Posts tagged ‘self-soothing’

Apr 3

6 Little Secrets of a Sleeping Baby

So, here we are, six posts and two months after my declaration that I would get to the bottom of this little issue of infant sleep. It shouldn’t have surprised me that it has taken me this long to begin to understand this topic. After all, it is a field with decades of research and thousands of published papers. If I was only interested in finding support for one side of the issue, I could have dug up a few papers in an hour or two and whipped something out, but I needed a more complete understanding – for myself, if for nobody else. My experience was quite beautifully summed up by a reader’s comment on my last post:

“…wide reviews of research (rather than simply focusing on the work of one or even a few researchers or studies) tend to show that dogmatism on many parenting issues is rarely justified.” ~Becky

I couldn’t have said it better myself. My conclusion: do what works for your family.

I want to wrap up this project by sharing some of the major lessons on infant sleep that I learned along the way, both from the science and in reflecting on my own experiences.

These first 3 are things we can do from the very start:

1. Know that crying is normal. It is how we respond that matters.

When I was pregnant with BabyC, I knew that for the first few months of her life, she would wake often during the night, but I envisioned sweet nights with her – a dim light, a comfortable rocking chair, nursing her until she faded back to sleep. And in my imagination, these scenes of maternal bliss were always quiet. So I was not prepared for the nights during those early weeks when BabyC would wake at 2 AM and I would do everything I knew to do – nurse her, burp her, change her, hold her, rock her, try nursing again – and she would only cry. There were nights when she would wail, eyes squeezed shut, for hours, while I tried everything to soothe her. Looking back, I realize that in my mind, I believed that my success as a mother was tied to my ability to stop my baby’s cries, as quickly as possible. If she cried, I felt that I was failing. Read more

Mar 9

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Infant Sleep Research: Bedsharing, Self-Soothing, and Sleep Training

This is the fifth post in my sleep series. In my last post, I discussed how my view of infant sleep has evolved to be more inclusive of a wide range of solutions that can work in different families. In this post, I look at what the research tells us about infant sleep across the spectrum of nighttime parenting philosophies.

[Please note: It is beyond the scope of this article to discuss the bedsharing/crib/SIDS/suffocation debate, but suffice it to say that parents should pay careful attention to making baby’s sleep environment safe, whether the baby bedshares or sleeps in a crib.]

Bedsharing Infant Sleep

Let’s say that you choose to bedshare. You feel that the best place for your baby is right by your side, in your own bed. (I use the term “bedsharing,” because the more commonly used “cosleeping” can also mean sharing a room but sleeping on separate surfaces.) Many parents choose to bedshare because it just feels right, even if they had carefully prepared a crib before the baby’s arrival. BabyC slept in my bed for a couple of weeks early in her life, though it was not my plan and ultimately ended up not being the choice that Husband and I made. Still, in those weeks, I felt a real shift in my bond with BabyC. It certainly made breastfeeding during the night easier, and it was sweet to wake up and watch her sleeping next to me. I understand the choice to bedshare, and I think that for many families, it can have numerous benefits. These benefits are not well-defined by research, however. For example, I have yet to find study that investigates if bedsharing actually increases infant attachment. Read more

Feb 23

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The Importance of Self-Soothing to Infant Sleep (and how to support it!)

This is the third post in my series on sleep. I have written about my family’s experience with sleep training and why sleep deprivation is a problem for both babies and their mothers. I admit that I’m feeling a little buried in sleep research. Part of me wants to be done with it, and part of me wants to do a second postdoc in infant sleep! I set out to write this post on sleep training methods and their benefits (risks to come), but I got side-tracked on the topic of self-soothing. Since self-soothing is the goal of sleep training, I figured it was worth taking some time to explore. So that’s this post, and my next post will delve into the research on specific sleep training methods.

When I was five months pregnant with BabyC, I babysat for Little J, a friend’s one-year-old. His mom left me written directions for Little J’s bedtime routine: a cup of milk, brush teeth, diaper change and pajamas, a few books, then lay him in his crib. Hand him his Pup-Pup, wind up a little music box, say goodnight, turn off the light, and shut the door. I was used to rocking babies or rubbing their backs until they were in a deep sleep, and then stealthily tiptoeing from the room. I was nervous about Little J’s bedtime routine, particularly since it was his first time with a baby-sitter besides his grandmother.

From start to finish, Little J’s bedtime routine took all of 10 minutes. He smiled at me when I handed him his Pup-Pup, and I said goodnight. From the living room, I watched him on the video baby monitor as he chatted with Pup-Pup for a few minutes. He rolled around the crib as if looking for a comfortable sleeping position and then fell asleep. I was in awe of this kid. Little J seemed so confident and at ease in his bed. He welcomed sleep, and he knew how to get there without my help.

When Little J’s mom got home that night, I told her that I had never seen a baby transition to sleep so independently and so easily. “You are so lucky!” I said.

She smiled. “No, not lucky. That took some work, but it sure was worth it.”

Little J was my first introduction to self-soothing. Although I knew little about it, I hoped that the baby kicking away in my belly might one day be able to sleep like that. Read more