The biggest challenge you’ll face when you’re teaching your baby those precious independent sleep skills is the minute you put them in someone else’s hands for the day.

Combining sleep training and daycare can be challenging, I won’t lie to you. You’ve powered through some hard nights and refused to give in when your baby tested your willpower. But, now that everything’s finally running smoothly, you need to put your trust in someone else to keep things in order.

Personally, when I faced this situation for the first time, I felt like my head and my heart was going to explode. I had spent so many sleepless nights, hours reading sleep stuff that didn’t work, and cried so many tears of frustration, and I was terrified they were going to screw it up. I was going to have to start all over again. 

All this hard work and determination to get my little one to sleep independently? Entrusted to someone, I don’t even know? Not on your life.

But here’s the good news. This is absolutely achievable. Sending your little one to daycare will not sabotage their sleep so long as you take the time to work with your daycare provider.  

I’ve got some great tips to help you do that in a way that will make this as easy and conflict-free as possible.

So... first of all, have you already decided on your daycare provider? If not, then keep reading. If so, you can skip down to the next section.

Choosing a Daycare Provider
Here are a few sleep-centred things to keep in mind when deciding on a daycare provider. None of these are deal-breakers; they’re just a few things to consider.


Ask them what their approach is to naps. 
Do they put kids down at a specific time? 
Do they allow individual nap times, or is it all kids together for a specified duration?


Ask to see where they’ll be sleeping. 

Is it a fully-lit room with several other kids or a semi-private space where they can keep things dark?

Can you bring your own white noise machine? It can be super helpful to provide the same white noise machine that baby’s accustomed to at home.  

My favourite white noise machines are made by YogaSleep. They are made using sleep science and have been around for a long time. They have a smaller travel version that may be perfect to send to daycare with your baby. 

Can you bring one of your child's sleep sacks from home? Having that familiar smell of her sleeping environment and that cozy feeling from her own bed can bring a lot of comfort your baby when it comes to nap time at daycare. 

My favourite Sleep Sacks are made by Woolino. They are made from a special wool that allows your baby or toddler to use the same sleep sack all-year-round. They come in various patterns and sizes that will grow with your baby.  Use the LINK and the code TOTHEMOONANDBACK10 to get a discount off your purchase. 


Is your daycare team capable of accommodating specific requests regarding baby’s naps?
i.e. Will they allow your baby to cry for a few minutes, will they hold off on offering sleep props if you ask them to?


Communicating with baby’s caregiver

So, once you’ve decided on a daycare provider, or if you already have your little one in a place you’re happy with, what can we do to ensure everybody’s pulling in the same direction on this sleep issue?


Let them know how long you’re comfortable with baby fussing. Most care providers will default to a no-crying approach unless instructed otherwise.


Ask them to avoid sleep props.

Be specific about what you consider a sleep prop. For example, ask that they refrain from using pacifiers, rocking to sleep, feeding to sleep, or whatever you’ve established as methods to get baby sleeping that you think they might become dependent on.


Be respectful of their limitations. 
Daycare providers look after a lot of kids at once and are often required to follow some overarching safety rules, so don’t be surprised if they can’t accommodate every request you throw their way. Keeping an eye on several little ones at the same time usually means no white noise machines and no dark rooms. However, it doesn't hurt to ask for these things to be implemented as there are benefits for all the children involved. 


Above all, maintain open communication. Let your daycare provider know you’ve been working on your baby’s sleep issues and where you’re at with the process. Remember that they want your little one to sleep well almost as much as you do. A well-rested baby who goes down for naps without much fuss is a daycare provider’s dream come true.


A few random tips

Regardless of the particulars of your baby’s situation with their sleep in their home away from home, here are a few tips that are likely to come in handy...


If you haven’t started sleep training yet, start on a Friday night or whatever day is farthest away from their next day of daycare. The first couple of nights are usually a bit of a roller coaster, and baby’s likely to be a little out of sorts for the first 48 hours.


