Unsolicited advice is running rampant in society. Maybe you’ve been told to just let your baby “cry it out,” or that sleep training is the only way to get your eight hours again. Maybe you’ve even reached the point of radical acceptance, but the exhaustion is just too much. Whatever it may be, you’ve been looking for a sleep coach. Someone who can not just tell you that rocking your toddler to sleep is a bad habit but teach you how to change it. You’ve tried, and the crying was more intense than the exhaustion.
Let me help you reframe what you’re going through: you are not creating a bad habit. If your little one only wants to go to sleep a certain way, that is what is called a sleep association. You can absolutely change this mode of falling asleep, but you don’t have to resort to sleep training or earplugs to do it.
Sleep is a puzzle, and if you are struggling to put the pieces together, you don’t need to feel guilty or alone. In between radical acceptance and required tears, there is a space for holistic sleep support. That is The Nurture Spot’s approach: the baby-led, mother-baby dyad-focused, and attachment-rooted route.
Sleep Training vs. Sleep Support: The Line Drawn Between Them
You might be wondering, “Well, shit, now I don’t know what to do.” Did you even know there was a difference?
Before I dig into the meat of what the difference is, I want to set some “ground rules” (aka define keywords).
A sleep association: The pattern that an infant or toddler uses to bridge drowsiness and sleep. (Not a bad sleep habit.)
Self-settle: A regulated infant or toddler bridging the gap between drowsiness and sleep without need of an adult to implement a sleep association or help soothe. (Key word: regulated.)
Self-soothe: An internal emotional response to stimuli that develops naturally over time. (Babies cannot be taught to self-soothe.)
Bad sleep habit: Not brushing your toddler’s teeth before bed.
Now that we have cleared that up, we can look at what sleep training is. Hint: it’s not actually training your baby to sleep. Instead, we are looking at behavior modification through extinction. Yes, even gentle sleep training is a form of extinction. The amount of tears makes the method, but the end goal is the same: your baby stops signaling for you when they wake up.
On the other end of extremes, we have radical acceptance. Pounding down caffeine every morning because you were told that holding your baby at all hours of the day and being okay with every wake-up was part of motherhood. The loving part, the part we were meant to want.
What happened to also holding the mother?
When your days start to bleed together, you forget to love yourself, and sleep is no longer sustainable, that is when you know the rhythm is broken. You don’t need to white-knuckle your way through motherhood. In fact, I actively encourage play and enjoyment.
When you’re exhausted, it is easy to forget that the journey is the whole point. Knowing that sleep isn’t linear can help, but nurturing family rhythms and bedtime patterns that help you and your little one, that is the sweet spot.
If you want to know more about toddler sleep, you can read this study on night wakes around two years old. It might surprise you.
Meet Tammy and Phil: Two Weeks, One Hand to Hold
Identifying details have been changed to respect privacy.
I remember the DM. A friend of mine reached out, asking if I worked virtually nationwide or just locally. Exhaustion had crept into an acquaintance’s life. Not only was this woman a business owner, but she had been suffering through 5+ wake-ups a night for nearly two years.
Within an hour, I received a call from out of state.
Tammy told me all about her precious boy, Phil. How he only wanted to nap on her body and how he would only accept rocking to sleep at night, but within two hours, he was up again anyway.
She ran a business that required travel from them both, and her husband often worked long hours at his corporate job. They had tried sleep training, but the methods weren’t sustainable for them. They tried reminding themselves that his sleep would get better… eventually. Enough was enough, though. Tammy needed more than naptime to spend on work, she needed Phil to be agreeable to naps on the road, and she really just wanted her body back. She loved nurturing her son, but his need to be constantly attached to her was wearing on her mental health.
We talked more about her goals and how I could help her achieve them. Desperate for relief and finding a safe haven in mutual motherhood, she joined me on her journey for two weeks.
Together, we explored temperament, connection, and sleep cycle science. We worked on mindset shifts and perspective changes. I told her all about biologically normal toddler sleep. After some schedule tweaks, connection during bath time, and comfort items during road trips, Tammy saw positive sleep changes.
Instead of walking around the house and rocking in a chair for what felt like hours, Tammy was able to hold Phil’s hand until he drifted off to sleep. Her evenings with her husband were mostly back. The nonlinear nature of sleep no longer worried her. Naptime was spent split between cuddling her son and working, much to her delight. She called the growth in her relationship to her son a blessing.
Do you know what she didn’t feel like? Holding her son’s hand to sleep wasn’t a chore. It wasn’t a bad habit. Instead, she approached bedtime excited for the night ahead.
