3 Ways to Know You're Making the Right Change for Your Family

My Connected Motherhood Author

Making changes can be hard, but sometimes as parents we hit a point where we know that things are just not working anymore. Maybe it isn’t working for you, or maybe it isn’t working for your child, or maybe it’s both! We know that it can be hard to know if you’re making the right decision for your family when you start to make changes to sleep (or anything as a parent!). How do we know this is the best choice? How do we know we’re leading our family on the right path? How do we know if we are helping them, and not negatively impacting them? 

We fully support parents in making changes when things no longer feel right or have stopped working for your family, and if you’ve been here with us for any length of time you know that we support families to do this without using any cry it out, separation or punishment. Our goal is to help you to feel empowered and confident when making changes. We want you to feel as though you can trust yourself, that you can listen to your instincts, and that you can do all this while staying close and connected to your little one. 

We want to share with you three important things to reflect on to help you to be sure that you are making a change that is best for your family. 

So here they are:

1. The change makes it possible for your needs to be met

Yes, our approach is rooted in attachment, meaning our absolute biggest priority is the relationship you have with your child. Everything we do, every change we make is about meeting your babies’ needs, tuning into them and following their cues. 

So if the focus is on meeting our babies’ needs, why would our first indicator that the change you are making is right for your family that YOUR needs, as a parent are being met. 

The biggest need our children have is having a healthy and happy caregiver that they can depend on. 

If what you are doing is not working for you, physically, mentally, or emotionally, then it is not only okay, but important to make a change. It is also important though, that you are making a change to something that is working for you. 

If nursing back to sleep every time your baby wakes is leaving you feeling resentful for example, then it is time to make a change. First though, reflect on what change would make you happy, would allow you to enjoy supporting your child so that you can do so while confidently taking the lead in the attachment relationship. So if rocking your baby instead is an option, but they are getting to be quite heavy, explore further. Maybe you could work towards just snuggling, or holding their hand for example. 

Making changes to meet your needs as a parent is so essential in making sure that we can continue to show up for our children as we have always envisioned, and as they need us to. 

2. The change means that you are still meeting your child’s needs fully

While we want to make sure that our needs are being met as parents, and that we are making changes that are positive for us, of course we need to be sure we are making changes to meet the needs of our child. When we talk about the needs of our child, we mean all of their needs, including emotional ones. 

We can make changes and still be present and responsive. We can make changes to how we are doing things, while still showing up for them every single time they need us. 

So let’s say again, nursing or feeding to sleep every single wake up is no longer working for you, then it is okay to make a change but there may be a few things to consider. One, their physical needs. If your baby is still quite young, it may not be appropriate to fully wean, so instead you set limits on the number of times you are feeding per night, without stopping completely. But, if we are then to focus on emotional needs, we then need to be sure we are responding in another way when they call for us and we are choosing not to feed to sleep. So again, it would be okay to not feed back to sleep every single time, but then still take the time to meet their needs of connection and proximity. Layer in new associations, find new ways to support them. 

When we make a change, we are not taking away our presence and responsiveness entirely. Instead, we want to shift how we are doing things, while still meeting every single need they have. Remember, comfort is a valid need, but that doesn’t mean nursing or bottle feeding to sleep is the only way to provide comfort. There are many ways we can show up for our children to continue to foster our connection and attachment relationship with them. 

3. The change is intuitive and leaves space for your instincts to guide you 

Finally, it is so important that every time you make a change, there is opportunity to make adjustments as you go. When we make a change, we would typically have a vision of where we want to end up, how we want things to look like once we have gone through the process. While that is important, it is also important that we acknowledge that as we work through change, we may decide we want to do things a bit differently or that our child needs us to do things a bit differently. 

Our instincts are the most powerful parenting tool that we have. If we are making a change that doesn’t allow for instincts to be acknowledged and honoured, that change may not be the best thing for your family.

If we have decided to night wean our one year old because it just is no longer working for us and we have decided that it feels right to fully night wean, we may set out with expectations and a vision of how this change will take place. But perhaps as we make the change we realize that maybe we as the parent are really okay with leaving that last early morning feed. Once we have adjusted some of the night, other things may start to feel okay or enjoyable again. We need to be able to embrace that instinct or desire without guilt or shame. Or perhaps, as we are making a change, we recognize that our child is having a really hard time letting go of the old pattern and is not finding the change easy to adjust to. Meet your child where they are at in this moment. Stop and trust your instincts. Is there a different way to do this? Is it really the right time? Maybe we slow down, or use other strategies to help them adjust to change (we can help with this!).

Every baby is unique, every parent is unique, every family is unique and therefore, each parent-child journey is unique, including how we make changes. There is no one right single way to make any change with our child, sleep or otherwise. This means that strict plans, step by step without any room for flexibility and intuition, are more problematic than helpful.

You know what is best for your family. Trust your instincts to guide you, follow your heart and make changes because they feel right for you AND your child, without feeling the need to answer to anyone else. Change can be hard, but it can also be necessary. We hope this helps you to feel confident in making any changes your family needs to thrive. 

Categories: Advocating, Boundaries, connection, Emotion, Motherhood, Parenting, Sleep Associations, Sleep Support, Sleep Without Sleep Training