A 5-month-old baby wakes up at night to feed and has difficulty sleeping alone during the day. You are told to get him used to sleeping alone, but it’s not always easy. The baby’s brain is still developing, so he wakes up often at night. This is normal.

I am offering you this interview with Dr. Pamela Douglas, author of the book The Little Discontented Baby Book and the NDC Possums sleep-support program for families. She is the one who trained me on this topic.

Sleep is a topic that comes up very frequently in breastfeeding support meetings and lactation consultations, with questions about how to put the baby to sleep without the breast, about multiple awakenings, and anxiety about the lack of sleep, for both the mother and the baby.