I invite back Dr. Sarah Mitchell the creator of The Helping Babies Sleep Method to discuss common misconceptions on terminology and sleep training in general. We discuss:

• Defining what “CIO” is
• What does “sleeping through the night” really mean
• Two main reasons babies and toddlers struggle with sleep
• What the term sleeping through the night means

After this, tune in to another episode with Dr. Sarah Mitchell: Do babies really need sleep-training or will they learn on their own?

Quick simple 6 question sleep quiz with personalized responses: helpingbabiessleep.com/sleep-quiz
Website: helpingbabiessleep.com
Online sleep school: helpingbabiessleepschool.com
Instagram: @helpingbabiessleep

00;00;01;01 – 00;00;19;22

Dr. Sarah Mitchell

And the Helping Babies sleep method. We talk about sleeping through the night is 11 to 12 hours with no feeds. You know when kids sleep through the night, really does vary. Okay, so I’m going to give a generalizations here. So with my exclusively breastfed kiddos, it could be 8 or 9 months of age to sleep 11 hours without eating at all.

 

00;00;19;25 – 00;00;40;06

Dr. Sarah Mitchell

I have for sure had four month olds do it and five month olds do it. But I would say on average it’s around 8 to 9 months. If you have formula that’s completely different and if you’re bottle feeding, that’s often different because you have so much more knowledge about how much they’re consuming during the daytime, which can help you shift those calories more easily into the daytime.

 

00;00;40;09 – 00;01;00;24

Dr. Mona

Hey everyone. Welcome back to PedsDocTalk podcast. I continue to be blown away with your reviews and ratings and how you keep coming back. For more important information on mindfulness and parenting, education and parenting and sleep behavior and all of it. And it means so much for me that you’re joining me today. Today’s guest is actually a returning guest.

 

00;01;00;24 – 00;01;24;19

Dr. Mona

Her name is Doctor Sarah Mitchell. She is the creator of the Helping Babies Sleep method, and she was actually on my podcast episode 133 where we talked about if sleep training is really needed for babies and toddlers. And today we’re talking about the top misconceptions on infant and toddler sleep and training and sleep teaching. Thank you so much for joining me today, doctor Sarah.

 

00;01;24;21 – 00;01;33;09

Dr. Sarah Mitchell

I am so excited to be here. Thanks for having me. I love talking about all things sleep related to infants and babies and toddlers, and just letting people know what’s possible for them.

 

00;01;33;16 – 00;01;52;12

Dr. Mona

Me too. And if you have not listened to episode 133, like I mentioned, Doctor Sarah also has a passion for mindful parenting, where she really wants to help people get to the core of who they are, who they want to be as parents, expressing their emotions, being okay with all of their feelings. And it’s so important to make our parenting goals happen, so I’m glad to be able to have her on again.

 

00;01;52;19 – 00;02;12;20

Dr. Mona

If you’ve not listened to that episode, you have to do it. Even if your baby is not in that infancy toddler years and you’ve outgrown it because you just share some great parenting philosophies too. So this episode I’m really excited about. But in case people have not listened to the other episode that you’ve been on, tell me more about yourself and why you got into doing what you do.

 

00;02;12;22 – 00;02;32;14

Dr. Sarah Mitchell

Yeah, well, I’m a chiropractor by training, but really found my passion teaching parents how to get their little ones to sleep and parent confidently day and night as a sleep and parenting consultant. Because this is about feeding, it’s about sleep. And it’s really about mindfulness as well. And, you know, we all get into this through some sort of personal journey.

 

00;02;32;14 – 00;02;56;20

Dr. Sarah Mitchell

And mine was that who I was with all this medical background and I could not get my son to sleep at all. I just kept breastfeeding him back to sleep. He was 20 pounds by the time he was four months, and I was just feeling really tired and exhausted. And to be honest, I felt a little bit dismissed by my support team trying to get more sleep that, you know, oh, just relax and enjoy your baby kind of mantras thrown at me.

