Crying is the single biggest reason why people are hesitant to work on improving sleep with their children. And I get it! Just because I'm a sleep consultant that does not mean that I relish making children cry (I'm not a monster)....

BUT I do think that as a whole, our society has gone a little (or a LOT!) overboard on never letting children cry. In this video and blog post I'll be logically walking you through what crying is, why it happens, and how we can shift and re-frame our thoughts about crying.

*And honestly, I wish I had known these truths as a new parent, not just for sleep issues but for all things parenting. Feeling "afraid" of crying and putting that pressure on myself to make sure my child never cries is just unrealistic and it set me up for failure. 

1st Re-frame

When we're talking about sleep training, why does crying always come up? Well, because when we sleep train, we are changing certain habits. Maybe your child is used to you holding them while they fall asleep. So with sleep training, we're looking at laying them down while they're still awake. That is going to be a big habit change, right? Or maybe your child is used to co-sleeping with you in your bed and you're wanting to get them into their crib. That is also going to be a big change.

Anytime that we are changing habits, we can expect that our children are going to have some feelings about that. They may be frustrated, they may be struggling, and they also may be feeling tired and cranky. Crying is going to be their main way to express that. Crying is their main form of communication. But this is the first big re-frame that I want us to wrap our heads around:

Crying is not good or bad.

We can't put it into these neat little categories. Crying is simply a messenger and it is how your child is expressing their feelings to you. Repeat after me: "Crying is my child's way of letting me know how they feel about this new situation."

2nd Re-frame

Now from there, we make the leap to: "I don't want my child to feel unhappy or to be frustrated or to struggle. I want them to be happy all the time and never have negative emotions."

And as you're reading, you're probably realizing that those may not be the best thoughts or "goals" for us to have as parents. That is just not real life and that is also not the way to set our children up for success in the future.

So the second big re frame that we need to is recognizing that our job as parents is not to keep our child happy 100% of the time nor is it to keep them content and comfortable 100% of the time. That is not our job as parents. Our kids will naturally go through stages where they are unhappy, where they may feel sad or uncomfortable or frustrated.

In fact, those are great learning experiences, especially when we have the opportunity to do those experiences and help them through them in our own loving homes. Where they know that they're supported and they realize they can get through these uncomfortable emotions.

It's not my job to keep my child happy all the time.

And in fact, if that is our goal in parenting, not only will we fail every day, but we also will do a disservice to our kids if that is the goal that we are bringing them up under.

3rd Re-frame

The third big re-frame that I want to talk you through has to do more specifically with sleep training. We know that, yes, your child will probably cry during the sleep training process. That's just how it goes. (Unless you have some magical unicorn baby who doesn't) But most kids are going to cry when you introduce them to a new situation or when you teach them to do something new.

Now, while your child may cry, that does not mean that they can't feel supported. When I work with families and walk them through my 1:1 services or through my sleep courses, I give various levels of methods that they can use. If parents prefer to be hands on and stay in the room as their child falls asleep, they can do that. That is still sleep training and that is still going to work. So if that is where your comfort level is and you want to be very hands on, you have that option.

If you prefer to be a little more hands off and a little more direct with your method, you can always leave the room and come back and check and offer support at varying intervals. The main takeaway here is that there are options when it comes to sleep training! Sleep training does not mean you are being unresponsive. It is just changing the way that you are responding to our child.

Before sleep training, if they cried, you may have just scooped them up and rocked them right to sleep. And now with sleep training, you're going to soothe them in other ways. Now they may not like or accept your new forms of soothing but you're still there offering that support. So this third re-frame I really want us to get our heads around is:

You can be supportive and not fix the crying right away.

It is possible to support our children and to be there for our children, but not fix the crying at all costs. And in fact, I would argue that trying to stop all crying, at any cost, is not actually supportive anyways.

4th Re-frame

Next thing I want you to do is try to get into your baby's head.

Why are they crying? What are they trying to communicate with their tears?

A lot of times we associate our own emotional baggage with their crying and we project that onto them. So we hear our child cry and we may think, "Oh no, he feels abandoned and he thinks I've left him forever." Or  "She is crying because she hates me. She thinks I don't love her anymore."

And we project that onto them when really we need to take our own emotions out of the equation. Instead maybe they're saying, "Hey, I'm frustrated. I don't know how to do this. I'm really frustrated right now." Or "Hey, what's going on? This isn't how we do the whole sleep thing. This isn't what we normally do. I'm not sure what's going on, and I'm confused about it." They could be saying, "I'm really struggling to fall asleep. This is new. I don't know how to do this."

And this goes back to re-frame #2 which reminds us that it's okay for our children to feel these uncomfortable emotions. They're allowed to feel this way and we don't have to feel this need to fix it. We want to take our emotion out of it and really try to get into their head of what they are expressing by this not what we are projecting onto them.

5th Re-frame

Final re-frame I want you to take from this blog is that the crime that happens during sleep training...

It is temporary.

This increase in crying at sleep time is a temporary thing and as your child adjusts to their new normal, they learn their new routines, and they get better and better and grow much more confident at falling asleep on their own- that crying is going to dissipate. This is not a forever thing where you will put your child down for bed and they will cry for 30 minutes every night for forever before falling asleep. This is temporary.

Let's remind ourselves of that. Even though it's going to be hard, those first few nights or weeks while we are implementing sleep training, it is going to get easier. You're going to come out on the other side of this with your child having learned this great skill of independence and with confidence in their own ability to be put down alone and fall asleep on their own. This is temporary. I want you to remember that.

Finally, I've linked a great article by parenting expert Janet Lansbury and it's called 7 Reasons to Calm Down about Babies Crying. It is a great resource and another helpful tool in re-framing our thoughts around crying.