The ‘Baby Sleep the Night™’ Philosophy
Before being a child and baby sleep specialist, I am first and foremost a mother. For me, the most important thing, as a parent or as a child sleep consultant, is a child’s well being.
My Baby Sleep the Night™ gentle sleep-training programme is based on the belief that proper sleep not only helps the child but also the entire family!
Plus, you can rest assured that my philosophy and methods are aligned with best practices recommended by The UK’s National Health Service, The American Academy of Pediatrics, and The Canadian Pediatric Society.
Background and Experience
Teaching my children to be fantastic independent sleepers benefited them immensely, and in turn, my family. That’s why I dedicated my professional career to helping other parents who were as desperate as me to get their babies and toddlers to sleep.
For over a decade I’ve helped thousands of families get more out of life with my tried and tested methods that are more than just tips to get your baby to sleep. I ensure that every step is done precisely right, leaving absolutely no stone unturned. Close attention to detail is vital, and is why I hold a 100% success rate with families that stick to my gentle caring plans.
Whether it’s a baby going through a sleep regression or a six year old with bad sleeping habits, I’ve worked with them all!
During my training, I learnt all about the importance of sleep within the development of children. I also realised how a baby’s sleep pattern affected the health of the parents too. In short, when I helped stressed and tired mums and dads get their child to sleep, I inadvertently helped the family as a whole.
The more I helped, the more passionate I became about toddler and baby sleep training. The more passionate I became, the more I wanted to spread the knowledge I had acquired in the process.
Certifying Consultants
This is why I started training sleep consultants and certifying them to practise my philosophy.
I am determined to train people who care just as much as I do, so that they can help parents and babies get the sleep they need.
I understand that when parents reach out to a Baby Sleep the Night™-certified child sleep consultant to ask for help with their child’s sleeping habits, it’s almost always a last resort. Most parents never consult a baby sleep specialist because they feel it might make them seem like ‘failing at parenting’. Our Baby Sleep the Night™- certified consultants and I want you to know that asking for help does not make you a failure. Isn’t it said that it takes a village to raise a child?
However, we will make sure you understand the reason behind each and every step of the plan, why it’s so important, how it contributes to your child getting enough sleep.
What’s more, if you follow the detailed steps in your bespoke sleep plan you will notice a positive change in your little one, in terms of their energy levels, general happiness, and well being. That’s the power of good sleep!
Your Child’s Bespoke Sleep Plan
There are various methods to get your child to sleep that I use and teach. These strategies are based on individual family needs and preferences.
The most common specialist sleep solution I practise, and train the Baby Sleep the Night™-certified consultants, is the Gradual Retreat Sleep Training Plan.
This allows you to be right there with your child, touching them, talking to them and comforting them throughout the process of learning to sleep.
This isn’t for all families, of course. There are other ways to solve sleep issues and this is something that will be discussed in depth. This is so that parents get to choose what is right for them and their circumstances.
Regardless of method used, the success is in the detail – getting it just right. A consultant certified by the Baby Sleep The Night ™ will have been taught to:
- Learn About Your Child
As a parent, no one knows your child better than you. That’s why the Baby Sleep the Night™-certified sleep specialist will discuss your child’s sleep habits before designing a customised gentle sleep plan to get your child to sleep. - A Step-by-Step Plan
After they’ve got to know all about you and your child, they’ll lay out a plan. This will detail the steps that you’ll need to help get your child to sleep in an easy-to-follow, step-by-step format. But don’t worry – it’s not a hard and fast rulebook. It’s designed to give you enough discretionary power to make choices that will work best for you and your child! - Explain How to Measure Success
They will also explain what results can be achieved at what stage. The end goal is to get to the point where your child will sleep 12-hours a night. However, this will not usually happen on the first night (although it might!) - Manage Your Expectations
As part of the gentle sleep training programme, they’ll tell you exactly what to expect. Baby Sleep the Night-certified consultants take the uncertainty and guesswork out with their detailed ways to get your child to sleep. Effectively, they will hold your hand and support you throughout.
‘Crying it Out’
People always ask me whether the Baby Sleep the Night™ ways to get a child to sleep involve letting the baby ‘cry it out’. Here are my thoughts on this.
Let me reassure you that I’m not an advocate of controlled crying, ‘shut the door and leave them’ methods. I’m not saying they don’t work if they’re done correctly. They do.
However, I just think they are too tough on all involved.
What I will say though is we like things to be the same every night. Making big changes to anyone’s sleep environment would almost always be met with some kind of protest. With a child, their protest normally involves at least a few tears. So, I can’t promise you there will be no crying. In fact, with almost all of the families I have helped, there has been at least some.
