Do you wear a certain type of pyjamas for bed? Turn the lights off? Listen to a podcast? Get under your covers?
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β¨NEWSFLASH β¨
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You have sleep associations!
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So why is it that sleep trainers tell parents day in and day out that sleep associations are a bad thing? A crutch? a “bad habit”?
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Because adults can adequately provide their own sleep associations, and babies and young children need help with theirs. β β β β β β β β β
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Just like you wouldn’t expect your baby to be able to pick out her own clothes, or make his own breakfast, it’s absolutely reasonable for babies to need help from their primary caregivers to get the right associations in place to make them feel safe and comfortable for sleep.β β β β β β β β β
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That doesn’t make that you can’t make changes when you’re ready to move on from an association that is no longer working for you or your baby. The trick is to layer in new associations π£π¦π§π°π³π¦ removing the association you’re looking to move on from. Then, when your child has become accustomed to these new layers, you can remove the association and begin to use the new ones until they feel comfortable enough to remove another.
