Transcript of “Toddlers That Won’t Go to Bed (Solutions from Eileen Henry)”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled.

Today I have the pleasure of hosting Eileen Henry. She’s a longtime friend and fellow RIE associate. And she’s a pioneer, as one of the first child sleep consultants in the U.S. She’s been helping families achieve peaceful and lasting sleep for decades. Eileen offers effective, holistic solutions that end up transforming parents’ experience with sleep and common behavior issues in the early years of development. Eileen’s the real deal, and when she works with you, it’s with her and the unique method she developed, not borrowed ideas from other experts.

She says: “Underneath most behavior is a need that longs for expression. Often these needs are in conflict with one another in the early years.” I’m really excited for the second opportunity to share Eileen’s sage insights with you on Unruffled.

Hi there, Eileen. Welcome back. Thank you so much for returning to share with us.

Eileen Henry: Always a pleasure.

Janet Lansbury: As Eileen knows, I sent her a whole bunch of questions. They were just some that I’ve been saving because they’re all around what Eileen is an expert in, which is sleep issues. All of these are about helping our child to get to sleep. It’s not about what happens after they’re already asleep and it’s done, but it’s that process of helping them get to bed, which can be very challenging, obviously.

I thought maybe we could start by having you say a little bit about what you thought about all these notes, if there’s something that stuck out for you as a similar theme in the issues parents are having. Some general guidelines, maybe, that you could offer before we get into the specifics.

Eileen Henry: Yes, I’m happy to. I noticed they’re all toddlers. I think the youngest one is a year old, and that’s coming in the beginning toddler. And then there is the accomplished toddler: two, two-and-a-half, coming into three years old. Very verbal, and they’re accomplished in their basic skill set and they’re practicing their skills. And they really show up in the night before bed when it’s time to let go and say goodbye to the day and separate from parents.

I like to look at this in the macro and then the micro. The macro, the family system, we’re working on meeting the needs of the child in the context of the most dynamic stage of growth and change in a human being’s lifetime: development. And development is the most interruptive thing to sleep. And it’s kind of an entropic system, early family life. It’s going from order to chaos to order to chaos. Order is when the habit formation solidifies and there’s a good habit, a good routine, and things are rolling along. And then chaos comes in big leaps of development and change. And toddlers are really apprehending a lot of emotional change, cognitive change, and change is happening in the environment too.

Janet Lansbury: And physical change too, in their development.

Eileen Henry: Oh yeah. And our job is really, if we think of the overall, is to create a sense of order just enough that over time we’re modeling the ability to return to order when life and change and growth and development takes us into chaos. So we’re always ushering them back into a place of order, into a place of stability. And that learning, that’s a two-decade proposition and learning experience, really. Because that’s how long this kind of dynamic brain development is going on.

I really identify with the toddler. This is the training ground and it really paves the way to the young child, the adolescent, and the teenager. Ninety-nine percent of the time, when people come to me with toddler sleep, it’s not a genuine sleep issue. It’s a boundary and a habit issue. And that’s great news because, as you know, Janet, Magda told us we can change anything we’re doing with our children at any time. And I love that because we’re going to do this over and over with our children.

Janet Lansbury: That’s right. It’s never too late. It’s never too early to start thinking about creating routines that you want to work in the future or that you hope will work.

And I am with you totally on loving the toddler years. One of the reasons is they’re just a mess, putting it all out there. Hopefully we see it as kind of a lovable mess, but as we get older, we’re more hidden in our feelings and things we’re going through. Toddlers just are like an open book.

Eileen Henry: They are. And what they’re grappling with is a lot that human beings, we do all our lives. And I think one of the most interesting elements of humanness is desire and longing. And toddlers, we see it in their behavior—and you’ve talked to this a lot, and I love how you speak to this—that underneath the behavior are needs. And if we can get under the behavior, the desire, the longing, the asking, mommy, mommy, mommy, running around, that wild burst of energy they can get before bedtime. Underneath the behavior is the desire to connect, the desire for some control.

And I like the word “apprehend” because it really captures how the embodied toddler is coming into these natural human feelings of desire and longing and wanting and expression and mischief and curiosity and all of that. They apprehend it in an embodied, physical, highly expressive way. And they’re having conflicting needs.

Janet Lansbury: Yes, and that’s what you’re reminding me of is that even though I said they’re putting it all out there, they’re putting it all out there, but not in a way that’s clearly going to communicate to us all the time what the actual need is. Sometimes it’s, “I need to be with you all the time!” That’s what I’m saying and that’s what I’m demonstrating. But what I really need is the order that you can give me. What you’re talking about, about order. And so that’s where it’s so easy to get misdirected by them because obviously our heart goes out when they’re saying, “I just need to be with you. Don’t ever leave me!” kind of thing.

Eileen Henry: And the truth of the matter is, because they’re still immature, so this rising up, this first time in toddlerhood, these genuine feelings are coming up, they’re still immature and they don’t know the difference between a need and a want. And that’s our relentless job, to discern that for them. If we think about it, we look around, a lot of grown-ups struggle with that, so we can really give toddlers a big break.

Janet Lansbury: Absolutely. Okay, we better get going on these questions because we do have a lot and I want to get to as much of this as possible, get your expertise. And I know parents really appreciate hearing advice on these issues. Here’s the first one:

I’ve recently bought No Bad Kids and I’ve been implementing some of your disciplinary guidelines and I’ve noticed them make a huge difference in my relationship with my daughter. Meal times are much smoother. I’ve noticed that she appears so much more confident to explore and play on her own. I’m feeling less guilty and much more confident about setting boundaries. Yay! And our time together feels really connected.

One area I’m still struggling with is bedtime, which has never been particularly easy for us. My daughter has a sensitive nervous system and definitely takes a while to wind down in the evening. That being said, we had a nice little rhythm going until this last week. The rhythm was: physical movement and dancing, wind down, dinner, bath, husband reads with her, he leaves the room, I come in and sing songs with her, sleep. We’ve been staying at the in-laws’ while they’re away, I think this might be a contributing factor. And as soon as bathtime is over and I’ve finished reading to her, singing songs, and winding down, she all of a sudden becomes giggly and starts climbing off and onto the floor bed, crawling around the floor, picking up anything on the floor that she can find. Last night it was a lamp, which I’ve since moved away.

And then she starts either hitting or biting. Last night after she had bitten me twice, I told her that I wouldn’t let her do that and that I’d send her dad to finish bedtime. She cried for about 20 minutes straight until I eventually came back into the room and from there she managed to get to sleep, but this was already way past her bedtime. We’re facing the same situation tonight. I’ve been bitten twice and I’ve now left the room and her dad is reading to her. No tears yet, though.

Any tips you could offer would be so greatly appreciated.

Eileen Henry: Okay, yes. The first thing I would ask is how the naps are. Most toddlers at this age still need a combined two minimum, preferably three hours of day sleep. And so if they don’t get that, the cortisol builds up and the wild child shows up right before bed. I love the ritual that they have—the physical activity, dancing, moving around, and how they wind into the night. And I trust mother’s intuition that she has a sensitive nervous system. Those nervous systems need a little longer to wind down, and so I would start earlier with that winding-down process, but I really love that. I love the dance before dinner and then coming in to dinner, then books. And once we enter the bedroom, we want to create a really intimate, close connection.

I wonder about the floor bed, too. Sometimes for this age child, that can be a lot of room and, depending how the setup is, I always ask for pictures of the physical environment. So once they start crawling up and down and off the bed and all around, the container might need to be brought in. And I’m also not sure if the parents are the body boundary, if they’re laying down to have her stay on the floor bed. Our presence can become really stimulating for our little ones, especially this age. So if we combine a little lack of sleep during the day, or even if she’s getting enough sleep during the day, let’s say she’s getting great naps and this behavior is still showing up, I would recommend bringing in the container to give her the ability to move around.

As far as the biting goes, my daughter, when she was two-and-a-half, left a RIE class after her best friend bit the heck out of her, and she looked at me the next day and there was still a mark on her arm and she said, “Ava didn’t mean to hurt me, she just meant to bite me.” It’s so true. It’s that impulse, that compulsion, just like that nyump expression. And sometimes it’s an expression of passion, excitement, this idea called cute aggression. When human beings get really excited, it’s just like, I want to bite it! I would say, in a quiet moment: “I notice that you get really excited before sleep time and you bite.” And offering something to bite in the bathtub, offering a lovey, the transitional object, something they can bite. And I would remove myself after the first bite. So, “Oh, you bit me, I’m going to step away.”

But the need for attachment, closeness, connection, and the opposite, equal conflicting need for autonomy, separateness, authenticity, those are usually the two conflicting needs at this time. So I give a lot of preparation to the physical environment and the emotional environment because we’re sculpting a container that holds our children, it holds our toddlers, it holds their sleep. And it also holds these expressions of needing to move and needing to get that out of the body. That’s what they are in charge of. They’re in charge of moving their bodies and finding the rest, and we’re in charge of holding the boundary and coming and going in what I call “co-regulation in motion.”

In toddlerhood, these natural behaviors come up and the parent being next to the child is really stimulating. Quite often the child can find rest sooner if they have a safe environment. They can roll around, play with their lovey, play with their toes and their hands, and walk around and let the body find rest. So I would just need more information on the physical environment. And I know they’re at their in-laws’ house. So it’s a new environment, that’s challenging. But the floor bed at home, what is that physical environment like? And how to create a little more containment for the one-year-old to move about and get that energy out of her so that her body can find rest.

Janet Lansbury: I was thinking about what the parent said about the sensitive nervous system too, which would make a child even more sensitive to the energy of the parent. And then if the parent’s getting annoyed—which is very normal for us to do, we want our day to be over as a parent, and now it’s taking longer and longer. And so now our energy is not just exciting because it’s a parent, but it’s unnerving because our vibration is not a comfortable one.

Eileen Henry: Yes, and they’re interested in that. That’s curious . . . They’re learning in relationship. And sensitive nervous systems don’t usually happen in a vacuum. They happen within the nervous system of the family. And so we want to be mindful of any somatic practice of self-regulation starting earlier. When we notice these things in our children at a year old, it’s not too young to say, “I see and I hear you. I see this at night. Let’s get to the bedroom sooner so you can crawl up and down off of the bed for a bit, and then settle in for story time.” I don’t know what time they’re hitting the bath, but by bathtime she might be a little overtired. This is classic a-little-jacked-up-on-cortisol behavior.

Janet Lansbury: Yes. And one of my three children, bathing actually stimulated him, so it didn’t have that effect that we hope it’s going to have. So it’s not necessarily a calming-down experience for children. It can be an excitable experience too.

Eileen Henry: Good point. Then that way we would want to put that earlier in the ritual, maybe after the dance party, then the bath. We’re going from an upright, active love, family environment to horizontal, quiet love, sleep environment.

Janet Lansbury: Great, I love that. Okay, here’s another one:

I’m a mum to T, a delightful, curious, intuitive, and strong-spirited 23-month-old who’s an incredible communicator, strong verbal skills. Myself and my partner follow a gentle, respectful approach with her and have done from the beginning. I’m currently at home with T full-time except for naps, and one afternoon a week when my mum has her. I really feel I need this time and space to refill my cup.

In the last few weeks, my mum has received a cancer diagnosis, and whilst we are awaiting a full diagnosis and prognosis, I believe the cancer is advanced and we are perhaps facing the end of her life. I—understandably, I know—feel overwhelmed and sad and find my tolerance and patience with my daughter is in much shorter supply than usual. In light of the diagnosis, I’m not asking my mum to look after T, as I feel she has enough to manage and process at the moment.

T is also beginning to refuse her nap, which I’m finding so frustrating and feel myself becoming uncompromising and resentful with her in the moment. We have recently stopped feeding through the night, which on the whole T has managed and accepted very well.

I wonder if you can speak to how to navigate this time— the frustration I’m feeling towards my daughter when she refuses to nap, losing the small window I have to myself now, and also how to navigate any changes that may help support me during what I feel will be stormy clouds ahead for our family.

I’m mindful that the gentle approach to making changes such as stopping feeding or bed-sharing is to do this when there are no big life changes imminent. Whilst I don’t particularly want to stop either, I worry that if my mom’s prognosis is poor, I’m going to be rocked to my core and I’m not sure I will be able to manage feeding and the lack of space bed-sharing currently allows going forward.

Any insight, wise words, and tips gratefully received.

Eileen Henry: This is when human beings are the most human: grieving. Yeah, all these feelings that are coming up for you, “uncompromising and resentful with her in the moment.” That’s so human. That’s so understandable when you’re going through grief. And this is a unique grief, this mother is in the middle of the past of being mothered by her mother and mothering. This is a huge transition. It’s kind of this mom to not want to put too much on her mother as far as doing the caregiving with her, given what she’s going through. I would say if you could carve out time of just the three of you being together and just being present with each other as much as possible and really sinking into this time, this huge transition.

You stopped feeding through the night, which your toddler accepted very well—hold on to that. Developmentally, she’s capable of holding on to night weaning and you don’t need to go back to that, because that’s going to deplete you. And you want to be as resourced as you can going through this time. As far as bed-sharing, you could make that change. But I would say, trust yourself. Is that a change that you really feel like you could make right now?

And as far as the nap goes, if you’re doing bed-sharing at night, I take it that your daughter is reliant on you to lie down with her for naps. Here again, it would be setting up the sanctuary of rest, relaxation, downtime, and not even call it nap. But at this age, if she’s used to you being with her to get the nap, it’s going to be hard to change that at this age. You could just transition to downtime and go to bed earlier or be with her. Your body might need a nap at that time. Grief is exhausting, it takes a lot of energy to be present with grief. But if you could create a space that you could just give her permission to, you can make noise, you can sleep, you can hang out, you can play. And this is the downtime. And we give them an environmental cue. I like using a light cue. Red is slow down, hang out, quiet play and green is go, dog, go!

Janet Lansbury: Are you saying that the parent would separate and say, “This is your time. You can go to sleep if you feel like it. You don’t have to.” And letting go of that pressure the parent’s putting on herself. Often it’s letting go of something around sleep that makes it work, just because sleep is letting go, right? That starts with us letting go. So letting go of that it has to be this way. Like, Here’s some things in your room. Hang out, but I’m going to rest. I’m going to go rest now.

Eileen Henry: We’re modeling self-care and we’re showing our daughters how to love the self, how to take care of the self as far as the basic needs. And it’s okay. Because we also have that need for closeness and attachment versus self-preservation, authenticity, and autonomy. And we want our children to integrate those two because those two needs, that are in conflict, they’re going to have to navigate and even negotiate in every close relationship they have in this life, especially their intimate relationships.

So what we want to do is create, again, a sanctuary, a calming, peaceful place that we can release the child to. And I don’t know how this little one, how her autonomy muscle is. If she’s used to having the place in RIE, the yes space, where we can release our little ones to and they have autonomous, self-directed play. And we come and go. Check in, go do our thing, come back and check in. And that can be built at any time. I just don’t know, going through grief, if this is something this mom can take on. I would encourage her to let go.

Toddlers are great at grief. They can cycle through every stage in like 20 to 30 minutes. Denial, bargaining, sad, disappointment, anger, rage, sad, frustration, acceptance. And when I work with mothers who are going through a grieving process and changing sleep habits in their home, what they’re faced with is their own grief and then their child going through their loss in grief of separating, saying goodbye to the day, letting go of mom and dad as their sleep rock. And I do discuss in toddler sleep the process that toddlers are going through. A letting go, a loss, a grieving. If they’re letting go of the breast as their sleep crutch or being in constant contact with a parent. And as we usher them and support them into moving into greater abilities and autonomy, they have to let go of that. And they experience all the feelings of grief.

The only other attachment person that talks about this and the grief around sleep and saying goodbye and letting go is Gordon Neufeld. He really speaks to this beautifully. And we both agree that we meet that letting go with ritual—storytelling especially, as part of the ritual—and lullaby. Those are the two perfect ways to meet grief and letting go, because that’s how we’ve dealt with it for thousands of years. Before the written word, we did oral storytelling. And the lullaby is an ancient, ancient form that we use in rituals, especially rituals to deal with sadness, loss, and grief.

Janet Lansbury: And do you feel like since this is a grieving, letting-go process, that this is also a time to consider that there may be some really healthy crying children need to share?

Eileen Henry: Yes.

