Baby Sleep Consultant & Training Services in Gladstone, QLD

Do you have a hard time getting your baby or toddler to sleep? Do they wake up in the night and fight to stay awake? Are you tired of trying all sorts of solutions to help, such as putting them to bed earlier, or not letting them a nap during the day, only to find that it doesn’t help at all?

Would you like personalised assistance from a baby and toddler sleep specialist and support in getting your infant resting better through gentle sleep training at home?

 

If so, Happy Sleepers is here to help. Our Gladstone baby sleep consultants and trainers provide support and guidance on how parents can teach their infants healthy sleep habits. This doesn’t mean simply letting them ‘cry it out’, as you may have heard to do. Instead, we do this by teaching parents how to implement our well-recognised Baby Sleep Training techniques in a way that works for your family.

Learn more on our baby and toddler sleep training available from a dedicated specialist, contact us at Happy Sleepers today by calling 0413 638 299.

Personalised Baby & Toddler Sleep Training

 After becoming a mother to twins, Christine Scheepers – the founder of Happy Sleepers – became intimately familiar with not only the struggles of managing children’s sleep cycles, but also those of parents. This gave birth to developing her own sleep training program for her children, and igniting a passion for helping other parents with custom baby and toddler sleep training.

Christine is now an ICU nurse, midwife and qualified sleep consultant. After a FREE initial 15-minute consultation to discuss the sleep issues required for your infant, we can establish an ongoing schedule of sleep training, including in-home sleep assistance, zoom & phone package or a DIY sleep program for those in Gladstone, QLD.

Contact a Trained Sleep Consultant for Your Infant

For more information on our baby and toddler sleep training services from a trained specialist in Gladstone QLD, contact us at Happy Sleepers today by calling 0413 638 299, sending an email to christine@happysleepers.com.au, or submit an enquiry through our online contact form, and we will be in touch shortly.

 

 

Sleep associations (prop) and how it affects sleep

We all need some sort of association to fall asleep at night.  I need a pillow or I need to be on the left side of the bed or it doesn’t really matter.  If I don’t have my pillow tonight, I’m definitely going to struggle falling asleep and staying asleep. Once I get my pillow back, I’ll have the best night sleep ever.
The same happens with babies.  Babies also need some sort of association to fall asleep and stay asleep.  The problem however is, parents tend to help babies form their associations instead of the baby forming his own independent association.
So the follow scenario happens:

  • You feed your baby
  • You change the nappy
  • Burb the baby
  • Everything is perfect…..

You put your baby in the cot….. and now he cries.  You don’t understand why your baby is crying and in fact you don’t want your baby to cry.  Maybe something is wrong.  Now you pick him up,

  • You rock and pat him or
  • You give him a dummy or
  • You give him another feed (maybe he is still hungry)

You will basically do anything to get your baby asleep. Now you have made it your problem to make your baby asleep, instead of your baby falling asleep on his own!
Ok, let say the dummy worked and your baby fell asleep.  You’re very happy now.  Now every time you want your baby to fall asleep, you give him a dummy and it works every time.  Because you’re giving the dummy to your baby every time he needs to fall asleep, he starts to form the association, “If I want to fall asleep, I need a dummy” That would have been fine if we as human beings didn’t have a sleep
cycle.  Unfortunately, we all  (adults and babies) have a sleep cycle which means we go into a deep sleep, light sleep, and even wake up a few times.

The problem is…. as adults we have sleep skills, so when we wake up briefly, we can just soothe ourselves back to sleep and we don’t even remember waking in the first place BUT….. as babies, if they rely on a sleep prop like:

  • Dummies
  • Bottles
  • Rocking/Patting/Singing
  • A parent laying down with the baby
  • Nursing to fall asleep can be a big problem

The problem is, if your baby relies on a dummy to fall asleep initially when he has a brief wake-up period during the night, he is going to need the dummy to soothe himself back to sleep.  The problem is, the dummy is not always available so he is going to cry out to you EVERY SINGLE time he wakes,  to bring the dummy back. He is unable to soothe himself back to sleep independently because he never learned the skill. You were always there to help him. Every time your baby cried a little bit to try and teach himself the skill, you came and intervene, because you don’t want your baby to cry.  Your baby will not be able to sleep through the night until he has learned how to self-soothe.  If your baby has trouble self-soothe,  you need to identify all his sleep props and remove them so he has the chance to learn how to self-soothe independently.