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
My son had always been a good sleeper and had no trouble going to bed. Suddenly at around 18 months… he started waking in the night and not wanting to be left alone and he started early rising. We managed to pretty much overcome the night waking but the early rising became a daily thing with 5.15am the norm! On top of this, he refused to nap during the day when at home so we were stuck in a rut with a tired child and tired parents. With a brand new addition to the family and the increased lack of sleep that brings too, we decided enough was enough and I called Karen. My only reservation was that I did not want to pay to be told things I already know or have read in books and I hoped Karen would have some fairy dust up her sleeve…She did. Just after I convinced my husband to let us spend the money on Karen’s services, we had such a rough night that he said he’d pay double! I think he nearly hugged her when he answered the door to her. We had the complete solution package and the newborn package for our two children. We expected it to be hard at first but we saw a massive improvement on our very first night of sleep training our toddler. Over the two weeks of training we have turned things around and he is now sleeping through to more like 7am with no night waking and still going to bed with no problems. We have also learnt valuable skills to help the newborn who is also sleeping through already at just 6 weeks. The best thing about hiring Karen is that she is there for you the whole way through the process. She tailors the training to your family’s needs and reminds and advises you if you come unstuck and she makes sure you see it through. You can’t get that from any book. This service is well worth every penny and I feel we will have years of benefit from it. I highly recommend it. Read more “”
Our 8 month old had been a bad sleeper since the early days, with a brief spell of good sleeping… at 6 months. However, after a bout of illness we slipped into bad habits and Euan would be awake for about two hours each night and usually ended up in bed with me as it seemed to be the only way to settle him. Napping during the day was also a problem, Euan rarely slept for longer than 40mins at a time. Thanks to Karen’s plan, Euan consistently sleeps for about 12 hours a night and if he does wake up he can put himself back to sleep without our intervention. He is also napping well – for up to 1.5 hours twice a day. I was surprised about how quickly we saw improvements in Euan’s sleeping and it was such a relief to finally get a decent night’s sleep. Thank you Karen for all your help. Read more “”
I came across Karen’s details via a popular parenting forum, having spent far too many months googling sleep tips and… reading baby books with advice on how to get my baby to sleep well. We started sleep training at age 11 months, and at this stage it was becoming desperate for me as I was returning to work at age 12 months and was still rather sleep deprived with a baby who needed fed/walked or rocked to sleep in a baby carrier for naps; and sharing a bed at night – 75 centimetres of wriggling baby was not getting anyone a good night’s sleep! We had habits, which we knew were bad and weren’t working for our family – co-sleeping, breast feeding to sleep and using a dummy for naps/night wakings, and even these were not guaranteed to work as time went on and sleep time became a dread. Whilst some of these ‘habits’ were lovely in the early days, you can only learn for yourself that they aren’t ideal for teaching your baby good sleep habits, despite lots of anecdotes saying that these things never do harm! We were very much against crying methods for our family, and this was all that had worked for anyone I knew. Karen taught me that , yes you will have to listen to your baby crying and gave in-depth explanation of why, but that you can choose to be beside her so that she doesn’t feel abandoned Night 1 was very tough, but the next day held an amazing improvement and a few weeks on my baby enjoys the simple steps of our new nap and bedtime routine and reaches out for her cot to go to sleep. I can return to work safe in the knowledge that anyone can put my daughter to sleep in the daytime and that Daddy can do his share at bedtime! Karen is a great listener, with experienced ears and a ton of advice, you feel as though you are in it together and she genuinely cares – there is no judgement of your bad habits at all and I found her to be extremely professional and personable. My daughter got a bug 3 days into sleep training, but fortunately she had learned the principles already and was still able to sleep in her cot all night and for naps and Karen supported us throughout the illness. If you are concerned about the cost of paying for help with sleep training, it is understandable, given than many of us are on budgets during maternity leave and beyond, however, this is one of the best ‘baby purchases’ for me. You cannot put a price on a good night’s sleep – it is really a transformation and I would suggest that you consult with Karen rather than buying books that you won’t have time to read or follow through with complicated routines and plans that will confuse your sleep-deprived parent brain (from someone who has been there :)..) Remember before you had a baby when you used to get a whole night’s sleep? it can be very close again if you do something about it now – don’t hesitate – the change is so uplifting and most of all you will very extremely proud of your child for learning these valuable new skills so well 🙂 Read more “”