Janet Lansbury: Generally I always feel like, and I would notice this in my children, if children this age, that are in such emotional turmoil for a good part of the day, if they don’t have regular venting periods, which is usually around when we set a boundary with them, Sorry, we can’t play outside anymore. It’s really time to come in. If we could see those all as positive sharing that our child needs to do, if we could keep reminding ourselves of this perspective that, Oh, I haven’t done a bad thing as a mom, this isn’t bad. This is actually really a positive thing. Then our children don’t have to store it up until the end of the day.

Eileen Henry: Yes. I’m thinking of that previous letter, the little two-biter. Mom stepped away and her daughter cried for 20 minutes and then she came back and she was ready to go to sleep. She had the release she needed. Here again, release is so important.

Janet Lansbury: Yes. I like that analogy of the container, but for my survival it’s been more like that little bit of emotional distance of kind of being the therapist that I guess contains, but it’s more like witnesses. It’s more like allows for, makes room for, and doesn’t have to take it onto myself in any way.

Eileen Henry: Yeah. We’re doing something with our children that therapists will intentionally do but don’t want to unconsciously do. We’re in parallel process with them. And that’s going to be the challenge of this mom. Parallel process is if we start to feel the feelings of the other so much that we get carried and swept away in their experience and we don’t remain differentiated.

Janet Lansbury: And it’s really hard not to do that, by the way. Really, really hard. But that’s why I like the visual for me, the feeling of being the anchor. People will say to me, “Well, I’m riding these waves.” No, don’t ride the waves with your child! If you’re surfing all day, you’re going to be wasted.

Eileen Henry: You’re going to get swept away.

Janet Lansbury: But if you can be an anchor, then it’s passing through and you expect it to. You’re not trying to stop the waves or tame them. That’s why I hate that term “taming tantrums” and things like that. No, that’s us trying to control something that we don’t any of us control, which is our feelings.

Eileen Henry: No. I think tantrums are absolutely something that the child can handle. They can’t control it. It kind of has to ride its course, right? It just rides its course and then it comes down and all of a sudden it’s, “Oh, a bird!” They move through.

Janet Lansbury: Right. And it’s very sudden a lot of the time, like, What just happened? They’re fine and I’m still a mess. What’s going on here? But yeah, that always amazes me. I’ve seen that so many times with children I’ve worked with, my own children, that you feel like, as a parent that’s sensitive like I am, It’s the end of the world! And now two seconds later, What just happened? They’re all, La la la, everything’s great. What happened? And that’s why people think they’re faking it, right? Because how can they do that? But that’s the healthy way that children vent.

Eileen Henry: That’s what I mean by integrate. So the more we hold that anchor for them—I like the anchor too—holding that space, they’re able to move through those feelings. And I’ve noticed with my own and with children that I’ve worked with and the feedback I get from parents, it’s scary. And yet over time as they develop, it integrates into a very fluid and flexible emotional system. No one feeling takes them out. They’re able to have all the feelings of being human and all the feelings of grief and all the feelings of loss and all the feelings of frustration and disappointment, all of it. I think it may have been Gordon Neufeld who says, and they have every right to have every feeling.

Janet Lansbury: Right. And Magda said that too, all the time. Even about infants, that they have a right to cry. Okay, so moving on. That was wonderful, thank you. Here’s another one:

My daughter is turning three in March. She is soooo needy. She has been this way from the day she was born. She still needs me to put her to sleep. I stay with her until she’s fallen asleep. If I try to leave while she’s still awake, she screams and cries in despair to the point she will vomit. My back aches on a daily basis from carrying her. That’s the only way she will fall asleep.

On another note, she’s extremely needy. I get stressed because she doesn’t let me do anything. I tell her I need to get ready and will come back in five minutes. As soon as I step into my room, she’s calling for me. “Mommy, mommy!” It goes like this all day long. I give her my undivided attention, but it’s just not enough for her. I’m a stay-at-home mom and only work on Sundays as an RN.

I’m exhausted. Please budge me towards the right direction.

Eileen Henry: Oh, the three-year-old’s on top.

I’m going to go into the language of, “she still needs me to put her to sleep.” In my book, I talk about the difference between authentic need and parent-reinforced need. So, this is good news: This is a parent-reinforced need. She doesn’t need you to put her to sleep, but in her little mind she does because that’s the only way it’s happened. So, she can do it. She wants you to put her to sleep. And this is the discernment we have to do, the difference between a need and a want. And if you don’t, “she screams and cries in despair.” That is because she hasn’t learned another way to do it. But she can. She can.

And the great thing about working with a three-year-old, they have all their skills, they’re just practicing them over and over. They’re verbal. If there are any words coming out of the mouth, that means they do have access to what higher brain they do possess. And that actually isn’t distress or despair, that is longing and desire and come fix it because I don’t know any other way.

So I would encourage her to allow her daughter to learn how to navigate the liminal space of consciousness. From consciousness to unconsciousness, that’s the space that our toddlers have to confront to become skilled sleepers. And we help them. We set them up, we prepare them. I use storytelling, lovies, play, dress rehearsal, lullaby to set them up with a ritual that is irresistible to the toddler to prepare them, to release them into that space and learn how to navigate that space.

“She doesn’t let you do anything.” That means she’s in charge. And when toddlers are in charge, no one really gets what they need. It’s chaos. If I see an amount of chaos in an exhausted parent, it’s she’s gotten on top of the sleep ritual.

And the vomiters, oh my goodness, that’s a longer discussion. I’ve worked with varying degrees of vomiting. And it’s disheartening and it’s really upsetting to parents, yet it’s one of the easiest things for them to do is vomit. Crying and vomit is easy. It’s not like the vomiting that grown-ups do. It’s very different. We give them permission to vomit, actually. That’s just flat-out honest. We prepare them. We set up the crib, we set up the space, we put out new jammies. I have some of the most incredible stories I have about the cathartic experience vomiting children went through and got to the other side. A two-year-old who went to the crib and pointed and gagged and pointed to the crib and shook his head and said, “No more, no more.” Because his mom told him over and over, “It’s okay if you vomit. You don’t have to, but if you vomit, I’m going to clean it up, I’m going to take care of it, and we’re going to put you back to bed.” A toddler who is three years old at the gate, and his mom set him up, he had his bucket, they went through the dress rehearsal. And she sent me an email the next morning, she said, “I was in the kitchen and I heard the bucket fly over the gate. And I went and he looked at me, he said, ‘I don’t need that.'” And he went and got back to bed and he went to sleep. He was given permission for even that expression.

Janet Lansbury: Because the parent had the perspective that you gave them to not be deeply alarmed, like most of us are, especially the first time that happens.

Eileen Henry: Two to three years old, I tell parents, this is the age where we titrate the bad news and the great news, because it’s both for the child. That grown-ups are in charge and we don’t harm ourselves anymore to take care of our children. If our back is genuinely hurting, we look at the child and say, “You know what, sweetie? When I do that over and over, that hurts my back. So I’ll come sit down. You can sit in my lap.” We give them options, but we don’t do things that hurt us anymore. Because again, we’re modeling what it’s like to take care of ourselves and treat ourselves lovingly.

Janet Lansbury: Yes, I think it’s so hard for us, it was for me at first, to frame these kind of boundaries and sticking up for ourselves as such a positive, important teaching moment that will benefit our child their whole life. If we can see boundaries that way.

Eileen Henry: So underneath is the need, we want to meet the need. And then the behavior, we’ve talked about “letting it ride,” that expression and then it integrates and the nervous system calms down. The more the behavior meets the strong boundary, the loving limit, and the environment stays consistent, strong, and it holds, the behavior, even the vomiting, it goes away.

Janet Lansbury: Right. Because there’s a calming effect of, Oh, I don’t have to run everything. They’re comfortable being my leader, they’re comfortable doing this.

What I would say to this parent too, what I would suggest is that she gets the practice. Because I feel like bedtime is the hardest time to set a boundary. We’re tired. They’re tired. It’s this sensitive time for us separating from our children. It’s not just them separating from us. It’s us. And we want to feel like it was a good day and it’s all nice so that we can get to sleep and not feel agitated and worried that it’s all wrong and everything’s bad. It’s a really important time for a positive feeling. So I would just lean into the boundaries all day long so that you get a lot of practice with the dynamic of: I set the boundary. You get upset. I hold the boundary because I love you too much to not hold this for you. You need me to. And yes, you’re going to rail at me and scream at me and whine and say my name 50 million times, but I love you too much to crumble for you. It’s this really powerful, loving reframe. And the more practice she gets, the better chance she’ll have of being able to do this at night. Which is the hardest time, for me at least.

Eileen Henry: Yes. And setting the stage. A three-year-old, we can look at them and say, “You know what? I want to create a bedtime we look forward to.” That’s why I involve toddlers in their own solutions. We actually collaborate a solution with them. Now, we’re in charge of it, we show them the structure of it. And then we allow them to invite in the stuffy support animals, we invite in this creative connection we forge with them—what bridges us to the next day, where we’re going to meet, where we might meet in our dreams. A verbal child, this is when we really want to create an intimate, lovely preparation to then release them and let go of them.

Janet Lansbury: And I think the more mutual it is, the easier it’ll be for us to release it. Because there’s trust. Our child will make deals with us that they will not follow necessarily, they will not come through on. We shake hands on like, “Alright, we’re going to hug three times and say goodnight, and that’s going to be it.” And we can’t expect them to go with the deal, but at least we know they made this deal. And so I’m going to trust that if they’re not accepting it now, it’s because they need to vent something with me as I’m leaving or whatever it is. And it helps them to get a sense of control too. So yeah, I love that idea of children participating in the ritual. Their ideas about what do you need, what do you want, what should we do? And then, Okay, here’s how we’ll do it, then. Us having the final say.

Eileen Henry: Right, we’re modeling. So we’re saying, Okay, what are your non-negotiables? What do you want before bedtime? We’re going to have this, we’re going to have that. We’re going to make sure to make time for you crawling up and down off the bed. We build it into the ritual so that the child feels seen, heard, and understood, that they’re an active part of this and we’re creating something together to look forward to. And then we literally release them into the sanctuary. We release them into their imaginations, their wonder. They have their lovies. We give them what they’re in charge of in their environment, the lovey, the support animal.

I use storytelling kind of like lore, and there are archetypes in the story. There’s the vulnerable one we take care of and nurture. There’s the protector, maybe a bear. Lately dragons have been really popular with little boys as the overall watching over, protecting the space. And we give them these archetypes and we release them to it. We release them to the self, and we release them into their unconscious where all the shadow material waits for us in our dreams. They’re so good at it.

Janet Lansbury: Yeah, they are. And if we go into that knowing that we’ve done this together, and sometimes I even say, or even suggest, I remember saying this to my children, “If you have more feelings as I’m leaving, you get to share those and I will be back to check on you.” And that’s in the routine. We practice that. So it’s really, it’s in the play for us. It helps us kind of settle into our role a little bit better. I needed a lot of help with this. That’s why I’ve got all these ideas and why I have ideas for other parents too. Because there’s no one with a harder time setting limits than me. I mean, I love the expression, “I never let go of anything without leaving claw marks in it.”

Eileen Henry: Me too. I think I know where you got that one from. I like that one.

Janet Lansbury: And children are like that, right? Young children are. And they’re supposed to be, and that’s okay. If we can normalize that for ourselves and expect it, even, it’s just going to be easier for us to face it with that heroism that we need so often as parents around boundaries.

Eileen Henry: It is. And I tell parents, you just have to be good enough. My kids are way better at boundaries than I am, to this day. Just good enough. Thank goodness we don’t have to do it perfectly.

And that checking in on them, if we can lead the check-ins and reassure the child, I’m going to go do X and then I’m going to come back and check in on you. And if you can keep it a little lighthearted—you talk about this, I’ve heard you talk about this—staying in lighthearted and almost playful. I used to tell my daughter, “I always have three more kisses in me, so when I come back, you tell me where you want those kisses.” And she’d want them on her doll, on her elbow. And it was a little playful.

Also, a magical little phrase and mantra is, “You know what, sweetie? I’m going to give you longer to work this out. I’m right over there. I’m going to be back. I’m listening. I hear you calling mommy, mommy, mommy. I hear that. And I’m going to give you longer to work this out and settle down and go to sleep.” A three-year-old, we can start to speak to them. And I think that is a respectful, gentle way of speaking to a child. It’s just their reaction can be anything but gentle. They’re ruckus, they’re rough and tumble, so that’s going to come back at us.

Janet Lansbury: They’re not unruffled, which is partly what I love about them. But yeah, the reason to have that light attitude too is—and not that we can snap our fingers and have this, it’s all about this perspective and everything that you’ve talked about here today. It’s important because then our child isn’t feeling those intense, uncomfortable things coming from us that they’re going to absorb, and now they’ve got to deal with that too at bedtime. If we can be clear and confident and light in what we’re doing, they have nothing else to dig into there when they’re clawing. There’s nothing, it’s like we’re light as a feather. What are they going to claw into? And that’s what they need. They don’t want to be stuck either, in their heart of hearts. They don’t want to be in that in-between place. They want to go to sleep too, down deep, because they’re exhausted.

Eileen Henry: They don’t want to work that hard. They will.

Janet Lansbury: It’s like they feel like they have to, they can’t be the one to let go first. It’s this wonderful way they’re built.

Eileen Henry: When you’re in the moment, I do appreciate how hard it is when your child’s tugging on your heartstrings.

Janet Lansbury: It really is. And so we do whatever we do and then later we look at it and say, Okay, maybe I want to be kinder to myself the next time. And I’ll try it, and we just do our best. And at some point we realize, because we see it evident in front of us in all the boundaries that we set, that, Oh my gosh, that was a gift that I just gave my child.

Eileen Henry: Yeah. I think there’s a magic in preparing ahead of time, preparing the child, walking them through, having one last night. Especially if they’re heavy sleep crutches, like still holding them to sleep or nursing them to sleep or being with them or picking them up a bunch of times to fix their sleep for them. To really prepare the self, then prepare the child, and then walk through with that confident momentum. I love your term. Confident momentum is co-regulation in motion. It has a momentum, it has a confident movement to it.

Janet Lansbury: Yeah. And it doesn’t have the trepidation. Because sometimes when I suggest to parents that they prepare, they interpret it as if they’re using this warning tone. Well, now I have to do this, and here’s your last kiss. And that’s not the comfortable parent that we’re talking about, that’s so vital to this process.

Wow. You are just a wealth of information and inspiration, and I hope that everybody checks out your website if they haven’t already: compassionatesleepsolutions.com. And your book, The Compassionate Sleep Solution, Calming the Cry. Check that out too. Check out her social media. We’ll put links into the transcript.

And she does this amazing thing: 15-minute free consultations with Eileen. That is huge. So you might want to check that out as well and take advantage. And I love the work that you’re doing and how you’ve spearheaded this work, this role of sleep consultant. You’ve provided a service that is so essential. If we’re not sleeping, everything is much harder.

Eileen Henry: It is. It’s the foundation of our well-being. It really is, to be resourced as parents and human beings. It certainly was for me.

Janet Lansbury: Thank you so much, Eileen.

Eileen Henry: Oh, it’s always a pleasure to hang out with you. Thank you.

Janet Lansbury: Again, Eileen’s website is compassionatesleepsolutions.com, and you can also hear our previous conversation on Unruffled, The Beauty of Sleep.

Thank you so much for listening and all your kind support. We can do this.

The post Toddlers That Won’t Go to Bed (Solutions from Eileen Henry) appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled. Today I’m welcoming Eileen Henry to the podcast. She’s a longtime friend and associate, a fellow RIE Associate. She was one of the first child’s sleep consultants in the US and now she has well over 20 years of experience helping families all over the world achieve peaceful and lasting sleep. She uses a unique, individualized approach rather than a prescribed method. And her main goal is to assure that parents and child maintain and strengthen their bond.

Sleep discussions are always the most controversial. Everybody’s got a strong opinion, but I can’t think of a better qualified guide than Eileen Henry for a discussion on sleep.

Janet Lansbury: Hi, Eileen.

Eileen Henry: Hi, Janet.

Janet Lansbury:  I’m so glad that we’re finally doing this.

Eileen Henry:  I know, I am too. This is great.

Janet Lansbury:  I’ve known Eileen for a very long time. We both studied with Magda Gerber. What made you kind of veer into this? You were one of the very first sleep consultants that there were, right? You sort of invented this job.

Eileen Henry:  Yes. The first thing that veered me into sleep was what I call the gift of desperation. Coming from a history of my own sleep issues. When I had my first child, I thought, Wow, if I don’t sleep and he doesn’t sleep, this is gonna be very difficult. And it was really his dad, my husband at the time, he came to me with an article from the Wall Street Journal. There was one person, Jill Spivack in Los Angeles, doing sleep and he said, “There’s an eight week wait time for her.” He said, “Eileen, you need to do this. Someone, someone could get hurt in that eight weeks if they’re not sleeping.” So that’s how it started.

