How to Deal with Crying When Sleep Training a Baby

Suzy Giordano: Hi, I'm Suzy Giordano Baxter also known as The Baby Coach. I'm here to guide you an to teach your baby how to sleep through the night. In this segment I am going to give you some suggestions and how to handle the crying that will happen throughout sleep training. We believe that you should assist your baby, but not fix it for your baby. So as a number one rule, I believe you should give your baby the opportunity to try to self soothe. So make sure to stand by for at least three to five minutes. Take into consideration your babies personality. If your baby is more demanding, assertive personality, go towards the five minutes. If you have a mellow baby three minutes. You should wait until your baby is close to hysterical before you start your clock. Once you start your clock, make sure you restart if the baby at any point stop and seems to be calming on its own. That might make for a long period of crying. But remember to learn how to stop crying your baby has to start. So be mindful of your baby, be mindful of yourself, hold back a little bit. Once your baby reach at that uncomfortable place of crying for more than three minutes. Go in pat him, shush him. Make sure you bring your baby down a notch. If that requires you picking your baby out from the crib, do so. Your number one objective by going in is to make sure you get your baby from hysterical to a point where he or she has a hold on herself that they can try again. This is a learning process. So it might take you a few times going in and out or the room until your baby actually falls asleep. One of the tools that you can use to help your baby through the crying spells is the pacifier. That's a very personal choice to make. If you do decide to use the pacifier, stick to the rule of three, which means you are going to restart your baby with the help of the pacifier three times. Chances are the baby is going to drop the pacifier. After the third time no more pacifier. You don't want to develop a habit where you plug in the pacifier throughout the night. So three is your number. Remember soothing is a reflex, so baby will reach to their hands or something else to suck, so they can self soothe. Now because the pacifier requires you to be there plugging back, back and forth until the baby has the ability to do on his own is something that you will need to take a close look if that's really the choice you want to make. Once you make the choice, stick with it. Three times no more. Those are some guidelines to follow to deal with the crying baby. Next how to deal with changes on your routine.