 

00;02;56;26 – 00;03;13;25

Dr. Sarah Mitchell

And so I went to work kind of researching for my academic training to work, researching baby sleep and figuring out why this was happening to me, and then figure out how to fix it. So I sleep, trained him at four months, and then when my daughter came along two years later, I was like, not doing that again. Let’s do this differently this time.

 

00;03;13;29 – 00;03;31;15

Dr. Sarah Mitchell

And I worked on really gentle, what I call gentle newborn sleep shaping from about four weeks onwards for her and I. That helped me minimize the impact of that four months sleep regression and just helped her learn to independently self-soothe that much sooner. And it’s just something I’m really passionate about. I just want people to know what’s available to them.

 

00;03;31;17 – 00;03;39;14

Dr. Sarah Mitchell

I think there’s many, many different ways to raise your kiddos, and you’ll figure out what works for you. And I’m just here to provide you more information along your journey.

 

00;03;39;27 – 00;04;03;06

Dr. Mona

Again, I love that energy, that vibe. That is what we need in this parenting space with all things parenting, including sleep. And this episode, like I mentioned, we’re going to go over the misconceptions on terminology, what people think, all of these things on infant until their sleep trainings. And so the first thing I wanted to ask you is you had mentioned to me before the recording why the term try it out or Sio, which people might have heard of.

 

00;04;03;11 – 00;04;07;14

Dr. Mona

It makes you not so happy. Like what is it about that terminology that you don’t love?

 

00;04;07;21 – 00;04;26;19

Dr. Sarah Mitchell

It kind of makes me crazy because people have such wildly different definitions about what it means. So anytime you’re hearing people talk about sleep, I want you to be a critical thinker and ask questions. What’s the definition? So if we go back to Doctor Ferber and cried out, cried out is related to extinction. The idea of you close the door and you don’t go back in.

 

00;04;26;24 – 00;04;42;11

Dr. Sarah Mitchell

Yeah, okay. I don’t love that because for most families, I feel like it’s just too much of a leap. It’s too much of a change, too quickly. And I always try to imagine the world from the little person’s perspective. And if I’m used to being rocked and held and all of a sudden I’m in a crib by myself, in a room by myself, like it’s too much for me.

 

00;04;42;13 – 00;05;02;06

Dr. Sarah Mitchell

Now, the thing is, with any kind of sleep teaching, as if you follow the last episode sleep teaching, not sleep training because it is a skill that we’re teaching. We know that we’re trying to change habits and changing habits. When your child is tired, which you’re going to do at bedtime, it’s going to be really frustrating for them and they’re going to express that with some tears.

 

00;05;02;08 – 00;05;23;27

Dr. Sarah Mitchell

So there’s very few people that really effectively work on sleep without some tears. So for some people, cried out means to close that or not go back in. And then for other people cried out means any kind of tears at all. And so we’re talking about different things. And I think that’s one of the reasons why there’s so much passion around this topic, because people are talking about different things.

 

00;05;24;00 – 00;05;35;01

Dr. Sarah Mitchell

Right? We’re not talking about like sleep training a four week old baby that’s very different than a nine month old baby. So that’s why I cried out. Makes me crazy as people are talking about different things with different definitions.

 

00;05;35;03 – 00;05;52;14

Dr. Mona

100%. And I did use cry It out. We did use Ferber method. It actually I want to really normalize that. For some babies it really does work, but that goes down to your understanding of your baby. I have to be very clear on that. Like, I’ll be honest, when I left residency and started working at my first job, I just felt like all babies could do.

 

00;05;52;14 – 00;06;09;25

Dr. Mona

Cry it out and Ferber method if you want to use that terminology. And I also don’t love Cry It Out because it sounds as if the crying is just giving up when it’s not okay, like it’s really not. Your child is not giving up, and it’s not just going to be depleted and not love you. That’s not what cried out is, but it’s a terminology that I also don’t love.

