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.