Bedtime fading is a way to add a little bit more “juice” to your sleep training plan.
I often find that parents who see me in clinic have tried and failed to sleep train their children. (Obviously, the ones who had an easy time don’t need an appointment). As I work with families to come up with plan to help their children fall asleep and stay asleep on their own, bedtime fading is one of the most useful tools that I use. In a nutshell, this involves moving their child’s bedtime later with the goal of having them be more sleepy at bedtime. In this video, I talk about how families can use bedtime fading to successfully sleep train their child. If you are interested, there is some interesting research that was published by Dr. Monique LeBourgeois which shows that children who have difficulty settling at night are frequently put to bed too early.
As stated in the video, the keys to successful bedtime fading include:
- Avoiding “sneaky sleep” in the later afternoon.
- Not allowing your child to sleep much later in the mornings, unless they are getting up at an uncomfortably early hour.
Have you tried moving your child’s bedtime with the goal of leading to a better night of sleep? How did that work for you?