I also completely understand that no one likes the idea of hearing their child cry. I myself am a mother of three and have been in your shoes. The Baby Sleep the Night™ philosophy does not rely on asking you to leave your child alone to cry for extended periods.
The reason that the Baby Sleep the Night™ methods are so effective is that they let you develop a planned way of getting your baby, toddler, or child to sleep that you feel comfortable with. This is completely based on what you already know about your child.
Sleep Regression
Sleep regressions happen at very important stages in a baby’s life. Despite what the name implies, it is in fact developmental rather than a regression.
So what is it?
For adults, a sleep cycle has four stages. These are:
- Drifting off
- Light sleep
- Deep sleep
- REM sleep
For a newborn, however, there are only two stages – deep sleep and REM sleep. Since these are both deep sleep stages, your baby will usually sleep soundly once they do drift off.
However, around the age of four months, the sleep cycle develops into the four-stage sleep, with stages of light sleep. Since this is so new for the baby, they will easily wake up when they reach those stages.
While the four-month sleep regression is the most well known, babies can also go through sleep regression commonly at the ages of 8 months or 18 months, or at just about any age! It usually lasts for two to six weeks, while the baby adjusts and adapts to this lighter sleep duration.
However, if you aren’t expecting it, it can be distressing.
Sleep regression can throw a lot of parents off. They can’t understand why their child, who was sleeping so well, is suddenly waking up unexpectedly.
My gentle sleep-training programme is designed to ensure that this phase is easily and quickly managed instead of becoming the basis of poor sleeping behaviour for your child.
Learn More About Our Gentle Sleep Training Methods and Results
My methods have worked consistently over the last decade. This is why teach them to all the Baby Sleep the Night™-certified consultants.
Please do have a read of some of the Happy Client testimonials where parents talk about their own experiences.
If you have any questions at all about the Baby Sleep the Night™ method or philosophy, please do contact me via email karen@babysleepthenight.com or by telephone on 01794 341172.
Testimonials
‘I was out for my third rainy walk of the day with the pram trying to get my 5 month… old son Callum to sleep and I bumped into another mum with her pram trying to do the same thing, only her little one was 10 months old, I thought enoughs enough I don’t want to still be doing this is 5 months time. I was also breastfeeding him to sleep at night and doing the same thing when he woke, it was the only way I knew for getting him back to sleep. I was thoroughly confused looking on the internet for solutions and needed a step by step plan to follow. I contacted Karen and she gave me just that, a bespoke plan as well as very helpful advice and support along the way. The first couple of days were a bit rocky, but on thethird night he slept through the night. He is now also taking 3 naps a day in his cot. We would not hesitate in recommending Karen, and I am very glad she followed her calling to become a sleep consultant. Thank you very much, will be back when we have hopefully have another baby and get it right from the start’. Kindest regards Alison x Read more “”
We contacted Karen in utter desperation and exhaustion, after 9 long months of our baby daughter Rose not sleeping for… more than 1-2 hours at a time. We tried everything to get our daughter to drift into the deep, restorative sleep she clearly needed night and day, but nothing would work. We were beyond tired. After a difficult start in life, including a traumatic period in hospital, Rose quickly became a highly sensitive baby and a very poor sleeper. We felt we had tried everything, and just hoped things would get better as Rose got older; that she would naturally fall into a good sleep pattern all by herself. Unfortunately they didn’t and in the end we came to realise we needed expert help. We were looking for a sleep solution that was as kind as possible to both our daughter and us. Karen reassured us that Rose’s sleep problems were completely normal, and that we had done absolutely the right thing in comforting and responding to our daughter for those long and difficult months before seeking assistance. Karen took a detailed history and helped us to understand how sleeps works and the importance of good sleep. Karen was sympathetic, supportive and non-judgemental in her approach and advice. After following the tailored sleep plan, Rose now sleeps for 11 hours in the nights, and naps for almost 2 hours during the day! The difference has been simply life-changing for all of us. Rose is thriving after finally getting her much-needed sleep and we can enjoy our lovely, happy daughter to the full. We have already recommended Karen to all our friends with children. Read more “”
“Having already had one daughter who had mastered the art of sleeping within the first two months of her life,… I was one of those smug mums who naturally assumed number two daughter would follow suit! How wrong I was. After a difficult start to life, numerous operations and hospital trips, our little girl decided that she wouldn’t waste another moment of her precious life – especially sleeping. After 11months reading numerous books, googling different websites and trying all sorts of weird and wonderful new routines, sleep still eluded us, and I contacted karen at baby sleep the night as a last resort. After a couple of hard nights getting to grips with the new routine, I felt we were finally spending more time with our heads on our own pillows than against her bedroom wall, when a chesty cold hit our household and had everyone up throughout the night. I can honestly say, without Karens constant reassuring words that with patience and consistency we would get there; giving us new tips to try and holding our hands every step of the way, we would have thrown in the towel and admitted defeat. And of course she was right – sleep no longer eludes us, our daughter not only sleep soundly at night but loves a siesta twice a day. And all this just in time for her first birthday and Christmas. Thank you Karen for the best present money could buy – a good nights sleep” Many thanks once again and have a wonderful family christmas. Read more “”
