For the first few months of his life, Laura Welk?s baby, Greyson, was a dream sleeper. He had regular naps during the day, and all it took was a calming bottle in the evenings and he would be fast asleep. He would wake up only once a night for a feed, and that would last him until morning.
But when he was about three-and-a-half months old, the routine fell apart. ?I would feed him, but he wouldn?t be asleep at the end of the feed,? recalls Welk. ?I would rock him until he fell asleep and put him down, and then he would wake up 30 minutes later and I would do it all over again.? Desperate for some rest, Welk brought Greyson into bed with her, but then she ended up just lying still, holding a pacifier in his mouth all night long. ?I didn?t know anything about sleep,? says Welk. ?I didn?t know you couldn?t just rock them to sleep and then put them down.? When Greyson was four months old, the first-time parents contacted a sleep consultant, who clued them into a few things that were getting in the way of Greyson sleeping well: All the rocking and pacifying were now ingrained in him as sleep associations?or crutches he needed to fall asleep and stay asleep. They decided to sleep-train him.
Sleep training is a loaded phrase, and one that is often used synonymously with letting your baby self-soothe, or ?cry it out,? but that?s not the whole picture, says Alanna McGinn, a certified sleep consultant and the founder of Good Night Sleep Site. ?It?s more about being able to teach your...