The ‘Baby Sleep the Night™’ Philosophy
Before being child and baby sleep specialists, we are all first and foremost, mothers. For us, the most important thing, as a parent or as a child sleep consultant, is a child’s well being.
Our 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 our 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
For us, teaching our children to be fantastic independent sleepers benefited them immensely, and in turn, our families. That’s why we both dedicated our professional careers to helping other parents who were as desperate as us to get their babies and toddlers to sleep.
For over a decade, we’ve helped thousands of families get more out of life with our tried and tested methods that are more than just tips to get your baby to sleep. We ensure that every step is done precisely right, leaving absolutely no stone unturned. Close attention to detail is vital, and is why we both 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, we’ve worked with them all!
During our training, we learnt all about the importance of sleep within the development of children. We also realised how a baby’s sleep pattern affected the health of the parents too. In short, when we help stressed and tired mums and dads get their child to sleep, we inadvertently help the family as a whole.
The more we helped, the more passionate we became about toddler and baby sleep training. The more passionate we became, the more we wanted to spread the knowledge we had acquired in the process.
Certifying Consultants
This is why we started training sleep consultants and certifying them to practise our philosophy.
We are determined to train people who care just as much as we do, so that they can help parents and babies get the sleep they need.
We 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 we use and teach. These strategies are based on individual family needs and preferences.
The most common specialist sleep solution we 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 us whether the Baby Sleep the Night™ ways to get a child to sleep involve letting the baby ‘cry it out’. Here are our thoughts on this.
Let us reassure you that we’re not advocates of controlled crying, ‘shut the door and leave them’ methods. We’re not saying they don’t work if they’re done correctly. They do.
However, we just think they are too tough on all involved.
What we 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, we 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.
We also completely understand that no one likes the idea of hearing their child cry. We are also mothers 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.
Our 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
Our methods have worked consistently over the last decade. This is why we 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 us via email philly@babysleepthenight.com.
Testimonials
WELL IT IS SINGULARLY THE BEST THING WE HAVE EVER DONE! For all those non believers and pessimistic parents PLEASE HAVE FAITH!!
Karen gave us confidence and exactly what we needed to do without the crying out approach.We had to revert back TO THE COT which I felt so terrible for but the bed wasn’t working anyway. We also had to take her dummy and taggy away (all the distractions) but she was allowed her soft dolly.We had a routine we needed to follow, and as hard as it was we stuck by it!!!
Night 1: an hour of tears and upset then settled- 2 wake ups, Night2: 30 minutes of tears and crying – 1wake up, Night 3: 10 minutes crying then settled- 2 wake ups and put herself back to sleep after only a few minutes of calling out!
Seeing Harriet so upset and calling out our names and begging for us even when we were sat in the room with her was heartbreaking and we felt distraught but it wasn’t because she was actually hurt or sad it was just because of change, and she soon got used to it! And has days now when she is upstairs wanting messy bath time before we are even ready! 🙂 She asked for her dummy for 2 nights we explained how we gave it to her baby cousin and that was that. She soon got over that.
3weeks later……. My husband and I have never had so much sleep in over 2 Years!!!!! And can watch a film uninterrupted!!!!! A MIRACLE!!!!!!
I REALLY CANT EXPRESS WHAT A LIFE CHANGER IT IS FOR ALL THE FAMILY!!!!! We also had friends round for a curry night which has never ever been possible before without constant interruptions!!! PLEASE DONT WAIT ANY LONGER….. IF you are reading this it’s because you are probably desperate for a little sleep!!!! CALL KAREN you will not regret it!! Xxx
Thank you Karen for everything! We will call you when our next bundle of joy is due to arrive to ensure we get it right from the start!
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
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!!
Thank you so much Karen. Francesca and Kevin (A well and truly happy mummy and daddy)
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.