 

00;06;09;25 – 00;06;25;18

Dr. Mona

It’s used very often, but it is something that they’re going to cry and that you’re going to check in, right? You’re going to cry and you’re going to check in at whatever intervals you’ve created. But when I left residency, I’m being very open horizon. But yeah, this is something that could work for all babies, similar to how I approach tantrums and all of that.

 

00;06;25;18 – 00;06;43;23

Dr. Mona

And then I started to practice more. I’m now practicing for eight, nine years and I was like, wait, there’s obviously variations to temperament, right? For children. So there has to be variations to sleep. There has to be variations to how we approach discipline in some ways, right? Like behavior modifications. So I agree with you. I did use it, I respect it.

 

00;06;43;23 – 00;07;04;04

Dr. Mona

If someone does not like it’s not something that vibes with them, but it is also about understanding. Your baby may have a temperament, like if your baby’s crying for like hours and hours. I’m probably not going to do a crime at that. I don’t want that. But it’s about your baby and seeing. Is this something we want to try or do we want to try a more an approach that has less crying, if you will?

 

00;07;04;07 – 00;07;24;27

Dr. Mona

I think let’s go into another misconception. I think there’s a misconception that there’s a training that has absolutely zero tiers. I mean, there’s going to be some descent. Let’s talk about that. Yeah. Because of course, because anytime you’re teaching your child to do something new, they’re not going to love it, but would love for you to elaborate more on the misconception that all crying is bad and that it’s something that is not something good for the child.

 

00;07;25;04 – 00;07;42;03

Dr. Sarah Mitchell

Yeah, yeah. And when I say extinction not going back in, I mean like not ever going back in. Right. Like that’s different than the Ferber with the checks. I should be clear on that. Okay. Three things are going to influence how much your kiddo cries okay. One is going to be your timing. So putting kids down too early or too late, they’ll cry a little bit more because it’s frustrating for them too early.

 

00;07;42;03 – 00;07;57;22

Dr. Sarah Mitchell

They’re frustrated. They’re not quite ready. Their sleep pressure has not risen enough yet. They’re not ready too late. They’re overtired. They’re more needy. They want you that much more. Okay. Second thing is your ability to be consistent as you get through this. So, you know, in our first night of sleep teaching, yes, your child might cry 45 minutes.

 

00;07;57;27 – 00;08;15;22

Dr. Sarah Mitchell

The next night may be its last, but are we be consistent. Where I see a lot of people go wrong is when they are handling night wake ups, and sometimes they feed them and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they wrap them, sometimes they give them a pacifier. Those are very inconsistent responses so that they’re it’s hard for them to figure out what’s happening.

 

00;08;15;29 – 00;08;34;18

Dr. Sarah Mitchell

They can’t learn. They can’t make progress, usually gets stuck when you’re responding in that manner. And then the third thing is what you mentioned to temperament. Some kids are much more strong well than others. And again in this conversation I am biased. Right. Because the kids that I work with in my 1 to 1 or in my school are more strong willed than other people.

 

00;08;34;22 – 00;08;54;27

Dr. Sarah Mitchell

Have I had kids not cry. Yes I have and it’s not because of anything that I did. It’s because of their temperament and the timing. The parents finally figured out the timing. They were making it early or later and they offered some physical and verbal reassurance and some padding, and that child accepted that and dozed off to sleep.

 

00;08;54;29 – 00;09;23;26

Dr. Sarah Mitchell

Right. But not every child would do that. So most kids will cry. Yes, most kids will cry. And I think the common worry is that those tears are saying, you’re abandoning me, I can’t do this. And again, this goes into your mindset, right? Because your mindset influences your actions, which influences your outcome. So in our book, we actually talked about how you have to change your mindset if you’re going to do sleep teaching because you change your mindset, you do new actions and you get a different outcome.

 

00;09;23;28 – 00;09;24;23

Dr. Sarah Mitchell

Right.

