After working hard to get your little one sleeping well with a Certified Pediatric Sleep Consultant, it can be daunting to think about going out for an evening. Now that the schedule is in place, you might feel like you’ll need to stay home until your child leaves home, but you still need to live your life.

Here are a few tips to help you make this work without ruining all your hard work:
Navigating Evenings Out Without Sacrificing Your Baby’s Sleep

Embrace the 80/20 Rule
The 80/20 rule is all about balance. If you stick to your baby’s sleep schedule 80% of the time, a little deviation 20% of the time won’t ruin all your progress. This mindset allows for flexibility without stress. It’s okay to bend the rules occasionally for special occasions or much-needed social time.


Plan Ahead
One of our favourite things to do when our first son was a great sleeping baby was to have dinner at friends’ houses. Here’s how you can do it too:

• Set Up a Sleep Space: Bring along a pack-and-play and set it up in a quiet room. Ensure the room is dark and conducive to sleep, just like at home. Using a SlumberPod for these occasions can be a real game changer to making sure that your baby's sleep space is set up for optimal sleep. Discount Code: tothemoonsleep
• Follow the Routine: Do a few steps of the bedtime routine to help your baby wind down. This might include a bedtime story, some quiet cuddling, or playing a lullaby.
• Enjoy Adult Time: Once your baby is asleep, spend time with your friends. Having your baby nearby in a safe sleep environment lets you relax and enjoy the evening without worrying.
• Transfer Gently: When it’s time to go home, gently transfer your baby to the car seat and then to their crib once you’re home. A smooth transition is key to minimizing disruptions. If they wake up, that is fine. Just put them back into their crib once you get home.

Having baby start out the night at a friends house might slightly disrupt the sleep schedule, but it usually won’t derail your progress. Babies are more adaptable than we often give them credit for, and a little bit of flexibility can go a long way.


Slightly Later is Okay
If you can plan your outing to be back within an hour of your baby’s usual bedtime, this slight deviation shouldn’t be too disruptive. Aim for earlier outings and stick as close to the schedule as possible. An hour’s difference is generally manageable and won’t throw off the entire routine. Just be sure to compensate with a slightly earlier nap or a more extended wind-down period the next day if needed.


Get a Sitter
Now that your baby is a champion sleeper take advantage of this by getting a sitter now and then. It’s nice to have a break and enjoy some adult time, and you can be confident that your little one is getting all the sleep they need. When choosing a sitter, find someone who understands and respects your baby’s sleep routine. This ensures consistency and helps your baby feel secure and comfortable even when you’re not there.


Communicate Clearly
Make sure anyone caring for your baby understands their sleep schedule and routine. This includes grandparents, babysitters, and even friends if you’re visiting their house. Clear communication ensures everyone is on the same page and helps maintain your baby’s sleep habits.


Be Flexible and Kind to Yourself
Remember, parenting is all about balance. It’s essential to maintain your baby’s sleep routine, but it’s also crucial to take care of your own social and emotional needs. Don’t be too hard on yourself if things don’t go perfectly. Flexibility and a positive attitude will go a long way in keeping you and your baby happy and well-rested.


By following these tips, you can maintain your baby’s sleep schedule while still enjoying some much-needed social time. Remember, a well-rested parent is just as important as a well-rested baby! So, go ahead and plan that evening out—you deserve it!


When should you reach out for help from a professional?
Now, if your baby or toddler is not sleeping well and, going out with friends or getting a babysitter sounds like an absolute nightmare. It may be time to ask for help getting your little sleeper’s sleep on track. Is it time to teach your baby the skills required for independant sleep so you can do something other than get your baby to sleep? Do you long for a night out with your partner or friends?


Following the tips in this post can seem irrelevant if your baby or toddler isn’t already sleeping well. If you don’t have a good schedule already set up for your baby, it’s taking hours to get them to sleep at bedtime, only to have them wake up a couple of hours later. Then these tips are going to be lost on you.


It’s time for a change; it’s time to give your baby or toddler the gift of sleep. Book your Free 20-minute Sleep Evaluation Call with me to learn more about how I can help transform your family into a well-rested one—a family that can easily go for dinner with friends or get a babysitter for that much-needed night out and not worry about your baby’s sleep because you’re the only one that can put them to sleep.