Janet Lansbury: So then you did all the research and…

Eileen Henry:  Yes, I had already done a lot of research at that time, and I was working with Hari, our friend Hari Grebler. She was my mentor, and we had talked about doing sleep together, and I loved her take on sleep. She’s like, “I want to call it ‘the beauty of sleep.’ There’s so much tension and there’s so much angst around sleep, and it’s really something that is beautiful.”

That’s always stuck with me.

Janet Lansbury:  What is the key to sleep? Well, let’s not say one thing because whenever someone asks me “what’s the one thing?” my mind goes completely blank. So what are a few or one the most important things that you try to communicate to parents about sleep?

Eileen Henry:  Yeah. So the elements of that rest in what is called the rest and digest system, the parasympathetic nervous system, and coming to a place of relaxation.

I think it really helps parents to realize that sleep is something we’re going to touch and nurture throughout development, focusing on that piece. And that’s relational, that’s a relational nurturing because as far as in children development is what affects sleep the most — gross motor development, verbal development, ooh, my goodness, the verbal toddler. All of these interrupt sleep, but life itself interrupts sleep. And so returning to the nervous system, returning to the rest digest system and relaxation. So working on… parents working on their own self-regulation. I think is what is so transformative about this process.

Janet Lansbury: So yeah, it’s like everything about parenting is not about how can I help my child sleep better? It’s about how can I work on my perceptions and trust this experience more?

Eileen Henry: Yes, trust. I often quote you in two things that constantly come back that parents really relate to… One is being that emotional anchor for our children. And to be an, an emotional anchor for any human being, we have to be fairly regulated. And then “confident. momentum.” I love that. The confident momentum to me is an embodied piece, leading our children and leading from a place of rest and relaxation and play. Really, I use play, play story language very specifically, especially for 8, 9, 10 months through toddlerhood. I think that’s a key element.

Janet Lansbury: How do we get there though? Let’s say we’ve had experiences where our child didn’t fall asleep and we panicked and we did all these normal things that I did, focusing on it so much, like, Oh my gosh, if this doesn’t happen. And then we worry, how am I gonna function?!

I remember with one of my children I felt like I can’t go another day. I’m not going to survive this. I’m not going to make it if I don’t sleep a little bit better tonight. What do we do with that? What do we do with all those feelings? How do we calm ourselves down? How do we find a different place in ourselves to approach sleep with?

Eileen Henry: That is one of the compassion pieces, and if parents can realize this is temporary, that you’re not locked into anything here… It always brings me back to that beautiful Magda quote that we can change anything we’re doing with our children at any time.

We have to have the awareness. Then we look at the child and share the truth with them, which they probably already know, which is, “ah, I can’t do this anymore here. I’m going to show you how. I’m going to show you a new way.”

So that newborn infant phase, we’re feeding them a lot in the night. That’s just something that we do have to get through. And we have these amazing brain chemicals that help us do that. The falling in love drugs, the oxytocin, it keeps us able to do that, but that starts to run thin coming into five, six months, and that’s the real point where we can make some changes to get more regulated sleep.

Janet Lansbury: And what are some of the components to that that you recommend to parents? What are some of the basics for an ideal countdown to sleep or for getting ready for sleep? What does that look like?

Eileen Henry: So the newborn phase really is a symbiotic state. The infant doesn’t know where they end and we begin, and they’re not supposed to. There’s a period outside of the womb where they’re still doing a lot of developing and their brain is organizing. So for that piece, I recommend, “Yeah, bring them in, be close. Do what you need to do.” And so I tell moms and fathers, “Do what feels right and the most comfortable for you.” That’s when we really want to get in touch with our intuition. And we give birth to these little individuals — one might come in with reflux or crying a lot and be really hard to soothe, and those babies need more body contact. Their nervous system needs more calm, relaxed, grounding. So getting through that phase.

Then there’s a brain wake up that happens around the fifth and sixth month, and it can happen even sooner, like four or five, six months: that moment where they look up at you, it’s, it’s just unforgettable for parents. That moment when they look up at you and they smile and they get the other, they’re relational.  Allan Schore calls it “core relationship.” When core relationship comes, and there are some other things that are happening, some infants are starting to experiment with solid foods at that time, we can start organizing the night to meet that relationship.

And I think this is why I love the RIE philosophy and the RIE approach, the dependable, predictable routines that tell the infant: This is where we are. This is what’s happening. A routine of the day built around the basic needs, because the feeding relationship and the sleep relationship, there’s still some overlap, right? They’re still getting fed in the night. Most six-month-olds are having one, maybe two feedings, but there’s, we’re starting to come into a place where we can do a focal feed that meets the authentic hunger need of the infant in the night. So working at around five, six months, I help parents to discern that. And from that place, a lot can happen as far as bridging sleep cycles But the cornerstone of sleep is falling at the onset of the night without too much sensory input and fixing of the caregiver, the parent.

Janet Lansbury: Yes, I just want to clarify… because we started off talking about our self-regulation and just to acknowledge that our feelings have such a huge effect on our babies, obviously. So, you know, we’re dictating the whole tone of an experience. That’s why it matters how we feel.

Eileen Henry: Yes.

Janet Lansbury:  So how do we keep ourselves calm if our child seems to be struggling to fall asleep? And maybe we know that if we could, you know, just, I don’t know, move that baby around more or whatever, that maybe we could help them get to sleep faster, but we want to try to give them more of a chance. What does that feel like to be in the middle space?

Eileen has a book called The Compassionate Sleep Solution, Calming the Cry. And you say:

“There are two major camps on getting babies to sleep through the night. These methods are hotly debated, and their oppositional ideas can leave parents feeling frustrated and confused. 1. Cry it out! – Deal breaker for many parents. 2. Do whatever it takes, all day and all night long – Deal breaker for those of us who need to function in the real world.”

Then you say:

“There are other approaches that offer the much coveted “No Cry” result. The “no cry” unicorn baby, sorry to report, is a mythological creature. The Compassionate Sleep Solution is a gentle, honest and realistic approach. Since crying can be a part of that reality, this method will teach you how to calm the cry. Your child can sleep and feel safe and secure.”

Eileen Henry:  Yes, I still stand by that. So the middle way, I like the middle way, the “this, and.” The middle way really is a line that we dance throughout parenting, I’d say until probably, in this house, 17 years old, <laugh> that line that we go down. How much struggle and challenge am I going to let my child experience so that they’re resilient, capable, competent, un fragile? Because development is an un fragile state. We all go through it. And we are hardwired to have struggle and it’s inherent in development.

That struggle of rolling from the back to the belly to the back again. Oh my gosh, in RIE class, that’s one of the most beautiful memories to me of watching infants navigate that one gross motor move, that one move that they could take months to master.

So how much struggle are we going to let them have so that they’re resilient, strong, capable, competent beings? And how much support, reassurance help, and sometimes fixing? Off and on, we’re going to fix things for our children so that they know that we have their backs, they know we’re there for them, we’re supporting them. That’s a personal line for each parent. And also it’s different per child, so it depends on the child.

A lot of times, I start with discussing that I’m very much into building rituals, sculpting the physical and the emotional environment. Those are the first two places we go to. And the ritual is both. It addresses the physical environment and it addresses the emotional environment.

So after we have a very connected, loving, intimate ritual, and we put our child into the sleep space, that’s where the struggle begins. The infants self-soothing mechanism, it comes online anywhere between four to six months. It’s coming into stability. There’s a mechanism in the cingulate cortex, and it’s a self soothing mechanism. And I teach parents a process that helps to discern all cries are not dysregulation and a, a suffering state that some cries or struggle. And usually parents, once they discern that, they’re like, Oh, okay, a little struggle. I can deal the struggle. Suffering, we go towards it. That’s the relational piece: going towards the cry and being in relationship and present with that disturbance.

Janet Lansbury: And we’re still present with the struggle, but we’re present in a supportive empathic, I’m here for you way still. We’re not saying, Well, you do the struggle thing on your own. Just as with the baby rolling over. We’re not saying, Well, when you’re struggling, I either have to fix you or not care. I think that’s what people maybe are concerned about.

Eileen Henry:  It depends a lot on the age of the baby and what the parent is hearing. And like you said, being present with that. Families that I work with said, “I want be present.” They say, “I want to be present for struggle and suffering both. I want to be here and be present.” So some parents sit down, or pick up the baby and hold. If our child is really crying intensely, a lot of sleep consultants say, “Don’t pick up the baby.” And I’m like, “No. Oh gosh. Pick up your baby. Hold your baby. Just be very clear, ‘Oh, you’re calm now. I’m gonna put you back in bed to sleep.'” And if that starts the crying up again…

Janet Lansbury:  I think it is challenging. I mean, as parents, especially if when we’re first time parents, we feel so much like we’re out at sea anyway, that we want to have some rules to hold onto. But what Magda Gerber’s approach and what you are talking about with everything is the nuance. It’s about this in-between, and being open to what life and relationships and everything is really about, which is not having the answer all the time. You know, this brave openness it takes as parents for us to really see our child and be with our child in all different states that they’re in, supporting that and being open to wanting to understand more and wanting to see things through. And as you said before, we won’t always be in that space. And that’s fine. If we feel like I’m going to bounce on a ball or I’m going to put my child in the car in the middle of the night or whatever, that’s okay. Sometimes we need to do that, right?

Eileen Henry:  Oh yeah, absolutely. And that comes into it as well. But it’s that moment where we look at another human, we look into our baby’s eyes, it’s face to face. And really the question is, “Can you tell me more? Tell me more.”

I had a dad recently who described his experience and recounting his words I have a body reaction in my throat, in my heart, and in my gut. He said, “I held her. I held her and looked in her eyes and it was as I was breathing and remaining present with her, very quietly just holding her, I watched her go from being in pieces to becoming whole again.” And it was so profound for him. He said it was transformative. “It’s forever changed the way I will relate to my daughter when she’s disappointed, when she’s sad, when she’s struggling, when she’s frustrated.” And he named all of these words before he even got to the word suffering or the things that we immediately jumped to when we think our child’s suffering. I mean, I thought everything was a suffering cry. I would have like a visceral panic attack when I heard my little ones cry —

Janet Lansbury:  That’s very typical, isn’t it? We’re built that way, right?

Eileen Henry: Yes, we are. And their father, fortunately, he was just enough calm and “it’s okay, she’s just angry.” He could hear anger before I could hear the angry cry. “It’s okay, give her a minute.” And then it would calm. So the coming and going, really we are coming and going and supporting or staying present if that’s what a parent chooses. But the coming and going is with an infant who understands object permanence. They know when we leave we don’t cease to exist. So they’re not coming up with an abandonment scenario in their crib. They have enough experience and data of us coming and going to know we always come back, We go, we come back. And in those moments of coming and going, there are some beautiful reunions that happen crib side. You know, when we come up and look over the crib and our baby’s smiling and flapping their arms and legs. Those moments, I wish we spoke to those moments more in the fear of harming attachment with infants who are in cribs. Those the moments are like watching the arrivals gate at the airport. I just dropped my partner off at the airport this morning and one of my favorite places are arrivals, seeing people reunite. It’s so beautiful. And we get to do that so many times in the day with our little ones, the ones that are in cribs.

Janet Lansbury: Yeah. But I think that some people might see that as like total relief and desperation that they have to try to win you back now because they lost you and you left them. It’s a touchy, touchy subject.

Eileen Henry:  It is a touchy subject. And fortunately a client of mine introduced me to Gordon Neufeld’s work. And she said, Your program is so similar. His process is so much the same of the connection that we make before we put the child into separateness, where they must confront those natural feelings that arise when we separate from our beloveds and how to bridge that separateness. And that’s the key element to me. Bridging that separateness isn’t as difficult as we think, especially if a child understands object permanence. They’re starting to have some language reception, but what they’re understanding is tone, the tone of the voice, the facial tone, the body tone, the emotional current of the household.

Then when we go to put an infant down we stay on top of the check in. We don’t put them down and say, you know, work it out, get back to me when you figure this out.  Instead it’s, “I’m gong to go brush my teeth and I’m going to come back and check on you. I’m going to go do the laundry.”

I had a very handy washer and dryer that was in a closet between the children’s bedrooms and I would sing and fold laundry. They could hear me out there and my daughter would yell out, “Are you done? Are you done?” It’s like, “No, I’m going to be done a little bit. I’m going to come and check on you. I’m going to come poke in.”

I always have three more kisses in me, or five more kisses or whatever. I always have one more hug in me. “Where do you want it?” And she’d hand me her lovey and I’d hug her lovey and kiss it. Just keeping that lightness of “I’m right here, I’m gonna come back, I’m over here, I’ll be back. I’m sitting on the couch with dad, We’re listening. I’ll be back.”  So that they don’t have to work so hard. They don’t have to pull on us: Get back here, get back here. Where’d you go?

Janet Lansbury:  Yeah, that makes sense.

Eileen Henry:  Gordon Neufeld talks about going from work mode to sleep is very difficult. Think about adults, you know, if we’re in a heavy work mode and then we try to go to sleep, ugh, no go. We have to go into a play mode. Something light, something sweet, you know?

Janet Lansbury:  Right. Because sleep, even as adults, it’s about separation. Separation from life.

Eileen Henry:  We separate from our own consciousness. We go into the subconscious and the unconscious. We go into the shadow material. It’s great. I forget who called it “the best…” Oh, the guy that wrote the book, Why We Sleep, he says, “The best free therapy on the planet is our dream state and our sleep state.” So confronting those natural feelings and allowing our children to go: Yeah, I know, the night is dark and full of terrors. Yeah. Turns out that’s true. How are we going to approach that?

Janet Lansbury:  I get so many questions about sleep, and it’s not my specialty. I honestly, I get intimidated by the camps that you talked about, because I don’t believe in either of those camps. And whoa, it was a hard enough place for me to navigate as a parent and to try to help other parents navigate it. I don’t have that in me, but I love that you do.

Eileen Henry:  The one thing I do love about the camps is that I like to challenge myself and my own program and my own thinking and my own beliefs and my own experience and all of that. So they do keep me, they keep me on my toes and challenging myself and challenging my program. How am I gonna synthesize this into something that’s a middle and doable way for even someone who’s in one of those camps that comes to me and is desperate?

Janet Lansbury:  Yeah, that’s a hard place. I feel for the parents that need help and and are feeling the judgment of the camps out there, even in social media, everywhere. You can feel so much shame, even just, forget about commenting, just reading this stuff, these strong opinions that people have.

Eileen Henry:  Guilt is a part of this, but when it goes into the deeper, you know, shame and its shadow, pride. Oof. That’s some tough stuff to balance. So yeah, bring on the question. Let’s talk.

Janet Lansbury:  I would love there to be an open environment for people to explore this, and every aspect of parenting, and not be labeled and told you’re this or that and that you’re wrong.

Okay, so here’s the question:

I have a question about sleep for a toddler who’s overall quite anxious, particularly at night. My three-year-old son has been having a hard time sleeping since he was about two years and nine months. He says he’s afraid of various things that change each night. Sometimes bears other times, bikes or sleds, or our very friendly neighbors.

I’m sure that a large part of it is that this began around the time he went through a lot of life transitions that would certainly be stressful for a toddler. We moved houses in towns. He transitioned from a crib to a full size bed. He had a little sister and decided he was ready to be potty trained. Our family life has remained very stable, but I’m sure this was a lot for him.

We have tried every strategy I can think of to help him feel safe. He sleeps with a little flashlight. We check the room for scary things before bed. Our dog sleeps in the room with him. We sing him a special song our pediatrician recommended about how scary things do not live here, and we’ve experimented with laying in his bed until he falls asleep. We also got him a clock that lets him know when it’s an appropriate time to wake up.

Our issue is not that he doesn’t stay in his bed, He stays in there from about 8:00 PM until 6:30 AM but we know he is spending at least some of that time awake. By the time he eats breakfast at seven, he already looks incredibly tired with dark circles under his eyes and staring off into space.

I’m up early. So it really wouldn’t be a problem for him to be up early if he was getting sufficient sleep. I’ve read so much about how important sleep is for brain health and development, not to mention behavior. So I’m worried about him, but not sure how to help him. Would love any insight you have.

Eileen Henry:  Aw, that’s beautiful. I love, I love a lot what they’re doing.

Janet Lansbury:  There’s a lot of attunement in this.

Eileen Henry:  Lots of attunement.

