If you have not already done so, please read Blog Posts 1 through 5 that describe how sleep is important and beneficial. I will post specific information for parents and children based on my book, “Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child.” Please do not be put off by my book’s length. This is a reference book. Read only the topic of interest to you.
This family had done everything right the first time. Their daughter had been sleeping well since 5 months of age, and the approach had held — until the pregnancy with the second child changed the emotional landscape of the household, and four months of bedsharing, night drinking, early waking, and wet sheets replaced what had been a working routine.
“We taught Dr. Weissbluth’s approach to our 2-year-old daughter when she was 5 months old. All went well up to the moment mum was 6 months pregnant with the second child. We thought it would be emotionally tough for her to get a sibling and that she would naturally return to the routines we had before. This didn’t happen, unfortunately. For almost 4 months she refused to sleep in her cot in her own room. She only wanted to sleep with one of us — mom or dad. She didn’t fall asleep unassisted and had 1–2 night awakenings. Therefore we shared the bed with her for the last 4 months. She liked to drink during the night from a straw cup and used that for self-soothing. She often wetted herself during the night. On top of that she started to wake up earlier and earlier — as early as 4:30am — and refused to go back to bed. We were both exhausted and needed to act, as we also had a newborn to care for.
As advised by Dr. Weissbluth, we used extinction and introduced sleep and bedtime rules. We introduced an early bedtime between 5:00 and 5:30pm. We also tested the silent return to sleep method, but our daughter wasn’t yet ready for the big bed — she would jump out and hurt herself — so we transitioned her back to her cot. Dad was the one handling the sleep training with emotional support from mum, as mum needed to care for the newborn. We applied the extinction method and gave her only one bottle to drink. For a couple of nights it was horrible — she cried a lot and had night awakenings every other hour — but we stayed on track. It became better and better, though we also had setbacks where she started protesting again.
Now, 4 weeks later, we take her to bed at 5:30pm and she sleeps through the night until 6am. Eventually she will wake up, cry briefly for about 2 minutes, and then sleep again with no intervention from us. She rarely wets herself during the night. This is a fast improvement we couldn’t have imagined 2 months earlier. We should have tried it earlier. Thanks.”
What Happened Here
The sleep issue that preceded the second baby’s arrival was not random. A 2-year-old who senses a major change coming — a mother’s growing belly, disrupted routines, the invisible weight of adult anticipation — may respond in the only language available to her: increased need for proximity, resistance at bedtime, night waking, and early rising. The parents interpreted this generously, as emotional difficulty, and waited for her to return to her previous routines on her own.
She did not. The waiting created four months of bedsharing and night-time drinking that substituted new sleep associations for the self-soothing skills she had once possessed. By the time the newborn arrived, both parents were exhausted, the toddler was waking at 4:30am, and the household had two children with sleep needs pulling in different directions.
The Division of Labor
The solution required the same practical division of roles that appears in other accounts in this blog: the father took primary responsibility for the toddler’s sleep training while the mother focused on the newborn. This is not a commentary on who was more capable — it is a recognition that a breastfeeding mother’s presence near a toddler practicing extinction undermines the process. The toddler can smell her. The proximity reignites the expectation. Having the father be the consistent nighttime presence removed that variable and allowed the extinction to work.
Early Bedtime in a Toddler
The 5:00 to 5:30pm bedtime for a 2-year-old surprises many parents. It surprises them even when they have already lived through an early bedtime working for an infant. But the mechanism is the same at any age: a bedtime that meets the child before pre-sleep arousal sets in produces sleep that is longer, more consolidated, and more peaceful. The 4:30am waking — a hallmark of cumulative sleep debt and late bedtimes — resolved when the bedtime moved earlier. She now sleeps to 6am and self-soothes the occasional brief waking without parental involvement.
Four weeks from crisis to sleeping through. The family’s own conclusion says it best: they should have tried it earlier.
They should not be too hard on themselves for waiting. The impulse to be gentle with a child who seems emotionally unsettled is not wrong. But gentleness and firmness are not opposites. The most caring thing this family could do for their daughter — and for themselves, with a newborn in the house — was to restore the sleep she needed. They did it. It worked.
— Marc Weissbluth, M.D.
So encouraging and relatable! We had to do a very similar thing with our 2 year old when the new baby came along. Early bedtimes are such a blessing to everyone!