Should you sleep train before or after an overseas holiday?

Overseas holiday

I get asked the question about sleep training, and should a parent do it before or after an overseas trip quite often? Parents worry that all their hard work will be undone by moving timezones. I think you'll be surprised that the opposite is true.

Whenever I've flown long haul to Europe or the USA, I can spot a baby who is not sleep trained vs. one that is. A flight with an unsleeptrained baby, especially one over 4-months-old, is far more challenging. You are unlikely to get sleep yourself if your baby cannot self-settle. It really can make the difference between a great flight and a nightmare one.

baby sleep on plane

I'm giving you 2 case studies and read Daisy's story below.
plane travel with baby

Case study one - Juliette & Calvin 18 months

Calvin, 18 months - was in mum's bed constantly stopped breastfeeding a month ago. Mum tried to move him to a cot herself; he proceeded to vomit every time and had separation anxiety. Mum and dad were taking Calvin to Vietnam the very next day for a 30-day trip to see family and friends. Calvin was going to be sleeping in a travel cot in many different sleep environments - hotels, family homes, etc.

Night one

On night one, we moved Calvin to a cot in Mum's room at the foot of her bed into a sleeping bag and gave him a bedtime routine. We brought bedtime earlier as he had been going down at 9:30 pm. This was way too late, and he was always overtired. Use parental presence method, discussed and demonstrated how to use it.

On night one, he settled within 1hr 20 mins, big tantrum, screaming, throwing head back, back-arching, tried to bite me! Vomited (forced vomit, not a stressed one) over the side of the cot as the last escalation. We cleaned him up and carried on settling. Calvin fell asleep peacefully in his cot, and no cuddles were needed.
Mum slept in the room next to Calvin. I explained how to do this on holiday.

Protest cry

He woke several times in the night, and using the magic rule, he protested. He cried for no more than 1-2 mins. He resettled himself, and then we woke him for the day at 7 am. I advised mum to reduce milk feeds to only one before bed and in a cup. He was having enough dairy and needed an increase in iron in the diet.

Vietnam holiday

Vietnam update

His trip to Vietnam was amazing, and he proceeded to sleep through for 13 hours EVERY SINGLE NIGHT! How amazing is that?! On the plane, all they had to do was put Calvin into his sleeping bag, zip it up and read his bedtime story, and he was out like a light.

plane travel baby

Case study two - Elliot 7 months

Four years ago, I went to help Cassie and her 6-month-old baby Elliot. Mum is a nurse and had been to both sleep schools, Karitane and Tresillian, and Elliot had 'failed' at both. Elliot had been patted, envelope sheeted (a bit like a Safe-T-Sleep where they are pinned down in a cot with 2 sheets wrapped around the baby's body and the mattress). He was also held to sleep. Eeeek.

baby sleep
He was being breastfed 6-7 times a night, gaining weight beautifully and mum was more than 'over it' and utterly exhausted. I did one overnight stay and turned this family's sleeping fortunes around in just one night.

On the night, this is what happened

Self-settled at 6:45 pm, within 45 minutes of putting him down for the night. Minimal crying and 2 short cuddles to help him. He next woke at 11 pm and resettled within 10 minutes, and woke a few times overnight, resettling himself within 3 minutes each time without us needing to go into him. Waking at 4;30 am, he resettled within 10 minutes and woke for the day at 05:50 am and was up for breastfeeding.

baby holiday flying

They went away to Fiji on night 2/3 of sleep training, and clever Elliot learned to do a sleep-through, 7 pm to 6 am on night 5 of sleep training on the family holiday.

baby sleep

Daisy & Charlie 1-year-old

Hi Karen,

I hope you are keeping well. We have just come back from a month's holiday in southeast Asia, and thanks to you and all your help with charlie, he was an absolute dream to travel with. Charlie changed time zones three times, and it really didn't bother his sleeping much at all! I really can't thank you enough.

I have been passing on your details to everyone that will listen!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you for all your help and advice with Charlie so far.

Daisy.

Three very happy mama's <3 <3 <3

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Tags: baby sleep Baby sleep problems fil_Baby Sleep and Settling sleep regression sleep training Sydney baby whisperer toddler sleep Toddler sleep problems toddler sleep training

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Nurture Parenting - knowledgeable, supportive and gentle

Karen was understanding, kind and supportive with clear strategies to help improve our toddlers sleep. She explained what was happening and gave us a plan to follow. This is the second child we have used Karen’s methods with and I would recommend Nurture Parenting to any parents wanting to better understand their babies sleep and gently help them to self soothe and sleep better.

After buying Karen’s newborn program and successfully using it on baby 2, i decided to start even earlier with baby 3. I got a little confused on certain things since she’s preemie but Karen helped me go back to my core and center, listened attentively and answered all my questions. She also went beyond that and shared new ideas with me. It was ace. I might book another in a few weeks if needed. For now baby is doing everything by the book

Advice and videos are so clear and succinct

I just wanted to write and say thank you. We started your program almost three weeks ago, and it has dramatically changed our babies sleep for the better. Toby (10 months) went from waking 6+ times each night. We fumbled during each wake, as we offered dummies, bottles, whatever we thought would stop the crying for a moment. The only thing that we achieved, was waking him up even more and frustrating the **** out of him!

The first night of magic presence took 40 minutes, and now he is down within minutes once he is placed in the cot. We have had a few sleep throughs as well.

Your advice and videos are so clear and succinct. We found them so easy to follow. To compare, we looked back on a sleep consultant plan that we paid $300+ for with our firstborn and were stunned at how complicated and convoluted the plan was. No wonder it didn't work!!

I was so nervous about going back to work being so sleep deprived, and I was also concerned about how Toby would cope with the transition to day care. However, I now feel a lot more confident (and well rested!).

All the best and thank you again.

Christina

I'd pay 10 X what I did for this sleep program

never wanted to sleep train, I didn’t think I could personally tolerate listening to my baby cry endlessly. It surprised me how quickly my 7mo picked this up. Night one we removed the dummy and overnight feed cold turkey. We’re on night 11 and bub has been sleeping through almost every night since night 2 (we’re still battling early wakings every now and then). Day naps have also improved remarkably! I’ve also got one of the mums in my mother’s group onto this who is having huge success with her 8mo boy who she fed to sleep previously!

As my title says, I would pay 10x the amount for this program knowing how well it worked! Listening to the crying whilst in the room with bub was hard, but I know my presence was reassurance for her and it is the only reason I went with the program!!

Thanks so much Karen for this program, it’s working beautifully for us and I know it’s setting us up for long term success! I will recommend to anyone who will listen 😂

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