There’s no way sleep coaching will work for my baby!
Hi
Did you know many of my clients come to me thinking that sleep coaching won’t work for their little one?
You might be one of them, and that’s OK!
This belief comes from the old-school advice that the only way to help a baby sleep is by letting them cry alone. Many parents struggle
because this intuitively feels wrong.
I help my clients improve their little one’s sleep by helping them understand the difference between tension release crying and tension increase crying.
The root emotion of “tired” is frustration. Think about how you feel when you’re tired. It’s not a fun feeling! Babies and young children express their feelings of being tired, frustrated, angry, sad, disappointed, etc, through some tears.
This type of crying is what we call “tension release crying”. Did you know there are actually toxins released in our tears when we release these emotions?
While not pleasant, these emotions are a very normal part of the human experience. The BEST thing we can do for our little ones is to offer love, support, and comfort through these emotions, but we don’t need to jump in and “fix” or take away these feelings.
We do want to avoid a state of overwhelm or distress (ie. tension increase crying). This is when our body’s stress response is activated and we go into fight, flight or freeze.
We DO NOT learn from this place and this type of crying is not productive with sleep coaching. I ALWAYS encourage parents to intervene if they suspect their baby is heading towards “tension increase” crying. “Frustrated” is ok when coaching; “distressed” is not.
If you’re looking for even more information on this topic, you can watch videos on the Gentle Sleep Solutions FB Page! This is one of my fave topics to dive into!
