Our Review of the Smart Sleep Coach by Pampersᵀᴹ App

Despite the magic of becoming a parent, my husband and I really struggled with the lack of sleep after my daughter was born. Our friends and family constantly gave us advice or sent articles (or the name of their incredibly pricey sleep consultant) and it seemed like nothing was right for our little lady. We can’t blame them for trying to help though, our dark under-eye circles and constant coffee refills made it pretty clear we needed it.

After almost five months of being woken up multiple times a night, our friend recommended we try an app they heard about through Pampers^ᵀᴹ called the Smart Sleep Coach by Pampers™. Pampers knows babies pretty well, and there was a 7-day free trial, so we downloaded the app! Within days her naps became more predictable, and we’ve been having longer stretches of sleep at night.

Here’s an overview of the app and our honest review of the entire experience.

Overview of the Smart Sleep Coach by Pampersᵀᴹ Sleep Coaching App

What is Smart Sleep Coach?

The Smart Sleep Coach by Pampers™ is a subscription-based app you can download from the Apple App store that has helped thousands of parents solve their baby’s sleep problems, whether it be night wakings, difficult naps, early wakeups, or a whole host of other issues. It uses info you tell it about your baby to create a personalized sleep coaching plan just for you and walks you step-by-step through it.

The app also comes with a bunch of tools for parents including a Smart Sleep Schedule that tells you the best time for your baby to go to sleep (gamechanger for us) based on when they last slept, their age, etc. The Knowledge Center in the app is also full of content written by sleep experts (including pediatricians and certified sleep consultants) about sleep regressions, sleep training methods, and other things that keep us parents up at night. You can even message the experts directly with questions!

How Does it Work?

First you take a quick free quiz about your baby’s sleep. It gets pretty detailed about their environment, habits, and routine, and about your struggles. The app then uses all that info to really understand their biological sleep patterns and generate their personalized sleep schedule. How? The app was built by experts in the baby sleep space and uses their knowledge PLUS the latest scientific data to create an entire sleep plan built just for you and your babe. Once you download the app and activate your account, your plan is yours! Sleep training starts immediately, with step one of helping your baby get their “internal clock” in check. When babies are born, they don’t know when they should sleep and be awake (mine was nocturnal)! It takes them a few weeks for their natural sleep rhythm to regulate and the app coaches them (and you) right through it. It does this in many ways, my favorite being the Smart Sleep Schedule. You input when your baby wakes up and goes to sleep, and the schedule adjusts to tell you when their next sleep should be, based on their natural sleep rhythm. The app also sends you daily mini-courses to help coach you on how to teach your baby to sleep, and how to perfect their sleep environment. Each takes minutes and is super eye opening on why sleep is difficult for babies (and parents) for the first few months. (The Smart Sleep Coach team makes a good point, learning to sleep is like learning to walk!)

The last step is putting it all in practice with a sleep training method that’s best for you. And crying it out is NOT the only option. The app walks you through it step-by-step, with their team of sleep consultants available if you have questions, making the whole process less stressful.

How Much Does it Cost?

There are three different subscription options for families in the U.S. available via the Apple App store: monthly, three-month, and annual. Both the three-month and annual plan come with a free 7-day trial that allows you to get the full experience before paying. Once you subscribe, you can cancel your plan at any time if the app isn’t for you. The annual subscription is the best deal by far, the cost comes out to only $10 a month(!) Literal pennies, especially compared to the cost of a sleep consultant and other sleep programs out there.

Who is Your Sleep Coach?

The app was built by Pampers™, who clearly know a thing or two about babies. Your coach is technically the app, with the team of experts available as needed (including a pediatrician who specializes in baby sleep!) The app understands your baby and their biological sleep patterns to a tee. It knows when exactly to put them down for sleep according to their circadian rhythm, and constantly is giving you tips related to their specific sleep issues. Everyone gets free access to the entire app with the 7-day free trial.

