What is a sleep association?

A sleep association is something that can aid your child in falling asleep. This can be feeding to sleep, being rocked to sleep, a lovey, a soother etc. Lots of these things can be both a positive and a negative sleep association. A negative sleep association is something that a child needs multiple times during the night to stay asleep and can’t sleep without it.

If your child is fed to sleep and when they wake throughout the night they need to be fed again to fall back asleep you may see this as a negative sleep association. Particularly if your child is needing to be breastfed back to sleep and the brunt of the nighttime parenting is falling to the mother. It is very normal for a baby to wake multiple times during the night and need to be fed back to sleep when they are young but perhaps your baby is 10 or 12 months and you no longer feel that the night feeds are necessary.

Another example I come across frequently with families I work with is that a child is rocked to sleep and put down in the cot fast asleep and they wake many times needing to be rocked back to sleep. This can be very difficult and again as they older and heavier not sustainable.

There are gentle ways to re frame your child’s expectations about what happens during the night and work on removing a negative sleep association. I help families to choose a sleep training method that is right for their parenting style and child’s needs.