Traditional behavioural sleep training is not for every parent.  Maybe you’re not ready to make such big changes to your little one’s sleep habits.  Perhaps you hate listening to your little one cry- even if you’re in the room supporting him.  Or maybe you were blessed with an amazing sleeper who doesn’t need sleep training! A mom in the My Sleeping Baby Facebook Community asked about my opinion on the shh/pat sleep training method.  With this approach, you place your baby in the crib awake and pat her all the way to sleep.  I answered her question in detail over Facebook Live.

Here’s the deal with shh/pat sleep training, in a nutshell:

1. It’s a great way to BEGIN teaching a baby how to fall asleep without feeding or rocking.
2. It doesn’t work well for all babies.  Many babies don’t like being patted to sleep and will simply cry more!
3. Patting a baby to sleep is still a sleep crutch.  It shouldn’t be your end goal.
4. Just like every other sleep training method out there, shh/pat will not produce results if it’s not implemented as part of a bigger sleep plan.

If you’d like to hear more of my thoughts in greater detail, then watch the video below!