Out of the Box

I have been sleep training and conditioning infants for sleep for over 20 years.  Imagine my surprise when I went to a class put on by Summer Hartman and realized I could be doing so much more.

What I learned:

• There are different scenarios for each situation.

• We can help everyone with just a little "Out of the Box" thinking.

• Look for the 'not so obvious.'

I sleep train or sleep condition children up to the age of two years.
Let's spend a little time today on the difference between sleep conditioning and sleep training.

Sleep Conditioning is a method by which you will start with a child at birth and monitor their sleep, eat and awake time in a routine that is beneficial to the infant and easy on the parent.  As you do this in a proper manner, the child will begin to sleep longer at night.  Once the child is consuming a certain amount of milk per daytime hours, you can begin expecting the child to sleep through the night.

Sleep Training is a method used to teach children to sleep and parents how to allow their children to sleep. Sleep training starts after twelve weeks of age.  Many sleep trainers will not begin sleep training until after four months.  My personal belief is that when you wait, the parents have lose another month of sleep.  Babies can be taught to sleep at three months even if no sleep conditioning has been done.  By this time mom and dad are exhausted from getting up multiple times during the night and are ready to listen to advice on how to get their precious wee one to sleep.


There are a number of methods used to sleep train a child.  Some are affective, and some are not.  You want to hire someone who has been in the field for a while and had experience in sleep training.  If you are a parent who will not allow any crying, you will not be able to teach your child to sleep.  Here are some reasons:

1. We are taking your child out of their comfort zone.  
2. We are teaching them methods to sleep which are unfamiliar to them.  
3. You have conditioned them to act one way, and we are going to teach them to act another.  

Babies have no method to communicate other than to cry.  Crying is not all bad.  It releases cortisol which is called the stress hormone. Crying is NOT stressful for a baby, crying releases stress.  If you are having a stressful day, you may cuss, hit a wall, go running or eat an entire pie.  A baby can only cry.  Stress for a baby is generally overstimulation, being hungry, cold, wet or sick.  Being tired and not allowed or able to sleep is overstimulation.  Not getting enough sleep is overstimulation.

 Parents who do not allow their child to cry are shutting down a very important communication tool their child has.  Crying is normal.  All babies should be allowed to cry.

That being said, we try to minimize the crying when sleep training.  We make sure everything is optimal, and the baby is in a safe environment.  We use a sleep number to determine how much crying is allowed and we watch that number decrease with each nap or nighttime.   Sleep training can take as little as three days and in some rare cases up to ten days.