The Baby Sleep Solution

• Plan to establish naps in the cot on the morning after the first night.

• If your child is over two or if you work five days a week, you may want to just focus on naps that happen in any way that works.

• Encourage your childcare providers to have a positive input where day sleep is concerned. They have a big influence on how rested your child is. Don’t be afraid of this conversation – everyone will have your child’s best interests in mind.

Achieving the nap

• Begin with having your child learn to sleep in the cot with the new approach on the morning after the first night of sleep learning or on the first available morning thereafter.

• Ideally, all naps should be in the cot, apart from the back-up/filler (third or fourth) nap.

• The back-up/filler (third or fourth) nap can be motion-oriented – in the car/buggy/swing/sling –

Once you have started the bedtime process using the stay-and-support approach, if you would like to establish naps in the cot I recommend that you begin with a nap establishment strategy on the morning after the first night of sleep learning.

Ultimately, the cot is the best place for your child to sleep in the day. If your child is under two years of age this is a worthwhile exercise and, while I don’t dismiss an older child learning to sleep in the cot, it can of course be harder or impossible to achieve and that nap will likely have passed by the time your child is aged three. Also, if your child is in daycare five days a week, it may be too much of an effort, with not enough days in a row to practise at home; and your priority may be just making sure that your child naps at the right time and gets enough sleep, rather than worrying about where the nap happens.

The decision lies with you, but I strongly encourage this part of the plan, and although you may think it is too much change all together, generally children are responsive and the end result is just super.

Stage 3: Nights 8–10

At bedtime

Change your position to next to the door, still lying down, still inside the room but further away, but where your child can see and hear you. If this is not possible, for these days of the process your child should still be able to see you, so consider moving to a position further away, but not near the door – this will depend on the layout of the room. Do not move the cot or bed once the process has started; only ever change your position.

• Continue as you have been, really scaling down the amount of intervention.

• If you have been singing to your child, now is the time to start scaling it back.

• If you have been back and forth to the cot or bed like a yo-yo, then start to pace yourself. Wait two or three minutes or more before you go back over to the cot-side and then return to the doorframe position until your child has gone to sleep.

At this stage I would anticipate that your child is staying in the bed or at the very least only coming out once or twice to test you, but that ultimately you are in control of the bedtime process.

Overnight

Repeat overnight as required. This time, though, start waiting longer before you return to the room; wait for five to seven minutes, as your child’s skill of returning to sleep will be emerging. Be careful that when you go to your child overnight you keep touch and conversation to a minimum. If a dummy re-plug is required, do this for a child under eight months; for a child over eight months, put it in their hand and leave.

Lucy Says

Avoid re-plugging the dummy and tucking the blanket or stroking the forehead as this may become an enabler and continue to promote nighttime activity.

Overnight, when your child wakes, give them a couple of minutes before you respond. They may surprise you and go back without you. If they do not, return to your position and repeat the exercise. Your night feeds will now be over, if applicable, so you will repeat the stay-and-support approach as necessary.

If your older child comes into your bedroom, immediately get out of bed, escort them back to their bed and repeat. On the return, ‘herd’ them back, as before.

Lucy Says

You may find that at bedtime the transition is unacceptable and overnight you still need to be beside the cot or bed. Do this in the short term, but keep in mind that you will definitely try to catch up by night 8 onwards.

Nights 5–7

At bedtime

Now move to the middle of the room – lie down or sit on the chair or cushion you have been using, somewhere between the cot/bed and the door, where they can still see and hear you. Even if the room is not that big, just move slightly further away from where you started.

• Do your bedtime routine as normal, but then position yourself further away from the cot or bed as appropriate.

• You can still reassure your child using the initial strategy, but more remotely. Continue to prompt verbally and always go over to physically reassure – spend no more than 30 seconds to one minute beside the cot and then return to your new position, so that ultimately they fall asleep with you a little bit further away.

If you continue to over-help as the first few night go by, doing too much may make your child cry more as you move away from the cot in the following nights, so consciously pull back once the first one or two nights are under your belt.

Stage 1: Nights 1–4

At bedtime

For the first four nights, stay beside the cot or bed, down on the floor ideally, at your child’s level. Avoid sitting on a stool or the end of a bed; be low down in an effort to prevent standing or sitting. If the cot is still at the mid-level position and the child is not yet mobile, you can sit on a stool or chair.

As described at the start, use the stay-and-support settling techniques outlined – physically, verbally and emotionally attending to your child. But as the first few nights pass, I would encourage you to do less – less touching, less talking, less intervention – so that you are further weakening the input needed and avoid creating new or additional sleep associations.

Parents should take the overnight module in turns, unless mum has been breastfeeding or is pregnant again or if either parent has a medical condition impacted by sleep deprivation. It is generally a two-person job, so if you are not sharing the load overnight, make sure that you are helping in other ways – getting up early with baby, food preparation, laundry … Self care of each other continues to be important. If you are parenting alone, make sure you have someone to help out, like a family member or friend – they might not be able to help with the overnight work, but a helping hand with some loads of laundry, a batch of pre-prepared meals, or even just a listening ear can really make a difference.

I know that a great many parents enjoy cuddles and feeds in the big bed first thing in the morning, but this may need to be put on hold until the expectations around night activity are dissolved. Otherwise you are in danger of giving mixed messages, which means that you may not reach your goals. So put on hold and revisit at a later date.

• Nights four and five are usually challenging for both parent and child, but stay positive: by day 11 of starting the process, so after a week of no feeds, you will likely be starting to see a massive improvement.