I must admit that when a friend (aware of our desperate predicament!) passed on a leaflet about the Baby Sleep… the Night programme, I was cynical. It wasn’t that there was anything suspect about the blurb, its just that this was Mala! I felt that even if the programme might work for 99% of babies it wouldn’t for her. She is such a forceful, strong and determined little being, and I couldn’t comprehend how all of a sudden we would be able to break her out of her sixteen month habit of only falling asleep at the breast and watch her drop to sleep peacefully in a cot all by herself (?!)! I was reassured to a degree by Karen’s visit when she explained more about how it all worked. Lots of what she said made so much sense, and I could see where we’d been making mistakes. Mala had been such a poor sleeper that we would always try to make sure she was as tired as possible when going to bed, only for her to have another terrible night and leave us wondering what more we could possibly do to help her sleep. Karen explained that over-tiredness was as much of a problem as under-tiredness, and this made sense as we’d started to notice that the days where she slept the least and went to bed the latest were amongst her worst nights. It was as if the frustration caused by over-tiredness would prevent her from getting into the calm place she needed to sleep solidly. Despite the reassurances I felt from understanding more about the method and from Karen’s kind and professional manner, I still felt worried that the plan wouldn’t work for Mala. I had images of her screaming for hours on end. It felt like after sixteen months of cudgy times in our bed with breastfeeding on demand, the cot would feel like such an alien experience to her. I tried to stay positive, knowing that with another baby on the way this was something which had to happen, there wasn’t any choice. Clair wasn’t going to cope with this pregnancy without getting more sleep. I also believed that our friend had picked up on Karen’s leaflet for a reason and that we’d been led to someone who could help us at just the right time, which gave me confidence in the face of my worries. However up until the first night of the plan I couldn’t envisage how Mala would actually fall asleep on her own! In the end our transition from sleepless nights to sleep-full ones was easier than I possibly could have imagined. The first night was the most crucial one, and the hardest. As anticipated, Mala cried pretty forcibly when I first popped her into her cot, said ‘night night time Mala’ and she realised that she was being expected to fall asleep there on her own! The only thing that made this easier was reminding myself that Mala cries pretty forcibly about other things sometimes that there isn’t any choice about, like when she wants the keys when we’re driving the car and obviously there is no way to give them to her! I had to keep reminding myself that training Mala to sleep by herself wasn’t an attempt to hurt her or deprive her of something but was for her own benefit as much as ours and that it was so important for her growth and development that at sixteen months she experienced solid periods of sleep. This helped me to be strong through the ten minutes she cried forcibly as you battle against your parental instincts to pick your darling up and cuddle her. Then all of a sudden the moment I could never envisage came along; she fell asleep! From this first night onwards something seemed to click with Mala and over the coming days settling time got easier and easier and her waking at night got less and less until, on the third night, a miracle happened and Mala slept for twelve hours without waking! A week before, this would’ve been something we couldn’t even of dreamed of. Since then Mala has had her odd little wobble but generally she has slept solidly for at least ten hours each night, and the months and months of sleep-deprived desperation seem far in the past! We couldn’t be more grateful to Karen for everything she has done for us. Mala learning to sleep has literally been a life-changing experience that has improved our quality of life immeasurably. Our house is a much, much calmer, happier and more productive place than it was a few months previously and Mala’s solid evening sleeping even meant we were able to get a babysitter in and have our first meal out in sixteen months! One of the things that makes the programme so effective is the structured support that Karen gives – its amazing what a difference it makes having someone there to talk to and get advice from when your in the midst of something that feels so huge, and she couldn’t have been kinder or more supportive in her role. There’s one more person I have to thank in helping to bring this massive transition about and that’s Mala! She learnt so, so quickly what was expected of her and we literally couldn’t be more proud of the way she embraced her new circumstances at exactly the moment we needed her to the most. Its now her who talks me through each step of her night time routine, saying ‘jamas, books and ‘night night’ at all the right moments! Thank you Karen and thank you Mala for giving us our lives back!! Read more “”
