Can I sleep train if my baby still feeds at night?

I get this question a lot and my answer is YES. There is a common misconception that sleep training is equivalent to night weaning a baby. Sleeping and eating are two separate events that happen during the night. Sometimes they are linked, but just as often they are not. We can make big improvements in sleep even with a baby that is still waking once or even twice in the night to eat.

Sleep training is simply the act of teaching babies to fall asleep independently. Babies are then able to fall asleep on their own at nap time and at bedtime. When babies learn the skill of going to sleep on their own they can go back back to sleep on their own as well. When they wake in the middle of the night and do not need anything (diaper change, feeding) they will simply go back to sleep. When the baby does wake and cry out we are then able to discern that they must actually need something and then meet those needs be it a diaper change or a feed. Sometimes, when babies are able to fall back asleep on their own, they tend to wake less during the night to eat and often they can night ween organically over time. If this happens, then babies will simply need to consume more calories during the day to make up for less feeds at night.