The Sleep Lady

Magazine Article:
Baby Steps Maryland Family Magazine
Written by Karen Nitkin
Spring/Summer 2005

"Sweet Dreams: The Sleep Lady shares how babies and parents can get a good night’s rest"

New mom Kristin Miller had heard all the horror stories about crying babies and sleep deprivation. She thought she was lucky with Sarah until, at 10 months old, the little girl began waking up in the middle of the night.

Miller, who lives in Monkton, would nurse her daughter back to sleep, but the next night, Sarah would wake up even earlier. She didn’t have the heart to let Sarah cry in her crib, but after several weeks of exhaustion, she needed to do something.

Enter Kim West, also known as the Sleep Lady.

West, a clinical social worker, has devoted her Annapolis practice entirely to the frustrating questions of how to get babies and children to sleep. She has clients around the world, and in January, she and writer Joanne Kenen published a book on the topic, Good Night, Sleep Tight (CDS Books, $22.95). Her book and method are receiving positive reviews, and West appeared on the Today show Feb. 7. West believes that babies need to learn to put themselves to sleep, and that parents can help them learn – gently. Her approach is more sensitive than the “cry-it-out” technique that has made Dr. Richard Ferber, probably the best known sleep advisor, such a controversial figure.

West’s technique centers around what she calls the “Sleep Lady Shuffle.”

When a child wakes in the night, a parent sits outside the crib but doesn’t pick her up unless she’s really upset. Occasional caresses are OK. The idea is to show the child that she’s not abandoned, while teaching her to fall asleep on her own. Every few days, the parent moves the chair farther from the crib toward the door, until the parent is finally out of the room.

It certainly worked for Sarah. “I only moved the chair once,” Miller said. “I spent two nights next to the crib, one or two nights a little closer to the doorway and that was it… It took us, probably, four nights, if that, to get it to work.”

Of course, it was tough in the beginning.

“The first night was very difficult because you’re sitting next to the crib, you’re not responding to them really,” she said. “With her crying, but me sitting there, I could see that she was OK, and I knew she could see I wasn’t abandoning her. It was difficult, but it didn’t drive me to tears, whereas Ferber did.”

West, who has two kids of her own, ages 7 and 10, has fine-tuned her method over time, having met with more than 1,000 clients, but has not changed the fundamentals.
“It comes out of my own heart as a mother,” she said.

West tailors her solutions to each family, adjusting as the program progresses. For example, a night light that is perfect for one child might be too stimulating for another.
“I think most of the families I work with are smart, well-read and love their kids,” she said. “Many of them know that what they’re doing isn’t working but they don’t know how to change it and being sleep-deprived doesn’t help in terms of thinking creatively.”

West, whose fee is $125 an hour, meets with clients either in person or over the phone (and, increasingly, online), and learns everything she can about the baby’s routines and the sleep goals of the parents. Is the baby nursed or rocked to sleep each night? Does she sleep in the same bed as her parents? Does she have a “lovey” such as a blanket or doll?

She then suggests a course of action and follows up with frequent phone calls. The entire process takes three weeks or less.

“I don’t think there’s any room, nor should there be any room, for judgment,” she said.
Want to breastfeed? That’s fine, she says, as long as you don’t nurse your child to sleep. Family beds are OK, too, as long as you let your child fall asleep on her own, without growing dependent on an adult lying down next to her. She also notes that the decision to sleep in a family bed is “a longer-term decision than some people realize.” Once a child gets used to sharing a bed with mommy and daddy, it can be hard to move her into her own room.

The important thing is teaching children how to fall asleep on their own.

Miller said once she used West’s methods on Sarah, she was more prepared when her second child, Molly, came along. “I didn’t bottle-feed her to bed, didn’t rock her to bed,” she said.

“Kim taught us about getting them ready for bed with little rituals,” she continued. “Every night we have a bath, we read stories and then its bedtime.” And both girls sleep through the night.

Mary Wright, who lives in Ellicott City, thought she had a wonderful sleeper in her daughter Zoe. But starting when she was 13 months old, “I’d start putting her down for naps, and she’d start screaming bloody murder.”

Wright got in the habit of rubbing her back, and the five minutes of soothing quickly progressed to an hour in the middle of the night. Clearly, this would not do.

Wright scheduled a phone consultation with West. First, she filled out an extensive questionnaire, then she and her husband spoke with West by phone for about two hours. West said Zoe needed to learn how to put herself to sleep, and recommended “the Shuffle.”

At first it was tough. “I was in there and she got stimulated,” Wright said. “I’d walk out. I couldn’t sit there spending all this time trying to get to sleep and she’d be playing. Then she’d cry and I’d walk in, which I wasn’t supposed to do.”

But West’s phone calls were encouraging, and within a few days the program was working. Now, Zoe takes two naps a day and goes to sleep between 7 and 7:30 each night. “It allows my husband and me to have time together,” Wright said. “It has absolutely worked for us.”

To learn more about Kim West and the Sleep Lady Shuffle, visit her web site at www.sleeplady.com.

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