Sleep Training Methods
Are you rocking, holding, feeding, bouncing or assisting your child to sleep? Is your baby falling asleep with your help? Are you putting your baby down asleep in her crib? If so, then you have created a sleep crutch and now she can’t put herself to sleep. Sleep training or coaching is the act of behaviorally teaching your child how to put themselves to sleep and back to sleep on their own. It’s when you remove sleep crutches and teach the independent skill of self-soothing and putting yourself to sleep.
So how do you remove those sleep crutches? How do you teach your child the independent skill of self-soothing and putting themselves to sleep? You may be saying, ‘If I stop rocking my child to sleep how will she put herself to sleep? If I put her down in the crib, she’ll cry.’ Yes, this is true. She doesn’t know how to put herself to sleep. And unfortunately, she will cry. For the younger ones, this is how they communicate. For the older ones they’ll cry and yell out “Mommy!!” But this doesn’t necessarily mean you have to leave her to cry alone. There are different methods that you can choose from that don’t always necessarily mean to leave her to cry alone.
The three main methods that are widely used across the board and that have been around for years are: extinction, gradual extinction, and parental fading. Let’s go into depth on what each of those look like.
Extinction: Extinction is what people refer to as “Cry It Out Method.” This is the one that most people talk about. In this method, the idea that Weissbluth had is to do full on extinction, meaning you place your child down awake at bedtime so that they learn how to self-soothe and put themselves to sleep, and leave him to do it on his own. So you do NOT go in at any point. You go from whatever your sleep crutch was, to full on putting him down awake, leaving him be, and he will learn how to do it on his own. So even if he cries for 15 minutes, 40 minutes, 1 hour – there is no intervention at all.
Many will argue that this is the “fastest” method to get your child sleeping, but that is not necessarily true. I will also say that this isn’t the right fit for all children, and for all parents, and that is totally OK! You don’t have to be! Honestly, when I did sleep training for my kids, I did not choose this method because I didn’t feel comfortable doing it. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to stick to it at bedtime, or the middle of the night. I knew myself and my strengths and weaknesses, and knowing that I wasn’t’ going to be consistent, meant I had to go another route. But at the same time, if you choose to do this method, that’s OK too! If it works for you and your child, then there’s nothing wrong in choosing this method.
Gradual Extinction: This is the one that many confuse with CIO. This is actual Ferber’s idea of being able to go into your child’s room to reassure him when he’s crying. But in order to do so you need to do it in timed intervals, and slowly gradually going to extinction – or not going in at all. So rather than just placing your child in the crib and not going in at all at any point, with this method, you ARE allowed to go in and reassure your child. The idea is that you wait longer and longer before you go in. So let’s say for example on that first night you put your baby down awake and leave the room. He will start crying the minute you put him down, or as soon as you leave. Now rather than like in CIO where you don’t go in and you leave him to cry, in this method you will wait a few minutes before you go in and check on him. Let’s say for example that first night you go in every 5 minutes. Well on the second night, you now need to wait longer, maybe 7 or 10 minutes before you go in and check on him. Because you can’t keep on going in every 3-5 minutes every night. You want to give your child the opportunity to learn and also self-soothe. If you keep on going in, he will continue relying on seeing you and we won’t give him the chance to do it on his own.
Parental Fading: This is considered a more gentler approach. This allows the parent to be in the room, without leaving the child alone. So rather than leaving them to cry it out alone, or going in and out of the room, you are actually staying in the room. Assisting, helping, but of course then working on doing less and less whatever that is.
The most common one is the Sleep Lady Shuffle. In this case you are sitting in the room, but with time you are slowly moving further away. You fade away. This helps for those older kids that need to see mommy or daddy and not feel alone. This method is suggested for any baby over the age of 6 months. But I do in fact think this is a great method for those that are already sitting/standing. For those older ones that are aware whether the parent is in the room or not, standing next to your child, rather than leaving and coming back, makes a difference.
Now the most important part to this method is, is that you don’t get stuck in the room. That you don’t create a new sleep crutch. You need to make sure that you slowly remove yourself, you fade away. With this process, as you are inside the room you can talk and reassure. Even when you’re close enough you can do some touching. But as the nights go on you must make sure that you are slowly inching your way out of the room and removing yourself from the sleep space. You will eventually get to the point where you put your child down awake and completely leave and she will be OK with that.
Remember, just like the other methods, whichever method you choose, you must do the same thing at night. You must be able to respond consistently from bedtime until the morning. Because half of seeing the success in sleep training is putting your child down awake, and the other half is consistency.
Have questions on which method is right for you? Let’s talk!