Many parents wonder when will their child sleep through the night? Unfortunately, parents have high expectations of their babies and children, especially when it comes to sleep. Add in the competition most parents have with each other and it is not surprising that some parents feel lost about what the reality of a child’s sleep is supposed to be. If your baby stirs early, then go to them straight away. You want the child to go back to sleep as soon as possible and not become upset or cry uncontrollably.
The reason? Parents will search for which the best sleep training methods are. In the next paragraphs, we will go through different techniques, like strict and gentle sleep training techniques, and the pros and cons of these training techniques
Many professionals believe that putting a baby into a strict feeding and sleeping schedule from the start will help a baby to sleep through the night quicker. By a strict routine, we mean a set wakeup time, a good feeding and sleeping schedule throughout the day and a set bedtime at night. It is strict because there is no room for adjustment or reworking and it should be followed to the book every day.
Gina Ford is a best-selling author of many books including ‘The Contented Little Baby Book’ and ‘The Complete Sleep Guide’ as well as being a maternity nurse. Gina believes that prevention is better than cure and so adopting her strict routine from day one should not allow for any bad sleeping habits to creep in or need to be solved.
When it comes to solving a sleep problem in a baby, Gina will undertake the following ideas:
Crying down is the term used when an overtired baby is winding down to sleep. A crying down technique can help when a child’s hunger issues have been resolved and they only have mild sleep association problems, or if they are overtired/stimulated.
Parents may find this technique difficult as listening to your own baby cry may make them change the course of action. They may end up going into the room to pick the child up and may resort to rocking or feeding their baby to sleep, resorting to negative sleep associations.
Allowing the baby to go to sleep unassisted is the aim of this. Provided all the baby’s needs have been met, a baby should learn how to settle themselves within a few nights. Although some can take longer, but the time it takes should progress.
You can start to teach a baby to self settle from newborn, but most will need the help of a feed, dummy or rocking to help them settle off to sleep.
Once the fourth trimester is over and the baby has adapted to its new world, around the age of 3 months you can really push this idea to teach them to drift off to sleep by themselves without the help of the mother or the father. The aim here is to make the child feel comfortable and secure in their own surroundings.
“The "controlled crying" method refers to any sleep training approach that says it's OK to let a baby cry for a specified period of time (often a very short period) before offering comfort.
Controlled crying should be one of the last techniques to try with a child with sleep problems. There are pros and cons to this technique and you should always check the baby’s health first. It is always suggested that the child see a GP first to confirm they are in full health and there are no underlying problems that would contribute to poor or disruptive sleep.
The ‘cry it out’ method differs from controlled crying by literally just leaving a child to cry until they fall asleep. A lot of people do not like this form of sleep training and it can often be confused with the above technique.
Dr Weissbluth, author of “Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child” strongly urges parents to put baby to sleep early (as early as 5 p.m., if necessary) and also strongly suggests that using the cry it out technique, or “extinction” as he calls it, which means not going in at all to the child, yields the fastest results and is least confusing to baby.
All strict sleep training techniques have been proven to work, but always consider the families’ wishes, end goal and the needs, situation and age of the child before putting any of these into action.
It is important to understand that not all parents want a quick fix and some would prefer to know gentle techniques where they feel there is more of an equal balance rather than a bedtime battle with winners and losers. It is important to ask a parent about their long-term parenting goals and get them to discuss what they are hoping to achieve.
There are a number of professionals out there who believe in a no-cry, gentle approach to sleep training. A lot of parents will also choose this method over the strict techniques already discussed and will go hand in hand with a lot of ‘attachment parenting’ theories like that of ‘William Sears’ (author of The Baby Sleep Book)
Bedtime is a time to connect with a child in a calm, safe and secure environment. This will mean that a parents will want to keep this time quiet of tears and will want to respond to the baby’s cues and needs.
Tracey Hogg is the pioneer for the E.A.S.Y routine. This is a simple, gentle and flexible routine that parents can adapt to their babies following the structure of:
E = Eat (feeding)
A = Activity (tummy time, bath time, play time etc)
S = Sleep (daytime naps and nighttime sleep)
Y = You time (time for mum to herself)
This schedule tends to work on a 3 hourly basis but is usually led by the baby, following their cues of being tired, hungry or overstimulated.
Tracey is the ‘in between’ theorist who will take techniques from both the strict ideas and gentle ideas to help a child to settle and sleep better. She prefers to follow a baby’s lead and will always put the needs of the baby first.
If parents’ wishes are more on the gentle side, but they do require some input from a trainer to help them through situations, then this is when you can employ gentle techniques like those advised by Sarah Ockwell-Smith, author of The Gentle Sleep Guide.
Sarah introduces parents to a routine called BEDTIME. Each letter stands for a different topic to address. With her techniques, she makes sure that parents are consistent with each step and that they allow 6 weeks for the BEDTIME routine to work.
Dr Harvey Karp, author of The Happiest Baby on the Block, suggests using the 5 ‘S’s’ in the first 3 months (fourth trimester) to help soothe a baby.
Whichever technique you choose to help settle a child, structure a routine, or sleep train, always work with the parents, teach them as you go and make sure that all the child’s basic needs have been met.
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