"They sleep through the night at 6 weeks old." The French parenting hack going viral on TikTok.

The French are known for great architecture, wonderful food, and the best croissants you'll ever eat.

But in recent years, parents have begun to familiarise themselves with a form of sleep training that the French have gotten down to an art.

And its sudden popularity is all thanks to TikTok. 

Check out the French parenting method that's gone viral on TikTok. Post continues after video.

TikTok user ashketchum910 alerted the masses to the 'Le Pause' sleeping hack in a clip that now sits at 2.3 million views. 

In the video, he explained how babies are loud sleepers and do not need to be comforted the second their parents hear them make noise. It's something French parents observed and ingrained into their parenting techniques - all without realising it.

"The interesting thing here is none of the French parents were able to really pinpoint why their children were such good sleepers and why they sleep during the night at six weeks old," he explained.

"It's basically this behaviour that during the day or during the night when your child cries, you don't instantly rush to their side and pick them up and comfort them," he said. 

"You can take a few beats, let them console themselves, and then they get used to it and put themselves to sleep."

The concept was given its name by Pamela Druckerman, who explained all the tangible differences in the ways French and American parents raised and interacted with their children in her 2012 parenting book Bringing Up Bébé 

In her book, Druckerman touched on everything - bedtimes, parental boundaries, careers, child care, cultural norms, meal behaviours, and sleep. 

One thing that stood out to Druckerman was the fact French babies slept really well. She discovered it had to do with how the French were hard-wired, as when they were asked how they managed to get their newborns down for bed, they didn't have an answer.

 Image: Booktopia.

Thus the term 'Le Pause' was born. 

Kristy Griffiths, a certified child and infant sleep trainer and founder of The Sleep Teacher, told Mamamia she's not surprised at just how much attention the sleeping method has received in recent months.

"It absolutely does work, but it isn’t rocket science. It’s fairly simple," she explained.

"Often babies are very noisy when sleeping, especially in active phases of sleep, so if we just rush into them at every single noise we could potentially disrupt them from this sleep and wake them completely," she said. 

"By pausing for those few short minutes just to see if they are awake or not you are also giving your little one the chance to be able to learn to settle and resettle independently."

Getting newborns to sleep is an exhausting process, but Griffiths says comforting your baby as soon as they make a noise can actually have a worse impact. 

"More often than not when a baby does make a noise when sleeping, they are usually still actually asleep," she explained. 

"They are just transitioning between a light and deep phase of sleep. Especially in the early days when a baby is learning to consolidate sleep cycles, they can be very noisy and restless."

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Griffiths went on to say that rushing in whenever we hear a noise from our baby is not giving them the space to learn how to settle on their own. 

"This is where parents can find their little one starts to rely on a sleep association such as feeding or rocking to fall back asleep every two hours overnight," she said. "But by just pausing for a minute or two, you can often watch the magic of a resettle happen as opposed to rushing in and stimulating your little one and waking them completely."

Of course, there are many effective ways to get babies to sleep, and one Griffiths recommends is lying foundations early. 

"Your little one won’t have formed any associations yet and often will have the ability to settle themselves (just as they have in the womb) with the right foundations in place," she explained. 

"Sure, they will still need some assistance from you, but by making sure we have kept an eye on environmental factors such as sleep environment, swaddling, and awake windows in combination with 'Le Pause', you will often find your little one starts sleeping fairly well early on.

"This can also mean there may be no need for any sleep training as they get older."

Griffiths knows just as well as anyone how difficult it is to get a newborn to sleep, but her advice for first-time parents is to "surrender".

"Understand it’s normal for your newborn to have fussy periods, to cluster feed, to not have a consistent routine. This is a normal phase in the fourth trimester and it won’t last forever," she shared. 

"You will see more consistency and sleep will come, but for now, don’t go putting pressure on yourself or your baby to be doing anything that doesn’t feel right for you, because what works for one family doesn’t work for all."

Feature Image: Getty.