Babies are often known as a “bundle of joy,” and for nearly all parents, they certainly are. But raising a child is of course an enormous responsibility, and some parents may have a busy schedule or a large household that makes it difficult to juggle baby sleep training and other activities. Stressed and overwhelmed new parents may turn to a new option: hire a trainer for baby sleep. This doesn’t have to be thought of as a desperation move; rather, hiring a trainer for baby sleep can be quite helpful if parents have a difficult schedule, and baby sleep coaching can produce some good results when a trainer for baby sleep is involved. When is it time to hire a trainer for baby sleep, and what might such professionals do once they are on the scene?
Babies and Their Rest
It is well known that babies and toddlers need a lot of sleep to help their bodies grow, but newborns often wake back up and may be hungry or want attention, and toddlers may have erratic and inconvenient sleep schedules (where their parents are concerned, at least). In a baby’s first two months, it cannot easily tell the difference between day and night the way adults can, and its circadian rhythm has not yet been established. Human beings are designed by nature to be awake during the day and sleep at night, and the sleep hormone melatonin helps regulate this. Light suppresses the brain’s production of this hormone, while a dark environment allows this hormone to be produced. In adults, looking at electronic screens exposes them to blue light that suppresses melatonin, disrupting sleep.
But what about babies? They do not typically look at electronic screens, but they often wake up at night all the same, and their timing for sleep and waking up may be pretty incompatible with that of their parents. Newborns need to eat every two to three hours, and they will certainly wake up hungry. And by ages six to 12 months, most babies are going to lap twice a day on average, one or t3wo hours at a time. Toddlers, meanwhile, may sleep for 12 to 14 hours in a 24 hour period or so. But if parents are having a hard time getting their very young child on a more convenient sleep schedule, a trainer for baby sleep can be hired to handle this.
What a Trainer For Baby Sleep Does
It may be noted that this is not a regulated industry, so parents who look to hire a trainer for baby sleep may want to check a potential coach’s background and credibility first. But assuming that a coach is deemed reliable, the parents may fill out a questionnaire that the trainer for baby sleep will give them, and that trainer will visit the parents’ residence and create a detailed, written plan for the baby’s sleep training. The exact steps that the coach will take may vary somewhat, but this may serve as a general example of what they do.
For example, the parents may adjust their baby’s eating schedule to fit a sleep schedule that better suits the parent’s needs, and they may also work to make the baby’s room as dark as possible when the baby should sleep. This may help the baby get used to being awake in light-filled environments, and going to sleep in dark ones. That, and the parents may give their child regular loving pats and other assurance when it is preparing for sleep, and the baby may make protest cries at first for attention, but if the coach’s directions are effective, the baby or young toddler may soon sleep for hours on end. At some point during the training, the baby may learn to sleep (without waking) for as long as its parents might, such as seven to eight hours or so. It should be noted that babies weighing under 14 pounds may need to eat more often than that, but after that weight is reached, a baby may be able to sleep for about that long without needing to wake up to eat. Toddlers and younger children, meanwhile, may need a few weeks or even a month or two to finish their sleep training.
