Sleep training techniques are methods of teaching your infant how to sleep on their own so that they can sleep through the night or take longer naps.
However, some people have concerns about popular sleep training techniques. Some may ask, "what is the right sleep training strategy for my baby?" This is one of the most pressing questions for which parents want to hear an explanation.
What is sleep training?
To start, let us first understand what sleep training is.
The method of teaching your infant to sleep on his or her own is known as sleep training. Parents can do this through several ways — using an existing sleep training program or technique or the better way to create their own.
Sleep training is explained as inextricably linked to sleep associations. This may include humming as an example of positive sleep associations that babies use to fall asleep independently.
But there are also negative sleep associations, and these are actions taken by a parent or caregiver to help a baby fall asleep, such as rocking the baby or feeding them. Both negative forms of associations are discussed through sleep training.
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Here's what you could do:
1. Check-and-console method
This technique is most popularly known as the check-and-console method, and it has many variations. Still, the basic principles remain the same: Parents should keep checking on their baby at regular intervals, but never feed or rock them to sleep, as this kind of process will indicate that they aren't falling asleep on their own.
2. The chair technique
A parent uses this strategy by, of course, sitting on a chair near the crib until their child falls asleep, then parents tend to move away from the crib right after. The parents' goal for doing this technique is not to help your child fall asleep, nor help them calm down.
Parents who use this technique are not expected to pay attention to their children in general. The only reason you're sitting in the chair is to reassure them that you're with them.
To train babies to sleep on their own, every night, parents must move the chair further and further away from the baby's crib until they are right outside the door, at which point you will no longer need the chair.
3. The CIO or the cry it out technique
Extinction, or the commonly called CIO sleep training, is the technique wherein principles are not responding to action to extinguish it. Parents will go through their child's bedtime routine; you are to put them in their crib awake, say good night, and walk out, similarly as you did with the check-and-console process.
4. The method of fading
This kind of sleep training method usually involves the fading out of the sleep association, just like rocking. One example of this is if you normally rock your baby completely to sleep, eventually and gradually shorten the amount of time you rock them each night. Do this until you are rocking for only a few minutes.