First of all, I want to address the last piece, which is the fear piece. There’s been a lot of that propagated online about the fear of, “oh, their brain development, they need sleep.” They do, and they will get it. Their bio rhythms, they naturally will find sleep. This child who clearly knows how to sleep will get enough sleep.  The child, especially at this age, they can handle way more interruptions and even wakeful periods in the night that we can. So just to take that fear away. And I’d love to know if he naps every day because he will make up for it in a nap, probably. At this age, if he’s missing a chunk in the night, his body will find it in the daytime.

So given all of the changes that happened, and this is another thing, you know, human beings can handle the most amount of change and novelty and newness from about zero to 26 years old. That is an open, novel-seeking, innovative brain state. But it is astonishing that that one piece of a new sibling, I find really affects toddlers. I will get in a month, several toddlers that have just had a new sibling, many toddlers. And it’s common they start dreaming about apex predators. They will dream about sharks. It’s like, oh, it’s a little shadow material coming up with your feelings about a new sibling. It comes up in the dream phase.

Janet Lansbury: Yeah. It’s very threatening

Eileen Henry:  Toddlers at this age. They’re dealing with so much. So they’re dealing with separation anxiety and they’re dealing with a brain that they’re starting to kind of freak themselves out a little bit with language and make-believe and imagination and all of these beautiful qualities of the creative brain of the toddler. And a lot of this can fall right into the separation anxiety.

So what I do is go right to the anxiety, right to the tough spot. There was a study done at Harvard on anxiety and sleep and, and in the study they quit working with the children and just worked with the parents. And instead of trying to prevent the anxiety of the toddler, kind of normalizing and helping children confront their anxiety. Do you know Dr. Sarah Bren?

Janet Lansbury: Yeah, I know who she is. Yes.

Eileen Henry:  She’s an attachment therapist. Really Great. I like Sarah a lot. She calls it “early creative visualization.” This is the creative connection that we help the child with going into the night. “Ooh, bears. Yeah. Scary stuff.” And we can relate to the child how we know what it’s like to go into the night and have bad dreams, the scary things that come to us in the night that we meet the monsters.

Because any monsters that we meet in the dreams, they belong to us. They originate in our brain. They’re our monsters. How do we befriend them? What do they want? Do they want love? Do they want attention? Do they want regard? Do they want to be noticed? Do they want something?

Janet Lansbury: Yes, I was thinking that when she said the bears, I want to know what those bears look like. What kind of bears? Is it a teddy bear? Is it a big grizzly bear? What does it say? What would it do to you that you’re afraid of? I would go to all those places.

Eileen Henry:  Human beings have used storytelling and mythology and these practices since we started drawing things on cave walls. There’s a little girl I remember who had an alligator under her bed, and the mother asked her, “Huh, I wonder what that alligator’s hungry for? I don’t think it’s hungry for little girls.” Together they came up with, “Oh, that alligator wants love.” And so her daughter, she was three-and-a-half, she cut out little hearts and put them in a dog bowl and put them under the bed. And this alligator became part of her play world.

Janet Lansbury: Aw.

Eileen Henry:  She integrated it. So to me, these situations, I think integration is the middle place. So coming from, Oh gosh, what do I do? I’m worried about my child and their health to how to work with it creatively helps to integrate. And that’s the transformative piece.

Janet Lansbury:  Yeah, exploring it. It seems like from this note that maybe there’s been times spent following a recommendation to sing a song about how there aren’t any scary things here. And that’s, to me, just imagining that as a child, I feel like, why are we singing that there aren’t any scary things here if there aren’t any scary things here? It’s kind of like: Let’s not think about it. Everything’s fine. Nothing’s really happening. That usually doesn’t make someone feel that comfortable. It can be the opposite. So it’s interesting that she got that advice.

Eileen Henry:  Yeah, I like going right into the fear, right into the cry, right into the disturbance and doing some creative parts with that.

Janet Lansbury:  And it’s similar to how Magda taught us to go right into the feeling instead of saying, “Oh, it’s gonna be okay.” Instead saying, “Wow, what is that about? That’s real for you.” And really being open to leaning into those things that we’re not supposed to talk about. You know, that a lot of us grew up with the message: let’s just pretend everything’s fine, let’s not go there.

Eileen Henry:  Yes. And the confidence that they can handle these feelings with our help, they can handle this. Yeah.

Janet Lansbury:  And really that’s true for all sleep, right? It’s having that attunement to them and that relationship between us that has a lot of trust in it. And also, I’m here for you.

Eileen Henry:  Yes.

Janet Lansbury:  That is so helpful, Eileen, and inspiring. Thank you so much. I want tell everybody that amazingly, Eileen Henry offers free 20 minute consultations if you go to her website, Compassionate Sleep Solutions.com, and she has her wonderful book, The Compassionate Sleep Solution. Check all her stuff out, take advantage of her free consultation. As you can tell, she’s just a wealth of wisdom and encouragement and support and bravery really going into these in-between spaces. So thank you again, Eileen.

Eileen Henry:  It’s a vulnerable place, but it’s cool.

Janet Lansbury: Yes. Well, you’re a great navigator for it for any parent, so thank you for doing this work. I love that you’re doing this.

Please check out some of the other podcasts on my website, JanetLansbury.com. There are many of them and they’re all indexed by subject and category so you should be able to find whatever topic you might be interested in.And both of my books are available in paperback at Amazon: No Bad Kids, Toddler Discipline Without Shame and Elevating Child Care, A Guide To Respectful Parenting.  You can get them in eBook at Amazon, Apple, Google Play or barnesandnoble.com, and an audio at Audible.com. Actually, you can get a free audio copy of either book at Audible by following the link in the liner notes of this podcast.

Thanks so much for listening. We can do this.

The post The Beauty of Sleep (with Eileen Henry) appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Transcript of “A Holistic Approach to Baby and Toddler Sleep (with Grace Koinange)”

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled. Today I have a great guest to share with you. Her name is Grace Koinange. She’s a pediatric sleep consultant and a lactation-trained newborn care specialist. Grace works privately as a concierge sleep coach. She prides herself in solving almost all newborn sleep challenges from infancy to two years. While I actually know many sleep consultants that I can recommend, I had the opportunity to meet Grace recently when we were working alongside each other. And I was so struck by her intuitiveness, her gentle, calm presence, and how she was able to read a baby’s gestures and signals. Also, her overall approach to sleep. Some of which was surprising to me. I’m learning a lot from her. I’m excited to share Grace and her knowledge with you.

Hi, Grace. Welcome to Unruffled.

Grace Koinange:  Hi, Janet. I’m so glad to be here.

Janet Lansbury:  Well, as you and I know, I happened to be in the situation where I got to work alongside you, and I was so impressed with your ability to understand babies and what they need and their cues, which I always had a difficult time with. You’re just a wealth of knowledge and intuition about everything to do with sleep and helping children develop the healthiest sleep possible. I would love to hear a little about your background in terms of this work and how you developed your expertise around sleep.

Grace Koinange:  As a parent, nobody prepares you for what’s to come. I had no idea the things that I did not know. I am a trained doula and wanted so much to help my son who was struggling with sleep.

Janet Lansbury:  What was going on with him? What was the problem for you?

Grace Koinange:  There were a lot of sleep struggles. He was waking up at night every hour. He was breastfeeding. There was just a lot of me going back to put the pacifier in. And it just was quite destructive for both of us. As an adult, I could not function. And so I knew that there was information out there that I could get to be able to help him become a better sleeper. And also I needed to sleep because I felt like a zombie.

I braved myself enough to go to Google and search all the sleep techniques that were there. There was the cry it out. There was the extinction method. And just so many more that I kept finding myself getting confused about what to choose as a mom, because knowing my parenting style, I needed to choose something that was kind. I needed to choose is something that would help parents as a doula.

So I read sleep books. I took two sleep training courses. I researched and researched and through that research, I became curious enough to see if newborns could actually sleep or organize their sleep without much crying. And that was quite interesting for me. And this is how I discovered Magda Gerber. She founded Resources for Infant Educarers, and I loved everything about what she talked about. Competent, confident, curious, which is what I was. And I needed to incorporate this whole concept into sleep training. So I graduated and became a pediatric sleep consultant, and I incorporated some of RIE literature to help with my sleep science.

Janet Lansbury:  You said something when we met that sounded very similar to what Magda always said. I think the way you said it was that sleep is actually about eating and play, even more than it’s about sleep. Magda Gerber used to say that sleep is about the entire day that a baby has and the rhythms of their day.

Grace Koinange:  So yeah, the whole process taught me that there was no cutting-edge sleep science with training my son. Magda taught me that it is not about the baby waking up at 3:00 AM. It is truly about what happens the whole entire day from when the baby wakes up at 7:00 to when the baby goes to sleep at 7:00. It is the in-between because that’s what determines developmentally what the baby is doing. That was rich information for me to take. That was information that I wanted to use for my son, which I did.

At nine months, one of the things that was really important for me was, I never put my baby down. I never observed his play. He was working through a few struggles and I never thought that I could just watch him instead of pushing a toy to him. And so I helped him a lot in a lot of his play.

Magda taught me how to wait, just wait and see what happens. And I discovered that through sleep, that we have to wait for the infant to see what happens developmentally. So the secret for me was to just silently observe. That was the secret sauce of sleep training that I use right now and I also used for my son. It’s doing less, being present 100% on the floor with him, understanding that he’s going to work through that problem during play because that’s the same problem that’s going to develop at night.

Janet Lansbury:  Were you observing that he was capable of doing more in regard to sleep than you thought?

Grace Koinange:  Absolutely. The whole observation for me was that I realized that he was an excellent explorer. There was a consistency in how he played with his hands and what he was trying to do with his legs as a newborn. And I realized that allowing him to be on the floor and to experience his natural curiosity would help him do the same thing in bed.

Janet Lansbury:  You realized that your son could be capable as an infant in terms of play if you just calmed yourself, right? And waited a little and you were still present. You didn’t distance yourself from him; you were still very much in it. I’m sure he felt your presence because children do. They’re so aware when they’re babies. So being able to see that helped you see that he’s maybe capable of more than you thought in terms of sleep. That you didn’t have to try to make sleep happen so much, which I think we all get stuck doing.

Grace Koinange:  Exactly. I think my sleep training as you said, it was very practical. It’s like, let’s see what happens during play because this will come up during the night. But at the moment, I would tell myself the story: he’s waking up at night, I am sleep deprived, I am struggling as a parent, and I need to create structure. Is he eating enough?

So there were a lot of questions that I would ask myself to try and adjust to what I’m looking at and thinking that my baby is doing. I became introspective and I started understanding that it is truly not in my power to understand that, but to observe, and then take notes. I would observe and take notes and see… what is he struggling with during play? And as a parent, I found myself helping. I would push a toy, not allowing him to make his own decisions.

I was engaging in his play, which meant that he was going to call for me at night so that I can also engage in his sleep. And so that was important for me to know that I should let him carry his burden as a newborn. And how do I do that respectively? Because I did not want to do the cry it out. I thought this would happen during play.  And it was quite experimental and accidental, to be honest with you. It was trying to figure out: if he’s failing at this task, which is whatever he was doing at the moment, then he’s going to fail at the task of sleeping. And I was building expectations for myself and for him, which were not going to be achievable.

So because the cry it out was not attractive to me, I was going to be patient enough to do this with my child. And I was going to be patient enough to sort of understand: what is it that I need to gain for myself?

Most sleep books would tell me, they would say, wait three minutes or a few minutes if the baby wakes up, which is great. It’s a great concept when you think about it. We want them to develop a place where you’re not going in too quick to get the baby when the baby wakes up. But I thought to myself and I said: what if I could change this to waiting to three minutes before I could intervene in his play? What if I could wait a little bit before I could decide that he was doing something in my head that he wasn’t doing?

And so waiting for three minutes helped me understand that oh, he’s actually doing the work. He’s actually working on something. And so this was a sleep giver for me. It was looking at the solution and allowing the process to foster that helped me understand that setting goals and expectations really needed to happen during play so that he can transition to sleeping.

Janet Lansbury:  And was there crying involved when you started to give him at nine months more opportunities to help himself to sleep?

Grace Koinange: There was some struggle. There was some crying. I was uncomfortable as a parent because I was like: okay, he’s uncomfortable. And so I really feel uncomfortable. But let’s wait another minute and see what happens. He would experience whatever he was experiencing. But what was really beautiful about this is like when I gave him the space to experience these natural changes, it helped him figure out for himself, and we were able to see that some things were really tricky, and if he was rolling over in bed, he would experience a hardship. He would cry. But if I waited a few minutes, he would figure it out or he would start playing more as he did during play.

This was huge for me to just watch him on camera. And if he was struggling with something and he would roll over and then he would start clapping his hands or he would start bringing his hands together or he would just sit down and play with a toy that I had put in the bed, which is what he did during play. So that made me pause. That allowed me to have an experience that was different than cry it out.

Janet Lansbury: Technology is very helpful in this instance, isn’t it, the new technology?

With my second we only had the sound monitors, but I didn’t even use that because I had gotten so confident in her ability to call for me versus talking to herself and all the other things that she did. And I told her quite early, “When you want me, you call “Mom!” like that.” And of course, she didn’t say “mom” when she was a baby, but she made a sound that was very similar to that. It blew me away. And so I was able to trust that she would let me know.

It is challenging as a parent, especially with your first to feel comfortable with any sound that’s less than contentment and happiness and giggling. It’s hard to hear because our mind goes to all the worse-case scenarios. They’re feeling abandoned if I don’t immediately pick them up and rescue them from this situation. They feel like I don’t care, that I don’t love them or all of those things. It is challenging.

Grace Koinange:  It is very challenging. And I also think that we prioritize their needs in terms of what we think in our head. And so taking care of myself first and taking care of my body to understand… Let me just slow down a little bit and see and observe was really great. What I like about newborns and toddlers as well is that they’re actually organized in whatever disorganized world we think they’re in. We rush them developmentally into what we want them to do. But if we stop a little bit to see what they’re working through, we can follow the steps into how they transition from one place to another. I had transitioned my son from my room to the crib, and that was also another transition that he needed to face and go through. So just waiting and supporting him through that transition was important for him and also for me to sort of say: I need to hold onto my feelings. And I also need to know that he’s in a safe place.

Janet Lansbury:  I think one of the reasons that people have such a strong negative response to the idea of a child crying, especially at bedtime… or having them be in their own room or sometimes even in their own bed… one of the issues is this idea that children will feel abandoned. The parent feels that this separation is very negative for their child and that their child feels abandoned. And one of the things that struck me about your approach and your knowledge is that you sort of reframed the issue of separation in a way that I had really never thought of in terms of going from breastfeeding straight to bed, or going from feeding straight to bed. That separation can be an issue, but it’s different than the way most of us think about it. Can you talk a little about that?

Grace Koinange:  Absolutely. When you think about attachment and you think about how the baby bonds with us if you’re breastfeeding or feeding… Once they’re comfortable in that position, they tend to fall asleep. And then the next thing that happens after you feed, is you place your baby in the bed, and you walk away. And so you do not give them time to transition into understanding that you are leaving, right? And so they cry.

So the thing that I discovered through sleep and through working with parents is that if you feed before, then give an infant an opportunity for play and then place them in the crib, you’ve built neurons in the brain where they understand, okay, this is a transition that happens. I will be feeding. And the next thing I will do is play, which is excitement. They don’t go from feeding to sleep immediately. Because that is when you have problems placing your baby in the crib and you can’t walk away.

The books don’t necessarily tell us the methods of how do I put my baby in the crib and let them fall asleep? We talk about self-soothing. We talk about not letting them fall asleep on you, but how do you do this? And the way you do this is by allowing that child to have the space to play before you can place them in the crib and walk away.

Janet Lansbury:  So then you’re working towards the rhythm of: Your baby is sleeping, your baby wakes up, then soon after that you nurse or feed. And then they have some playtime after that before they are placed in their familiar, comfortable bed or entering into that bedtime routine, which you’re also a big fan of I know. That’s one of Magda Gerber’s basic recommendations: have a predictable routine and low stimulation.

Grace Koinange:  Giving them an opportunity where there is not too much noise and there’s not too much intrusion allows that child to take five minutes to understand the environment, understand their body, understand exactly what you’re communicating to them. And so this becomes a process. It becomes a routine for both of you that the baby loves and enjoys.

And they discover that this is how I fall asleep. I do not fall asleep on a warm body and then transition to a crib. I fall asleep the same way every day. You walk into the room, close the curtains, change the baby’s diaper, get the baby comfortable in their pajamas or sleep sack. And then from there, you place the baby in the crib and you say goodbye.