What a Sleep Coach Should Actually Do (what we did)
First: Education
I received Tammy’s intake form and crafted the roots of Phil’s sleep plan. Not wanting to give cookie-cutter advice and give a family a schedule, I hopped onto a virtual meeting with Tammy. We went over the sleep basics that directly applied to her: sleep science, co-regulation, attachment theory, connection, sleep associations, maternal well-being, and the family environment. A thorough understanding of why can help changes feel more comfortable. It is also important to build the foundation before the house.
Second: The Relational Lens
Together, we explored Phil’s health history, and I delved into their intake form, helping rule out any red flags that might be impacting sleep. After we went through the biological lens and nothing stood out, we moved on to the impact of relationship on Phil’s sleep. We didn’t talk about whether Phil liked his mom and dad; we focused on how he fell asleep with each parent. I took stock of how each parent spent bonding time with Phil and gauged whether his connection cup was full. Together, we found the gap and were able to bridge their time spent together, easing Phil and fulfilling his co-regulation needs.
Third: A Bedtime Routine She Did Not Have to Perform
Phil needed a new routine. One that he could find relaxation in, but Tammy could do every night and not feel like she was performing or trudging through after a long day. We wanted to craft a routine that wouldn’t breed resentment. One of my big steps was to address her anxiety (within my scope, of course). We used bath time as a trigger for phones to go away: the quality of connection increased, and Phil didn’t have to fight for Tammy’s attention anymore.
Fourth: Adding in a Comfort Item
This came in two parts. I wanted Phil and Tammy to co-regulate, but once he was settled and enjoying his bedtime routine and sleep space, I encouraged them to add a lovey to the sleep routine. This became Phil’s bedtime buddy, and it helped him ease through his sleep cycles, the hard work of regulation already done by holding hands. The lovey was just a reminder.
Last: We Addressed the Sleep Environment
This was a tricky piece to nail down because of Tammy and Phil’s need to travel. That’s why I saved it for last here. Not only was Tammy getting strained from constant travel, but Phil was having a hard time adjusting, and this showed up in his sleep patterns. We explored a few changes that could be monitored no matter where they were: temperature, lighting, and decoration stimulation.
The Nurture Spot Way (a blog post can’t do this)
After a few days, Tammy had a clearer idea of what sleep structure looked like in toddlers, how taking care of herself was just as important, and how to effectively incorporate a family rhythm. We focused on securing the roots so that she could easily tap into her intuition and make the changes that were best for Phil.
Our journey didn’t include strict schedules or make-or-break rules. We focused on the unique dynamic between mother and child. When nights got sticky, I encouraged Tammy to slow down and focus on Phil’s needs (not just his actions/reactions).
A mother’s intuition has more comfort and answers than any book, sleep training schedule, or viral social media stance will ever have. Mothers have a superpower; I just reminded Tammy it was safe to use it. She didn’t walk this leg of her journey alone; neither should you. I would love to walk with you.
How to Choose a Sleep Coach (and the red flags)
What to Look For
Find a coach who will get curious and then actually listen. You want someone who finds out what you need, not just focuses on sleep changes. Do you need emotional support? Feeding support? Nutrition counseling? Well-being focus? You want your coach to have a personality, not sound like a trained AI system or like they took a 12-week program with mediocre research.
You want someone who understands that support starts with you. You want someone who will honestly tell you how they approach sleep (if they sleep train, they should be admitting it is a behavior modification method).
Red Flags
Promises. If a program has a guarantee that your little one will be sleeping through the night by X number of days, they are not taking your unique little one into account.
Encourages weaning. When a sleep coach tells you that the best way to get your little one to sleep better is by removing breastfeeding, they don’t understand the dynamic relationship that breastfeeding is.
Can’t explain safe sleep. I’m not talking about regurgitating the AAP guidelines. If a sleep coach has not done their due diligence of researching the different guidelines available, they are doing the families they work with a disservice. Many families are against bedsharing, but that doesn’t mean that safe bedsharing information shouldn’t be known.
What Sleep Success Looks Like
Sleep support varies from coach to coach, but one thing that can be counted on: success is not linear. Sleeping through the night isn’t always going to be the end goal. In fact, the focus realistically should be on how a baby self-settles or signals. Progress is shown not by 12-hour silences but by a decreasing number of callouts because of co-regulation work that has been done before bedtime.
Success could take the form of drastically increased maternal confidence, connection to her intuition, and a positive mindset. Success could be a baby that wakes 1-2 times when they used to wake 4+ times. Success could mean getting to hold your toddler’s hand until they fall asleep, instead of pacing the house for an hour while combating meltdowns.
Sleep success gets to be what you make it. If you’re curious about how sleep support can help your family, book your free Kindling Call today.
When the mother heals, her baby thrives