The Happy Sleeper: the science-backed guide to helping your baby get a good night’s sleep ― newborn to school age

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If you are careful, thoughtful, and consistent in how you do this, your baby will feel supported (even though she may express big feelings about the change), and eventually she'll learn a new pattern that helps her sleep well. That's exactly the combination studies suggest is the win-win-win of effective parenting: give your children the relationship security they need while also providing them the structure they require to sleep well and thrive. If one of these is missing, a child's sleep ends up falling short of what she's developmentally capable of: a 10-month-old baby waking every 1 to 2 hours at night (you'd be surprised how many we've met!

Your main goal is to allow your baby to be in the dark, cool, quiet environment of her room until the desired waking time (6:00 – 6:30 a. He recommended the Ferber method actually, which has gotten vilified on the internet but I then read Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems and it seemed fine to me (Ferber said training at 4-6 months is okay and our baby wasn’t getting good sleep cosleeping anymore, so we went for it early). Babies get overstimulated and fussy when they're tired (as you'll see in Chapter 3, that's a big reason for the early evening 'witching hour'). We were so hesitant to do any kind of sleep training for fear that it would be traumatizing for everyone involved.

You feed or rock your baby until she's fast asleep, lower her gently into her crib, and tiptoe out of the room. From the ages of 2½ to 6 years, short sleep (fewer than 10 hours per night) has been linked to lower vocabulary and nonverbal intellectual skills, and this is true even of kids who later catch up to their peers in sleep duration. I've also picked up some really useful tips on setting up a pro-sleep room, the amount of sleep my little guy needs, and appropriate nap schedules. The authors provide you with a framework that will leave you feeling confident in the positive outcome of your approach. We'd run through the routine, put her down, start a timer because she'd immediately cry, and then pour ourselves a drink and then take turns going in for the 5 minute checks.

Heather and Julie are psychotherapists and authors of the best-selling baby sleep book, The Happy Sleeper. We can tell if our baby actually needs something in the middle of the night or if he’s just settling himself, similar to what you’re seeing.On our first night of training, I did our bedtime routine, laid him down, said our mantra, and walked out of the room, and then RAN out of the house to go for a walk while my husband did the five minute checks. I kept this at four stars because I have only used it for one child, and I haven’t gotten to the age when my daughter is old enough for the sleep training approach. It's been bogged down in old-school notions like 'training' and misunderstandings of basic concepts like attachment. When you are doing everything in your power to comfort a baby who just will not stop crying, when you are willing to feed her and hold her (all night!

I don't expect that this means we have a perfect sleeper on our hands for all time, and we've had small regressions when she's teething or not feeling great, but honestly, just knowing that we can do this, and that D and I can eat dinner and talk about our day and then actually get some sleep, is worth it, even if everything changes in another couple of months.

After many hours of sleep, our “sleep drive” isn’t as strong, and our bodies are starting to send signals that it’s almost time to wake up.