There’s a process and it takes time. And the process doesn’t change at all even when they are a year old. It stays the same. And so if you give them that information, I call it the university of sleep. So we start gently as we grow. And as the baby grows with you, they understand that this is how life transitions from awakeness to sleep.

Janet Lansbury:  And the other thing we commonly do or I certainly did in the beginning before discovering Magda’s work is the baby falls asleep with us and on our body or on the breast or whatever and then we place them in bed. Then they wake up in a place that they recognize, but they didn’t know how they got there. We don’t think maybe that it matters with a baby, but if you consider that they have actually higher awareness than we do as adults, it is something. It’s a thing. It’s a feeling of okay, I don’t really quite know what happens to me. I’m not a part of this so much. It’s a subtle thing, but …

Grace Koinange:  It is. It is part of the process, and it’s also part of how the brain develops, understands, and consumes sleep.

I think parents, in the beginning, tend to think that sleep is always the number one thing. But the confusion of sleep and why your baby’s not sleeping is actually food and inconsistency on feeding routines and where we feed and how. Feeding at the same place, sleeping at the same place, and sleeping when they’re awake so that they can understand the environment.

I mean, it would be hard for me to wake up in the morning in somebody else’s bed. Waking up with the same invitation to begin another new event or another new day, because for babies, every time they wake up, it is a new experience for them. And so if they learn that this is how they wake up every day, they gain this knowledge. They are able to regulate their body. They’re able to understand that this is the process, which is really, really huge. Babies like to know. Babies like a really, really good plan. And they like the same plan. So it is really important that when we are caring for an infant or caring for a baby, that we give them this opportunity to learn that we are confident caretakers, and we will walk through the process the same way because this is easier for them to be able to learn and gain knowledge of how we care for them.

Janet Lansbury:  Yes. And I mean, if we think about it, the world is so confusing and overwhelming to them. This new brand new world they’re born into. And it’d be like us going to a foreign country, maybe going to a different planet and not knowing anything. And we really want those parts of our day that we can hold onto and feel solid and depend on. It really helps to build confidence that hey, I can fall asleep. So creating that environment.

Grace Koinange:  Yeah.

Janet Lansbury:  What are some other things that get in the way as we’re trying to establish healthy sleep with our children?

Grace Koinange:  I think the number one thing that gets in the way is the parent. It got in my way, sleep training my son. I love this slogan about the airlines when they say secure your own mask or your own oxygen mask before securing your child. If you’re taking care of a newborn, take care of your own body. Getting to understand that I will go get a snack or I will eat properly before I attend to my newborn. I will make sure that I’m in the right mindset. So giving yourself that minute before you walk in to be able to be present, 100% present with a newborn and you’re not doing other things is really, really important.

Also knowing as an adult, this is a really, really good time to activate your executive functions. I find most parents that I work with talk about how they were functioning adults before and now their baby’s here, and they feel helpless. And so activating your own executive functions to sort of plan ahead. If feeding is a struggle, I will maybe consult a lactation consultant.

I would also make sure that if I am struggling with feeding, sort of understanding, do I need to space the feeding so that baby is not feeding every hour? Maybe give an opportunity for a day to say, I’m going to feed every two hours and see what happens. Because feeding every two hours will help the baby sleep longer.

It will develop some sort of pattern for the baby so that you can be able to look through the data of your day and say, oh, this is where we are going, and this is what’s happening. I can build on this. That’s really important, to understand that we have the skills to do this and we can fix it.

And we do not have to fix 24 hours with a newborn. I say this to all parents. “Let’s fix 9:00 to 12:00, and then we can work on the other part.” So it doesn’t have to be a whole day. Because newborns also don’t have the same sort of organization during the day. But you will find that they will repeat what they do between 9:00 am and 12:00 pm. They’re going to repeat it tomorrow and the next day and the other day and the other day. So if that’s what you work on, then that’s your winning point.

The other thing is to follow through. If you’ve transitioned, let’s say you have a toddler or you have a child who is older and you’ve decided that this is the transition we are going to take, follow through. Follow through in whatever plan you have. And it doesn’t have to be follow-through for a week. Let’s do three days. Three days is enough for a transition to stick. I like to look at the results and see if they’re working or they’re not. So having some measurable accountability that helps you understand what you’re doing, which is what doulas do, and sleep consultants, right? This is what we do. We have a measure. “Let’s try this method and see if this works. And if this does not work, we ditch that and go to something else.”

The other thing is staying organized within your routine. You cannot do one thing today, and then tomorrow you skip it, right? If you’re going to do a sleep routine: bath, book, some sort of a song, and then you lay your baby down, the baby’s waiting for the song. So let the practice be the same routine over and over. It might be boring for us, but it is quite entertaining for the infant to say: I cannot wait for that book. I cannot wait for that song.

I also advised parents to read the same book over and over, just the same way you read it with enunciation, the way you get animated. It’s really, really exciting for an infant’s brain to stay organized within that play.

Janet Lansbury:  Exciting. But it isn’t it also that it helps them to naturally wind themselves down.

Grace Koinange:  Yeah.

Janet Lansbury:  And prepare for separation because they know: okay, here’s this part. And then there’s this one more thing that happens. And then I go in my crib or I go on my bed and that’s when I go to sleep. And my parent is not going to be there while I’m sleeping. So yeah. It helps them to wind down if we have a gentle routine like that.

Grace Koinange:  Yeah. And we also have routines. We don’t go straight to bed. Brush your teeth, you get in your pajamas. You check a text message or two, which keeps you up. These are routines that everybody follows. So it’s important to keep the same routine for children to wind down as well.

Janet Lansbury:  And then for the whole day. Like you said, it’s not just about the wind-down routine. It’s their routine for the whole day.

Grace Koinange:  Absolutely. Absolutely.

Janet Lansbury:  I understand when parents say, “I don’t want to be on a routine all day.” It’s hard to keep that perspective that this is just for a short time and it’s going to actually serve you so much better in the end because you’re going to know, oh, I have this break between 1:00 and 2:30 in the afternoon where I usually… We can never count on it 100%, unfortunately, but… I’m going to have this break where I can do my thing. It’s such a benefit to us, and it doesn’t mean that you never break the routine, but you know that okay, well, I broke the routine, so now maybe I’m going to have a couple more difficult days, but we’ll get back to it.

Grace Koinange:  Yeah. And it is truly just staying consistent with the nap times. Those are the ones that are important because if you’re putting your baby to sleep at 9:30 and 1:30 every day, trust me, there’s going to be at some point that child at 9:30 will start rubbing their eyes. Their body’s going to be ready, and you will just pick them up, scoop them up, do your routine, place them in bed. And they will sleep because then you’ve activated their circadian rhythm, which is a huge thing for sleep. And so exercising that and remaining flexible, remaining curious. I always say to parents “just let’s remain curious for a while. Let’s just explore.” When I have a parent who calls me and sleep is not happening and nap is disorganized and she’s waking up and it’s so fragmented. And I always say to the parents, “Let’s stay curious and see what’s going on. Let’s have a plan. Let’s make a plan for the morning. Let’s work on naps.”

And she will say, “I’m looking to sleep through the night.” And I say, “Let’s work on naps because it’s really, really important for you to work on the small wins, which is naps, other than working on the night.” So if you work on the naps and the naps develop in a way where you get to learn when you’re alert, and it’s not 3:00 AM in the morning when you’re exhausted and tired, you will get to understand your baby as well.

The routines really, really are important. Not necessarily reading a schedule and knowing, yes, this is going to hold me down and I don’t have a life and I have to stay home. But it’s being in a place where if I stick to this, the 9:00 or the 9:30 nap, I will be able to help my baby through the night. It is a win for the night if we stick to the routines and we prioritize their sleep. The fun will come later. You will have so much fun if you know my baby’s sleeping at this window and I can be able to take a shower at this window. Right? Just the simple things.

Janet Lansbury:  Yeah. Simple things that we take for granted.

So now I want to ask you a couple of questions that represent common questions that I receive. So here’s one from somebody with an infant who is two and a half months old:

I’m writing to you for advice on sleeping. How do I set my child up for success? I have a bassinet next to our bed, but when I lay her down in it, she wakes immediately or only sleeps for 15 to 20 minutes. I try to rub her gently to help her get back to sleep or offer a pacifier. It sometimes works for a short while, but then she fusses too long or cries and I pick her up and hold her for some time, and put her back down. But neither of us gets to sleep much. I have her in a SleepSack with arms up for now. She seems to like that. Sometimes I take her out of that and lay her next to me in bed and we’re able to sleep for two to three hours at a time. Is this the right thing to do?

I read that you should put your baby to sleep in the crib for naps and nighttime, but she sleeps so much and is only awake for short times. That would be a very long time spent in a crib. I also want to be sure she is getting quality sleep because sometimes she doesn’t sleep so well being held and then is overtired and struggles to fall asleep. I just want to be sure I’m doing the best possible thing because sleep and having the ability to fall asleep, stay asleep, and have good quality sleep is so important. And that is something I’ve always struggled with myself.

Grace Koinange:  That is a loaded question. I love it. So as you are reading, as I get to understand what’s happening with the baby, I actually know what the struggle is. And the struggle is actually not sleep. The struggle is food. If you’re not feeding the right amount to the right weight, then the baby struggles and wakes up. And you find that you have to replace a pacifier. And this is a big deal for parents. If your baby is full and they are able to settle themselves down, then they do not require extra support from us. They do not require a pacifier. They do not require any rocking or any interference. They can be able to settle their body down.

Assuming that this baby has not eaten enough and so will not be able to fall asleep, what I would say to this parent is let’s look at the food math. Let’s look at how much the baby is feeding depending on the nap times and how the baby is feeding in a 24 hour period. We should feed our babies at the right weight. So for instance, if your baby is 12 pounds, they need to have 24 ounces of milk in a 24 hour period. And then you break that down into different feeds. And that really helps babies, whether it’s to settle down or to sleep through different feeds so that you can, if you’re breastfeeding, you can be able to replenish and make milk, or you can be able to rest. So this is a feeding question and not necessarily a sleep question.

Janet Lansbury:  Sorry, so you said 24 ounces because it’s a 12-pound baby. So it’s double, but it’s in ounces.

Grace Koinange:  Yes. Double the weight.

Janet Lansbury:  I don’t have to give 24 pounds.

Grace Koinange:  Yeah, don’t give 24 pounds of food. It’s 24 ounces of milk, whether it’s formula or breast milk. And that begs the question: If I’m breastfeeding, how do I know how much my baby is having? And this is a simple thing that you can do. If you have access to a scale, a baby scale, that would be great. 48 hours is enough for you to know how much your baby is having in a 24 hour period, because then you have two days to compare. I would weigh after every feeding for two days and, every feed, I will write it down so that I can know how much they’re having. If you don’t have access to a baby scale and you have access to your scale in the bathroom, just weigh yourself first, then step on that scale and weigh the baby. And this is going to be just a lot of math of you just subtracting. But I will tell you this, doing the food math gives you perspective in understanding: why is this baby not settling? It’s because they’re not having enough, but nobody tells us what is enough. Enough is just double the weight. Make sure they’re having double their weight. And the baby will be able to settle.

When you read that question, my brain triggers food, food, food. I would not even touch sleep because sleep is going to be a byproduct of whatever we do, which is as we feed the baby and they’re little enough, they will be able to settle back to sleep because they know how to put themselves to sleep.

Janet Lansbury:  That’s amazing that you got that from this note. I would’ve been much more confused. And then how about another question, which is very common about transitioning a toddler. Let’s say like a two or three-year-old, maybe younger, maybe a little older, from bed-sharing or co-sleeping to sleeping in their own bed in their own room, and the child is resisting and doesn’t want to do this. How would you approach that?

Grace Koinange:  So the first thing is making a plan, making sure that as a parent, if this is what you’re going to do, a plan that would comfortably allow the child to understand the decision that you’re making. Because it’s hard for a child to emotionally disengage from not sleeping in the same bed with you. It does become an emotional task for the toddler. So letting them understand: “We are going to have a separate bed for you. We have decided this is what the bed looks like, and it’s a toddler bed.” And you show them the pictures and you get them involved. “We are going to paint your room and we have two colors that you can choose from. I know you like pink, or you like purple, you like blue or green.” And so the child becomes part of the process. That’s the first thing that you do.

The second thing that you do is pick the day. If I am going to approach my two-year-old or my four-year-old, who is going to be sleeping alone, or my six-year-old and sometimes an eight-year-old, I would approach them in terms of telling them, “This is happening in four days.” Make it as tangible as possible for them to understand the timing because children don’t understand next week, or in two weeks, we are thinking about this. So just make it as short as possible. It’s going to happen in four days because you’ve been working on it as a parent, and then mark your calendar.

And I like to bring this conversation up before dinner happens. Your child is asking you so many questions, and they’re impatient about the food. This is a good time to bring up a conversation about, “Hey, we are thinking about your room. I know we’ve talked about this. Today is day two, day three or whatever.” And point to the calendar. So they get engaged. So when they’re eating, they can ask more questions. And when they sit down at the table, you give an opportunity to sort of think about this before bedtime. So if there’s a position for them to think of something else as you’re walking to bed, or as you’re doing your bedtime routine in your bedroom, you can say, “And tomorrow or on Thursday, we’re going to start transitioning into your bed. And the sleeping routine will be the same. We’re going to do bath. We’re going to read a book. So this is all going to remain the same. The only difference is you will have your own big bed.”

So make it as exciting as possible because it is part of the process. And when you make children part of this process, they become sold in so easily in the choices that they make.

Now, the biggest challenge is you can plan, you can paint, the bed is ready and everything works, and then the day comes, the child is obviously going with the plan and then falls asleep, but then wakes up and walks to your room and keeps walking back and forth. And so this is the big one. This is when we decide if we are two parents, who is going to do the work? Children at 3:00 AM are great negotiators. This is a point where you have your script and the script can go something like, “I am going to walk you back to your room. I will tuck you into bed. I will walk out of the room and I will say goodnight. And I love you.” You know, just however you talk to your child.

If it was my child, I would say, “Hey, Devon, I’m going to walk you back into the room. I’m going to tuck the bedsheets. I’ll give you your stuffy. I’ll kiss you on your forehead. And I will say goodnight, and I will see you tomorrow.”

Right? So that’s the process, but it’s the same thing over and over. So in case they’re talking over you and saying, “But I want to come and sleep back in your room. And I want to do X, Y, Z,” you’re listening kindly, but you’re responding back with the same answer. Whatever script you have, it has to be the same tagline all along as you’re doing it. And as you’re walking out of the room, don’t linger. Parents tend to linger because it’s an emotional place where you feel like: Oh, maybe this wasn’t the right thing. Or maybe they’re not happy. Or maybe X, Y, Z. If you’ve made a decision, this is a decision you’ve made because you want to care for your own body or because you’ve not been sleeping well and they haven’t been sleeping well, then this is the right decision.

And once you’re in it, let’s work through this struggle. It’s been gentle. It’s been kind. And not having a timetable for this, not being angry that the process is taking too long. You’re going to have three bad nights, for sure. If you have a toddler, you’re going to have three bad nights where you walk back and forth.

And also as you make your plan, let’s expand the plan. “So I’ve walked them into their room and I’ve said, goodnight, and I’ve said all this, the tagline you’ve given me. Then what do I do?”

So the next thing is planning to say, “I’m going to stay here until you fall asleep. Tomorrow, I’m going to be halfway through the room until you fall asleep. The next day I’m going to be outside the door.” So giving them the exact information of where you’re going to be and what you’re going to do within this time.

The other thing I also talked about is having just that one parent. One child will ask where is the other parent. And they might just be calling their name or just asking for them or screaming for their name. And you will remain calm and say so-and-so, maybe, “Dad is not available right now. Dad is sleeping because it’s at night and I am going to sleep and you’re going to sleep.” And helping them through that process.

And if they are not moving or they are not doing what you want them to do, just pick them up gently and say, “I am going to help you through this process and I’m going to take you back to your room, and I will pull the covers.” Whatever the script is, just repeat that script as you’re helping them through there.

Children understand the process. They really do. The people who don’t understand the process are the adults. Because the child will say, “Oh, I am thirsty.” And then you walk to the room to get the water. And they’re like: oh, okay. I can definitely ask something else. “Oh, I am this. And I am this.” So you are running, getting stuff for the child. And the child is also building information and saying, this is not an adult who is firm on the decisions they made.

