
Kisses and cuddles
Say “it’s sleepytime”
Into the cot awake

4. Allow time to resettle

Some children’s cries will go from nothing to hysterical in less than a minute. When your child wakes up after the first sleep cycle (30-45mins), he will cry out and you will run in immediately. This is part of being a responsive parent right? Yes totally but the problem with rescuing your child so quickly is that they are still tired and not finished napping. This is the reason they are so upset. Your child really wants to sleep more but they are not sure how too. If your child isn’t falling asleep independently at the beginning of the nap, then clocking on to the next sleep cycle without your help is difficult. Don’t be afraid to wait a little to allow them the chance to fall back to sleep. Always listen to the cries and if there are breaks, then just wait a little. If you are needed, try for 10-20mins to extend the nap by offering some gentle touch. This won’t be easy at first, but the more you do it, the better the chance you will be successful.

Combating naptime struggles are often frustrating and exhausting for not only you, but also for your child. Naps do take a lot of time to perfect, and just when you think you have it all sorted, it is time for your baby to drop a nap. If you wonder if your child is ready to drop a nap, download the “Sleepytime Guide to Mastering Nap Transitions” here.

Sleep well,

Crying, Parenting, Sleep Training Methods

Is it ok to leave your baby to cry?

January 5, 2015 Janelle Leave a comment

Listening to your child cry can be difficult.

Crying is a sensitive subject and is often the topic of strong debate over social media amongst parents and professionals. I often avoid entering into it as I feel that the topic of crying is a multifaceted one and there is never the perfect answer.

I wanted to write about my personal experience with children who cry when they are learning to sleep independently. I am writing it to provoke thought and discussion, not to add fuel to the fire.

I am regularly asked by concerned parents, “do you use ‘cry-it-out’ methods?” This is a difficult question to answer because one person’s idea of CIO can be completely different to another person’s idea. My response is always this, “when you make changes to any child’s sleep habits there will always be some crying as the experience is different and unfamiliar to them. I use a variety of gentle techniques and will always work within your comfort level of crying.”

Asking parents to work within their own comfort level of crying is important but the main drive of this blog post is to explore not only how parents feel about crying, but also how the child feels about it. I will share with you two very different scenarios that happened recently.

Family 1 – Thomas was 15months old and he was taking a really long time to fall asleep at night. Mum and Dad were very comfortable with leaving Thomas to cry and would leave him for quite some time on his own until he finally fell asleep. Unfortunately after many months of leaving Thomas to cry, there was no reduction in the length it took for him to settle at night. Once I assessed Thomas’ sleep issues, I decided to not only amend his daytime nap to avoid overtiredness at bedtime, but I implemented a strategy where Thomas was offered regular reassurance from his parents as he was falling asleep. Leaving Thomas to cry was not necessarily wrong; it was just the wrong strategy for him.

Family 2- Henry was 8months old and he had many sleep associations that were hindering him becoming an independent sleeper. Henry’s parents were clear that they wanted a very slow and gentle process for him with minimal crying. Taking that on board, I wrote a sleep program where Henry would be offered lots of reassurance (like Thomas), and with very reduced periods of time where Henry was to be left alone to cry. What was interesting was that it became very clear early on that Henry became more upset and hysterical each time his parents tried to reassure him. Henry was telling his parents that he wanted to be left to figure it out for himself. This was a difficult situation for his parents but they soon realised it was important to attend to Henry’s needs the way he wanted it, not necessarily the way they wanted to give it. Once Henry was given some space to figure it out, he began sleeping independently.

Here I have presented two very different scenarios where parents had different comfort levels of crying. It is important to work within YOUR comfort level of crying, but it is essential to use a strategy that is right for your child. What works for one, may not work for another.

So if you are looking at helping your child to sleep independently, it is important that you not only choose a strategy that is perfect for your child, but find a sleep consultant who has a range of techniques because if you try to apply a ‘one size fits all’ approach like many books offer, it often doesn’t work and you end up with a distressed child and frazzled parents.

Janelle Jeffery

Child Sleep Consultant for Sleepytime

Parenting, Sleep Training Methods

“Sleep Training” is a Dirty Word

March 19, 2014 Janelle Leave a comment

Since becoming a child sleep consultant and the birth of Sleepytime, my eyes have been opened to the world of mummy bashing and misunderstanding.

When talking to parents about what I do, or post on Facebook, write an email or whatever, I am very, very careful not to mention the phrase “sleep training”. Why? It is taboo, a dirty word. I do not want to be condemned for it nor associated with it.

I started to question myself as to why I had a problem with it. It was because it made me feel icky. When you hear “sleep training” you think of this right?

We immediately conjure up this picture of this teeny, tiny child being put through its paces. The sweat and tears to reach the ultimate goal of baby sleeping through the night. Hurrah!

Well guess what? Sleep consultants (good ones!!) DO NOT train babies, they TRAIN PARENTS. The definition of the word ‘training’ says it all. Training is the “acquisition of knowledge and skills.” A baby cannot do this. The word ‘training’ also means; instruction, teaching, coaching, guiding and educating.

A reputable sleep consultant (see below) actually spends the time educating parents as to why their child is having difficulty sleeping through the night and trouble with having decent naps in the day. They do not simply try to bandaid it and sell you a quick fix solution. Sleep consultants understand the why and they teach parents what they need to do to change that.

Sleep training is about giving parents the skills and tools to make those changes using the most gentle and effective way possible, putting the needs of the baby first. It is about empowering parents so THEY feel confident in what THEY are doing. Choose a sleep consultant that will listen to you and tailor a program to meet the needs of YOUR family.

The most important role of any sleep consultant is to provide guidance and support to the parents during this transition. Yep, it can be a bumpy road but it is important for parents to have someone on hand to instruct them through this. Someone to hold his or her hand. Someone to be there if things get a little rough.

If you need to get fit, you hire a personal trainer. My nephew goes to basketball and football training every week. When you start a new job you get ‘on the job training’. Being educated and learning new things is at the core of our existence.

So, my dirty little secret is finally out. Phew, I feel a weight being lifted off my shoulders. I, Janelle Jeffery am a sleep trainer. I do not train babies but I sure do train parents. I give families to best gift ever, the gift of sleep and I am proud of myself that I am able to offer this.

Sleep well,

Janelle Jeffery

Sleep Consultant for Sleepytime.

Make sure you check the following criteria before hiring any sleep consultant.
• Are they qualified?
• Will they tailor a program to suit the needs of your child?
• Will they listen to your concerns?
• Will they be there to support you every step of the way?

Contact me here!

Help your child to love sleep