If you haven’t read  Part I  and  Part II  of this series, please take a minute to go back and check them out!  Here, I have outlined some very effective (and pretty simple) tools for supporting healthy sleep in infants, which when used early on generally support the kind of sleep learning in which a child is free to express emotions but is not made to follow a “plan” or “system” that may not meet their needs.  This respectful sleep learning can generally be used from birth on without affecting establishment of milk supply and absolutely without causing any psychological harm.  This is the information I searched for, but couldn’t find, when my son was an infant--a consolidated summary of healthy sleep. Wants vs.  Needs:  Babies NEED to sleep.  Some babies WANT to fall asleep sucking on a bottle or breast.  If we use that crutch when it’s easy and let it become a habit, they will soon be conditioned to NEED the bottle or bre...

Before you read about my experience with the polarizing language commonly used in regard to sleep training and my conditioned fear of infant crying, please take a minute to read Part I of this series,  The Real Danger of“CIO” . Based on all the “evidence” against “Cry-It-Out” (“CIO”), I firmly believed that sleep training and crying are harmful to children.  I read articles by parenting experts, sleep experts, and doctors telling me that certain cries were not to be feared – and believed I understood them – but I thought my child was different and just always needed me to help him.  I also believed that “sleep training” meant I had to ignore his cries, so I avoided anything that resembled it, which meant nursing him to sleep every time he was tired or woke at night.  For the first 15 months of his life, neither of us got a full night’s sleep or ever felt fully or deeply rested. When my son was a few weeks old, I kept nursing him to sleep, but began laying ...

On all the different peaceful/gentle/respectful parenting pages I follow on Facebook, the most common question I see is almost always a variation of this: “HELP!  My baby won’t sleep (anymore).  We’re not functioning well as a family because we’re all sleep deprived.  I need help, but I don’t want to do CIO.  Any advice?” The most common response to this type of post is, “Hang in there, mama!  They’re only little for a short time!” Does this question sound familiar? What about the response? “CIO” refers to “Cry-It-Out” which is the term typically used to describe the controlled crying and extinction methods of sleep training.  It is a popular term that does not have a consistent definition and carries a negative connotation.  It is often  incorrectly assumed to be synonymous with all sleep training . My issue with the advice given to these parents is that the “Hang in there” response suggests that the real issue is somehow the parent...