Ask the expert series: Tips to handle your baby’s night wakings?

This is a great question! Ensuring your well being is really important when managing your baby’s needs. When we are rested and have our needs met, we have more resources to be patient with our children. If your baby is struggling to return to sleep at night, you can consider sleep training, to help your baby learn to put him/herself back to sleep. Sleep training is a process that involves your whole family, so it will be helpful to discuss your plans. If you do decide on sleep training, there are different methods, and the most effective ones are those that involve helping your baby unlearn sleep associations they can’t independently manage (e.g. rocking or feeding) and learn new sleep associations (e.g. routine, or a comfortable blanket) that they can manage. Sleep training can feel very stressful, so choose a day when you don’t have important commitments and when your baby is well. It can feel even harder if you do not have support. I would highly recommend speaking to your partner