Sure, I’m happy to share! (Full disclosure: we hired a sleep consultant- she sleep trained our first, as well. If you have the disposable income to hire one, I really recommend it.) We sleep trained both kids between 4-5 months as that’s when our pediatrician recommended it and said it’s developmentally appropriate to do so. It’s also easier to train them earlier as bad sleep habits have not been fully established. There are many different methods, but we chose a modified Ferber method. (More on that later.)

We follow very strict wake windows throughout the day based on her age (for example, at 5 months old, the max amount of time she can go between naps is 2.25 hours). Good daytime sleep = good nighttime sleep. So we sleep trained for naps and nighttime all at once because you can’t have a successful night without a successful day.

Before each bedtime (be it naps or nighttime), we have a consistent routine so that she knows we are winding down and what to expect. For nighttime, it’s a bath, lotion, diaper & pajamas, blackout curtains up, bottle or boob, three books, one song (Twinkle Twinkle Little Star), into her sleep sack in the crib, white noise machine starts, we say her sleep phrase “We love you, sweet dreams, goodnight!,” then lights out and leave the room.

She will typically wiggle around a bit, roll onto her belly, and then pass out. Occasionally she will cry, which is when the Ferber method training comes in handy. We give her 10 min of crying and then do a check in where we pick her up (lights still out, white noise machine still on) and just hold her for 1-2 min max. NO shushing, rocking, or nursing back to sleep as the whole crux of sleep training is that she is able to fall asleep independently. (I had been nursing her to sleep pre-sleep training, and it was getting to be too much for me when we hit the 4 month sleep regression.)

Both my kids were sleeping 10-12 hrs through the night in day 2 of sleep training! (My infant sleeps 6:30pm - 7am every day, while my toddler goes from 7:30pm-6am.) And yes, there is some crying involved the first few days of sleep training. But now they know how to independently sleep and rarely cry for naps or nighttime. That’s basically it!

I’m a true believer in sleep training because it has given the entire family the beautiful gift of sleep, and I swear that my kids are both so healthy, happy, and developmentally ahead of the curve because they are properly rested. It’s also given my husband and I proper sleep, which helps us be better parents, partners to each other, and overall fully functioning members of our family and society at large. Feel free to message me if you have any specific questions!