Hello everyone and welcome to the Your Village podcast, Parenting Beyond Discipline, the place to learn about all things parenting and get your questions answered.

I'm your host, Aaron Royer-Azreland. As I mentioned at the end of the last episode, today's topic is one that I get asked about

at least once a week, but many times it's much more frequently. And that is around sleep

and bedtime issues. I got four separate questions just last week around this topic.

So I knew I needed to get it onto the schedule. Kids need their sleep

and parents need their alone time. So solid bedtimes and night times are important for everyone.

I'll talk about when new parents can expect newborns to sleep through the night and some tips on

setting up for easier success in making the transition to sleeping through the night.

But babies aren't the only ones that parents can struggle with at bedtimes.

Toddlers are famous for repeatedly getting out of bed at bedtime,

and dare I say kids into the elementary school years if the boundaries haven't been set clearly.

So I'll also cover some great bedtime

tips for babies, toddlers, and beyond. This was a big pain point with our first child. He arrived in the

world very alert with no clue how to sleep unless he was snuggled up on your chest, which we allowed him to do all day

long until we were ready to fall over from exhaustion at four months of age, and I was getting

ready to go back to work. Our pediatrician kept assuring us that his sleep would stretch out,

but it didn't. It actually just kept getting worse. When I took him for his

four-month appointment, I literally remember the doctor turning him over and over like he was some

malfunctioning mechanical toy and he was looking for the off button. He said he appears to be very

normal and healthy. I have no idea why he's not sleeping.

This kid was literally sleeping no longer than 40 minutes to an hour each night for his

longest sleep period.

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