I remember the days before I was an experienced sleep coach. I remember the evenings where I was so exhausted, yet I dreaded bedtime. It started out with my youngest daughter crying inconsolably while we bathed my son (only 18 months at the time) and got them both ready for bed.

After the two were finally asleep for the night, I would push myself to fall asleep as fast as possible....knowing I'd be up again in 1, 2, maybe 3 hours if I was lucky. And those 3 hour stretches, these would be on a good night.

No more than a couple hours after putting my daughter to sleep would she wake up again, and I would nurse for maybe 1-3 minutes tops to put her back to sleep, usually walking around my room at the same time. This would repeat every 1-2 hours well past 5 months, and then began to turn into every 45 minutes on the nightly. I was exhausted, stuck, alone. I love my baby but I knew neither one of us could go on like this.

I knew in my heart that something needed to change.

Baby sleep crutches, otherwise known as "sleep associations", are something that a baby expects from a caretaker that physically helps them fall back asleep, or fall asleep in the first place. While using a baby sleep crutch or association under the age of 4 months can be a common way to lull a baby to sleep, a baby over 4+ months will begin to depend on this habit to fall asleep every, single, time….and need it to stay asleep. If your baby is using a sleep crutch regularly, this will result in multiple night wakings, and cause short naps. With frequent night wakings AND short naps, baby is likely to become overtired: resulting in fussy behaviors, unable to self-regulate, more prone to the common cold, unable to stay on a consistent schedule, etc.

Not sure if your baby has a sleep crutch? Here is a quick list of the most popular that I have seen in my 8+ years in this business:

1. Feeding to back to sleep every 1-2 hours (past 3 months)

2. Rocking or bouncing back to sleep

3. Sleeping in a parent's bed, or on a parent

4. Pacifying to sleep, or back to sleep

5. Driving around in the carseat or using a baby product to rock/swing/bounce back to sleep

I had accidentally fallen into the routine, or “baby sleep crutch” of feeding my daughter passively back to sleep every time. Meaning that she was getting very little nutrition at these feeds, but was using the sucking association in order to fall back asleep -- it was the only way she knew how.

The good news? My daughter's baby sleep crutch and most others are completely reversible and/or replaceable. The best news? By introducing new responses using my Wink-a-Sleep method, you can see baby begin to go down completely awake....and sleep through the night....and take a 1+ hour nap in as little as 3-7 days.

Read that again. Only one week-- can you imagine if you could be going to bed only one week from now and looking forward to it? My method also protects the breastfeeding journey and your little one's nutrition as well-- sleep training does not mean giving up night feeds if you aren't ready to.

Here's what you can do right now:

1. Enroll in the 5-24M  Baby Sleep Academy  to start sleep training tonight (bonus: it never expires and you can check in with my along the way!)

2. Schedule a  Mini Sleep Consultation  to chat it out one-on-one with me (it's fun AND effective-- get all your questions answered!)

3. Contact me via Instagram direct message (or email hello@sleepandthecity.com) and let me know what your little one is going through, and I can help figure out which would be the right move for your baby.

And results? I LOVE THEM. They make my day-- keep me posted with your "wins" and I'll share them on our social!

Love you guys and love this community. Sending all the good sleep vibes!

xo Lauren