How can we help baby sleep wihtout sleep training

Why my baby is not sleeping?

How can we
help baby sleep without sleep training?

Once medical or genetic causes are ruled out, most sleep struggles are linked to the environment. Not to the way you parent. Not to the method you’ve chosen to help your baby sleep. None of that.

It’s about the environment—the little things that can quietly get in the way of your baby sleep biology doing what it was naturally designed to do.
(Touchette et al., 2013.)

Before getting yourself into complex strategies or trying all the advice you've read online, I want us a a step back and take a moment to look at that natural and powerful tool we have : your baby’s circadian rhythm.

CIRCADIAN CYCLE MAKES YOUR BABY SLEEP

The circadian rhythm is the body’s internal clock.

It’s the biological system that tells us when we feel awake and when we feel sleepy.

It’s guided by internal cues like body temperature, melatonin, and cortisol. All these signals work together to guide the body toward rest or alertness.

This rhythm exists in every human being babies and adults, everywhere on the planet.
Isn’t it amazing? We are all made to sleep at night, and be active during the day. It’s part of how we’re wired —including your little one.

Up to 4 months to get used to days and nights

It took a whole trimester for your baby to be fully exposed to that cycle of dark and light, outside of the womb, and for the "machinery" to settle in.

Sleep becomes more biologically organized. And you will starts to see sleep follow more predictable patterns.

This is because your baby’s sleep is becoming more and more influenced by its biology (melatonin, temperature, cortisol, etc) — adding up with whatever you've been using in your repertoire, to help them sleep.

Only now, you also have sleep biology stepping in to help, with a natural system ready to support you.

THE 4-MONTH BABY SLEEP REGRESSION

It might feel confusing—how can sleep biology be “helping” sleep while some parents notice changes in their baby’s sleep—waking more often at night, or start struggling to fall asleep.

The truth is, around 4 months, your baby’s sleep becomes lighter and more dynamic. That’s because by now, they’ve recovered a bit from the intensity of their birth and postpartum.

They now have the energy to also express needs that are less critical than hunger or pain for exemple. They couldn't in the past (due to exhaustion) but now they can afford to manifest things like :

sensory discomfort,
physical tension discomfort,
need for reassurance
and many other subtle discomforts

So that’s what we often call the 4-month sleep regression.

But here’s the beautiful part—It is also at the very same time that sleep biology (circadian rhythm) is starting to take the lead.

Your baby’s sleep no longer depends solely on how you help them drift off—now, they’re also beginning to fall asleep with the support of their own sleep hormones—melatonin, temperature, cortisol.

"But... if this rhythm is built in… why isn’t my baby sleeping?"

What Really Gets in the Way of my Baby Sleep?

If your baby is waking more often, it doesn’t mean something is wrong. And it certainly doesn’t mean what you’ve been doing—nursing to sleep, rocking, holding, cuddling—is suddenly a problem. If it’s still working for you both, emotionally and practically, please… keep it.

What your baby needs at this point isn’t a big shake-up. So instead of changing everything, what I suggest is a much simpler and energy saving approach :
Make sure you made Sleep Biology by your side.

(And yes, we’ll talk more about why I don’t worry about “sleep associations.”)

So now that sleep biology is here to help and to support you, the only thing remaining for you to do is ensure "she" has the right conditions to do her job.

I’m talking about:

Being mindful of light exposure in the evening, which can block melatonin.
Keeping an eye on the room temperature at night, because your child is getting more impact by it.
Making sure your baby gets some daylight exposure, to anchors their circadian clock.

And all the other things we are covering in the Sleep Biology Challenge.

—No need for forcing anything, or “train” sleep, only easy adjustments to support what your baby's body is already ready to do.