Thanks to Karen and her plan our 9 month old daughter now consistently sleeps 11 and a half /12 hours… night and has 2 decent length naps in the day. We sought Karen’s advise after all being sleep deprived and after realising that we were falling into bad habits at bedtime and nap time. We could be in and out of her room up to 6 times at night and sometimes trying to settle her for up to 2 hours in the middle of night. In sheer desperation and exhaustion I started bringing her into our bed, which I knew I didn’t want to do but felt I had no other option. After religiously following Karen’s sleeping plan Amelie slept through the night from day 2. We couldn’t believe how quickly it worked for Amelie. We can’t thank Karen enough!! Read more “”
In a desperate sleep deprived state late one night I stumbled across babysleepthenight.com. I remember reading through all the testimonials… from happy clients thinking to myself ‘this sounds too good to be true’ and ‘this will never work for us.’ Well if that is you right now, have faith and put your trust in Karen – she’s amazing and she very quickly solved our 13 month olds sleep problems. Our little boy had not been sleeping well for months, it was not unusual for him to wake 6+ times a night and his naps were all over the place. It would take us ages to get him off to sleep and every time he woke he’d need us to help him back to sleep. We followed Karen’s personalised plan exactly to the letter and now we have a very happy well rested little boy. He sleeps from 7pm to 7 -7.30am and naps for 1.5 – 2hrs every day. It’s amazing when you consider that in one week he learnt to put himself to sleep AND to sleep all night. All this while transitioning from two naps to one! On a personal note, I have so much more energy and enthusiasm now. I’ve gone from struggling to just get through the day to really looking forward to all the fun things we can do together. Seriously money well spent, it’s transformed our lives! Thankyou so much, you’ll never know how much of a positive impact you’ve had on our lives. All the very best, Michelle, Arps and Eashan x Read more “”
When we contacted Karen, we were absolutely desperately sleep deprived. Benedict, at 9 months, had gone from bad to worse… in the sleep department. He was now waking up every 40 minutes to an hour throughout the night and my husband and I were taking it in turns to sleep on a mattress in his nursery. We had to rock him back to sleep every time he woke and even that didn’t always work. Sometimes it took an hour or two to get him back to sleep. Then there was always the dreaded transfer back into his cot, which would invariably wake him.His naps were getting shorter and shorter as well- usually only 25 minutes or so. When I spoke to Karen I was reassured by her kindness and confidence of solving the problem. We were very worried about just leaving Benedict to cry and Karen was very reassuring that we wouldn’t have to do anything we weren’t comfortable with. Karen’s sleep plan is incredible. It was hard work, but the benefits are huge- actually life changing for us. Benedict now sleeps through the night, every night. We put him down in his cot at night, leave the room, and 5 minutes later he is asleep. No crying, no fuss. He now regularly naps for 1,5 hours, again typically falling asleep 5-10 minutes after putting him in his cot. We finally have our lives back and even went for our first meal out together- unthinkable just a few weeks ago!Thank you Karen for transforming our lives and giving our baby the sleep he deserves. In my husband’s own words- the best money we’ve ever spent! Read more “”
Karen’s advice and support has proved invaluable. Following two years of regularly broken sleep, we really weren’t sure what to… do next. Karen made sure she fully understood our situation before giving us strategies to use that have made a huge difference to our daughter’s sleeping habits and our ability to enjoy a decent night’s sleep. We can now deal with any problems with complete confidence. I wish we’d found Karen months ago. Read more “”
Amazing is just one word!! My son is 16 months old and has only slept through the night 3 times. … He would wake up the same time every night at around 11pm and 3am. He would always want milk to get him back to sleep. Me and husband had come to point where is was driving us mad and had to seek help. That’s were Karen came in. After having a new routine and the fabulous Karen at hand he was sleeping through after night 4! I thought it wouldn’t work and that I would cave in but no I stuck to it and the result was amazing. I have already recommended her to friends and I am sure that they will be amazed as we were. Read more “”
Karen, the sleep guru, is who you need if you have had enough of sleepless nights due to a baby/toddler… keeping you up at night! I contacted Karen after over two years of disturbed sleep and wish I had done so sooner, as after four nights, yes, just four nights, my daughter starting sleeping through the night. I never thought I would see the day (well night if we’re being precise!). Karen’s individualised sleeping plan meant that myself and my husband were equipped with the tools and confidence we needed to guide our daughter into learning how to sleep well, and I can honestly say, without hesitation, that she can now settle herself to sleep and sleep through the night without any parental input. Karen has been a great source of help and support throughout the process, and has been so positive and encouraging. She is worth every single penny and I will certainly be calling on Karen’s expert advice when baby number two arrives early in the New Year! Thank you so much Karen for helping us all to get our sleep back. Read more “”