So just being firm and understanding that I will just keep saying the same thing, repeating the same script, but also preparing yourself. If you know your child is thirsty, bring a bottle of water. If you know your child sleeps with the stuffy, you bring that stuffy. Don’t bring noisy toys. Don’t bring trucks and things that are going to be destructive. Bring soft things that will not be destructive towards you and their sleep. And so, again, repeating the process helps and knowing that this is short-term for long gains. Don’t give up. Just stick to the process.

Janet Lansbury:  I love that. There are so many great messages there about the child being an active participant and having ownership of the changes that we want to happen, as they want to have ownership even from birth, in their life as much as possible. Communicating with them honestly.

And then also I loved what you brought up about something we all feel as parents that… it’s separation again, but it’s our separation hiccup, not even our child’s so much. It’s us having those doubts seep in because we want to separate in this wonderful, loving, easy way. We don’t want to feel all our doubts coming in about, oh, my child doesn’t feel loved enough, or they can’t do this, or all those things. And understanding that we’re going to be inclined to have a little separation issue with a change like this.

I also loved what you said about the negotiating, because when they say, “Now I need another thing.” Again, being prepared in advance like: “Here’s the water. How many hugs should we put into the routine?” Because when they ask for another hug then we can at least feel a little more confident saying: “I can’t wait until the morning, I’m going to give you another hug. And that will be a wonderful time for me.”

But not getting engaged in the negotiation. For me, I had to see it as I’m really not helping my child there at all. It may feel nicer to me, but I’m actually not being as nice to my child to prolong this and make them feel my doubt and have to make it okay for me, have to make me feel better about this.

So yeah, it’s a lot of reframing of ideas.

Grace Koinange:  Absolutely. And it reduces confidence they can see. And so at 3:00 AM, knowing I am confident and this is what’s going to happen. I won’t waver, and it’s through love and support. And I think children, once we are consistent with the message and we are confident about what we are saying and what we are doing, they feel supported. They feel loved. They feel like you got this.

Janet Lansbury:  Right.

Grace Koinange:  So when we waver back and forth, it becomes confusing. And they’re like, are we communicating this? Or are you saying this? It’s like having a relationship with a couple arguing about, “I hear you say this, but you’re doing this.” Right?

Then the child is really telling you, “You’re not saying what you’re doing.”

So staying confident within what you decided to do. And that’s why… Take time to think about the process. Take time to think about what we want to do. Children love anybody who can exude confidence because they are confident humans. They are true to themselves. They know what they need, and they need an adult who is unwavering and makes them feel safe and who makes them feel like you got it. I don’t need to worry about it. I don’t need to worry about my bedtime because you have it.

Janet Lansbury:  Right. Because if we’re wavering, how are they supposed to approach this challenge, whatever it is, with confidence? We’re shaking their confidence, in other words. But yeah, I’ve spent a lot of time telling myself all these things, whenever I had to do anything that my children might have not totally signed on to. So this is all wonderful.

Thank you so much. You’re such a gift. You really know this topic inside and out, and I really appreciate you sharing so much of your wisdom with us.

Grace Koinange:  Thank you so much, Janet.

Janet Lansbury:  Thank you. And I’ll be posting Grace’s contact information and her website for anyone who would like to contact her about consulting. I’ll have all that information here in the notes on this podcast and also in the transcript. So thank you so much again.

Grace Koinange:  Thank you.

You can learn more about Grace’s consulting work and contact her HERE.

Also, please check out some of the other podcasts on my website, janetlansbury.com. There are many of them, and they’re all indexed by subject and category so you should be able to find whatever topic you might be interested in. Both of my books are available in paperback at Amazon: No Bad Kids, Toddler Discipline Without Shame and Elevating Child Care, A Guide To Respectful Parenting.  You can get them in eBook at Amazon, Apple, Google Play, or barnesandnoble.com, and in audio at Audible.com. Actually, you can get a free audio copy of either book at Audible by following the link in the liner notes of this podcast.

Thank you so much for listening and for all your kind support. We can do this.

The post A Holistic Approach to Baby and Toddler Sleep (with Grace Koinange) appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

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Transcript of “Solving Toddler Sleep Issues with Sleep Expert Lisa Sunbury”

Janet Lansbury: Hi, this is Janet Lansbury and welcome to Unruffled. Today I’m joined by my friend and colleague, Lisa Sunbury. I’m so excited. We’ll be responding to an email from a mother about her toddler’s sleep issues.

Lisa Sunbury, if you’re not aware of her work, she’s spent over 20 years working in early childhood educating, advocating for infants, toddlers, and their parents. She has a Master’s degree from Lesley University and she trained to become a RIE associate under the guidance of my mentor, as well, Magda Gerber. She’s taught RIE parent/infant guidance classes. She consults for childcare programs and mentors adults in the RIE approach.

She generously hosts and contributes her time to answering questions in a group on Facebook that has 35,000 people interested in learning more about Magda’s approach. She offers private consultations to parents through her website, RegardingBaby.org. Most importantly, she’s my friend. I couldn’t be doing this work online without her. I depend on her. I’m so excited she’s here.

Okay, Lisa, are you still there?

Lisa Sunbury: I’m here.

Janet Lansbury: I want you to bear with me, Lisa. I’m going to read this question and I want to get your feedback on it right away. I just feel like I should clarify why, out of almost 100 podcasts that I’ve done now, why I haven’t done one on sleep yet. There’s a reason that I don’t feel as confident advising on sleep as I do on other parenting issues. People that request consultations that come to me about primarily sleep issues, I tend to refer them to Lisa. The reason is that I actually once did think I knew something about sleep.

My two daughters were and still are awesome sleepers. They’re both adults now. They were this annoying child to other people who when friends were over at our house, my child would be the one coming out in the late afternoon and saying, “Mom, could you please take me for a nap?” They loved their sleep. Yes, there were rough patches as there always are with children with sleep. There were times when we went on trips or there were other transitions or they were teething or developmental things going on with them that were activating their brains and making it harder for them to sleep.

But generally, they were great sleepers. I obviously thought I knew something at that point. But then I had my son. My son is a high-energy guy. He’s Mr. Happy. He’s a joy to be around. But from the time he was a baby he had a really hard time settling down for sleep. In the beginning it was colic. He’d be up crying in the night and be just there holding him. There really wasn’t much I could do. Later, it took him a long time to wind down and get to sleep because he just didn’t want to let go of life. He had all this energy and it took a long, long time.

It got to the point with him where it was taking longer to help him down for a nap than he would actually sleep for. It was always a struggle and we ended up doing something often that, now, I look back fondly at. I would lie own in bed with him and he would fall asleep eventually with his hand on my heart. He was our baby. I was an older mother when I had him. For a lot of reasons, I just turned into mush with him and was very humbled in terms of sleep. Other times it was aggravating.

I would always fall asleep with him, of course, and then to get the rest of the stuff I had to do done with my daughters and whatever else I was doing that evening, I had to dig myself out of this really deep hole of being sound asleep. Anyway, I’ve been humbled. I feel like I really don’t know that much about sleep anymore. I can still advise, but I don’t have confidence telling people to maybe try things that I couldn’t do. For that reason and a lot of other reasons, actually, I’m really excited to have Lisa here to help me answer a sleep question.

Also, if any of you are in or near the Santa Cruz area, October 7th, is it October 7th, Lisa?

Lisa Sunbury: It is October 7th.

Janet Lansbury: Okay. For a second I was worried that I was getting it wrong. We are going to be doing a Q & A symposium together and I’m very, very excited. I hope some of you will join us for that. You can get the information on Lisa’s website, RegardingBaby.org., and get your seats. They’re filling up quickly. Anyway, I’m just excited because Lisa, she’s just wise about so many things in regard to parenting, but she also really is able to fill in where I’m weaker. I think we make a great team.

With that, I’m going to start with the question here that I received via Facebook:

“Hello. I’m writing in hopes that you can shed some light and wisdom on my current situation. Maybe there’s an obvious answer, but I’m too sleep-deprived to see. About six weeks ago, my daughter switched to a toddler bed. She was 21 months but started jumping from her crib. She also seemed to dislike being caged and bedtime was taking an hour or more each night. The transition was for both our sanity.

At first she seemed a little scared in her new bed, so when she came into my room at night I didn’t mind walking her back to bed and sitting with her until she fell asleep. Well, fast forward six weeks and she’s still doing this every night. Sometimes we spend hours in her room. I have hurt my back from laying on her floor and haven’t had a full night of sleep in that time. Well, really, in almost two years, but you know what I mean.

I want her to stay in bed, but I don’t want her to feel like she can’t get me if she really needs me. If I place her in bed, kiss her, say, ‘You’re going to sleep in here now. Please stay in bed. I love you’ and walk away, she cries. A lot. And gets right back up. How can I respect her needs and teach her she’s expected to stay in bed? Any insight is appreciated.”

Lisa, what do you think?

Lisa Sunbury: I think that this little girl needs boundaries. I think that she still needs the safety and the security of, if not the crib, then her room with a gate at the door or the door closed. The transition from a crib to a bed often goes better when the child is three years old. But if a child’s climbing out of a crib, there’s worry about safety. Parents will sometimes make that change earlier.

But the two-year-old, or this little one is 21 months, still needs the safety and security of a clear environmental boundary.

As well as clarity on the parent’s part, that the parent has trust, that her parent has trust that her room is a safe place, that her child can go to sleep on her own. She might not like it, but she can. Projecting that confidence, having that trust in her, and projecting that confidence. If parents are feeling uncertain and aren’t trusting, then the toddler will pick up on that.

It was interesting to me that this parent said her daughter seemed not to like to be caged, and then later said, “I want her to be able to get me if she needs me. I don’t want her to feel that she can’t.” Well, even if there’s a gate on the room, even if the door is closed, she can still call to her mom if she needs her and her mom can respond. Having that boundary there doesn’t stop the child from calling if she needs and doesn’t stop the parent from responding. The parent’s not abandoning the child here.

Janet Lansbury: Right.

Lisa Sunbury: But I think there’s a need to have a really positive attitude about sleep to prioritize sleep for the whole family. That sometimes is lacking, and seems to be lacking here. The parent is sacrificing her own sleep, her own needs.

Janet Lansbury: Yeah.

Lisa Sunbury: She feels like she’s supporting her child in staying with her for hours so that she can go to sleep in her bed. But with toddlers, sometimes the message that they might get is that something is wrong, that they’re not safe, that they can’t do this on their own if the parent is staying. The parent is conflicted about leaving.

Janet Lansbury: Yeah.

Lisa Sunbury: The crying will happen and it needs to happen. She has a right to express that she doesn’t like this. She wants to be with the parent. She wants the parent to stay with her. She doesn’t need that. There’s differentiating between wants and needs and acknowledging, “Yeah, you really want me to stay with you and I’m not going to do that. Time for you to sleep. You’re safe here. You can sleep. If you need me, I will come.”

There’s a big difference between supporting the child, giving the child the boundary both verbally and in the environment. To me, the child said you can’t make her sleep. One of the things we look at is creating the environment that will allow her to relax, to let go, that will give her the message that it is time to sleep.

Sometimes with toddlers, it’s healthful to say, “I’m going to leave and I’m going to let you try to rest. I’m going to go the kitchen and wash the dishes” or whatever it is that you’re going to do. Let her know where you will be and let her know that you will check in on her in 10 or 15 minutes, or before you go to bed. Then follow through with that.

Janet Lansbury: Yes, letting go. This is something that’s actually more loving than our holding on there in ambivalence. For me, with my daughters it was very easy to follow Magda’s advice to make sleep this positive thing. When we were going through rough spots, we were able to get back on track using Magda’s holistic approach of the whole predictable day and the communication.

With my son, we gave into something that we knew that we were being party to. That was okay with us. In a way, we were letting go there. But through our letting go and helping our child to let go… But if the parent is on the fence, if the parent is unsure, “Well, is this okay? This is what I want to do,” the child has no choice but to hold on. Sleep is about letting go for all of us. There’s no way we can fall asleep if we can’t let go of our day, let go of our feelings, let go of pent-up stress of the day. We’ve got to release.

To help children do that sometimes can look like we’re being mean, we’re not doing what they want, we’re not giving them what they want. But that is what parents are for, we’re for seeing the bigger picture and seeing a healthy child whose brain needs a lot of sleep to function well and to develop well. We’re seeing the kindness in being confident in our approach and clear and predictable.

One thing I like with parents, when they’re going through the routine with their child at the end of the day, what they’re going to do, I even like saying, “Then as I’m saying, ‘Goodnight, my darling, I love you’ and I kiss you and I walk out the door, it’s okay if you want to yell at me right there and say, ‘No!’ That may be something you need to do.” What that does is it helps the parent feel better about what we’re doing because we’ve let our child in on this as an okay part of the experience together.

It helps our child to say, “Okay, well, this is part of the script. I can do this.” Then I know what she’s going to do in response. I know how this story is gonna end. It’s a very comfortable, settling feeling for a child to know what’s going to happen and have that predictable routine.

Lisa Sunbury: I think that’s so important that with your son he was expressing a want or a need and you were responding. You made a conscious choice that this is what will work for him and it will work for us. If what you’re doing is working for your child and it’s working for your family, then there’s no need to change anything. But if it’s not, then you need to look at what’s happening here and how can we meet the needs or the wants of our child and meet our needs and wants, too.

It sounds like this parent is saying it’s not working for her. Initially, when they made the switch to the bed, it was fine with her when her daughter came in and she was fine sitting with her and reassuring her. But now, it’s not working and she’s spending hours and her back is hurting and she hasn’t gotten a good night’s sleep in six weeks. It’s taking longer and longer for her girl to go to sleep. The crying is still happening. It’s not working.

Then we need to look at, “Okay, what’s needed here?” The point you made about telling your child, no matter what their age is, to tell them exactly what will happen, “We’ve been doing this and it’s not working. Tonight, when you go to bed, this is what is going to happen. You might not like it and you might need to cry, and that’s okay. You can cry and you can tell me. We’re still going to do it this way.” They know exactly what to expect.

Janet Lansbury: I believe also that, to children, this is what they know, where they’ve slept, where they’ve been cozy. This is their nest. This is their wonderful little nest. It’s not a negative thing, it’s a very nurturing, positive thing. It’s important for parents to try to see more from the child’s perspective instead of projecting an adult perspective. I think that will help a lot.

Even making the bed where she’s transitioning to into a cozy nestlike place, having little bumpers around it or pillows around it, or somehow nesting it in a little. Maybe even putting a, what are they called? The little gate, the little small gates to keep children in, just one of those to help the child feel cozy and nested in this space.

Lisa Sunbury: That’s so important. Sometimes it’s a loss of the crib, which is cozy and nestlike feeling. Sometimes they don’t know what to do with all that space and all that freedom, especially again at the younger age. Recreating that nestlike feeling, the gate at the door is one way. One family that I know, they’d always had a floor bed for their child. They had a play yard around the bed and that created this cozy, contained feeling even though they had a floor bed.

The other thing that’s helpful is a privacy pop tent. That’s something that, for my girl, she’s five now but when she switched to a bed at three years old she had a tremendous difficulty. She used to wake at 1:00 in the morning. She’d go to sleep fine and then she’d wake at 1:00 in the morning and she’d be up there playing, then eventually calling to me. What it was was without her crib, without that feeling of containment, she didn’t know what to do with herself. We gave it good try.

We gave it a good try for a couple of months, but she couldn’t go back to her crib because she was climbing out. She was three, she was ready. She was showing me in so many other ways that she was ready. I ordered one of these. I saw this privacy pop tent online and ordered one, and it’s made a tremendous, tremendous difference for her. Even now at five years old, she’s happy to go into that little cave, that little nest.

She still has a gate at her door and she’s been able to, since she’s been about three and a half years old, open that gate herself, chooses not to. Recently, I thought, “Well, maybe it’s time to not have the gate there so that she can go to the bathroom if she needs to.” It didn’t work for her. She asked for the gate back. She wanted that gate even with the privacy tent in her room.

Janet Lansbury: Wow, yeah, that’s also a great example of, again, the perspective of the child. Even if you can get out or you can open the gate or you can get out of the crib, to switch into something where all options seem wide open to you is very distracting for a child. All of that freedom, it’s almost like you can’t let go of that and forget about it and go to sleep. The natural explorer in these children is saying, “Hey, I gotta go yonder! I can’t stay in this place!”

Also, in terms of I just wanted to speak a little bit to what this mother was asking about if she does get up and leave the room. Let’s say that you don’t have a gate or maybe your child just climb right over the gate or you’re not comfortable closing your door for whatever reason, then really the only option is to, without any emotion or putting any interest in it, just returning your child right back to bed.