Debunking Myths: The Truth About Cereal in a Baby's Bedtime Bottle
As an infant sleep expert, I want to clarify a common belief among parents: adding cereal to a baby's bedtime bottle to help them sleep longer.

This practice is not only ineffective but can also be harmful to your baby's health and sleep patterns.

Understanding Sleep and Nutrition
The idea that cereal in a bottle will make a child feel fuller and sleep longer at night is a misunderstanding. A baby's ability to sleep through the night is more about their developmental stage and their ability to self-soothe, rather than the amount of food consumed before bedtime.

The Risks of Early Introduction of Solids
Introducing solids, including cereal, too early can be risky for your baby:

1. Immature Digestive System: Babies are typically not ready for solids until around 6 months of age. Their digestive systems are still developing, and early introduction can lead to discomfort and an increased risk of food allergies.
2. Choking Hazard: Cereal thickens the bottle's contents, posing a choking risk.
3. Nutritional Imbalance: Exclusive breastfeeding or formula feeding is recommended for the first 6 months. Adding cereal can disrupt the balance of essential nutrients.

The Role of Sleep Props
Often, the issue with a baby's sleep is their reliance on sleep props, such as feeding or rocking, to fall asleep. Teaching babies to fall asleep independently is key to helping them sleep through the night.

Caloric Considerations
Adding a tablespoon of baby cereal to a bottle adds about 57.2 calories. This slight increase in calories is unlikely to significantly affect a baby's sleep duration. Sleep quality and duration are influenced more by sleep habits and developmental stages than by a small increase in caloric intake.

In Conclusion
In essence, adding cereal to a baby's bedtime bottle is not advisable. It doesn't contribute to longer sleep and can pose health risks. Fostering good sleep habits and allowing your baby to self-soothe are far more effective for healthy sleep patterns.

​Always consult with a pediatrician before changing your baby's diet or sleep routine. Remember, each baby is unique and may have different needs.

 Tell me if this scenario sounds familiar…

Your baby wakes up in the morning after a solid night’s sleep. You feed her, change her, play with her for a little bit, take her for a little walk outside, then rock her to sleep and put her gently into her crib for her morning nap.

And then, 30 minutes later, she wakes up fussy and irritable and, despite your pleading, bargaining, and offers of riches, refuses to go back to sleep.

So, after half an hour of trying to put her back down, you finally give in, hoping she’ll be that much more tired when her afternoon nap rolls around, only to have the exact same scenario play out again, and baby is a cranky ball of unhappiness for the rest of the day.

Sleep, like food, is one of those elements where baby has the final say on whether or not they’re going to cooperate, so there’s no sense trying to force the issue. If they’re not sleeping, just leaving them in their room usually won’t fix things.

So, here’s what’s going on, and how to fix it.

Babies, just like the rest of us, have  sleep in cycles. We start off in a light state where we’re easily woken up, then gradually fall into a deeper stage where even loud noises or movement might not be able to rouse us. This, incidentally, is the good stuff. This is the really rejuvenative, restful sleep where our brains and bodies do all of the maintenance work that leaves us refreshed, clear-headed and energetic when we get enough.

Once we’ve come to the end of the deep-sleep cycle, we slowly start coming back to the light stage again, and typically we wake up for a few seconds and then drift off again, and the whole thing starts again.

In adults, one of those cycles typically takes about an hour and a half. In babies, it can be as little as 30 minutes.

So, the fact that your baby is waking up after only 30 minutes is actually completely natural. In fact, if she wasn’t waking up regularly, that might be cause for concern.

“But,” you’re thinking, “I have friends whose babies nap for two or three hours at a time.” Well, that’s partially true. But in a more literal sense, they’re stringing together several sleep cycles in a row. The only difference between their baby and your baby is…

Drumroll please…

They’ve learned how to fall back to sleep on their own.

That’s it. That really is the heart of the issue. Once your baby can fall asleep without help, they’ll start stringing together those sleep cycles like an absolute champ. That’s going to make your baby a whole lot happier and, on the self-indulgent side, leave you with two hours at a time to do whatever you like. (Granted, as a new mother, “whatever you like” might not mean what it once did, but still, two hours twice a day to catch up on motherhood-related tasks is something we can all appreciate.)

So, remember back at the start of that scenario, there you were, getting ready to put baby down for her nap, gently rocking her to sleep and then putting her down in her crib.

