As soon as you Google “baby sleep” and read through the first few results, you’ll find a few keywords constantly being repeated: Self-settling, swaddling, awake times etc. As though if you gather those magic ingredients, your baby will miraculously sleep well. But we all know that’s not the case. Babies keep changing, and today’s sleep might differ from tomorrow’s.
Most of these sites fail to provide real answers to the questions buzzing in our tired mummy brains when problems arise. When baby refuses to sleep at 2am, what do I do? When baby used to be able to self-settle, but suddenly stops doing so, what is happening? Why is my baby who is sleeping through suddenly waking up a few times overnight?
Where most baby sleep sites fail, the following ones succeed.
Baby Sleep Site
The Baby Sleep Site was founded by a board member of the International Association of Child Sleep Consultants (IACSC).
The IACSC strives to ensure its sleep consultants have an adequate background to be a professional sleep consultant. It also provides continuing education to its members in areas which influence sleep practices such as child psychology, nutrition, child development, and many others as it pertains to sleep.
As such, the Baby Sleep Site is unique in its approach to baby sleep, often assessing it as part of a bigger picture, taking into account other possible factors like behavioural issues, nutrition, and psychology.
Its founder, Nicole Johnson, last year featured on Kids On The Coast (Australia), talking about 10 reasons your baby wakes at night.
Best Site Features:
1) Free sleep e-books -They provide an amazing range of free e-books covering topics like:
› 15 Baby Sleep Facts New Parents Need to Know
› 5 Ways To Help Your Children Sleep Through The Night
› Baby & Toddler Nap Guide
2) Sample Baby Feed & Sleeping Schedules – Their schedule samples are tailored for newborn, and each age by months from 3 months old. It goes right up to toddlerhood. You can also customise your own schedule based on your own baby’s wake and sleep time.
Little Ones
Every baby is different, and even the same baby can be different tomorrow. Little Ones totally gets it. They know that baby sleep is easier said than done, and there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. Their free resources are all based on real life mums who reached out to them for help, so you highly likely to find something that applies to your situation too.
Best Site Features:
- Case Studies – Although the case studies don’t go into the exact details of the sleep solution they provided to each mum, they are enough to give you some idea of what you can try to improve your baby’s sleep.
- Sleep Articles – These articles help mums actually understand baby sleep at its core, for real, not just the usual stuff like awake times and self-settling.
- Q&A videos – Every week they make a video of themselves answering one question and post them on their Facebook and website. It’s like getting free consultations!
See my full review of the Littles Ones Sleep Programs, and comparing it to other sleep solutions.
My Baby Sleep Guide
This was the site I was basically leeching onto when I had my firstborn. It has so much content that the author needed to put up a User Guide page so first-time visitors know where and how to find the information they need. The craziest thing of all? The entire site content is researched and put together by ONE mum!
Best Site Features:
- Absolutely 100% FREE – It’s hard to believe, but the author (Rachel) doesn’t try to sell you a single thing. No ebooks, no programs, no consultations, no Google ads.
- Sleep Training Index – This massive collection of help articles cover everything from CIO to No Cry methods, Babywise to Gina Ford. Rachel covers almost every sleep training book, author, and method out there.
- Baby Sleep Help Index – If the above isn’t already enough to overwhelm you, this one will make your head swim. It covers absolutely everything, like sleep schedules, breastfeeding, postpartum depression, twins, child development, just to name a few!
- Common Sleep Questions – Great place to start if you have a clear question, chances are you’re not the only one with the same question and the answer can be found here.
- Search function – Because it has so much information, the quickest way to find what you need is probably to use the search box in the right hand side bar on the website.
Baby Sleep Advice
I was hesistant to put this on the list because as a professional sleep consultant, the author of this site, Heidi, primarily sells her 1-on-1 consultation service as well as ebooks. I myself purchased a few of her ebooks (which are very reasonably priced), but recently found out a free feature of her site that I hadn’t noticed before. This is the main reason I decided to include the site on this list.
Best Site Feature:
- Sleep Answer Finder (Symptom Checker) – This is like a troubleshooting guide for your baby sleep problems, it covers the most common issues and provides practical tips and advice for each problem.
As always, I hope you’ve found this list useful and you’ll be able to find the answers you’re looking for. If you have any feedback, please do leave a comment in the section down below!