Lisa Sunbury: As many times as it takes.

Janet Lansbury: As many times as it takes, exactly. Sleep is such a hot button issue and there are so many people out there telling you that this is the way it has to be done and your children have to sleep in bed with you or they shouldn’t sleep in bed with you or they need to do this or they need to do that, and I know that because every time I put up any kind of post that’s a response to a parent’s question about sleep that’s intended to be totally helpful, there are always a bunch of people with angry faces disliking it because it’s not how they believe sleep should go.

Well, the only rule for sleep in Magda’s approach is that it helps the children and the parents to get as much healthy sleep as possible so that we can all thrive. We’ve got to put the oxygen mask on first. Sounds like this parent maybe needs to hear that, that yes, you’ve got to take care of yourself here. You’re not going to be able to do your job well unless you do, and that’s really important.

It’s not whatever we perceive are our children’s wants over everything, it’s got to be taking care of ourselves so that we can be that good leader. That’s what love is. Yes, these are tough issues for people because they’re very emotional ones, too. I think the end of the day, we really want everything to be nice and sweet so we can go off to bed feeling good. It’s challenging.

Lisa Sunbury: You just hit on one of the biggest difficulties. 20 years working in infant/toddler programs and working as a nanny for families and I’ve helped countless families with sleep. I didn’t have difficulty with hearing a child cry. Then when it was my daughter and she was up there screaming that she wanted me to come back, it was a good thing I had someone here holding my hand and telling me, “Wait. Just wait a few minutes and trust.” But you want the end of the day.

I didn’t believe at the time. We went through weeks and I didn’t believe that it was ever going to be any different. I had such a desire for it to be this loving, peaceful time. I tell parents, “Give that up for right now. Give that up. Give up that desire, that idea that you have of the way you want it to be. Deal with what is right now. Right now it’s hard.”

But also that if you’re clear within yourself what you’ve decided is best for your child, best for your family, for yourself, and you’re clear with your child and you’re consistent with carrying out your plans, [inaudible 00:21:44] whatever you do is what they come to expect. Infants and toddlers, if they can count on you to do what you say, they are able to relax. They don’t have to test and push, but they need to count on us to do what we say we’re going to do.

If you’re making changes, you have to be clear within yourself and you have to have a plan and you have to be willing to stick with that plan and know that by doing that, you’re doing your child a service. The protest, the difficult period, will pass more quickly. Infant sleep, toddler sleep, it’s constantly changing in the first couple of years. People talk about sleep regressions, but I don’t like that word. They’re changes.

It’s a sleep progression. They’re maturing cognitively, emotionally, [throws motor 00:22:35], and there’ll be times when sleep is more difficult for any number of reasons. Again, a transition from a crib to a bed, your child might need more support at that time. But I think where parents go wrong is that what should be a temporary transition becomes this ongoing way that we sleep that we never wanted.

Janet Lansbury: Right. That creates resentment and bad feelings for us with our child that really aren’t our child’s fault. But it’s our fault for wanting to give into pleasing them and then we’re the ones that feel annoyed. One other thing this parent said is about being scared. That’s another thing. We think that night is this scary time. I’m a night person, or I used to be before I had kids, at least. Now I’m not.

But night is a nice time. It’s a relaxing time. It doesn’t have to be scary and negative. It’s a positive time to recharge. I love how Magda always said, “Rest” instead of “Go to sleep.” She’d say, “Have a lovely rest, have a lovely rest. Rest your body.”

Lisa Sunbury: That’s helpful for toddlers, as well. Sometimes just the mention of sleep, “Go to sleep”-

Janet Lansbury: Or, “You’re tired.

Lisa Sunbury: “You’re tired.” “No, I’m not!” They need to push against that.

Janet Lansbury: Right.

Lisa Sunbury: Magda used to talk about helping them to connect to time because a 21-month-old is very much just learning today and tomorrow. During the bedtime routine, telling them the story about what happened in their day and now it’s time for you to rest. “I will be so happy to see you when you wake up in the morning and we will do” whatever it is. “We’ll have breakfast together.” That helps them to hear the rhythm of the day and to understand the continuity from day to night and to day again.

Janet Lansbury: What would you say to this parent if you could only give them one bit of advice?

Lisa Sunbury: To trust their child. To trust that she can do this and she doesn’t need you there for hours on end.

Janet Lansbury: That’s perfect.

Lisa Sunbury: Let her know what is going to happen and then follow through with that. Be consistent with it. The only thing worse than doing nothing is to start to do something different and then go back on it.

Janet Lansbury: Yes, have conviction. That doesn’t mean that you’re stuck with something forever. You can change your mind with conviction, as well.

Lisa Sunbury: But give it a good try. Do you know what I mean? Give it a good try because this is often what happens. It’s like, “Oh, no! She’s not sleeping!” Parents get desperate and then they start trying a lot of different things and all that does is confuse it for the child.

Janet Lansbury: Right. The child is wondering, “What’s showtime tonight? What’s gonna happen?”

Okay, Lisa, I hope that helps this parent. Oh, my gosh, thank you so much for being here and sharing this issue with me today. Please come back again. It seems like we could talk forever and I would like to do that.

Lisa Sunbury: I would like to do that, too. I can’t wait for our event on October 7th. We’ve been talking about doing it for so long it’s only taken us three years. I’m so honored and I’m so excited that you’re going to be here in Santa Cruz.

Janet Lansbury: Me, too. I can’t wait to see your beautiful daughter again, as well. Thank you, seriously, Lisa. Thank you so much.

Thanks so much for listening. We can do this.

The post Solving Toddler Sleep Issues with Sleep Expert Lisa Sunbury appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Alex phoned me for a consultation about her nine-month-old baby Olivia. 

“I don’t know what happened. Things were going so well. I would nurse Olivia to sleep, and she slept for four and five hour stretches. Now she is up every hour or two. It feels like I have a newborn again.

Suddenly everything we were doing has stopped working. I nurse her to sleep, and as soon as I start to lower her into the crib, her eyes pop wide open, she bolts upright and screams. Once we finally get her back to sleep, it starts all over again. Nothing is working anymore. Help!”

This is a familiar sleep scenario that I hear in one form or another almost every week, although it’s not always about nursing.  Sometimes the linchpin of a baby’s sleep routine is rocking, sitting or lying down with her, walking, strolling, or patting. Whatever the mechanism, what used to work doesn’t anymore.

When I spoke with Alex, her voice became low and hushed. This part of the call always feels a bit confessional. “I know I’ve done it all wrong.” My response is: “No, you did it just right – but for longer than necessary.”

Simply put, Olivia was sleeping (and awakening) like a newborn because Olivia was being responded to like a newborn. Although Olivia didn’t need to be nursed to sleep anymore at this stage of her development, Alex never changed the routine, so it was all that Olivia knew. But with nine months of experience under her baby belt, Olivia is smart. She is ready to apply all she has learned about her parents and her world to learning how to sleep on her own with less of Alex’s help.

Infants are the best learners on the planet. 

In the beginning (birth – four months) feeding and sleep form a symbiotic relationship.  Falling blissfully to sleep during or after feeding happens naturally. The experience also serves as a critical element in establishing secure attachment, which occurs organically if interactions with the mother or caregiver are emotionally attuned and connected.

The quality of this connection can be realized whether we co-sleep or crib sleep, and the healthy bond is created whether we bottle feed or breast feed. It is the quality of the connection more than the quantity of connections that cements the bond. I want moms to relax with newborns because mom’s emotional state is a key factor in helping her infant to soothe and regulate.

No matter how a newborn is doing sleep, it changes, and more ability and comfort with “falling” is realized as development unfolds. Going from sleepy to asleep on their own doesn’t have to be realized in the first weeks of life.  If they fall asleep in our arms on occasion, it is no big deal. It is an incremental process that they learn on their own.

Infants learn exponentially, especially from repetition and routine.  Children build on what they have learned over time, and they apply their learning from one experience to the next.  Home is a familiar environment, so that makes for rapid learning.

For nine months Olivia has watched Alex come and go. She has learned that every time Alex leaves the room or the house, she always returns. Olivia started crawling at six months and now has her own experiential process of coming and going. Alex noticed right away that Olivia moved out and into the world with joy and curiosity. This is because Olivia has trust in her parents and her environment. Already pulling herself up to a standing position, Olivia has gained some experience with falling, and this will help her in falling to sleep because it means letting go, which takes trust and some experience to know that it’s safe and even pleasurable.

Olivia recognizes her house, her bedroom and her crib, and Olivia knows where sleep happens. She also knows she is safe and comfortable in her crib. In fact, a wonderful thing happens to Olivia many times a day in her bedroom. Over and over throughout the last nine months, she is reunited with her mother as Alex comes and attends to Olivia’s needs.

Most importantly, Olivia understands her emotional environment. She knows she is loved and cared for. With all her senses she knows how love looks, feels, smells, tastes and sounds. It is the same way she will learn language — through immersion. She is immersed in the language of love.

Because Olivia has an understanding of consistency and can safely let go,  she is now ready to learn a new consistent approach to sleep. After our consultation Alex feels prepared with the new action steps she will take to change sleep. Her relaxed confidence will be Olivia’s greatest support in learning new and improved sleeping skills.

On a follow-up a few weeks later, Alex said: “As you recommended, I endeared Olivia to a lovey. I chose a bunny with a cloth attached and told Olivia this story:

It was time for the bunny to fall asleep and sleep in her own nest all night long. If the bunny needed help, the mommy bunny would hop in, give her baby bunny a kiss and hop back to her own nest to sleep.

After Olivia’s nap, we did a dress rehearsal of the new bedtime ritual. I talked Olivia through the process and told her, “Tonight I will put you and the bunny in your crib to fall asleep and sleep all night long.”

I then showed her what coming and going looked like in this context, slowly coming and going from her room. “Then I am going to leave so that you can relax and sleep. I will come and go, and I’ll help you fall asleep on your own. Olivia sat in her crib wide eyed and watching.”

Alex came and went and offered Olivia the love, empathy and support she needed in learning a new skill. She replaced nursing with alternate soothing methods, which Olivia came to recognize and appreciate in the place of nursing. Alex used her voice, her touch, her warmth, her trust, her respect and emotional connection– all of which created their bond throughout the last eight months– to soothe and reassure Olivia that she could let go, fall asleep and return to sleep in the night when she woke.

And the mommy bunny and baby bunny slept in their nests happily ever after.

Eileen Henry is the author of a new book The Compassionate Sleep Solution: Calming The Cry. She is a RIE® Associate and and works with families all over the world as a Child Sleep Consultant, a specialty she pioneered. Her unique program not only transforms sleep but the entire parenting experience.  “My goal is to co-create the best emotional and physical environment for sleep success for your entire family.” 

(Photo by Masaru Suzuki on Flickr)

The post When Sleep Isn’t Working (Guest Post by Eileen Henry) appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

But just as often, children have feelings that we cannot and should not try to fix, because in these instances, the true “need” reflected is for children to safely experience and share the feelings. Their pain is relieved when we can bravely roll out the red carpet to welcome these emotions, even if they seem totally unreasonable and over-the-top as children’s emotions often do.

But if our children are frightened or anxious, isn’t it our job to insist, “Don’t worry, there’s nothing to be afraid of,” assuring our children that they’re safe and easing their minds? We can’t allow them continue to feel afraid, can we?

Yes, children need to know that we are doing our job to keep them safe, but as much as we might wish to, we can’t shelter them from their own imaginations. So as tempting as it might be to overrule and invalidate our child’s fears with common sense reasoning, these feelings need be allowed to exist as other feelings do. Here are some steps for responding productively to our children’s fears:

1. Project calmness
   We calm ourselves first so we can be receptive and listen from a place of confidence and strength, rather than projecting discomfort or judgment.
2. Accept
   We fully accept the feelings, which is sometimes all children need to be able to move through them.
3. Explore
   We are open to exploring the fears with genuine curiosity (i.e., “What worries you most?” or “What does the monster look like?”).
4. Reassure
   We offer reassurance by providing age-appropriate facts. In Your Self Confident Baby, Magda Gerber suggests: “If you can pinpoint what the fear is, talk about it. Explain to him in simple terms what you think he is able to understand. ‘Tigers live at the zoo. There are no tigers at our house. We have a kitty cat, don’t we?’ Accept that your child feels anxious or scared. Offer him alternatives like ‘Would you feel better if your teddy bear sleeps with you, or I put on the night-light or leave the door open?’ Tell him where you’ll be.”
5. Consider solutions
   We explore solutions but don’t make solving the problem our goal. We proceed patiently and slowly, allowing children to take the lead as much as possible

Catherine shared an experience with her almost 3 year old son:

“I wanted to share a success story with you. I’ve read No Bad Kids three times! With each reading, my expectations of my little guy improve. I am able to see him as a whole person, and I’m also able to see him as the little boundary-testing-explorer who needs a firm anchor and gentle leader in me. I’m still learning and struggling, but I’m definitely less ‘ruffled’ these days. Thank you!

Our latest success: Henry, almost 3, has been a great sleeper for about a year. Out of the blue, he started popping out of his room after we said goodnight. This would go on for hours, with my husband gently guiding him back to bed over, and over, and over! I thought he was ‘playing games’, but my husband was sure that he was genuinely scared. I wondered,” What would Janet say?” A few nights back, as we settled in for bed, I looked him in the eye and asked if he was scared. He said ‘yes’ in a sad little voice. I thought back to when I was little and sensitive and scared. I knew how he felt. I replied, and really truly meant it: “I know you’re scared. I remember being little and feeling scared at night, I really do.” I paused, looked at him with the softest, most understanding eyes, because I could totally relate, I was such a sensitive little kid. I followed up, “It’s okay to be scared. I understand, I really do, but you have to stay in your bed at night.” That’s it. Guess who’s stayed in his bed for the last few nights?! Thank you for sharing your approach. Your guidance and insights have been invaluable.”

Catherine later added:

“As a follow-up to my initial email: At lunch today, I told him that the little cup he was drinking out of was mine when I was little. He replied, “And when you were little, you were scared.” Knowing that Mommy got scared too really left an impression!”

Jessica shared her story and insights:

“I have been sharing your web site and podcast with a lot of friends this week and revisiting some of my favorite posts from the past. I wanted to share a really lovely success we’re having in our family. My son is 3 and a half and for the past six months he’s been having a lot of bedtime fears. At first it was fear that pirates would come into our room. I got a night light, gave him some extra kisses, and explained, “Pirates are on the ocean, they don’t come to houses.” Then it was the scary owl outside the bedroom window. It was clear that we were engaged in a game of “whack-a-mole” where each time we calmed the fear in one place it popped up somewhere else. Finally, I took a step back and I thought about accepting the feelings and how I could take that approach with him. Now when he says he’s afraid as I tuck him in at night, I tell him, “Yeah, you’re feeling afraid. It’s okay to be afraid, that feeling won’t hurt you. Being afraid is a feeling like sadness is a feeling, it will come and go. You’re safe, and it’s okay to be afraid.” I can see him physically relax.

I think when I was trying to “solve” his fear I was sending him the message that fear isn’t okay, and I was creating an anxiety in him that he was afraid of being afraid. Now that I tell him it’s okay, that anxiety is gone. I feel so happy that I can give him this gift from his earliest childhood: You don’t have to be afraid of your feelings.”

In truth, our children’s feelings are gifts – precious windows into their minds and hearts — rather than problems for us to fix. These exchanges are quality time at the highest level. If we can consistently convey to our kids that we can bravely face whatever they might be going through – we aren’t afraid — then they will be able to accept these feelings as well. Our ability to accept all the uncomfortable feelings life offers us will help inform and shape a lifelong sense of security, comfort, and happiness.

Here’s how Dr. Susan David explains this healthy process in her new book Emotional Agility:

“One of the greatest human triumphs is to choose to make room in our hearts for both the joy and the pain, and to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. This means seeing feelings not as being “good” or “bad” but as just “being.” Yes, there is this relentless assumption in our culture that we must do something when we have inner turmoil. We must struggle with it, fix it, control it, exert brute force willpower over it, remain positive. What we really need to do, though, is what is most simple and obvious: nothing. That is, to just welcome these experiences, breathe into them, and learn their contours without racing for the exits.”

(A big thank you to Jessica and Catherine for sharing their stories and to Catherine for her lovely photo!)

