Let me reassure you that sleep routines and patterns across the board are a mess. For everyone. And since my expertise is around young children and sleep, I wanted to share a few things with you in the hope that you’ll find one or two of them helpful.

This is a difficult question to answer without getting into some specific details, which is unfortunate, because when parents ask me this, I know they’re looking for a quick, concise, time-based answer. “Three nights from now,” or “Six months old,” are the kind of responses they’re hoping for, and the kind I wish I could give them, but there are a lot of factors to consider, and some things to understand before you can narrow down the timeline. The first thing I feel parents need to understand is this...

If there’s anything that can send your child’s sleep off the rails, if there’s an arch-enemy for sleep training, it is, without a doubt, the dreaded condition of over-tiredness.