Dearest full feedings family,

My name is Sara Hayes. I am a sleep consultant for Full Feedings, mom to an 18 month old (mostly) angel and I sometimes struggle with my toddler's sleep, too.

Let me explain…

Picture me – a sleep consultant about to start a lovely long weekend with my wonderfully sleeping toddler.

Picture my daughter – mom's home for 5 days, lets blow everything up and fight all sleep!

Recently I was home with my daughter for a very long weekend. During this time she had a cold, was transitioning from 2 naps to 1 and suddenly decided her crib was the scariest place on Earth. My daughter has slept in her crib for all sleep (she boycotts stroller naps) for her entire life. Thanks to Full Feedings, she has also slept through the night for a very long time independently.

Seemingly out of the blue, she started crying the second she got near her crib, would scream when I left the room and began skipping entire naps.

Let me give you some advice on how to handle these situations from my own experience..

1. Go back to the age-appropriate guide!
2. Email us if you have email support. This one is key. You don't want to wait until sleep has been all over the place for weeks on end. Reach out with updated notes ASAP. Frequently, we just need to make a small tweak for things to get back on track. The faster we can make that tweak, the easier it will be to resolve the issue.
3. Sit down and really think about when the sleep disruption started. Did you start solids, move to a new guide, drop a nap, increase the awake time before bed? It doesn't necessarily mean we can't do these things, we just may need to lessen the impact by moving slower with these changes.
4. Help your baby! I know we're all scared of starting “bad habits” but I promise you, an overtired baby can't sleep independently. I rocked my daughter to sleep and did my first ever contact nap to keep her from becoming overtired and to take the pressure off for both of us when the crib clearly wasn't working.
5. Lean into their needs. I realized my daughter was probably associating the crib with me leaving and that was scaring her. So, instead of leaving right when I placed her in the crib, I stood there rubbing her back and reminding her how much she loves her crib. I know she couldn't possibly fall asleep that upset so I needed to give into what she needed and help support her while she needed it.

The second day my daughter started have trouble sleeping, I texted Ann immediately and told her what was going on. From there, she gave me two small tweaks and we were rocking and rolling into one nap. If you have email support, use it! If you don't, reach out in the Facebook group and make sure to check out the guides and OTHER INGREDIENTS section to help you work with your child to get back on track!

Xx,
Sara

P.S. If you don't know about The Full Feedings Method Online Programs, you can learn more here! Both the infant and toddler programs are SUPER affordable, highly effective, and the best part is, they involve NO sleep training and absolutely NO crying! Awesome, right?