How to minimize crying during sleep training

Baby sleep expert, Kim West, LCSW-C, shares advice for parents on ways to help minimize their infant's crying during sleep training
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How to minimize crying during sleep training

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So one of the most popular questions I am asked is: Kim, can you guarantee no crying once we start sleep coaching? And I wish that I could say yes, but I can´t. And this is why. Because if you have taught your child that the way to go to sleep is to rock or nurse or bottlefeed them to sleep and you decide that you have had enough or it stopped working, which is common. And you say this is it. I am going to put them in awake and they are preverbal. They are going to cry. And if they are verbal, they are going to cry and have words of protest for you. So you really can´t guarantee no crying. I am all about minimizing the crying because I am a mom too and I don´t like anymore than you do. So that is why I find doing something more gradual at least reduces the amount of crying. And you can stay with your child offering that physical and verbal reassurance. And you tend to see less crying than if you just leave the room.

Baby sleep expert, Kim West, LCSW-C, shares advice for parents on ways to help minimize their infant's crying during sleep training

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Kim West, LCSW-C

Psychotherapist & Author, The Sleep Lady's Good Night, Sleep Tight

Kim West is a mother of two and a Licensed Certified Social Worker-Clinical (LCSW-C) who has been a practicing child and family social worker for more than 19 years. Known as The Sleep Lady by her clients, over the past 12 years she has helped thousands of tired parents all over the world learn to listen to their intuition, recognize their child’s important cues and behaviors, and gently create changes that promote and preserve his or her healthy sleep habits. 

West has appeared on the Dr. Phil, Today Show, NBC Nightly News, Good Morning America, TLC’s Bringing Home Baby  and CNN, and has been written about in a number of publications including The Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, Baby Talk,  Parenting, The Baltimore Sun, USA Today, The Telegraph, The Irish Independent and the Washington Post. West hosts the sleep section of The Newborn Channel, played in maternity wards in hospitals across the country. West is the author of The Sleep Lady's Good Night, Sleep Tight: Gentle Proven Solutions to Help Your Child Sleep Well and Wake Up Happy with Joanne Kenen. She is also the author of 52 Sleep Secrets for Babies and The Good Night, Sleep Tight Workbook.

Kim received her master’s degree in Clinical Social Work from Simmons College in Boston, Massachusetts. She lives with her family in Annapolis, Maryland.

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