Trained Night Crying: What it is and How to Help Your Child

Trained night crying usually starts anywhere between 4-18 months of age. Most people say it starts after the child has already started to sleep through the night. Teething and illness seem to be a precursor to trained night crying. Essentially what trained night crying is, is what it says. Your child has trained themselves to cry at night. This child has also been training you.

Likely it started with genuine pain or discomfort, but what happened is that your child realized that by crying at night, you, the sleep deprived loving parent would get up and tend to him/her. Imagine if you were the tiny baby and had discovered that you have the power to make a big adult do whatever you want simply by crying! Wouldn't you cry all the time?

Children are super smart and when it comes to the art of manipulation, children, especially babies, are experts. They learn quickly what gets you and they use it to get themselves what they want. In this case, likely this child does not know how to put his/ herself back to sleep on his/ her own. This child has become dependant on mom or dad to put them back to sleep.

Trained night crying

Child is over 4 months old.

Child wakes up crying with no known reason.

Wakes at least once a night every night or almost every night.

Goes back to sleep when parent is with them.

Child seems to be fine during the day.

Child is held or rocked to sleep regularly.

How to help your child

Here are a few ideas that should make breaking your child of trained night crying as easy as possible. However no matter what you do to soften this process, it will still be a most difficult experience for your child and everyone in your household.

Reduce daytime naps

The less a child sleeps during the day, the more sleepy they will be at night. This is important and crucial when training a child to put themselves to sleep.

Create a solid bed time routine

Whatever is best for your family is what you should focus on, just make it the same every night. Dinner, bath, lotion, story time, whatever works. Sometimes all a child needs to have a good night of sleep is a steady bedtime routine that they are comfortable with.

Let your child learn how to fall asleep on their own.