 

00;09;24;26 – 00;09;43;06

Dr. Mona

All great points. Yeah. And I think that’s exactly right. And one thing that I think parents are afraid of, regardless of what sleep method they choose, is that, you know, the tears that come with it, whether it’s doing a cry method that is like the Ferber or even just more gradual methods I don’t like the terminology can make it sound like cry is such this awful thing, but this is like the first time.

 

00;09;43;06 – 00;10;04;28

Dr. Mona

Like if you say a family chooses to do this in infancy, right? This is the first time that you may see your child cry when you’re not there. If you’re doing check ins, for example, okay? Or you’re patting their back and, you know, laying them down, they may cry a little bit or just may feel like, oh, I’m an awful parent, but as you go through parenting, you’re going to realize more and more that you’re going to create these rules and boundaries with your child.

 

00;10;04;28 – 00;10;18;26

Dr. Mona

And they’re not always going to love everything that you do. I use the example of a toddler, like, we practice a little bit of the mix of gentle parenting and then in my own style, like, hey, we’re just going to we respect his feelings. I like to call myself more of a mindful parent that he’s entitled to his feelings.

 

00;10;18;26 – 00;10;38;19

Dr. Mona

I have mine, we’re getting through this moment together and this is just a moment. It doesn’t define us. It’s just a feeling. And so when you start to kind of understand that they are going to be moments where even in toddler years and beyond, it almost like is reframing that infancy period that your teaching your child about sleep attachments that, you know, maybe they’ve been doing this and rocking their child or pacifier.

 

00;10;38;19 – 00;11;01;29

Dr. Mona

How can we either slowly cold turkey, whatever method it’s just so important to know that you are raising a loved baby, okay? A loved baby is a baby who sees their parents of love baby as someone who sees their mommy or caregiver daddy. Whoever it is in the morning with a smile on their face. Like this is all very important to understanding the big picture of how we approach sleep.

 

00;11;01;29 – 00;11;15;03

Dr. Mona

And I love talking about that one. The other one that I know you also share with me is the terminology of sleeping through the night I think is often misconstrued. So explain how you would define sleeping through the night.

 

00;11;15;06 – 00;11;35;18

Dr. Sarah Mitchell

Yeah. In the Helping Babies sleep method, we talk about sleeping through the night is 11 to 12 hours with no feeds, and that doesn’t happen. You know, when kids sleep through the night, really does vary okay. So I’m going to give you generalizations here. So with my exclusively breastfed kiddos it could be 8 or 9 months of age to sleep 11 hours without eating at all.

 

00;11;35;21 – 00;11;56;05

Dr. Sarah Mitchell

I have for sure had four month olds do it and five month olds do it, but I would say on average it’s around 8 to 9 months. If you have formula that’s completely different and if you’re bottle feeding, that’s often different because you have so much more knowledge about how much they’re consuming during the daytime, which can help you shift those calories more easily into the daytime.

 

00;11;56;07 – 00;12;12;21

Dr. Sarah Mitchell

Right? Yes. But what I hear a lot of is sleeping through the night. I remember I had a friend at one point and she was like, oh yeah, my baby’s seven week old sleeping through the night. I was like, get out. What are you doing? Tell me everything. And they put the baby down at 1130 at night, and he wakes up at 6:00.

 

00;12;12;24 – 00;12;28;04

Dr. Sarah Mitchell

So to them that sleeping through the night, because that’s when they go to sleep. And again, this speaks to what a parent’s threshold is, right? Those parents only need 6.5 hours of sleep. That was not me. I need a lot of sleep. I’m like a nine hour girl. I love sleep, you know, one person’s dream sleeper is someone else’s nightmare.

 

00;12;28;11 – 00;12;49;25

Dr. Sarah Mitchell

And then there’s also different resources that we’ll talk about, like the newborn stage. And even that’s different, right? Because technically, medically, I think a newborn is like 0 to 28 days. But in a lot of the research and even in my book, I talk about newborn a 0 to 3. So again, definitions are what are making us all confused and having conflict with each other because we’re talking about different things.

