5 Alternatives to Sleep Training

One of the biggest challenges parents of infants face is getting their baby to sleep through the night. New parents are often offered advice from well-meaning friends and family as to which sleep training methods work best, but is sleep training the right choice for your baby?

Sleep training is often touted as the only way to get your baby to fall asleep on their own and sleep through the night.
Proponents of this highly debated topic believe that sleep training — the process of teaching your baby how to sleep independently — is an ongoing process that can take weeks to months depending on your baby.

Parents typically are advised to begin sleep training when baby is between 4 and 6 months of age.
This is the age at which some babies begin sleeping through the night. Of course, all babies are different and your mileage may vary.

“Don’t worry about sleep associations for the first 0 to 3 months — if you want to rock or nurse your baby to sleep, rock or nurse them to sleep,” sleep consultant and author Traci Gleeson explained on the site Nightlight. “By the time your baby hits 4 months, though, they’re capable of independent sleeping.”

Overlap between sleep training methods exist, but there are five main methodologies upon which sleep training is based.
Caregivers may find they need to stop and restart the sleep training process depending on the needs and willingness of their baby, especially those that fall into patterns of sleep regression.

The Fading Method, The Pick-up/Put-down Method, and The Chair Method of sleep training are similar in that they each involve back and forth on the caregiver’s part. The baby is comforted intermittently while trying to fall asleep. The parent is nearby, ready to intervene when necessary.

The Ferber Method and The Cry-It-Out Method (CIO) have been used interchangeably, but with the former, caregivers put baby to sleep while drowsy and only check in after a few minutes have passed. Over time the span between check-ins is increased until baby is falling asleep independently. The CIO Method is the most controversial of sleep training methods. Once baby is put to bed, the caregiver does not return to check on them, leaving baby to fall asleep on their own.

If the term sleep training is off-putting, the bottom line is that no matter which approach you use to help your baby fall asleep, it’s all technically sleep training. Here, however, are a few organic approaches to helping your baby sleep through the night.

1. Set a predictable and consistent nap schedule during the day.
Often babies have difficulty sleeping at night because they’ve napped too long during the day or their nap was too close to bedtime. The right nap schedule for your little one may be just the tweak they need to stay asleep at night.

“I realized that my baby was sleeping too late and too long during the day,” Katie H. told Mom.com. “The minute I worked to get him to sleep right after lunch and started putting him down for bed later in the evening around 10 p.m., we had a much better sleeping-through-the-night experience.”

2. Create a reliable bedtime routine and have special rituals in place that signal it’s time to relax and go to sleep.
For some babies, all you need is consistency and familiarity. A warm bath, a relaxing massage, and the scent of lavender emanating from the diffuser across the room can be part of a nightly bedtime routine.

3. Co-sleeping with your baby is always an option.
Moving your little one into your bedroom in a crib, bassinet, or co-sleeper bed attachment can be a rewarding experience not only for baby but for you as well.

The common goal of sleep training or consistent bedtime routines is quality sleep for all. If your baby is consistently not sleeping as well as you’d like, a quick chat with your child’s pediatrician can help relieve your concerns.

It’s easy to get caught up in the vast amount of sleep training tips and advice from friends and family, but ultimately the decision is up to you. These alternatives to sleep training books provide the answers you need to help you make the right decision.

4. How Babies Sleep: The Gentle Science-Based Method to Help Your Baby Sleep
This book by Sofia Axelrod provides caregivers with sleep training tips that fall in line with gentle, attachment parenting.

5. The No-Cry Sleep Solution: Gentle Ways to Help Your Baby Sleep Through the Night, by Elizabeth Pantley
For some parents and caregivers, hearing their baby cry – especially when it can be avoided – is heart-wrenching. The “gentle removal plan,” outlined in the book, encourages parents to remove a soothing item, whether it’s a bottle, breast, or pacifier, gradually until baby is sleeping independently without it.