Your baby’s goal is to sleep all night!

January 28, 2015

When your baby wakes up during the night, are they hungry? Sometimes. Sometimes they are not crying from hunger. They are crying because they are tired! What? Why would they cry from being tired? Why don’t they just sleep if they are tired?

About 16 weeks of age your child develops sleep cycles, similar to adult sleep. During their sleep your baby will enter into light sleep where they are barely asleep.

What will happen?
1.The baby may awaken completely or
2.The baby will continue the sleep cycle by moving into deeper sleep.

Your baby needs to learn the skill of how to continue through that sleep cycle by continuing into deep sleep. This is a skill for your baby to learn, just like all the other skills they are trying to learn.
When your baby does not know how to move back into deeper sleep, your baby will start to cry. The crying is because your child is frustrated and wants to sleep. Your child is tired but does not know how to get back to sleep.

Your child does not want to be awake during the night any more than you do.

Our bodies crave sleep.

When your child is crying and calling for you, they want you to get them back to sleep just like you did at bedtime.

If you nursed your child to sleep, your child will want you to nurse them back to sleep again.
If you rocked your child to sleep, your child will want you to rock them back to sleep again.
If your child sucked a pacifier to get to sleep, your child will call for the pacifier.
Your child wants you to recreate the environment of when they fell asleep in order to return to sleep.

This leads to many night wakings and many times of calling for you the parent to help them. We end up with broken and fragmented sleep for child and parent and both are exhausted.

What is the solution?
The goal is for your child to be put in their bed relaxed and calm but not asleep. When the child finishes the job of going to sleep, the child can use that same skill during the night while in the shallow portion of the sleep cycle.
Avoid allowing your child to associate rocking and nursing or feeding with the process of going to sleep. Move these activities earlier in the bedtime routine so that is not how the child finishes the process of “going to sleep”.

Parent and child feel much better and more alert after a good uninterrupted night of sleep.

Following a phone/skype or in-home consultation conversation, I write a personalized sleep plan to help a family reach their chosen goals. For two weeks I coach and encourage the family to become successful with their sleep goals.

http://www.gentletouchsleeptime.com/contact-me/

Contact me for a FREE 15 minute phone call to discuss your sleep situation and how I can help you.

Arlene Fryling

Arlene is a registered nurse and certified sleep consultant for children 0-5 years. She has cared for premature, sick, and many healthy babies. For over 15 years she has taught expectant parents how to care for their newborns through classes teaching basic baby care, infant massage classes, and moderating support groups for new moms as they deal with parenting issues.

Infant Tummy Massage to Relieve Gas

To see the complete massage instructional video:

Testimonials

Alix Kron

★★★★★

4 months ago

We cannot say enough positive things about our experience working with Arlene!! We were desperate for sleep, going almost 5.5 months with frequent wake ups, nursing back to sleep, nonstop crying during the day, screaming in the car and becoming more and more hopeless as time went on without having success … Arlene changed all of that within no time. She listened to exactly what was going on for us, developed a sleep plan specific to our daughter’s needs/our goals and was so supportive and answered all of our questions along the way. It was very easy to follow the plan that she developed and it included naps and weaning off of night feedings. We saw a difference in our daughter almost immediately! Arlene has absolutely transformed our lives and given us the ability to enjoy each other and feel so much better getting the sleep we all want and NEED! Our daughter is now sleeping 11-12 hours per night, eating only once overnight as opposed to every 1-2 hours, is on a great nap schedule and is so much happier!!! It’s the best money we’ve spent.

Adrienne G.

★★★★★

2 years ago

We worked with Arlene to sleep train our 22 month old son who had been bed sharing and nursing to sleep. She helped us develop a sleep plan that was specific to our son's needs. It addressed both his nighttime sleep and his naps. It really took the guess work out of the endeavor, because as a parent, even if you read all the sleep books, there are many different opinions and it is hard to know what is right. Arlene was attentive, flexible and available to answer all of our questions and concerns. I would highly recommend working with her! Our son now sleeps 11-12 hours a night and put himself to sleep on his own. Sleep training him has been a game changer for me (I sleep now too!) and for him. He seems well rested and his development seems to be progressing faster now too. His language skills are flourishing since he is getting better rest.

Amanda C

★★★★★

4 years ago

We just wrapped up our second time working with Arlene, and had another great experience! Arlene helped us sleep train our first baby a few years ago when she was 4 months old at the time. She was a terrible sleeper, waking up once every hour and needing to be rocked to sleep for what felt like hours and hours each day. I was a stressed, exhausted, and worried first time mom, and I was drawn to Arlene’s calm and experienced approach. She gave us an option for a gentler strategy that worked for us at the time, and was detailed and responsive in her sleep plan and attentiveness. Our daughter just turned 2.5 years old and is still a great sleeper. So once our second baby turned 4 months recently, we did not hesitate to work with Arlene again. We now have two rockstar sleepers in our household, thanks to Arlene! It means the world to us that she was there to help guide us, instill confidence, and most importantly, help teach our children such a valuable skill they will undoubtedly benefit from for the rest of their lives.

Begoña Cirera

★★★★★

2 years ago

Arlene helped me first with my first son who was 2.5 year old when I hired her. He slept with me during breastfeeding. He never wanted to sleep in his crib. I was due with my second, and I needed better rest, and had no clue how to get him to sleep away from my bed. I even had to sleep w him during naps, or he wouldn’t sleep. I had to walk him for hours to fall asleep every night. It was awful. Two weeks after Arlene helped us create a program for him, he was done!!! He was sleeping in his own room, all night (12+ hours) and he was SO HAPPY during the day. We learned so much, and all made so much sense. After trying methods and books, nothing worked. My son is almost 6, and he falls asleep at 7:30pm every evening, until 7:00am. As a parent, you know how precious those hours are. With my second one, I didn’t make the mistake of waiting until he was two to train him to sleep. By 3 months, we slowly started, with Arlene’s help. I never had to walk him or be there for him to fall asleep. He’s now 3, and he is a great sleeper, much better than his big brother ever was, still takes 90-min naps, and sleeps 11 hours a night. Every penny I spent to hire Arlene’s expertise is worth it. My only regret was not to look for her sooner. Lifesaver, 100%.

Abbey Stidam

★★★★★

6 years ago

Arlene Fryling at Gentle Touch Sleep Time helped our son sleep, which helped us sleep! We were having trouble transitioning our son (4 months at the time) from his rock-n-play to the crib and our amazing sleeper since birth was all of a sudden not sleeping very much. Arlene talked with us about what was going on with his sleep and why the change in his sleep pattern. She answered all our questions and calmed our worries and frustrations. She came up with a sleep plan that worked for our family. She guided us every step of the way. He is now an amazing sleeper again! He is 18 months old and sleeps 12 hours at night and takes a 1 1/2 - 2 hour nap. He loves to sleep and never fights sleeping. I am so thankful we had Arlene Fryling help us and we were able to teach our son to sleep.