It’s best to get at least three or four nights in before going to daycare. However, if there’s a care provider who can help you out for a day or two, consider asking them to sit in for the Monday and Tuesday, so baby’s had a good amount of time to get accustomed to their new sleeping arrangement.


Don’t “ease baby in” to their new situation.
Once you’re ready to start sending baby to daycare, start off with the same schedule you want to end up at. If they’ll be going every weekday, send them every weekday right off the jump. Please don’t send them for a day the first week, two days the next, and so on. They’ll adjust quicker and easier if you get them used to their new schedule right away.

Babies are usually capable of distinguishing between different environments.
Habits they learn at daycare won’t necessarily transfer over to sleep in the home, so if your daycare provider allows them a pacifier or rocks to sleep, don’t worry too much about it. Baby should still be able to understand that it’s not the same when they’re at home.

However, it can make the whole process a whole lot easier on everyone if things are as consistent as possible between all of your baby's sleep situations. There is less likely to be any confusion if the expectations are the same both at home and at daycare. 


Different schedules at home and daycare are OK.
In the same vein as the last point, it’s not the end of the world if their nap schedule at daycare doesn’t sync up with the one they have at home. But, again, it’s a definite bonus if you can make it work, but it’s not essential. 

You will want to follow your baby's awake windows as closely as possible as much as possible while they are at home. Nap times may vary a little between home and daycare but you should aim to maintain your bedtime schedule as close to the same awake windows every night as you can. Keeping that last awake window before bedtime the same each night is going to help to make sure baby isn't overtired for bedtime. 


If baby starts falling asleep on the ride home, try to keep them awake. Putting them to bed early is better than offering a catnap after 4:00 PM. If baby does fall asleep, wake them up when you get home and let them get some more awake time before bed.


All in all, there’s no reason why daycare and sleep training can’t work together.

Just keep in mind that your daycare providers are your allies in this mission. They have a vested interest in your little one being as happy and well-rested as possible, and they obviously want to keep baby’s parents happy too.


Maintain open lines of dialog, be respectful and patient, and accept that they can’t always tailor things to each child as much as they would like.

Keep up your bedtime routine, stick to your schedule as closely as possible, keep baby away from those sleep props, and things will fall into place, I assure you.

Happy Sleeping, Erin
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Let’s be real here. When we get right down to the heart of the matter, this is the question you really need an answer to, am I right? 

Your baby is regularly waking up sometime during the night, and when they do, they start to fuss, they need you to soothe them back to sleep somehow, and the disruptions to everyone’s sleep are leaving the entire family exhausted, baby included.
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Now, I’m not going to tell you there’s a simple “one-size-fits-all” solution to this problem because, after all, I’d have to find a new line of work if there were.
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But I am going to tell you that there’s almost always a single cause for a baby or toddler not being able to sleep through the night, and it’s the same reason in about 90% of the cases I deal with.

Before we get to that, though, let’s rule a couple of things out. 

​And that, I’m happy to tell you, pretty much sums it up.
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If your baby’s comfortable and fed, there’s really only one major reason why they can’t sleep through the night. 

Are you ready for it?

It’s because they don’t know how.

Now I know we’ve all heard the sound bites and talking points on social media. “Babies will sleep when they’re ready!” “Sleep is developmental!” “Just ride it out. It won’t last forever.” and so on. I have to admit to a little low-key rage whenever I read comments like that because… 
a) It doesn’t help and
b) It tells people to avoid fixing an issue that absolutely can and should be fixed!

If someone asked how to get a sliver out of their little one’s foot, would anyone respond with, “Just be patient. It’ll work its way out eventually. Hang in there mama! You’re doing great!”

I certainly hope not, although given some of the comments I’ve seen on social media, I wouldn’t say it’s out of the realm of possibility. 
(OK, that’s the end of my rant. Back to the good stuff!)

So what do I mean when I say that babies wake up because they don’t know how to sleep through the night?