 

00;12;49;27 – 00;13;12;16

Dr. Mona

Yeah, I love this. This is so important because the misconception that I see is that when we say sleeping through the night, also, like you said it perfectly and I didn’t know this before we started this recording, that you would have the same definition. But yeah, sleeping through the night as an official terminology for me is also 10 to 12 hours without any feeding or intervention that is sleeping through the night.

 

00;13;12;20 – 00;13;29;25

Dr. Mona

Many people will say sleeping through the night is my child wakes up in his bed, is low, back down. That is not essentially the terminology of slipping through the night, right? So I agree with you completely. And I think we also normalize. And I know you know this because you study sleep is that people say we all technically don’t quote unquote sleep through the night.

 

00;13;29;25 – 00;13;44;03

Dr. Mona

But yes, every single human being will wake up in the middle of the night, toss and turn, and then go back down as an adult, hopefully as an adult, you go back down on your own. You’re not checking your phone. You’re not going to get a glass of water. You’ve learned that you toss and turn and you go back.

 

00;13;44;10 – 00;14;08;02

Dr. Mona

Babies also toss and turn in between sleep cycles and will go down on their own once they learn the concepts of independent sleep, right? So you’re teaching that. We talked about that in the other episode, that if there’s a sleep attachment and that’s okay, they’re breastfed, they’re formula fed, or they have a pacifier or they’re just used to being rocked, those become normal sleep associations that every baby has.

 

00;14;08;05 – 00;14;25;21

Dr. Mona

But then it’s like phasing them out for them to understand, oh yeah, I woke up, but I got this. I’ll go back down on my own, and then they’ll get to that point that they’re quote unquote sleeping through the night. I completely agree with that terminology. I think also you may agree that that terminology is thrown around even from sleep accounts like sleep.

 

00;14;25;21 – 00;14;40;25

Dr. Mona

Okay. I’m saying yeah, you’re babysitting tonight. If they wake up and I’m like, oh no, that is great that they’re doing that. I’m not saying that that’s bad, but the technical term of sleeping into the night is no intervention, nothing. The baby goes to bed and you don’t see them till morning, you know, because they didn’t need anything.

 

00;14;40;25 – 00;15;05;09

Dr. Mona

And I also, from a medical standpoint, completely agree with all the stuff that you said about the way a person is feeding. Like, yes, I do see breastfed babies who can be trained earlier like four months. I have had some that did three months, like you said before, but yeah, I see it usually later, completely reasonable food gets introduced, their calorie intake changes, and I do see that formula fed babies tend to be able to be sleep trained early.

 

00;15;05;10 – 00;15;29;10

Dr. Mona

Maybe the parents choice. And that also could be because of the calorie. That also could just be because the parents philosophy I yeah confidence like you understand that your baby’s fine. You understand that there’s attachment without being at your breast when you formula feed. So I formula said my son and so I knew that he love me. I know that he’s fed because of nutrition, that I can still give him love and attachment in other ways, even though I’m not breastfeeding him.

 

00;15;29;10 – 00;15;44;03

Dr. Mona

Right. So because of that, I did feel more comfortable sleep training him earlier. Had I started breastfeeding him, who knows? Like I wouldn’t have known because I can’t go back in time, but maybe one day I’ll have a second child and then I’ll be able to see if I breastfeed that baby. What is my feelings going to be around it?

 

00;15;44;03 – 00;15;49;27

Dr. Mona

But all this terminology is so important. Oh gosh, I just think it’s so misconstrued out there.

 

00;15;50;04 – 00;16;04;24

Dr. Sarah Mitchell

Yeah, we’re talking about different things really a lot. Yeah. You made an interesting point that I’d like to speak to the difference between breastfeeding and formula fed parents. And part of that in the middle of the night is the confidence to look back and say, well, I know you had 25oz today. You’re good. I’m going to wait a little bit longer, right?

