It’s hard to prepare for welcoming a new baby. All the planning in the world can’t really prepare you for the reality of a new baby, and yet, information and planning can be so helpful. And yes, I know that’s contradictory! When you are pregnant, you don’t know: What kind of sleeper you will have. How you will heal postpartum. How postpartum and lactation hormones may affect your coping abilities. How you will feel about your plans once baby is here. So much can change after baby arrives, and things you think would work great, may not. And things you weren’t open to before may be the ..read more

It’s late October, which means the time change is coming…. We’ll say goodbye to daylight savings time and fall back into standard time. The first Sunday in November brings standard time. This year we fall back on Sunday, November 5, 2023. This means earlier sunrise and sunset – more light earlier in the morning and less light in the evening. Turning the clocks back means that it will feel like an hour later than the clock says. So, your daylight savings time 7am wake up becomes your standard time 6am wake up. Your 8pm daylight savings time bedtime will become your 7pm standard time bedtime. W ..read more

I get asked about the Snoo a lot in my newborn sleep class. It feels past time I have a blog post summing up my standard answer. Newborn sleep class Parents hear great things about the Snoo, and it’s easy to wonder if it’s the answer they are looking for. However, it’s worth thinking critically about the snoo as a tool before deciding if it’s a good option for your family. Warning, I have a lot of thoughts on the Snoo! But before we dive in, I want to remind you of a few things. The snoo is a tool and an intervention, and like all tools or interventions, it has pros and cons. For some families ..read more

Wake windows are everywhere. Search, read, or talk about anything baby or toddler sleep timing or schedule related and wake windows will most likely pop up. In this blog we’ll tackle some of the most common wake window questions so you can use (or ignore) them with confidence. What are wake windows? Wake windows are simply the amount of time your baby or toddler is awake between sleeps. Or in other words, wake windows are the time between naps, between morning wake up and the first nap, and between waking from the last nap and bedtime. Are wake windows evidence-based? It surprises many paren ..read more

Your baby suddenly starts feeding a lot more at night, and you are wondering “what is happening here!” While night feeds are normal throughout the first year and into early toddlerhood, shifts in feedingb patterns can often lead to questions and concerns. In this blog post I’ll help you understand reverse cycling, why it happens, and some of the ways you can support your baby (and you) through it. Read: Does My Baby Need Night Feeds? What is reverse cycling? Reverse cycling is when your baby starts feeding more at night while also feeding less during the day. It is a common nursing pattern fo ..read more

Are you traveling this summer with your baby or toddler? As a sleep specialist, I get a lot of questions about adjusting to new time zones while traveling – especially around big travel times of the year. It can be challenging enough to handle jet lag as an adult who understands what’s happening. So, what can you do to support your child to adjust their sleep on vacation? First, figure out if it even makes sense to try and adjust their schedule. If you are only traveling one or two time zones, you might decide to just keep your little one on their normal schedule. This works well when you are ..read more

Most people expect a newborn to feed overnight. As the months go by, this belief in the importance of night feeds begins to fade. Many pediatricians and other professionals confidently talk about babies not needing night feeds after various arbitrary months or weights. However, the research and reality of many parents’ experiences don’t match with those recommendations. So, what is normal when it comes to night feeds? Let’s take a deeper look…. Nighttime feeds are both common and important for younger babies. One study tracked feeds over 24 hours in 1-6 month old babies (Kent et al., 2016). Ni ..read more

Nap transitions can be a messy, tricky time. You had a good nap rhythm, and then suddenly it’s not working. You are ending up with skipped naps, short naps, fighting naps, or just awkwardly timed naps that just don’t let you head into bedtime in a way that supports better quality nighttime sleep. When your nap rhythm seems to go off the rails, it’s tempting to think it must be time to drop a nap. Sometimes it is, but sometimes it’s actually time for some small adjustments to your nap rhythm to better fit your little one’s current sleep needs. At what age do babies and toddlers drop a nap? Ther ..read more

There is no universal ideal bedtime, but there is likely an optimal bedtime for your little in their current phase. I’m sure you’ve heard all sorts of things along the line of your baby needs to go to sleep at 7pm or 8pm or any random time with a semi-believable scientific sounding explanation. The truth is these are all made up! Bedtimes are completely cultural, and in fact they vary widely around the world. One cross-cultural study of bedtimes found an almost 3 hour difference between the average bedtime in the earliest to sleep countries and the latest to sleep countries (Mindell et al., 20 ..read more

Sleep is hard in the baby and toddler years for a lot of families. It’s hard because it is actually hard. Beyond that, societal expectations of both parent productivity and baby sleep make it even harder. So often what parents hear is your baby must sleep like X and you must do Y, and definitely don’t do Z or else… By creating a very narrow view of what good sleep looks like, and exactly how a parent is supposed to get there, we create a lot of stress for parents. In this blog post, I’m highlighting 5 simple strategies that will make sleep easier. If every new parent knew these concepts righ ..read more