I got an email the other day from a mom who was expressing some concerns about the fact that she’s a single mom and she was asking me, “How do I do the Sleep Sense program if I’m single?”

So, I think that’s a great question and I wanna help you out here today. You know, the book does talk a little bit about getting your partner involved and having dad on board and all that good stuff, but it doesn’t mean that it’s not doable without, right?

Absolutely, this is a skill set. You can teach your baby to sleep well whether you have a partner or you don’t. So I’m just gonna give you a few tips here though today to help this become a bit of an easier process for you.

The first thing is, do you have support? Right, often the support comes from the partner or the mother or the father of the child, but not always, right? Some partners work long, you know, overseas experiences so they’re gone from home, or you know, or you’re a single parent. It’s all okay, but I would encourage you to find some support. Maybe if you’ve got a best friend that could help out or you’ve got a mother that could help or other relatives. Even if they could come in with you for the first night or two just to kind of cheer you on, maybe take over through some of the night, that would be ideal, that would be awesome.

Or, if you just have that great friend that lives in another state that is willing to answer your text messages all through the night as you reach out for a little bit of moral support, that also would be great.

So, find somebody in your community that can help support you through this process. Now, the next thing to keep in mind is this may be a little bit more challenging for you, so don’t compare yourself to, you know, your best friend whose husband sleep trained their baby in three nights. Just keep your eye on your own journey. Especially if nursing is the primary prop association, it’s just gonna be a little bit more challenging because you’re going to always be the one that shows up, right, either to stay with the baby until she falls back to sleep or to leave and check on her, that’s up to you, but it’s going to be challenging because she’s expecting to be fed, because that’s what’s always happened until this day, so just know that there might be a little more protest, it might run on a little longer than say comparing yourself to your friend who did it, but that’s all okay.

Again, skill set, let’s keep that in mind that this is a skill set that your baby’s learning. Learning takes place at different speeds for everyone, no matter what we’re learning, so she might catch on to this really quickly and that’ll be awesome, but if she doesn’t, that’s okay too. Just keep that in mind.

Now, another challenging place for single parents is daytime naps, because you won’t have anyone there to kind of take over or swap off and if you’ve got a younger baby you may be doing nap training three times a day, which can get a little bit much for a lot of moms. So here’s a little, a little side step that you can take if you’re feeling the strain, is plan for one nap of the day to be out in a stroller.

All right, just take that second nap of the day, it’s usually the last nap of the day that is the most challenging of the naps, so maybe for the first few days, you just plan for that nap to be out in the stroller so that you’re both getting some fresh air and some walk and a little bit of break for a while. That might help just ease you into this a little bit more gently so it’s not so much sleep training overload of you. Okay, but it’s absolutely doable, and won’t it feel good when you get to that awesome place where you’re gonna get a solid night’s sleep, you’re gonna get some breaks through the day, because it’s really important to have time for ourselves, right?

We can’t be the best mothers that we can possibly be if we don’t have anything left to give, and the only way we can give is to also get, so you need some time for yourself, you need a break from baby, you know, a couple of times a day, and you need a solid night’s sleep so it’s really gonna make the parenting experience or the journey as a single parent so much easier for you in the long run that you have just a little bit of space, a little bit of breathing room so that you can attend to your own needs, as well.

Thanks so much for watching today. Sleep well.