Mothers have been teaching their babies to sleep since the dawn of time. From rocking them to replicate the movement they would have felt in the womb, to gently resettling them when they need more than a catnap, and everything in between – mothers know sleep is important to a baby’s growth and development.

In the traditional village setting of the past, women would share hard-won experience knowledge with one another in the course of their days– ‘This worked for my baby’, or ‘Have you tried making a ‘shusssh’ sound?’ – and each family would figure out what worked for them.

What we do at Baby Sleep School is kind of like a modern version of that – we share what we have learned, through education, our tribe, our experiences in helping families find healthy sleep habits and our personal experience with our own families. We want to help families who are crying out for better sleep – it’s as simple as that.

Sleep training always equals ‘cry it out’, doesn’t it?

No! Not at all. This is such a common misconception – there are so many ways to sleep train, and while some people and organisations recommend ‘cry it out’, which is based upon allowing a baby to cry for extended periods of time without providing hands on reassurance, we do not.

All sleep training/teaching systems are not the same. We offer practical and gentle sleep advice and take care to help parents understand their babies better, and about how to approach the different types of cries your baby may do in bed. Never ever will you hear us recommending you leave your baby to cry themselves to sleep.

Why is sleep so important?

Sleep isn’t a ‘nice to have’ – it’s a health and wellness must. And that goes for everyone – for babies, for mothers, for children – for adults! But we want to explore why sleep is something we can’t take for granted…

• for babies: so much of a baby’s growth and development happens when they sleep – most of their brain development happens during sleep, synapses are formed, memories stored – they’re busy when they’re sleeping! A rested baby also tends to eat better, which is key for development, as well as their general mood.
  
• for mothers: the wellbeing of mothers is vital to the wellbeing of their babies. There are so many mums out there that are exhausted, overextended and pouring from an empty cup. When baby sleeps well, everyone sleeps well, resulting in happier, more resilient parents! Poor sleep can affect every part of an adult’s life, and make life so much harder than it needs to be. We genuinely believe, and have seen, that good sleep makes for much happier families and especially mums – as well as beautiful, happy, bouncing babies.

Should everyone sleep train?

Goodness no! Some people will want to, like we did when we needed help teaching our first babies to sleep, and some people won’t – and that’s totally fine! Sleep training, like everything parenting, is not a ‘one size fits all’ situation. Our guidelines are just that – guidelines! We aim to provide parents with gentle tools, tips and most importantly, a range of different options, to help their baby achieve the sleep they need for healthy development and growth.

We strongly recommend people do what works for them – their baby, their family, their own comfort zone and intuition.

Is it ok to sleep train?

Yes! We think so – we have dedicated years and years to sleep training our children and helping thousands of families achieve better sleep in a gentle, flexible way.

It is fine to sleep train your baby as long as you are following safe sleep rules and being safe generally. It is fine not to sleep train your baby. What is not fine is make others feel bad about how they choose to deal with sleep, so be kind to all mums, no matter their approach – it’s a tough job and everyone is doing their best.