Stop right there. That’s where you need to make some changes. Because in this scenario, you are acting as what we in the sleep consulting business refer to as a “sleep prop.”

Sleep props are basically anything that your baby uses to make the transition from awake to asleep. Pacifiers are the most common example, but there are many others, including feeding, rocking, singing, bouncing, snuggling, and car rides.

Now I’m not saying you shouldn’t rock your baby, or sing to her, or read her stories, or love her like crazy. You absolutely should!!

Just not to the point where she falls asleep.

When it comes to bedtime, whatever time of the day that might be, put your baby down in her crib, while she’s still awake, and let her fall asleep on her own.

There might be a little bit of protest for a day or two, but for the majority of my clients, the results start to materialize in about two or three days.

Think about that. Two or three days, and you and your little one could begin enjoying the extraordinary benefits of proper sleep. She’ll be happier, healthier, more energetic, and you’ll both sleep better at night to boot.

Some other pointers for extending baby’s nap time…

• Keep the bedroom as dark as possible. Buy some blackout blinds if the sun is getting in, or if you’re on a budget, tape some black garbage bags over the windows. It doesn’t have to be pretty, it just has to be functional.
• White noise machines are useful if baby tends to wake up due to the neighbour’s barking dog, the inconsiderate delivery guy ringing the doorbell, or any other noise that might startle them out of their nap. Just make sure it’s not too close to their ears and not too loud. 50 dB is the recommended limit.

Now for many babies these strategies are not as simple as they seem. Putting a baby down awake, who relies on a sleep prop can be very tricky. Plus, daytime sleep is the most difficult to consolidate. 

​So, if you’re running into trouble applying these suggestions, please feel free to set up a free sleep evaluation call, I’d love to hear more about what’s going on with your little one and explain how I can help your family get the rest that you all need! ​

If you plan on addressing your little one’s sleep issues, I want to prepare you for something.

It’s possible that things are going to get worse before they get better.
For some babies, that might mean a night or two of more intense crying at bedtime; for some, it might mean more like four or five.

That probably doesn’t come as a big surprise. If you have a child that doesn’t sleep well, you’ve probably already established an elaborate routine to respond to your baby’s bedtime. 

It’s usually a combination of feeding, bouncing, getting them settled in your arms, popping in a pacifier, and getting them into their crib at the exact right moment.

Why? Because if you try to do it any other way, your baby will cry. And if you don’t give in, they’ll cry even louder and harder. It’s a common response to behaviour modification known as an extinction burst.

EXTINCTION BURST

An extinction burst occurs when a behaviour that has been previously reinforced suddenly stops being reinforced. In other words, when a baby is used to receiving a specific response or reward for a particular behaviour, and that response or reward is suddenly removed, the baby will increase the intensity and frequency of that behaviour in an attempt to get what they want. In this case, the rocking, shushing, or nursing to sleep that they’re accustomed to.

Extinction bursts can occur in various situations, from sleep training to weaning from breastfeeding. They can be particularly challenging for parents to navigate, as it can be difficult to tell if the baby is seeking attention or if they’re genuinely upset. 

However, it’s essential to understand that extinction bursts are a normal part of a baby’s development and are not a sign that something’s wrong.

So, how can parents cope with these bedtime extinction bursts? 
One word. Consistency.

CONSISTENCY

Suppose you have decided that a particular behaviour is no longer acceptable or that a specific reward will no longer be given. In that case, it’s crucial to stick to that decision and not give in to the baby’s increased efforts to elicit the desired response.
 
Staying consistent isn’t going to be easy, I know. The increased intensity of the baby’s crying will be stressful and occasionally overwhelming. Still, it is important to remain calm and consistent. 

Get your partner involved or call in the support team, whether it’s your parents, your in-laws, your friends, or a professional sleep consultant so that you can take a break when things get to be too much for you.

As tough as things get, don’t forget this crucial fact. Extinction bursts are temporary. Good sleep habits are not. 

Once you’ve come out the other side of this experience, you can look forward to years of your little one sleeping soundly through the night. 

Need help to stay consistent and get through your child's extinction burst?
​Book your Free 20-minute Sleep Evaluation Call with me and I can explain how I can help make this transition to independent sleep a lot smoother. 

If you plan on having kids, you should pencil in a few accessories into the budget. A crib, a stroller, and a high chair are all mandatory when bringing home a new baby.


