At Nava Sleep Consulting, we understand what it’s like to be a tired parent. I’ve been there, rocking my baby to sleep all night, feeding to sleep, co-sleeping, wondering why my baby won’t sleep through the night or have longer naps. As much as I thought we had perfected the art of “ninja’ing” out of the room, we knew there had to be a better way. That’s when I was introduced to The Sleep Sense™ Method and now, I am so proud to be Sleep Sense™ Certified. The program was created by Dana Oblemen and it has helped over 100,000 families sleep better. Sleep Sense™ has been featured on CNN, The Washington Post, Good Morning America, WebMD, Today’s Parent and Baby Talk to name a few. It was created out of a belief that healthy sleep habits make for healthy children. Through this gentle approach, children become well-rested and in turn are curious, energetic, happy, playful and eager to learn. The Sleep Sense™ Method places emphasis on accommodating different parenting styles. The bottom line is that you, as the parent, need to be comfortable with the Sleep Plan in order for it to work for your child.

The approach to improving your child’s sleep needs is pretty simple:

• I’ll give you honest information about WHY sleep is so important for your child’s well-being. (This will give you all the motivation you need to make changes to your child’s sleep habits.)
• I’ll lay out an easy-to-follow, step-by-step plan that lets you make some choices about what is the right approach for your child. (All children are different, and nobody knows your child better than you do. I encourage you to use your knowledge of your child to customize his or her sleep plan.)
• I’ll show you how to measure success. (No, you shouldn’t expect your child to sleep 12 uninterrupted hours on the first night — although it does happen! I’ll tell you what you should expect along the way.)

A little note about the “crying” question: Since people always ask about whether my solutions involve “crying it out,” I think it’s something that deserves to be addressed here. “Cry it out” means leave your baby and walk away. That is NOT what this is. Please understand that I will never ask you to leave your child to cry alone, nor will I ask you to ignore their cries. The reason that the Sleep Sense™ Method is so effective, is that it lets you develop a plan that you feel comfortable with, based on what you know about your child.

Having said that, crying is your child’s way of protesting change, and you can expect that making changes to their sleep habits will result in some protest. That’s why I’m always sure to tell parents that my program will most likely involve at least some amount of protest on the child’s part.