Episode 61: How to Lengthen Short Naps: Interview with Kim West

SleepInfant

Jul 18

Welcome to Season 3 of the Finding Your Village podcast. I am so excited to be kicking off a new season with one of my favorite parenting experts, Kim West! Before I introduce Kim and the topic for our show today I wanted to let you know what I have been working on in the past few weeks while the show has been on summer break!

I have been able to spend some quality time with my family and have fun one on one time with my kids.I have opened up my virtual 4 week online childbirth classes and if you are interested in taking a birth class with me you can check out more info on my website: www.findingyourvillage.com. I have also been doing some professional development to make this podcast even better for you. Finally, I downloaded another social media app that you may have heard of...its called TikTok. I have been sharing labor and postpartum information on there, connecting with other birth workers and parents and have started making Weird Al like parody songs based on pregnancy and postpartum struggles. If you have jumped on the TikTok bandwagon, follow me at findingyourvillage.

Ok, now that you’re all caught up with what I did over summer break, I get the distinct honor of introducing our guest for today!

KIM WEST, LCSW-C, is a mother of two daughters, best selling author and a licensed child and family therapist. Known as The Sleep Lady® by her clients, she has personally helped over 20,000 tired parents all over the world get a good night’s sleep without letting their children cry it out alone.

Kim is the author of three books: “The Sleep Lady’s Good Night, Sleep Tight: Gentle Proven Solutions to Help Your Child Sleep Well and Wake Up Happy”, “ The Good Night, Sleep Tight Workbook” and “The Good Night, Sleep Tight Workbook for Children with Special Needs”.

In today’s episode we are discussing how to lengthen short baby naps. We also talk about Kim’s background and how she came to be the Sleep Lady and my personal story of how Kim’s work helped me.

In this episode we discuss:

The history of sleep training methodologies
There is no science to support sleep training babies under 4 months old, you can set up proper sleep hygiene with younger babies, but true sleep training shouldn’t take place until babies are at least 4 months old
There are really 3 main sleep training/coaching methods
- Extinction (cry-it-out)
- Graduated extinction (Timed checks or controlled crying)
- Fading (The Sleep Lady Shuffle)
What is a disaster nap?
- A short nap that isn’t a complete sleep cycle that is enough to take the edge off the exhaustion but isn’t enough to be restorative
What can parents do to lengthen a baby’s nap?
- You can start to work on lengthening baby naps when they are at least 5 months old
- Make sure you are paying attention to baby awake intervals and sleep cues to put them down for a nap at the appropriate time
- Work on baby getting to sleep on their own at bedtime first, then work on naps
Common baby sleep cues
- Sucking hands
- Disengaging/looking away
- Zoning out
- Yawning
- *Some babies don’t show sleep cues!
Kim’s new podcast: The Gentle Parenting Show