 

00;16;05;00 – 00;16;20;20

Dr. Sarah Mitchell

Yeah. Also, if you’re going to get a bottle, you have to get up and go make it or there’s like a delayed reaction. Where is the breastfeeding? We just whip at the boob and it’s instantaneous like that. Right. And this was my story too. I feel like often when we’re breastfeeding we just want to be there. We want that attachment.

 

00;16;20;20 – 00;16;41;02

Dr. Sarah Mitchell

And inadvertently, what we do is we use the boob to soothe, not just for sleep, for hunger. Sometimes it’s even boredom. Yes, I see, and there’s nothing wrong with that, right? If that works for you, amazing. But one of the most common pitfalls I see people making is with breastfeeding is that they use it to mask fatigue.

 

00;16;41;04 – 00;16;59;24

Dr. Sarah Mitchell

And they end up in what I call the snacking cycle. They have like frequent feeds. They’re feeding every couple of hours during the daytime. They never get full feeds. So they have to continue to feed in the night time. And then over time with that consistency they end up reinforcing that the boob is a soother that I use when I’m bored, fussy, hungry and they miss those tired signs.

 

00;16;59;28 – 00;17;18;20

Dr. Sarah Mitchell

So I feel sometimes formula feeding parents or even bottle feeding parents, yes, are able to kind of develop more parenting tools to be detectives and figure out what the root issue is, because they can say, well, I just fed you an hour and a half ago. I know you had five ounces. This isn’t hunger. What else could be bugging you right now?

 

00;17;18;22 – 00;17;25;05

Dr. Sarah Mitchell

Instead of, oh, they’re fussy them. Maybe it’s hunger and they feed them and they fall asleep or whatever. So food for thought there.

 

00;17;25;12 – 00;17;44;04

Dr. Mona

Yeah, no pun intended. Food for thought. You know, going back to what you said about your mindfulness approach, you can teach those same philosophies to breastfeeding parents. And I think you’re 100% right, because if we’re breastfeeding, I get it. You whip out the breast quickly. You are right that when you have to get up to get a formula bottle, you are also giving a pause to your child, right?

 

00;17;44;04 – 00;18;00;03

Dr. Mona

Like, I talk a lot about pausing, and I think every person will talk about how it’s so important to give a moment, especially if your child just ate, but also through the night to see, is this something that’s going to be something that they’ll just go back down, or is it something that they actually need us? But for example, your baby starts to cry.

 

00;18;00;03 – 00;18;14;17

Dr. Mona

You’re like, oh, it’s been six hours. Let me check. But they’re not rooting. Like, they’re not like putting their hand. And then you go to start to make the bottle and then you come back and they fall asleep. It’s been like three minutes and you’re like, you just gave them the pause that we’re talking about. So I also agree that I love teaching breastfeeding parents.

 

00;18;14;24 – 00;18;38;26

Dr. Mona

Hey, you can pause, but it’s hard because of the mindset. It’s hard because of the cycle of you feel like, well, no, this is my nutrition and attachment. But I love to say that you can have an attached baby. Okay. You will 100% have an attached baby if you give a pause and just take a moment and really assess their hunger cues, because I have seen parents coming in like seven, eight months, who the baby’s still snacking and I’m like, wait, your baby’s on solids?

 

00;18;38;26 – 00;18;58;04

Dr. Mona

Like, if this is working like you said, great. But also looking at the developmental perspective, I want the baby to also now start to eat solids and learn about food and learn about that. So love that you like this. Let’s talk about how we can incorporate it with like feeding and, you know, solid foods and also just your sleep habits and getting your sleep back again.

 

00;18;58;04 – 00;19;05;13

Dr. Mona

We’ll always go back to how much I think sleep benefits the entire family on a mental health perspective. And developmental perspective, for sure.

