A new approach to crying
In our culture, we're often taught to either ignore babies and children when they cry, distract them from crying or suppress their feelings altogether. When we have a new baby, we aren’t taught how to differentiate between a hunger cry and crying as a release of pent-up stress, tension, emotions, and trauma.
Inadvertently, we end up doing things that suppress their feelings—maybe by feeding them when they're not hungry, rocking or bouncing them, showing them a new toy, and other well-intentioned actions.
When this happens consistently, babies start to learn how to suppress their feelings on their own. They come to believe that when they experience uncomfortable emotions, they need to eat, move, or use a dummy.
As these unprocessed emotions and stress accumulate within their bodies, it can lead to a nervous system that’s constantly in a state of hyperarousal (fight or flight) or hypoarousal (freeze), preventing them from returning to a balanced state.
A nervous system out of balance remains jittery and on high alert, perceiving threats at every turn. This often leads to frequent night-wakings—sometimes after every sleep cycle—as their body seeks to release the stored tension.
If you're exhausted from ninja-ing your way out of your baby or child's bedroom, only to have them wake moments later, and you're not willing to let them cry on their own, the Aware Parenting approach might be for you.
This is why it’s known as the "third way" with sleep. It’s a biological and trauma-informed approach where we’re not "training" babies to sleep or self-settle, nor are we "waiting it out".
This understanding has quite literally saved me from the depths of severe sleep deprivation.
If you’re ready to dive deeper into this approach and learn how to support your child’s emotional and physical well-being, I invite you to join my upcoming Empowered Parenting Immersion Course. This self-paced course includes 8 hours of video content plus 1:1 sessions with me to help you implement these strategies in your daily life.