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
Working with Karen has been life changing and I cannot recommend it enough. Our little boy was 16 months old… and had never slept for more than 3-4 hours without needing us. Before starting work with Karen I had spent the previous month sleeping on the floor next to his cot which at 3 months pregnant with our second baby and working full time was pushing me to the limit. Zach had suffered with severe silent reflux for his first year and the management of his treatment (as well as his medication) resulted in very poor sleep habits – e.g. Dummy, night feeds, holding upright 20mins post feeding. Once he was better we had tried many things ourselves including controlled crying which just led to a cot phobia. Having spoken with Karen I felt confident she could help although couldn’t quite believe we could fix Zach’s sleeping in just 2 weeks. Before starting the first night we were very nervous and steeled ourselves for a very long night. It wasn’t easy but he accepted the changes much better and faster than we ever dreamt he could and unbelievably on the 2nd night he slept through for the first time ever and has continued to do so!!! 3 weeks on I still have to pinch myself every morning that we now have a ‘sleeper’. Read more “”
After 21 months of crying for 2-3 hours a night we decided enough was enough and contacted Karen to help get… our little boy sleeping through the night. We have read and tried numerous different ways to try and get him to consistently sleep through the night and none of them worked for us. Karen devised a sleep plan for us to work with and it was tweaked along the way to suit our little boy and us. Unfortunately during the process, we had the clocks changing, chicken pox and a nasty cough and cold to contend with but we have now had 16 nights of sleeping through!!! Not only are we feeling more human, our little boy is much happier in the daytime and napping better too. Thanks Karen Read more “”
When we first contacted Karen, we were in a pretty desperate state. Max (our third child) had woken up every 1-2… hours and never napped for more than 20-30 minutes, it was affecting everything in the house including our relationship. A friend of mine recommend Karen to me and I am forever in their debt, Max is now not only sleeping through the night but sleeps for over an hour twice a day! I never thought it was possible, I cannot thank Karen enough for all the advice, help and support that she has given. We now really enjoy bed and nap times and max does now too! Thank you so much Karen. Francesca and Kevin (A well and truly happy mummy and daddy) 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 “”
THANK YOU, THANK YOU SO MUCH for giving me my SLEEP back as well as my life. Before i meet karen… i was up and down most of the night and suriving on a few hours sleep, which was hard especially when it was affecting my work as well as my home life and my general health. Within just a few days of meeting karen and sticking to my bedtime routine charlie my 20month old son had started to sleep through the night again as well as having a two and half hour sleep in the afternoon giving me time to myself again. Thank you once again. Read more “”
We first called on Karen when I was pregnant, to help get our older son James sleeping independently in his… own bed in plenty of time for the arrival of his baby brother. This has worked like a dream and set us up really well for the first few weeks of expected sleep disturbance with the new baby, Alex. However, thanks to the advice Karen gave us on managing day and night sleep with a new baby, the sleep disturbance was really kept to a minimum, and by 4 weeks old Alex was only waking for one night feed. When we started to have problems with short daytime naps a few months in, which was leading to more night waking, we called on Karen again for some help tweaking our day and night routines. This has worked so well. Alex is sleeping through the night at six months old, and sleeping really well in the day which gives me some time to get things done or have a rest. I am sure the help we have had from Karen has helped prevent a recurrence of the post-natal depression I had with James which had a lot to do with being exhausted and not knowing how to change things. Karen has given us a proven toolkit to work through problems as they arise. The very reasonable cost has been a small amount to pay for the peace of mind it has brought us. Read more “”
Massive thanks to Karen at Babysleepthenight, our lives have been changed dramatically since our bundle of daytime joy has become… a bundle of nighttime joy too!
We enlisted Karens help after many failed attempts at getting out little one to sleep! (12 months of frequent wakings plays havoc!) We started on the eve of her first birthday and I can honestly say within 3 nights our lives were transformed! Within 2 weeks our little girl was sleeping 11 hours a night!
We used Karens time change advice when the clocks changed and took her advice on our first holiday, with our little one still managing 10-11 hours!
Now 6 months on we still stay true to the advice and get 11, sometimes even 12 hours of nighttime joy!
Thanks Karen!! Read more “”
Strength, determination and conviction that you’re doing the right thing are qualities that dwindle when in the depths of sleep… deprivation! After 7months of existing on around 2-3 hrs sleep a night, desperation had set in to find a way of helping our gorgeous little girl to sleep soundly. When Karen introduced us to the clarity, simplicity and step by step approach of her plan, I knew this was exactly what I needed! With Karen’s unfaltering guidance and support, in a matter of days we were on our way to sleep like we’d never before experienced! The results really were astonishing and within a week our little girl had gone from not sleeping for more than an hour at a time to sleeping a straight 10 hours. Success, blissful nights and a much healthier, happier household! 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 think I may have been one of Karen’s more challenging clients but this didn’t faze her one bit!! She… was just more determined to get it sorted. Ihad a 2.5 year old that had NEVER slept through the night and had been sleeping in the marital bed for the last 9 months. If he didn’t sleep next to me I would be up anywhere from 3-6 times a night. I also had a 10 month old that was waking a couple of times a night as well. Sleep deprived was an understatement and my use of make-up increased ten fold! This was a way of life that I only thought would resolve naturally and I just kept putting off dealing with it. I saw Karen’s article in a local magazine and felt I had nothing to lose by ringing her. Karen was warm and understanding and certainly gave me light at the end of the tunnel. She kept me focused when I wobbled – and I had a few – but was there for me every step of the way, confident and positive. Without her support and guidance there is no way I could have done this. She has gone over and above all my expectations. Have we had the double sleep through? Of course we have – every night is a double sleep through! I’m not sure why I let this drag on for so long but sleepless nights seem a distant memory now. I’ve got my life back, my husband back in the bed and I can honestly say to my friends ‘yes, my boys sleep the whole night and don’t wake once’ which I NEVER thought I’d hear myself say!! Don’t hesitate, call Karen, you won’t regret it. She’s my new best friend! Read more “”