 

00;19;05;16 – 00;19;24;02

Dr. Sarah Mitchell

Yeah, absolutely. Intentional feeding right, is the third pillar of the helping baby sleep method in the newborn stage and for babies and toddlers as well, because you got to rule out that variable in the middle of the night. If you want to work on independent sleep habits, you have to be able to say, and that’s the thing about breastfeeding parents is they sometimes like that confidence to be able to say, oh, I’m not sure that this is not hunger.

 

00;19;24;02 – 00;19;39;14

Dr. Sarah Mitchell

And that’s what we teach in our method is that as a breastfeeding parent, you have regular feeding windows during the day that allows you to stack the calories, have intervals between the feeds so they come to the breast ready to eat, drain one side completely, take half the other side and you’re like, wow, that was a great feed.

 

00;19;39;14 – 00;19;55;25

Dr. Sarah Mitchell

Okay, now it’s 9 p.m. and they woke up. You’re like, well, no, I can look back on the day and I can see that they ate four times and those are all full feeds. I’m going to wait this one out. La pause. And Pamela Druckerman wrote the book Bringing Up Baby. I don’t know if you read that. Yeah, that’s where I first learned about The Pause.

 

00;19;55;25 – 00;19;59;03

Dr. Sarah Mitchell

And that’s a great book. Another perspective on parenting that I really enjoyed.

 

00;19;59;05 – 00;20;16;04

Dr. Mona

So I didn’t read the book, but my former mentor at my first job, I worked at this practice called Tribeca Pediatrics in New York City, and they’re very pro sleep training. Yes, that’s right, Dr. Michelle Cohen. He’s actually one of my mentors. Like, I really learned so much from him. And then also, as I grew as a physician, I agree with some things.

 

00;20;16;04 – 00;20;35;24

Dr. Mona

I don’t agree with some things. It’s just what it is. And that’s he’s French and he taught me so much about this whole LA pause and all of the so he it’s very common in a lot of French parenting. And bringing a baby is obviously a French parenting philosophy. So I did learn from him. I learned a lot of the concepts, and then I grew with it as, obviously I became more seasoned as a pediatrician.

 

00;20;35;27 – 00;20;47;11

Dr. Mona

The last thing I wanted to ask was, you know, two main reasons. You think that babies and toddlers struggle with sleep. I guess this may not be a misconception, but what are some things that you see if you could kind of say that these are the reasons why there may be struggles.

 

00;20;47;14 – 00;21;06;25

Dr. Sarah Mitchell

Yeah, okay. This is very generalized again. Right. But in general, one, especially after four months and older, this crowd we’re talking two would be one. They’re relying on something external to help them relax and drift off into sleep even if they’re not asleep from it. So I’ll have a lot of breastfeeding. Parents are like, no, no, we feed was part of our bedroom time routine, but they’re not asleep.

 

00;21;07;02 – 00;21;22;06

Dr. Sarah Mitchell

But if you made them drowsy, that’s why in my book it says why drowsy? But awake is setting us all up to fail. Because we, you understand sleep. So learn skill. That’s the skill they actually need to learn to be independent sleepers long term. Okay, so the reliance on something external to help them initiate sleep and then return to sleep in the night.

 

00;21;22;06 – 00;21;44;08

Dr. Sarah Mitchell

And that could be a pacifier, a bottle, nursing, being held, co-sleeping, touch any of those things. That’s number one. The second reason for most of the kids that I work with, that I see in the class and in one, two ones, is that they’re just stuck in these awful overtired cycles. Sleep really does beget sleep. The more well-rested your kiddo is, the easier it is to get them to fall asleep and then stay asleep.

 

00;21;44;10 – 00;22;01;12

Dr. Sarah Mitchell

And the opposite is true. When you’re stuck waking up every two three hours a night, you just stay stuck waking up every two three hours a night. It’s like they’re overtired. It’s harder to fall asleep and then stay asleep. And then the third thing I would add, though, for the newborns, like less than three months, kids who are struggling with sleep, they are uncomfortable.

