Sleep guides · Working with a consultant
What I look for ina baby sleep assessment.
A baby waking every two hours. Naps that never seem to last. A toddler who suddenly refuses bedtime. These are the problems that bring parents looking for a pediatric sleep consultant — but two families can describe similar nights and be dealing with very different circumstances.
That's why I start by asking questions before recommending changes. What happened before bedtime? How did your child fall asleep? What happens when they wake? And what have you already tried? I want to understand the whole picture, not just the hardest part of the night.
Why the questions come first
Most sleep advice starts with the problem and jumps to a fix. In my experience that's backwards. 'Waking every two hours' can be hunger in one house, a nap schedule in another, and a fall-asleep pattern in a third — and the right response is different in each.
So before we talk about changing anything, I want to know how sleep actually works in your home. Not the version the books describe — the 7:40 p.m. real one.
How your child falls asleep
This is one of the most informative things I learn — though never the whole story on its own. Babies and toddlers, like adults, surface between sleep cycles all night — and they check whether the world matches the one they fell asleep in. Rocked, fed, or held to sleep at bedtime often means expecting the same at 1 a.m.
None of that is a mistake. Feeding to sleep is not a failure, and contact is not a problem to be ashamed of. It's simply information — one important consideration that sits alongside naps, the daily rhythm, your child's developmental stage, and what you've already tried. Each one reshapes what the others mean.
The shape of the nights
When the wakings happen matters as much as how many there are. A waking forty-five minutes after bedtime is a different story than a 2 a.m. stretch, and a 5 a.m. wake-up is its own puzzle entirely — the lightest sleep of the night, the hardest to fix with the same tool as the others.
I also listen for what the waking looks like: settles with a hand on the chest, needs full rocking, wide awake and chatty, or upset in a way that feels different. Each detail narrows the picture.
Naps and the rhythm of the day
Days and nights are one system. A nap that runs too late pushes real sleepiness past bedtime; a dropped nap that came too early produces the wired, overtired evening; short naps all day can mean a baby arrives at night running on empty.
So I always ask about the daytime before I touch the nighttime. Very often the night's answer starts at 2 p.m.
The developmental moment
What's normal at six weeks would be a red flag at sixteen months, and what works for a newborn isn't right for a toddler. A four-month-old waking twice to feed is often just being four months old. A two-year-old's sudden bedtime refusal is usually autonomy, not regression.
Age-appropriate expectations are the quiet foundation of everything I recommend — including the recommendation to wait, watch, and change nothing yet, when that's the honest answer.
What you've already tried
By the time parents reach me, most have tried a lot — schedules, earlier bedtimes, later bedtimes, white noise, darker rooms, advice from three different corners of the internet. What you've tried tells me two things: what doesn't fit your child, and what you're comfortable with.
Your comfort matters more than any method. A plan you can't carry out at 3 a.m. isn't a plan.
What this means for your family
If you've read the generic schedules and wondered why none of them quite fit — it's because they're written for an average child who doesn't exist. Your child's sleep makes sense once the whole picture is on the table: the routine, the nights, the days, the age, and the history.
Understanding that picture is exactly what the free sleep assessment is for. It's a conversation, not a commitment — a chance to explore your concerns together and see what possible next steps could look like for your family.
A few things parents ask me
What actually happens in a free sleep assessment?
A relaxed conversation about your child's sleep — what's happening, what you've tried, and what you're hoping for. I'll share what I'm hearing and what I'd want to understand better, and we'll explore possible next steps. If working together makes sense, I'll explain how.
Do I need to track sleep or prepare anything beforehand?
Nothing formal. It helps to have thought about two things before we talk: what's feeling hardest right now, and what you've already tried. Beyond that, just bring the honest picture of your nights — tired brains are allowed.
Is the free assessment a sales call in disguise?
No. Every family's sleep situation is different, and whether I can genuinely help depends on understanding your circumstances first. The assessment is how we figure that out together — how I learn whether I'm the right help, and how you decide whether you want it.
When is it a pediatrician question instead of a sleep one?
Anything that smells medical goes to your pediatrician first — discomfort that seems physical, feeding concerns, breathing sounds, reflux that isn't managed. Sleep consulting works alongside medical care, never instead of it.
Tell me what happened last night.
You don’t need to have any of this figured out before we talk. I’ll ask some questions, we’ll look at what you’ve already tried, and I’ll tell you what I notice. Then you decide.