Back to Sleep (Part II of Sleep on This)
Our ultimate goal is that our child not only falls asleep, but stays asleep, and since young children will awaken several times in the night, we want them to eventually be able to comfort themselves back to sleep independently.
A child’s ability to return to sleep after waking is essential to a night of restorative sleep for all. Waking at night is a pervasive concern among parents for the obvious reason that parents need sleep to be able to expend the enormous energy it takes to care for a child. It is sometimes difficult for the parent who may feel selfish for wanting a decent night’s rest, to realize that waking in the night is not serving the child well either. When parents commit to helping a child have uninterrupted sleep, the child will come to my parent/infant class a new person with energy and confidence. The child, who has spent weeks sitting with her parent and watching, will suddenly separate from mom or dad and play. Everything can overwhelm us when we are deprived of a good night’s sleep!
When we are ready to help ourselves and our child by breaking a night-waking habit, there are a few ideas to keep in mind.
First, make parental entrances in the night a dull time for the infant: no overhead lights, no talking, no changing the diaper unless absolutely necessary, and a gradual reduction of the amount of formula fed or the amount of time at the breast.
Then, when we are advised that our infant is old enough to no longer need night nourishment, parents must make a unified plan. Complete conviction by both parents will make the changes easier for parents and child. A child senses when a parent is wavering, and thus a parent’s sense of uncertainty is transmitted directly to the child. This incertitude can have the effect of prolonging the transition–and the tears–for the parent and the child!
Next, tell the child a few days beforehand that you will soon not be feeding him in the night, but that you will come to check on him if needed. Remind the child each day about the new, imminent night-time plan and then on the day you will make the change, tell him once again as you put him to bed. By including the baby in the plan and allowing him to anticipate the changes in his routine, the parents are respecting the child and also fortifying their own resolve for the challenge they face.
Finally, if a child wakes up and cries more than a few minutes and the parent needs to check on the baby, then it is usually best to keep activity to the minimum possible. Instead of rushing in to scoop up a crying infant, the first step should be observation. Then, if necessary, a parent might speak to the baby in a calming but confident voice: “I hear you and I want you to go back to sleep.” A child’s complaints in the night do not always mean he is asking for intervention.
A couple from my Parent/Infant Class shared an instructive experience. Having grown weary of their eight-month-old daughter’s night-time cries, they decided to purchase a video monitor to observe their daughter in bed. That night the parents awoke to their daughter’s crying. But when they looked on the monitor they saw that while Emma cried she was also diligently working to find a comfortable sleep position. After a few minutes of tossing and turning, she found comfort and went back to sleep. If the parents had returned to Emma’s room they would have further disrupted her sleep and made it more difficult for their daughter to settle down for the night.
Ultimately, good sleepers are made, not born. Because infants quickly adapt to the patterns we set for them, parents should create healthy sleep habits as early as possible and cultivate a peaceful, fresh-air atmosphere for the whole day. If habits like sleep waking need to be broken, then parents need to find an inclusive and respectful way to help the baby adjust. Finally, parents must remember that a cry is not always a cry for help, but rather a young infant’s only manner of verbal expression. For more about understanding crying, please read my post: Good Grief.
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5 Responses to “Back to Sleep (Part II of Sleep on This)”
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I agree about presenting a unified front, both parents in agreement about how to handle nighttime cries. I would also add that it’s okay to know where you’re weak. In my house, I’m the wuss who would always want to pick up my daughter. My husband was more firm about the sleep thing. So he was the one who went in at night because I knew he wouldn’t cave.
Great post!
I am really loving your blog and these posts. Thank you for sharing so generously!! Sleep can be such a trying topic. In one of my parent/infant classes, it was the topic the parents disagreed about the most! One of the difficulties in “creating good sleepers” is that a new baby must be breastfed throughout the night to guarantee that the mother’s milk supply is adequate. And some working mothers really rely on night-time nursing because the pumping they do during the day is not as efficient as a nursing baby at building the milk supply. I would love to talk about this need to wake up at night with someone such as Elsa who is a trained lactation consultant as well as a student of Magda, because it isn’t congruent with sleeping through the night. I think what you are probably talking about here is a time when the milk supply is well-established and the child is able to take in enough nourishment at one feeding to sustain him or her through the night. I don’t know when that age is or how one would discover when it is. I’m sure it varies. As you said in your earlier post, there are no fast rules.
Thanks Kim!
Yes, helping babies sleep so that we can sleep is sometimes extremely challenging. And since our well-being depends on the baby sleeping, sleep becomes a huge focus, especially for nursing moms. I remember being a little obsessed about getting a few hours of sleep in a row when my first and third children were babies. Usually, by midway through the first year, the baby can be physically capable of sleeping several hours without being fed, and the mother’s milk supply is well-established. But, as with all areas of development ,yes, that varies.
Thanks again for reading the blog!
-Janet
what about mothers who “co-sleep” or “bed-share”…?…..
how do the ideas apply?
i exclusively breastfeed….i put my little one (6 mos) to bed usually between 6 and 8…..he wakes about 2 times to nurse before waking up at 7…..both times i nurse lying down….the first time he wakes i am usually still awake and not in bed….the second time he wakes he usually rolls over….roots and wakes me to nurse…..
Hi Mary,
There are positives to co-sleeping with children, but also downsides. It is generally much more difficult for an older infant or toddler to learn to go back to sleep independently when he has a parent nearby. This situation works well for some families, others have found that providing a separate bed for a child has a dramatic effect on the quality of the child’s (and the parent’s) sleep.
If we want our baby to return to sleep independently, we must “do less” when we he wakes up, and keep in mind that children like to do what they are used to doing. If we decide to change habits and respond to a child differently than we have been, it’s important to be respectful, acknowledge those changes for our child, and allow him to express whatever feelings he has about the change. Not sure if that answers your question but…
I wrote more about this in Babies Breaking Habits, Toddlers Dealing With Change: http://www.janetlansbury.com/2010/06/babies-breaking-habits-toddlers-dealing-with-change-3-steps-to-ease-the-way/