Our Review of Smart Sleep Coach

Favorite features

Keeping tabs on their schedule is a breeze. Every day you track your baby’s sleep, and the Smart Sleep Schedule will auto-update to tell you when the best time to put them down for their next sleep will be. (The AI algorithm is to thank here!) It sends you a notification when it's time for sleep, and it’s super easy to track the start and end—you literally press start and stop.

The app constantly adapts to our needs. We never have had to worry about a “messed up nap” because the app auto-adjusts our schedule if she wakes up earlier one day or sleeps longer the next. This was a huge part of how we solved our nap issues—keeping our “wake windows” in check. We put her to bed the second the app tells us to and she falls asleep nearly immediately, without us doing much. A few days after doing this she suddenly started taking longer, more condensed naps instead of a gazillion cat naps. I suddently had solid 1.5-2 hour blocks of time during the day to be productive. It’s been a game-changer for everything from getting work done to household chores to making myself a meal.

Cheapest option we have tried. When you invest in any product it needs to be worth it, and this was our favorite thing about Smart Sleep Coach from the get-go. We felt like we were getting the knowledge of multiple different professionals for a great GREAT price that was way WAY less than other sleep programs or consultants. Knows when we’re entering a sleep regression. If my daughter is fighting sleep, I can quickly check the app to see if I logged the last sleep incorrectly or if it’s maybe too early (or late) to put her down. It also knows if we’re starting a sleep regression (yikes!) which happens around the four month mark (and eight months, and a year….) By having the Smart Sleep Schedule and Knowledge Center at my fingertips I can usually find an answer to a problem, which alleviates the frustration I have when things aren’t going “my way”, and walks me through ways to get her back on track. “Cry it out” isn’t the only option. Smart Sleep Coach doesn’t jump right in to crying it out. It starts by getting your baby’s circadian rhythm on track and teaching you how to teach them to sleep. There are mini-courses that pop up in the app each day that they only take minutes to finish. The info is key to making sense of sleep, and has made it easier for us to follow through with everything the app tells us to do.

If you’ve been tracking your baby’s sleep so the app gets to know their sleep patterns, and they are the right age, the app will walk you through sleep training (based on the method that’s best for you!) Like riding a bike, sleep is a learned skill (who knew?!) Coming at sleep training from this perspective has 100% shifted my take on it. We are using a slow method that gives us step-by-step instructions about what to do, and every night since starting we’ve seen progress. She falls asleep independently, which according to the app, is the first step in successful sleep. Now we’re working on sleep associations, because when she wakes up in the middle of the night she wants food to fall back to sleep. The app has been instrumental in starting to solve this problem.

Improvements

It would be helpful to add caregivers outside Apple Family Sharing. Right now my husband and I are the only ones who track sleeps because we share access to the app as part of Apple Family Sharing at no extra cost. When a grandparent or babysitter puts the baby down for a nap or bed, we have them tell us the times and then add sleeps or wakeups based on what they tell me. (or we look on our monitor). It would be cool if I can give more people access so they could do it themselves.

The app is not built for babies under two. When she gets older, we’d love info to keep sustaining these awesome habits we’re building with the app. I’ve heard of toddlers who loveeee to be up all night and would loveeee to know how to nip that in the bud. Not yet on Android. I recommended the app to a friend recently who couldn’t use it because she has an Android. I’m sure this is in Smart Sleep Coach’s plans, but just something to note.

The Opportunities Are Endless

Our sleep issues (we’ve learned) are incredibly common and easily fixable with a bit of structure and patience. It’s been about one month since we downloaded the Smart Sleep Coach app and we’ve already seen a huge improvement. I can’t wait to see what other things they do to improve their features. For example my almost four year old has been having some sleep regressions, maybe in the future they can help with the big kids’ sleep habits, too.

Get Back the Sleep You Lost

Having Smart Sleep Coach LITERALLY in our pocket (and our nightstands) has been key to getting us back to the humans we were BC (before children). It’s also like a cheerleader, keeping us motivated and positive!

There are many solutions out there, but everyone should try Smart Sleep Coach by Pampers™. There’s basically zero risk, only the reward of sweet sweet sleep!

See for yourself how the Smart Sleep Coach app puts your sleep issues to bed with a free 7-day trial!