The post It’s Okay to be Scared – 5 Steps for Easing Bedtime Fears appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Please help! I’m having to rethink my strategies with my 4-year-old.  Normally bedtime is effortless — a great routine, quality time, and straight down. The only caveat is that I’ve used TV as an incentive and threaten to cancel play dates the next day if she doesn’t stay in bed (and have consistently followed through). Now that I’ve removed this “motivation,” which in fact are maybe just “bribes,” she is getting out of bed constantly and screaming and yelling when I take her back. I stay calm, and I acknowledge feelings.

The same thing is happening for independent playtime. Before, it was going wonderfully, but now without the motivation of screen time, she keeps coming out of her room. She has a Gro-clock in there, so knows when the time is up.

What am I supposed to do? I feel like giving up and reverting to the old negative-but-effective patterns of parenting. What limit can I set that is respectful?

Chrystal

Hi, Chrystal:

The difficulties you’re experiencing suggest you might be missing one crucial element of respectful discipline: certainty.

To comfortably accept a limit, our children need us to feel really, really sure about it. When children don’t sense this certainty emanating from us, they tend to keep pushing the limit. My thought is that it was easier for you to project conviction when you could negotiate what felt to you like a fair deal: “Okay, you give me some time to do what I need to do in peace, and I’ll give you some TV.” Or, “If you won’t go to bed without a battle, I won’t give you what you want (a playdate).”

Those kinds of agreements helped you to feel that the limits were established with benefits for both sides, so you were able to sign off on them with confidence. After all, you were being fair. But it was that comfortable conviction on your part that registered for your daughter more than the incentives themselves.

The incentives may have also served the purpose of causing her to behave out of the fear of losing something she wanted.  If our long term goal is to nurture our child’s sense of security and a parent-child relationship steeped in trust, it’s best not to stoke anxiety or fear to gain cooperation. Instead, I would embrace these situations as opportunities for an honest connection – as a loving leader to our beloved and understandably impulsive young child.

An important element of respectful discipline is that it requires us to find that sense of certainty in ourselves as loving leaders for our children. It’s a tactic-free approach and doesn’t rely on bribes, threats, or equipment like timers or Glo-clocks.

Once, in a Facebook discussion group, I referred to this conviction as “being the gate.” A parent had asked how to handle her child’s constant requests for attention when the parent needed to separate to do housework. There had been a gate across the child’s play area, but the child could now open it. Gates are certainly helpful for offering us the opportunity to focus for a few minutes on something other than our children with peace of mind. A gate can also encourage them to explore freely in a safe enclosed place without the interruption of our “No, you can’t do that…” I recommend them, but not as replacements for our inner conviction. Children still need us to be the gate when we express limits like, “I’m going to make our dinner now.” They might express their displeasure by whining, pleading, howling, or screaming, but our inner gate helps us accept these strong objections with confidence, perhaps reminding ourselves that young children will often need to express an intense mix of feelings and stress at the end of their day… and that’s a positive thing. We trust and hear and acknowledge them all – willing to truly see our child in her pain and support her to express it. We understand that these seemingly unreasonable requests and feelings are healthy venting rather than a sign that we’ve done something wrong.

In your case, Chrystal, I noticed a second baby in your Facebook profile pic (call me nosy), which means that your daughter likely has an abundance of uncomfortable feelings to share about this change in her life. If she’s like most children her age, her feelings will be expressed at bedtime and/or in response to various limits, or during transitions throughout the day. Often they won’t appear to having anything to do with the baby or seem at all reasonable (feelings often aren’t, even for us as adults). Your limits expressed with certainty will help her to safely share and relieve herself of these feelings.

So, be the gate when she pops out of bed after you’ve said, “Goodnight, my love” with conviction. Calmly and boringly walk her back to bed, so that only she is the emotional one. This isn’t the time to try to connect, and don’t negotiate. Allow her and trust her to vent these feelings.

During her independent play time, set your boundaries, and let her try to push them as you remain the gate, even if she is following you around. She does this because she needs this dynamic with you… again, sharing her complaints.

I can’t stress enough how important it is to trust rather than fear our children’s feelings. Interestingly, the conviction this approach gives us continues to grow and build on itself, and the result is a calmer, happier home. Denise shared an encouraging success story about certainty and fearlessness:

“I have a 6-month and a 2.5-year-old. I heard about RIE just before the little one was born and have tried to implement it since. At first I found that even if I did the right things and said the right words it would not help. Then I discovered that the key for me is gentle leadership. Having conviction in what I say and do, and trust that my children will appreciate it.

For example, if I put the little one in her crib and tell her, “Have a great nap, I’ll go do laundry now and will be nearby when you wake up so I can come in when you would like me to pick you up,” and then leave thinking I hope she doesn’t scream when I close the door, she will for sure cry and scream. But if I put her down picturing her fast asleep, then she most likely doesn’t even fuss.

Same with my 2.5-year-old. If we need to leave the house and he wants to keep playing even after lots of notice, I say, “You want to keep playing, but we have to leave now, please put on your shoes.” In my mind, if I’m afraid he will keep stalling and whining, then he most likely will. On the other hand, if there is no doubt in my mind that he will sit in his car seat in a couple minutes, then he cooperates.

Unfortunately there is no switch that you can turn on to make this happen, but over time it will become easier and easier.”

Projecting certainty doesn’t always work as quietly and agreeably as Denise’s examples. If only! As I shared with Chrystal, when children are sitting on feelings they need to express, they will instinctively use these situations as their channel. But either way, our fearlessness around feelings that might range from whines and complaints to tantrums and meltdowns is an essential for projecting authentic conviction. Finding this belief in ourselves and faith in our kids provides them the leadership they need to flourish.

And there’s a lot more help on the way! I’ve created the No Bad Kids Master Course to give you all the tools and perspective you need to not only understand  and respond effectively to your children’s behavior but also build positive, respectful, relationships with them for life! You can check out all the details at nobadkidscourse.com.

(Photo by Donnie Ray Jones on Flickr)

The post The Secret to Setting Limits (Without Bribes or Threats) appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

Settling a child down for an afternoon nap or a good night’s sleep can be one of the most difficult and elusive processes in parenting. Establishing consistency is key, of course.  Parent and child are on the same page, and a baby will always feel more secure. Elements may involve bathing, feeding, singing, snuggling and, of course, the age-old ritual of storytelling or reading a favorite book. But whatever the routine, the three P’s are the essential underpinnings:

• A peaceful sleep environment with minimal stimulation from toys, screens, light, and exterior noise, all of which distract from the matter at hand, and a relaxed, unrushed parent who is available to provide intimate, undivided attention.
• Gentle, participatory activities like dressing, pulling down a shade, choosing a book.
• All under the umbrella of predictability, so that our children can anticipate the ritual and even lead when we invite them to make choices. Predictability breeds security, which leads to calm, which is the gateway to relaxation and sleep.

Essential to these P’s is respectful, two-way parent-child communication, which we ideally begin at birth. Authentic person-to-person conversations with our babies make their involvement possible. We can invite them to participate in bathing, diapering and dressing and empower them to predict each step. At the same time, we teach language in the most profound, meaningful manner and promote bonding and trust. In a strictly practical sense, there is nothing that unwinds and calms babies more effectively than simply knowing what comes next in their personal bedtime story. Jamie’s experience illustrates:

“I had to share with you! I’ve been following you and Magda Gerber’s RIE approach since I was pregnant with my now 8-month old daughter, and while I try to stay consistent with most RIE practices, there have been a few that I’ve let slide a little. In particular, our nap/sleep routine. I’d gotten into the habit of nursing and rocking her to sleep. Low and behold, it would take 25+ minutes in order to get her down. Just when I thought she was ready to be put down in her crib, she would cry.  Time for a reset!

The last few times for nap and bedtime, I started nursing her as the first step in our sleep routine, and while doing that, I’d tell her step by step what we would do once she was done nursing: “We will close the door, and then we will turn on the noise machine. Next, we will close the blinds and make the room dark. Lastly, I will give you a cuddle, and then I’ll lay you in the crib and you’ll take a nice rest.

Today, I repeated this to her three times while nursing. And then when it came time to do these things, she was totally engaged in each step — looking at the door, reaching toward the sound machine, and lastly, not crying when I closed the blinds like she usually does. And the most amazing part: when I stood by her crib and gave her a last hug, she put her head on my shoulder and we cuddled for a few moments. Then I set her down and she turned over and went right to sleep. No crying or tossing and turning! It was amazing. My heart is bursting with how smart and attuned and capable these babies are.”

While parents won’t necessarily have such a magical result, the 3 Ps empower us and our babies.

(Thanks so much to Jamie for this story and gorgeous photo!)

The post Essential Elements of a Baby Bedtime Routine appeared first on Janet Lansbury.

The problem with these staunch views is that they dismiss the one expert who can truly show us the way, the person we need to tune in to and learn from… our uniquely capable baby. It’s quite difficult for our babies to demonstrate their true needs, interests, and capabilities if we aren’t open to offering them the opportunities to do so. But these opportunities aren’t easy for us to provide (particularly when sleep deprived), because being open and attuned requires patience and the willingness to relinquish control over our infant’s sleep.

In 4 Eye-Opening Things Science Tells Us About Infant Sleep, scientist and author Alice Callahan, PhD shares scientific findings that validate the benefits of supporting infants to learn to self-settle. In this follow-up post, Alice shares her personal experience encouraging her infant son’s healthy sleep process.

How I Helped My Baby Learn to Sleep

by Alice Callahan, PhD

In my first post, I wrote about how science has influenced my beliefs about infant sleep. When my second baby, M, was born, I knew that I wanted to give him manageable opportunities to practice falling asleep independently from an early age. As with most of my parenting experiences, this was easier said than done, but it ultimately worked well for us.

First Days: Curiosity and Observation

From the first day home, we started from a place of curiosity and observation. We watched how M showed us that he was tired and how he worked on getting his hands to his mouth to soothe himself. He fought to get out of the swaddle from a few weeks of age, so we switched to cozy sleep sacks, leaving his hands free for self-soothing. He did sometimes startle himself in his sleep, but he also learned to soothe himself by sucking on his hands from an early age.

During the first month of his life, M mostly drifted off to sleep while feeding or just after. There was no need to interrupt those sweet moments or the biology that makes sleep after warm milk almost inevitable.

In this video, M fell asleep in my arms. I loved watching expressions flicker across his face as he transitioned to sleep.

When there was an opportunity, we put him down awake in a bassinet in the living room, and after looking around for a while and sucking on his hand, he would often drift off to sleep peacefully.

Sometimes he would squirm and fuss for a few minutes before falling to sleep. Sometimes his cries would escalate, and one of us would pick him up and help him calm down. M also often fell asleep in the car seat when we dropped Cee off for preschool or a front carrier when we went out for walks. We were flexible. The goal was for him to be able to practice going to sleep in a few different ways. (For more tips on supporting good newborn sleep, see this post.)

One Month: Fussy and Unpredictable

After about a month, M suddenly seemed to struggle more with going to sleep. When I put him down awake in his bassinet, he immediately began to cry. This wasn’t just a little fuss, but a red-faced cry so passionate that beads of sweat would appear on his forehead. This seemed like a physiological response, one that told me that he clearly needed help. He was immediately soothed by being picked up and nursed. However, nursing didn’t always put him to sleep, and when it did, it seemed to be a light sleep. Even when I tried holding him for the entire nap, he often woke after just 15 minutes. He was tired and needed to rest, but he was having a harder time doing it.

I didn’t mind soothing M to sleep. He was especially fussy in the evenings, and it was gratifying to support him through that time. I would turn on soft music and give him a bath in the kitchen sink, and then we’d dance around the kitchen together. He would usually have a good cry, and then eventually relax into my shoulder and drift off to sleep. Those nights are some of my favorite memories with him.

However, I still wondered how I could support M in learning to sleep more independently. It seemed like we needed an intermediate step – something between nursing or dancing to sleep and falling asleep by himself.

Learning to Sleep: Gradual, Supported, and Flexible 

After trying a few things, I found a routine that seemed to work well for us. I sat in my glider and laid a firm, flat pillow across my lap. I nursed M but gently removed the nipple from his mouth once he started that shallow, fluttery suck that meant he was he was getting sleepy. Then I let him lay on the pillow on his back. I talked to him and sang to him and rubbed his belly for a while. If he cried, a little rocking in the glider helped to calm him, but once he was calm, I stopped rocking.

Once he was asleep, I could gently transfer him to his bed. Interestingly, he seemed to sleep more soundly when he fell asleep on his own (compared with nursing to sleep), and it was no problem to transfer him. When he fell to sleep on his own, he was also more likely to connect sleep cycles and take a longer nap.

One of the benefits of this process for me was having the chance to observe him in his transition to sleep. Sometimes I got to witness a sweet smile as he drifted off to sleep, and I was glad that he was learning just how good it feels to rest. He also often fussed before going to sleep, and I was there to listen and reassure him. I learned about his different cries. Some were tired cries. Some seemed to mean frustration. Some just felt like a gentle off-load of emotion.

I noticed that often just before he went to sleep, he would turn his face away from me and cry a few really big cries, and then just as suddenly, he fell off to sleep. Other times, just when I thought he was asleep, his eyelids would pop open and he would have a couple big cries for a few seconds before falling back to sleep. I thought about how sometimes the process of falling to sleep is uncomfortable to me, too, how I sometimes jerk awake as if catching myself in a fall. It might have been challenging for him sometimes, but he knew I was right there with him.

Then, a funny thing happened. He started fussing more before falling to sleep, but he also started trying to roll his body away from me more. It was as if he was ready for a little more space, as if my presence right next to him was just a little too stimulating. And so, I started putting him down in his bassinet, right next to my glider, close enough that I could offer a pat or word of reassurance if needed. After a week or so, I started laying on my bed, just out of his sight but within earshot so he knew I was still close. And after another week or so, I started putting him down for sleep and leaving the room. He handled each transition wonderfully. To be honest, once I started leaving the room, he seemed to go to sleep more quickly with little to no fussing, as if it was easier without me. He was ready.

Reflecting on the Process

This whole process evolved slowly between about 6 and 12 weeks of age. I want to emphasize that we weren’t militant about it, and it was important to me that this sleep learning process shouldn’t create more stress or anxiety for anyone in the family, M included. In the beginning, we just tried the independent sleep routine once or twice per day, finding that the first nap of the day was usually the best time to practice.

One thing I noticed was that M’s sleep development wasn’t linear, and that observation helped me relax when it felt like we weren’t making progress. Some days and weeks he struggled more, and other days things just seemed to click into place. It seemed like there were these little windows of opportunity for learning to sleep, and I just wanted to be sure he had a chance to practice during that time.

If all of this seems sort of unconventional and maybe a little crazy, I hear you. But when you think about it, it’s no crazier than bouncing on a ball (or pacing the floor, or driving in the car, or pushing in a stroller), often for hours of the day, to get a baby to sleep. When I tried actively soothing M to sleep, he still struggled and cried, and it usually resulted in a frustratingly short nap during which I couldn’t put him down. With our routine, M had the chance to practice going to sleep on his own, a skill that he’d use for the rest of his life, and he ended up with the best naps. During his nap, I had a chance to take care of myself or reconnect with my older daughter without a baby attached to me.

I also think M’s sleep autonomy allowed his sleep to develop more organically over the first year. He wasn’t a perfect sleeper by any means. He wasn’t one of those amazing babies that sleeps through the night at 2 months old. Instead, I think his sleep patterns were pretty average. He often woke in the night for food or comfort, and he went through periods when he struggled more with sleep. Still, his sleep gradually consolidated without much intervention. We didn’t experience a noticeable sleep “regression” around 4 months. When we needed to make sleep changes later (for example, gradually dropping some excessive night feeds that developed during a rough period of travel and illness), those felt like small learning opportunities rather than traumatic changes. We were confident in his ability to sleep, and I believe that reaffirmed his confidence in himself.

By 11 months, M was sharing a room with his older sister (which they both love), sleeping about 12 hours through the night (most of the time, anyway), and blowing kisses to us from his crib at bedtime. Last week, he started crawling to his room when he’s tired, signing to us that he’d like help getting ready.

This was just one baby’s path towards independent sleep. The timeline and the intermediate steps might look very different from one baby to the next, and I don’t think that’s necessarily important. What was most important to me was finding that delicate balance between giving M space to learn yet also giving him support when he needed it. It was humbling to go through this newborn sleep stage again, but the key was observing my baby each step of the way and trusting in his ability to sleep.

Alice Callahan is the author of The Science of Mom: A Research-Based Guide to Your Baby’s First Year. You can find more of her work on her blog, Science of Mom, and her Facebook page.

(Photos and video are by Alice Callahan. Thank you so much, Alice!)

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