I just thought I would email to let you know how brilliantly Ivy (now 15 months old) is sleeping. We… followed your newborn plan and she started sleeping pretty well fairly early on. She had a wobble at around 5 months old and I did controlled crying 1 night and since then we very rarely have to go in to her room during the night unless teething etc. She absolutely loves her sleep and even though she can’t talk she signs BED when she wants to go to bed and has been known on days she has been at nursery to ask to go to bed at 445pm! It hasn’t meant she has woken stupidly early the next day and in fact she slept until her normal time. Her normal bedtime is now around 1830, she wakes around 0600-0630 most mornings but if we leave her alone she normally Resettles until around 8am, sometimes later. We are much better rested parents and have recommended you to numerous other friends expecting or who have children with sleep Issues. Thank you ever so much for all your help with Adam and Ivy. Read more “”
Truly Amazing! Life changing! I never believed it would work for my son….until I tried it. From waking EIGHT times… a night for a year and reliant on motion or feeding to now sleeping 11 hours without waking! Everyone is happier and we even have the energy to go and join in with fun activities. Karen, so encouraging, positive, supportive and wise, she WILL help you succeed. I truly can’t thank her enough and could never have done it without her – Worth every penny! Sleep tight! Read more “”
Finding Karen has been truly life changing for both my husband and I as busy working parents (with previously no… adult time) but especially for Aidan aged 18 months! Going down at bed time had never been a problem but the night waking got more and more frequent and coupled with lack of sleep resulted in Aidan joining us in bed most nights just so we could all sleep.
I had read lots of information in books and online and felt I had tried everything. I was at my wits end when I found Karen’s details and little did I know that in less 3 days Aidan would be sleeping through 7.15pm until 7.45 in his own bed!
Karen’s support and encouragement was unwavering and it gave us the confidence and determination to see it through. I would not hesitate to recommend Karen to anyone who is struggling as it has brought back to me how wonderful being a mother is now that none of us are sleep deprived.
Thank you so much and hopefully we will be in touch when there is a new addition to our family Read more “”
Wow what more can I say but thank you so much Karen, my son who is 17 months old slept… in my bed with waking every hour for a bottle of milk to comfort him back to sleep, I was totally worn out, being pregnant too I thought enough is enough, so calling Karen for the first time was amazing, she told me my sons sleep could be sorted I thought it wouldn’t work and was so negative about the plan given, but to our amazement our son slept through the whole night on the “FIRST” night!! I couldn’t believe it, so thank you again Karen for your fab advice and support but most of all patients, we have our evenings back and a very happy little boy. Read more “”
Dear Karen, I just wanted to thank you for all your kindness towards me, I really couldn’t have sorted out… Zac’s sleep without your support, encouragement and positivity.Its amazing, now I have time to myself of an evening and I am looking forward to sharing them with my husband! Thanks again, I could never have done it without you! Lots of love Kay xxx Read more “”
At 6 months of age, Henry had never slept for more than an hour at a time, night or day.… He wasn’t napping well in the day and was obviously grumpy. We were both totally knackered and feeling that we weren’t able to engage with him as much as we should because we were so tired. Life was simply survival. We found Karen and asked for her help. She was fantastic, within 5 nights Henry was sleeping through for 12 hours and within a week he was having 3 naps in the day as well.We are now 2 months, one change of clocks, 3 holidays and one bout of illness down the line and all 3 of us are still sleeping well.Karen’s advice worked and was tailored so that neither Henry or us were too upset with what was going on. She was confident and dealt with our problems in an open and understanding way. We would have no qualms about recommending her to anyone who is having problems with their baby’s sleeping. Many, many thanks Karen. Read more “”
I recently wrote a rather desperate email to the Baby Sleep the Night Team entitled ‘Edie the untrainable’ and within… 48hrs Gemma had completely disproved my theory about our daughter. After an excruciating 3 months meticulously following the plan of another sleep trainer we turned to Karen & Gemma based on a few of our friends recommends. From the very first night 7pm came and went without event or the screaming/self combustion we’d become accustomed to. I’m still not 100% sure what wizardry has gone on but we are so hugely appreciative of all your wise words, the incredible unwavering support and ultimately our happy sleeping baby! We will sing your praise from the roof tops or to anyone who will listen forever more.
Thank you, thank you. Read more “”