And, of course, you’re going to need a baby monitor. I honestly don’t think I’ve worked with a family without a pretty sophisticated baby monitor set up in the nursery. These days, they fall right alongside those other items as “essential” baby equipment.


And hey, not for no good reason, right? Baby monitors, even the most basic ones, provide some much-needed peace of mind for parents when they’re not in the room with their little ones. 


Unfortunately, they’re a bit of a double-edged sword because, for all the peace of mind they can provide and have the exact opposite effect. I often see parents running into their baby’s room the moment they hear the slightest peep out of the monitor. 


They check to make sure baby’s in a comfortable position, they check their temperature to make sure they’re not too hot or too cold, they check their diaper to see if they might need a change, and after they’ve confirmed that everything’s as it should be, they head back out of the room, sit down for a few minutes until they hear another rustle come through the speaker, and then they’re back in action, repeating the whole process.


Seriously. I’ve seen it happen with more than a few families. And I assure you, I’m not exaggerating even a little bit!


Now, if you’re reading this and thinking, “What’s so strange about that?” then it’s possible that you are, in fact, addicted to your baby monitor.


Interesting little side note here, did you know that the first baby monitor was invented back in 1937 as a result of the infamous Lindbergh baby kidnapping? 
​It’s true! Eugene MacDonald, then president of Zenith (a familiar name in electronics for all of us old-timers), heard about the incident and commissioned designer Isamu Noguchi to create a radio device to transmit sound from the baby’s room to a receiver elsewhere in the house. Good luck snatching a baby out of their crib now, you stupid kidnappers.


Over the years, monitors have become increasingly sophisticated. First, they switched from radio to digital signals, did away with the wires, and added two-way communication so parents could speak to their babies as well as hear them; then came the video monitors, wi-fi capability for better picture and sound, and now, now they can monitor a baby’s heart rate, oxygen levels, movements, breathing, sleeping position, even whether or not baby’s got a wet diaper.


And therein lies the problem.


On the one hand, I think it’s great that we have the technology to monitor our baby’s vital signs and make sure they’re not in a dangerous sleeping position. 


On the other hand, it’s not exactly good for your mental wellness or your baby’s sleep if you’re in a state of hyper-vigilance throughout the night and rushing in to “fix” things every time baby fusses a little, or the temperature in the nursery rises by a half a degree.


Now, I know the absolutely gut-wrenching anxiety that parents have about keeping their little ones safe. There’s absolutely no instinct in the world more powerful than the desire to protect your kids. Still, there’s a big difference between exercising due care and obsessing over unnecessary details. 

Bear in mind that baby monitors have not proven to be effective in reducing the incidence of SIDS.

Bear in mind that baby monitors have not proven to be effective in reducing the incidence of SIDS, so even with the millions, probably billions of these machines in nurseries around the world, they haven’t really done anything to prevent the one major catastrophe that parents are desperately trying to avoid.


Again, I don’t want to discourage the use of a monitor. But if you’re going to use one, remember what they were designed for. They’re for peace of mind and to inform you of a potential emergency, not to act as a call button demanding immediate attention every time you hear your baby stirring at night. 


Allowing them to fall back to sleep when they wake up in the night is important and actually essential if you want them to learn the skills they need to enjoy nights of restful, rejuvenating sleep regularly.


If you want to minimize the potential for SIDS, injuries, or other nighttime mishaps, check out the American Academy of Pediatrics guide to safe sleep. You’ll find some incredibly valuable information there. 


Most notably, put your baby on their back to sleep, keep the crib clear of any possible airway obstructions, don’t smoke, breastfeed if possible, and use a firm mattress and a tightly secured fitted sheet. That will go a lot further toward keeping your baby safe than even the most technologically advanced baby monitor ever could.


In short, if your baby monitor gives you peace of mind, keep using it. However, it’s time to make a change if it’s stressing you out. 

Ready to make a change for your family?
I can help you teach your baby or toddler independent sleep skills so they have control over their own sleep so they are sleeping peacefully through the night and napping like a champ. All while supporting you, mom, to gain peace of mind around baby's ability to sleep well and letting go of the baby monitor addiction. 

Book Your Free 20-minute Sleep Evaluation Call now and lets chat about what's going on in your family and how I can help.