Sleep Teaching - What is That?

Sleep teaching is just a mild name for sleep training with gentle methods, although it touches a point! When you say „sleep teaching”, you believe that your baby is going to gain new skills, when the word „training” is more about repeating patterns. As for me, and my method, teaching is adequate. 

Self-soothing

I believe the ability to sleeping well depends mainly on the ability to self-soothe. Your baby won’t sleep through the night incessantly but will manage to fall back asleep on their own. My Hold With Love method is designed to convince the baby that nothing terrible happens when you wake up on your own.

Sleep as part of a routine

A bedtime routine is vital for helping your baby twig what is going to happen next and when is the right time to sleep (and bath and play…). Recurrence of events has a calming effect.

External factor

Despite the sleeping skills, several factors can affect sleep, like room environment - darkening shades and proper temperature are required. Also, daytime activities may improve or worsen nighttime sleep. If you are sleep teaching, try to keep the days more or less similar with similar intensity for a while.

Teaching yourself

It is you who need to learn how to help your baby to develop sleeping skills. I recommend my guide: How to teach a baby to fall asleep alone. It is step-by-step instruction of non-harm method to follow. But please - read it carefully for cover to cover before you start, to guide your baby well. 

And you know what the best advantage of successfully sleep teaching your baby in early months is? More sleep for you! Yes, we know we will be getting up a few times a night to feed our new babies, but that doesn’t mean that we should be up every hour or staying up for hours. Our bodies are not intended to bear that for long periods! That is why it’s so important for both of you to get good, quality sleep. 

Susan Urban