All of us, babies and adults alike, sleep in cycles.

When we get to the end of a cycle, we’re no longer in a “deep” sleep. We’re hovering right around the point of waking up, and a lot of the time, we do wake up. Us adults have so much experience falling asleep, we can usually just look at the clock, realize we’ve still got a few more delicious hours before our alarm goes off, and we close our eyes, maybe roll over onto our other side, and go right back to sleep.

Babies haven’t had nearly as much practice, and very often, I mean VERY often, they get a bunch of help when it’s time for a snooze. They get bounced, shushed, cuddled, rocked, serenaded, taken for car rides, rolled around in their stroller, or fed to sleep. 
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So when they wake up after a sleep cycle, which again, is going to happen regularly for their entire lives, they can’t get back to sleep again without that extra help, so mom or dad needs to get up and repeat whatever process baby’s accustomed to.

​That’s the issue, and like I say, it’s the issue with about 90% of the babies I work with.

How do you address that issue? Well, that’s where things get tricky because the solution varies tremendously depending on the baby and their parent’s compatibility with various approaches to resolving the problem, but the cause is almost always a dependency on some form of sleep assistance from a caregiver.

So when you hear someone saying that babies don’t sleep through the night, or that it’s natural for them to wake up several times, that’s absolutely correct. 

When they tell you that all you can do is wait it out, that’s absurd. 
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You can absolutely teach your little one the skills they need to sleep through the night, and I’d be delighted to show you how. 

If you're the parent of a baby who's just figured out how to roll over,  is learning to crawl, or who's teething, this may come as the least surprising scientific discovery imaginable. ​Developmental Milestones often cause disruptions in a baby's sleep.  In a 2015 study published in Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, researchers looked at the sleep patterns of babies before they started crawling, while they were learning to crawl, and a few months after learning to crawl. The results stated that "Along with the overall improvement in sleep consolidation, periods of increased long wake episodes were also manifested; the rise in sleep disruption was temporally linked to crawling onset."   To sum it up, the results showed that babies appear to have more night time wake ups around the time that they learn to crawl.  (Nighttime wake ups were monitored by a motion sensor on the baby's ankle and were only counted if the baby was moving around for more than five minutes.)
 
To quote that same study, "In dynamic systems, downward trends in performance and in behavioural control often mark the emergence of new abilities. This pattern has been identified in diverse domains of infant development, including manual reaching, vocal production, and language acquisition."  In other words, things tend to get worse before they get better, and when your little one starts talking, you can expect some random chat sessions in the middle of the night. 
 
Teething is another one of the usual suspects when it comes to disruptions in a baby's sleep. If baby has sore gums, that discomfort is probably going to make it a little tougher to get to sleep and stay asleep.  A study from the April 2000 issue of Pediatrics looked at symptoms that could and could not be attributed to emerging teeth. It found that during the four days before a tooth emerged, the day it popped out, and for the three days following, there was a statistical increase in wakefulness and irritability. Any parent who has dealt with a teething baby has seen how the discomfort that comes along with it can be disruptive to your little one's sleep, understandably so. Though teething is one cause of disrupted sleep, language and movement skills may be responsible for more frequent nighttime wake-ups.
 
Much like the rest of us, babies get excited when they start to learn a new skill.  While watching my little one learn to crawl, it reminded me of when I first discovered how to use  Shazam to identify a song playing over the speakers in Starbucks. I was ridiculously excited!  I couldn't wait for another song to come on so I could try it again.  I started singing obscure '80s pop songs to see if it could nail them down and showed it off to everyone who would listen. To your baby, learning to talk, learning to roll over, or learning to crawl, elicits pretty much the same response. They get a real thrill out of this newfound skill, and they are going to practice it over and over.  In the morning, in the afternoon, and when they wake up in the middle of the night, and that excitement is going to make it a little more difficult for them to get back to sleep.
 
