5 ESSENTIAL Products for Infant & Toddler Sleep Training
Jul 18, 2024
You have an infant or toddler who is waking you up night after night, you’re completely exhausted, and you’re considering sleep training, so you’re wondering if there is a way to ensure success. You’ve come to the right place. I have coached countless parents using my Miracle Sleep Solution course and successfully sleep-trained my own four children. Today, I’m going to share with you the short list of products necessary to set your family up for success and get you all sleeping through the night.
Sleep training is a fairly straightforward process, and it can certainly be done without any modification to your child’s current bedroom environment, assuming you already have in place a safe crib or toddler bed set-up. However, I encourage parents to consider investing in five items, if they do not already have them, to ensure a successful sleep training process. Sometimes, parents decide to start sleep training but abandon the plan prematurely due to worries or challenges that can be avoided by having these 5 products teed up from the get-go.
You can download my FREE Sleep Training Checklist at freesleepchecklist.com to get an overview of the entire sleep training process, simplified into six manageable steps. For today’s post, we’ll narrow in on the five products that will help you rest easy, knowing that you have done everything you can to prepare in advance for a quick and effective sleep training experience.
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Room-darkening Shades
How many hours of sleep do you think infants and toddlers need? The answer is 10 to 11 hours of sleep at night - not including daytime naps. That’s a lot of sleep. Depending on where you live, during the summer months, nighttime may not last long enough for it to be dark when you put your child to sleep and dark until they wake up. That is why room-darkening shades are key to sleep training; a dark room signals to your child that it’s time for sleep.
Room-darkening shades allow your body’s circadian rhythm to direct sleep habits rather than the daily light cycle, which is affected by things like time of year and Daylight Saving Time. I highly recommend having room darkening shades in all bedrooms in your house and lowering them shortly before bedtime each night. Here’s a link to a simple design we installed in our kids’ bedrooms: https://amzn.to/4d26k2Y.
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Color-coded Alarm Clock
A color-coded alarm clock is an essential feature in any child’s bedroom. Before children can learn to tell time, they can learn that the color change indicates the transition from nighttime to daytime and that it’s OK to wake up. The color change won’t wake your child up like an auditory alarm will; it merely serves as an indicator of nighttime vs. daytime once your child awakens naturally. If you are planning to sleep-train your child or already have, you definitely want to have a clock like this to make the sleep-training process easier for your child and keep them consistently sleeping past the designated wake time. We have always used a color-coded alarm clock called Teach Me Time:https://amzn.to/46gp0tK and say to the kids at bedtime, “Good night, sleep tight, see you after the green light.”
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Sleepsack
Room temperature can greatly affect your child’s sleep quality. The ideal room temperature for young children to sleep is generally considered to be between 68-72°F (20-22°C). This temperature range is comfortable for most children and helps to ensure they are neither too hot nor too cold during the night. Maintaining this temperature can contribute to a safer sleep environment and promote better sleep quality, as extreme temperatures can disrupt sleep and pose safety risks. It's also a good idea to dress your child in appropriate sleepwear that complements the room's temperature, opting for breathable fabrics that can help regulate their body temperature throughout the night. I recommend the HALO brand sleepsacks, which come in different warmth levels: https://amzn.to/3XoQXx2. They can be adjusted to swaddle the arms or release the arms as your baby grows. Their main benefit for sleep training is that parents have one less thing to worry about, which makes for a higher likelihood of them following the sleep training steps and successfully training their child to sleep through the night.
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Noise Machine &/or Air Purifier
Let’s talk about noise machines and air purifiers next. These are optional items for sleep training, but you may choose to use either one or both and find an improvement in your child’s sleep quality, which means a faster and easier sleep training experience.
Noise machines provide a consistent auditory backdrop, which can be particularly helpful in environments where external noises are unpredictable. We did not use noise machines with our children for years, but once we had three boys sharing a room and started hearing complaints about being woken up when one of the boys exited in the middle of the night to use the restroom, we began using a noise machine and found it to be very helpful. In addition, many kids find white noise or gentle sounds to be soothing. Over time, the sound from the machine can become a sleep cue, signaling to your child that it’s time to sleep. Just be aware that you might need to start traveling with the noise machine if everyone gets used to sleeping with them. Noise machines don’t have to be fancy; here’s an inexpensive, no-frills model that is very portable for travel: https://amzn.to/3OFHa0S.
Air purifiers are especially helpful with allergy issues or asthmatic children. However, many families chose to use them for general improvement in air quality and possible illness prevention due to their HEPA filters or UV light technology capturing or neutralizing bacteria and viruses. When we moved to Southern California and encountered the inevitable forest fire season, we invested in air purifiers for all-day use to minimize smoke-related issues in the home. When the smoke cleared, we kept the purifiers for nighttime use for their air quality benefits and replaced the noise machine with the gentle hum of the air purifier. We use a compact Levoit model in our bedrooms: https://amzn.to/3QmMhnL.
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Video Baby Monitor
Finally, for many years beyond the baby phase, it’s a fantastic idea to have a video baby monitor. Not only are they absolutely essential for sleep training to give parents peace of mind that their child is alright without having to enter the bedroom, but they can also provide peace of mind for years to come. If purchasing a video baby monitor isn’t in your budget right now, consider borrowing one from a friend for a week while you sleep-train your child. The model we used is outdated now, but I trust Amazon’s ratings, and this one got Best Overall Baby Monitor: https://amzn.to/47dWpFg. It has two cameras to cover parents with two kids or to install in another room in the house.
Take-Home Message
By getting these five products in place prior to beginning the sleep training process, you’ll be setting your family up for success and enjoying a full night’s sleep again in no time. Imagine the joy of finally getting a good night’s sleep and the positive effect it can have on everyone.
Sleep training is part of the Consistency category of my 5 C’s parenting framework (click here to learn more about The 5 C’s). To view more posts in this category, use the category search menu on the right of your screen. Thanks for joining me to fill your parenting toolbox with psychology-based tools to feel more confident and capable in your parenting. Keep up the good work on your amazing parenting journey!
P.S. Be sure to snag your copy of my FREE Sleep Training Checklist. Let’s get you and your baby sleeping through the night!
