What is it Gentle Sleep Training?

Gentle sleep training is a philosophy rather than a method. It was developed by Kim West, The Sleep Lady and worked well with thousands of tired families. It is an approach to sleep training with the core value to work with you on developing the best plan for you and your child. We will make sure to listen to your child’s and your needs and find the best solution together. We can’t promise no tears at all, but we can promise working with you to make the process manageable. We use evidence-based methods in our work. For more information on the gentle sleep method and awesome resources, please visit https://sleeplady.com/

What can we help with?

We work around behavioral issues surrounding sleep. This means that for us to help with your child’s sleep, we first need to make sure that your child does not have medical issues that could be contributing to their sleep challenges.

We can help with:

help them sleep on their own ~ bedtime resistance ~ sleep onset delay ~ call outs ~ nighttime awakenings ~ early awakenings ~ fear of the dark ~ nightmares ~

Why trust us?

Shuffle is a gentle parental fading method that thousands of tired parents used to help their children learn to sleep. Besides the Shuffle, we also use other well researched behavioral methods when working with the families.

Q&A

What does the process look like?

We start with you completing your child’s history form that includes your child’s significant health and sleep details. This part of the process could also include some additional scales and questionnaires to ensure that we have all the information we need to help you. Then we meet to discuss some of these problems in more depth and come up with a sleep plan. After this, you get a written customized sleep plan after the meeting, and we decide the start date. There is also a daily log that we collaborate on during the process in addition to the follow-up calls as necessary. At the end of the process, we have a wrap up meeting to make sure you are well equipped if some of the problems come up again.

Will there be crying? Can I do it?

We cannot promise no tears, although we will strive and work with you to make this process as smooth and as gentle as possible. Keep in mind that we are working on your child’s habits that may be there since birth or are making changes that could look drastic to your child. These changes could be moving your child to their own room or having them fall asleep on their own. Sometimes children just don’t have other ways but to cry to communicate their discontent. Other times, although older and verbal, they still have not developed other coping mechanisms. This is learning of a new skill and learning new things and growing up could get hard at times. Therefore, this is for the parents that are ready to commit to the process that sometimes could take weeks, that are ready to follow through with the plan although it could be hard at times, and for those who could tolerate some degree of crying. This might be you right now or maybe in a few months. We do not judge and well understand that commitment to change takes time and we will still be here when you are ready.

What can I expect?

This process could get hard at times, but keep in mind that you are working on some important goals towards your child’s independence. It could take your child a few weeks to get there, but once there, you will all have a better night’s sleep and quality time together during the day. From our side, you can expect reassurance, support, and understanding during the process. Remember that you are not the only one going through this, there is a whole science devoted to this and a large industry dealing with pediatric sleep issues. This is a common and normal problem in childhood and parenthood.

How does it work?

At the beginning you will be following our recommendations and we will be troubleshooting together when the things do not go the way we envisioned them, and I can assure you that will most likely happen! With time, your child will be learning the skill to fall asleep on their own and you will be getting more confident to do this. This is not just a sleep training for your child, it is also training for you on dealing with these problems and learning tricks for the future when there are regressions due to different life events.