I see a lot of parents looking for a "solution" in this scenario, and in trying to get their baby's sleep back on track, they tend to lose consistency. They'll move bedtimes around, start rocking or feeding baby back to sleep, change up the bedtime routine, anything they think might help.

But the best advice I can give you is to hold steady. You're probably going to have to go in and soothe your baby a little more often during this period. You'll have to help get them out of the uncomfortable positions they manage to get themselves into.  You will likely have some frustrating nights where your little one will drive you a little batty with their babbling.

And although you can't fix the situation, you can make things substantially easier on both you and your baby. Adopting a bunch of quick-fixes to get your baby back to sleep is likely to end up creating dependencies that will last long past the time baby's figured out how to get themselves back to sleep. So please don't give in to the temptation to rock or bounce them to sleep, don't let them sleep in the swing, don't take them for car rides, and above all, don't nurse or feed them back to sleep.

Offer them some comfort, tell them it's still bedtime, help them get back into a comfortable position if they've gotten themselves pushed up against the side of the crib, or roll them onto their backs if they've flipped, but make sure to let them get back to sleep on their own. That way, once they've got this new skill mastered, they'll still have the ability to self soothe when they wake up at night.

It's likely to be a bit of a challenge, and it may feel at times like one skill gets mastered just in time for another one to start developing, but hang in there. The whole time this is going on, your baby is also developing the ability to consolidate nighttime sleep better. 

​So stay consistent, and you can expect even more of those glorious sleep-filled nights once the storm has passed.
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If you need more help navigating your baby's sleep regressions or help getting their sleep on track and you want a do-it-yourself approach then our expertly curated sleep training guides will give you the tools that you need to see success. Stop the endless Google searches and find all that you need in one place. 

 
Nobody sleeps through the night.
You might think you do, or that you did before you had kids, or that your partner does, but I assure you, unless you've been heavily sedated or falling into bed after a fabulous girl’s night bender, you wake up at least a few times during the night, every night, and you always have.
 
By now you likely are familiar with the term "Sleep Cycles."

When we sleep, these cycles go from light sleep to deep sleep and back again, typically about four or five times a night.

When we get to the end of a sleep cycle and enter into that really light stage of sleep, we often wake up.

People who think they sleep straight through the night typically don't remember these little wakeups, but they definitely do experience them.
 
Babies' sleep cycles are shorter than adult ones, so naturally, this means that they wake up more often in the night.

Babies who are said to sleep through the night are still waking up, but they manage to get themselves back to sleep on their own without any help from Mom and Dad.
 
So, when we talk about babies sleeping through the night, what we're really saying is that they're able to get to sleep and back to sleep on their own, or as we call it in the baby sleep industry, they have "independent sleep skills."
 
So, it doesn't matter if a baby's breastfed, formula fed, or eating a Big Mac twice a day. They're going to wake up at night, several times, for the rest of their lives, just like everyone else.
 
Now, as for the idea that breast milk digests faster than formula, that's actually true, but not to the degree that a lot of people describe.
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Newborns can go about 2 1/2 - 3 hours between feeds if they're breastfeeding.

If they're eating formula, that number is closer to 3-4 hours.

So it's not like formula is some kind of magical elixir that's going to keep your little one full and satisfied for 10 or 11 hours.

Their stomachs are small, and they're going to digest liquid food quickly, whether it comes from a bottle or a boob. Plus remember every baby is different, and their caloric intake is no different.

Some will need to eat less or more than others regardless of how they are fed and as long as they are growing along their own personal growth curve; they are fine! Remember comparing to your BFF's baby doesn't help your baby.
 
What does that mean for parents of newborns in regards to their newborn babies sleeping 11 - 12 hours through the night? Well, simply put, forget it. I mean, it happens. Some babies are such sleep aficionados that they'll go down for the night regardless of hunger, but they're few and far between.
 
Chances are, you're going to have to get up a couple of times a night to feed your little one until they're about six months old.