 

00;22;01;15 – 00;22;21;03

Dr. Sarah Mitchell

They are uncomfortable because they either have a food sensitivity or they have a little bit of reflux, often silent reflux, or they’re not being burped properly, which there is no evidence for whatsoever. But I can tell you from years of experience working with newborns is that kids who will quote only sleep in my arms. There’s something else usually happening.

 

00;22;21;15 – 00;22;29;28

Dr. Sarah Mitchell

Or something else going on there. They don’t want to be on their backs because of roadblocks. But generally for the average population it’s overtired and relying on something external.

 

00;22;30;00 – 00;22;47;25

Dr. Mona

That’s so great. And again about all that reflux commentary because that is joy killer I call it robs a lot of parents joy because one’s not only seeing your child upset, fussy, and then that impacts their sleep. I have many resources on my website. Everyone who’s listening about reflux, Gerd, and also how it impacts sleep in my course, actually.

 

00;22;48;00 – 00;23;05;18

Dr. Mona

But this is so important to remember that there are medical reasons why a child may not sleep. And so if you’re struggling with sleep, especially in that I would say in the first four months, obviously we want to see the weight gain. But if there is reflux, if there is anything else that you’re concerned about, important to bring it up to your clinician to rule out anything medical that can be done.

 

00;23;05;25 – 00;23;23;00

Dr. Mona

And then also, if not obviously, getting resources for sleep foundations in that 6 to 8 week. I love that idea. You’ve mentioned that on the other episode as well, but also just creating a foundation of sleep that can help in the future as well. Whether you decide to do sleep teaching or sleep training can really help. So I love this.

 

00;23;23;00 – 00;23;30;01

Dr. Mona

This is such a great conversation, Sarah. And is there anything else you want to add as like a take home point for everyone listening today?

 

00;23;30;04 – 00;23;35;16

Dr. Sarah Mitchell

You can be loving, attached, and well-rested. That is possible for you.

 

00;23;35;18 – 00;23;51;17

Dr. Mona

I love it and it’s so true. And I’m just so grateful that I could have you on for a second time, because I share so much of that philosophy of how you push sleep. But besides that, because of course you know me and you don’t agree on this cried out which I respect. And I love that we don’t have to always agree on everything.

 

00;23;51;20 – 00;24;11;22

Dr. Mona

But I love your foundational philosophy on parenting. Like I said before, the mindfulness approach is so vital for all of our children and our parents so that they can really get into this parenting role with confidence. And you seem to be doing that. So tell my followers, my listeners, where can they find you if they want to learn more about your services and your information and education?

 

00;24;11;25 – 00;24;25;13

Dr. Sarah Mitchell

Yeah, our website’s helping babies sleep.com, and that’s the same handle on Instagram. And we have a ton of freebies and downloadable the book, The Helping Babies Sleep method, the Art and Science of Teaching Your Baby to Sleep is on Amazon and on audible. Actually two.

 

00;24;25;15 – 00;24;45;29

Dr. Mona

Wonderful. And again, everyone who’s joining us today, thank you so much for being here. If you love this conversation, make sure to leave a review. Call out Doctor Sarah and her information as being amazing and also share it on social media, especially Instagram and tag us both. Share what you learned, why you love this episode, and why you want to spread this message far and wide.

 

00;24;46;04 – 00;24;48;11

Dr. Mona

And thank you again for joining us today.

 

00;24;48;13 – 00;24;49;28

Dr. Sarah Mitchell

Thanks so much for having me. It was great.

 

00;24;50;00 – 00;25;05;20

Dr. Mona

Thank you for tuning in for this week’s episode. As always, please leave a review. Share this episode with a friend. Share it on your social media. Make sure to follow me at PedsDocTalk on Instagram and subscribe to my YouTube channel, PedsDocTalk TV. We’ll talk to you soon.