Short answer: If your baby has suddenly started waking an hour earlier, sleep needs are rarely the cause, because they fall gradually rather than overnight. Four things to work through: try an earlier...

Today I explore the topic of sound machines. Do they boost sleep in babies? What sound levels are considered safe? How should you use them?

Short answer: what is a safe decibel level for babies?...

Short answer: At nine months a typical baby takes two naps, sleeps close to 3 hours in the day and around 14 hours in total, which puts the average wake window at roughly 3.5 hours. Individual childre...

Short answer: A sleep cycle is one stretch of non-REM sleep followed by one stretch of REM sleep. In babies it lasts around 30 to 45 minutes, reaching about 60 minutes by the first birthday and 90 min...

Short answer: Yes, there is sleep training for adults. It is called cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, or CBT-I, and it works on the same three things as baby sleep coaching: your schedule, yo...

Short answer: A 15-month-old does not need to feed at night, so night weaning is safe. Two things keep the night feeds going: learnt hunger, meaning your child has learned to take some of her calories...

It takes more than an hour for my toddler to fall asleep — what should I do? Here are the four things that cause it, in the order worth checking.

Short answer: how long should it take a toddler to ...

Does sleep really beget sleep? Three questions about naps, later bedtimes and early morning waking — and why the honest answer to each is “it depends, and here is on what”.

Short answer: does sleep...

Sleep training and night weaning are two different things, and you do not have to do them together. Here is how to do either one on its own.

Short answer: can you do one without the other?

• Yes, bo...

Today I tell the story of a baby who could only sleep for 8 minutes at a time — and of the rare condition behind it.

Short answer: when is night waking not a sleep problem?

• Almost all night waking...

Two children, two different bedtimes, and one parent doing bedtime alone. The order in which to fix it: schedule first, then the routine, then the room, and sleep training only at the end.

Short an...

A newborn who only sleeps in your arms and wakes the moment you put him down is doing exactly what newborns do. Here is what actually helps — and how to make the transfer work.

Short answer: my new...

A mother of a one-year-old who breastfed to sleep, co-slept part of the night and never got round to sleep training asks whether she has ruined it. She has not.

Short answer: is it too late to slee...

In this episode I explain why a toddler might seem to throw a tantrum in the middle of the night — and why it is very probably not a tantrum at all.

Short answer: is this a night terror?

• A night t...

Your baby slept well for months, and now she suddenly needs nursing to fall asleep again. Is that a sleep regression, and do you have to sleep train all over again?

Short answer: do you have to sle...

A single mother of a nearly four-year-old has been lying next to her every night for three years. She wants her evenings back without making sleep frightening. Here is the order to do it in.

Short ...

Three scheduling problems that have no perfect answer: a baby who needs two naps at a nursery that does one, two children on different nap schedules, and three children sharing one room.

Short answ...

Three of the most common bedtime routine questions: screens before bed, whether a bath belongs in the routine at all, and what to sing when you cannot sing.

Short answer: what belongs in a bedtime ...

Your baby falls asleep on her own at bedtime and still wakes twice a night. Does that mean the sleep training failed? No — and here is what to do about the nights and the naps.

Short answer: bedtim...

How a 9-month sleep regression turned a theoretical biologist into a sleep coach — and what I learned about why sleep advice contradicts itself.

Short answer: which sleep training method is the bes...