Now, that doesn't mean that you should put your baby's sleep on a back burner until they hit six months of age.

Quite the opposite is true actually. Teaching your baby to fall asleep independently is something you can't start too early.

I just want you to understand that if they're under six months old, you might not get a full night's sleep just yet, but it doesn't hinge on whether they're breastfed or formula fed.

Both are going to have similar results when it comes to keeping baby feeling full.
 
After the six-month mark, or thereabouts anyway, your baby should be able to start sleeping through the night without a feed, and that includes babies who are breastfed. (This is the part where the debate heats up a little.)
 
Let's say you breastfeed on demand, which is a very popular approach and one that I fully support if it works for you, your baby, and your schedule; after all, this is the way that worked best for my family and me. So, if baby's waking up five times a night for a feed, the principle of feeding on demand would require you to get up and feed baby five times a night, right?
 
Technically, yes.

But if baby's six months of age, gaining weight at a "normal" (for your baby) rate, and able to eat as many calories as they need during the day, then the chances are that baby is, in fact, not waking in the night for food.

The most common reason for waking at night past the six-month mark is because feeding is part of their strategy for falling asleep.
 
Having a sleep strategy is something else that we adults have in common with our babies. We all have strategies for getting to sleep.

As grown-ups, we establish our own little ritual for bedtime. We might get a glass of water and put it on the nightstand, brush our teeth, get into a specific position, or read a book for a little while, but in the end, it's a strategy that helps to signal our brains and bodies that it's time for sleep.
 
Of course, baby sleep strategies are less sophisticated, but they still work the same. They help baby get into a familiar, comfortable place where their system recognizes what it's supposed to do, and they nod off to sleep.
 
So if feeding is part of that strategy, then it doesn't matter to them if there's actual food coming their way. It's the sucking motion, the feel of mom next to them, the familiarity of the situation, that helps them to get to sleep, and they can get very dependent on it.
 
Obviously, every baby is different, and some may actually still be getting hungry enough during the night to need a feed. With that in mind, there are a few indicators that can help let you know if those nighttime wake ups are the result of hunger or a lack of independent sleep skills.

• Does baby only take a small amount when they feed in the night?
• Do they fall asleep within five minutes of starting their feed?
• Does baby eventually go back to sleep if they don't get fed?
• Do they only sleep for 45 minutes to an hour after a nighttime feed?

 
If you answered yes to most or all of those, then your little one probably falls into the "feeding as a sleep strategy" camp and could benefit significantly from learning a few sleep skills.
 
It doesn't mean that you can't breastfeed on demand, just that you'll have to reassess when exactly baby's demanding a feed and when they're looking for help getting to sleep. See the difference?
 
So to answer the question posed at the start of this post, are sleep training and breastfeeding mutually exclusive, the answer in my mind is a straight-up no.

​Breastfeeding is a beautiful experience for both mother and baby, and I support it 100%. I breastfed both my boys until around 13-14 months, and my #2 was gloriously sleep trained and sleeping 12 plus hours a night at about seven months old.
 
Having a baby who sleeps through the night is maybe not quite as magical, but it sure comes close, and there's absolutely no reason why you can't have both together.
 
And, as always, if you need a little help guiding you through the tricky process of teaching your baby to sleep through the night, I've got you covered. 

​Meet Sleep Consultant, Erin

I am the mother of two amazing little boys who did not come pre-programmed with the skills to sleep well independently. I knows how hard it is to function on little to no sleep, I understands how this impacts your ability to be the best version of the mom or dad that you want to be. This is what led me to become a Certified Pediatric Sleep Consultant and the founder of To The Moon and Back Sleep Consulting.  I am also a member of the International Association of Professional Sleep Consultants. I have a background in Psychology and have worked with families and young children in many different settings for over 20 years.  One of the best parts of my job is seeing the impact that TEACHING their little moonbugs healthy/independent sleep skills has on the momma's!!
"Life Changing! I am a better mom!"