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Dr. William & Martha Sears M.D.
Authors of 30+ pediatric books, articles in parenting magazines, and appearances on television programs such as 20/20, Donahue, Good Morning America, Oprah, CBS This Morning, CNN, NBC's Today Show and Dateline.
Sleep is not a state you can force your baby into. Sleep must naturally overtake your baby. Your nighttime parenting role is to set the conditions that make sleep attractive and to present cues that suggest to baby that sleep is expected. Best you can do is to create a secure environment that allows sleep to overtake your baby. A realistic long- term goal is to help your baby develop a healthy attitude about sleep: that sleep is a pleasant state to enter and a secure state to remain in.
Get Baby Used to a Variety of Sleep Associations
The way an infant goes to sleep at night is the same way she expects to go back to sleep when she awakens. So, if your infant is always rocked or nursed to sleep, she will expect to be rocked or nursed back to sleep. Sometimes nurse her off to sleep, sometimes rock her off to sleep, sometimes sing her off to sleep, and sometimes use tape recordings; and switch off with your spouse on putting her to bed.
There are two schools of thought on the best way to put babies to sleep: the parent-soothing method and the self-soothing method. Both have advantages and possible disadvantages.
1: Parent-Soothing Method
When baby is ready to sleep, a parent or other caregiver helps baby make a comfortable transition from being awake to falling asleep, usually by nursing, rocking, singing, or whatever comforting techniques work.
Advantages:
- Baby learns a healthy sleep attitude - that sleep is a pleasant state to enter and a secure state to remain in.
- Creates fond memories about being parented to sleep.
- Builds parent-infant trust
So-called "Disadvantages": Because of the concept of sleep associations, baby learns to rely on an outside prop to get to sleep, so-as the theory goes-when baby awakens he will expect help to get back to sleep. This may exhaust the parents.
2: Self-Soothing Method
Baby is put down awake and goes to sleep by himself. Parents offer intermittent comforting, but are not there when baby drifts off to sleep.
So-called "Advantages": If baby learns to go to sleep by himself, he may be better able to put himself back to sleep without parental help, because he doesn't associate going to sleep with parents comforting. May be tough on baby, but eventually less exhausting for parents.
Disadvantages:
- Involves a few nights of let-baby-cry-it-out
- Risks baby losing trust
- Seldom works for high-need babies with persistent personalities
- Overlooks medical reasons for night waking
- Risks parents becoming less sensitive to baby's cries
Remember, in working out your own parenting-to-sleep techniques and rituals, be sensitive to the nighttime needs of your individual baby and remember your ultimate goal: to create a healthy sleep attitude in your baby and to get all family members a restful night's sleep.
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