Teaching Baby to Sleep Through the Night
Psychology Today, April, 1989 by Susan Chollar
Many soon-to-be parents envision themselves struggling through sleep-starved days long after their baby arrives. Often, that's exactly what happens to new parents.
But sleep deprivation is not an inevitable fact of parenthood, according to psychologist Amy Wolfson. As early as six weeks after birth, many healthy babies are physically ready to sleep through the night. Whether they do, Wolfson contends, is up to the parents.
That idea, suggested in Helping Your Child Sleep Through the Night by Joanne Cuthbertson and Susie Schevill, intrigued Wolfson, now a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University. With psychologist Patricia Lacks of Washington University in St. Louis, she set out to test the notion that parents can control their baby's sleep schedule.
Wolfson worked with 60 first-time parents. She trained half the group in simple sleep-inducing techniques (see below). When the babies were between six and nine weeks of age, the sleep-trained infants slept longer, woke up less frequently and had to be fed less often. The stable sleep patterns continued even when the babies reached four to five months of age.
Training babies to sleep longer does not require special gadgets or sophisticated psychological tools. Instead, Wolfson recommends that parents first teach their baby to fall asleep on his own, in his crib, for example, or in his playpen.
"Babies are really creatures of habit," Wolfson says. When you hold or rock the baby to sleep, "you eventually end up with a toddler who doesn't know how to fall asleep on his or her own." Wolfson also suggests that if your baby begins to fall asleep while nursing, wake her up, then put her down for a nap.
Teaching a baby the difference between daytime naps and nighttime sleep will assure a better night for both child and parent, Wolfson says. Limit the length of naps, and avoid cutting off the outside world during the day. Don't, for example, darken the baby's room. And if a visitor drops by to see the newborn, it's all right to wake the baby briefly.
At night, on the other hand, help your child learn that this is the time to sleep soundly. The child's room should be dark and quiet. Parents should be careful not to excite the baby at bedtime.
Also useful is late-night "focal feeding." Feeding the baby sometime between 10 p.m. and midnight reduces how often he wakes up in the early morning hours. When babies are at least six weeks old, weigh nine to ten pounds, are continously gaining weight and are healthy, they should be physically able to sleep five to six hours at a stretch, Wolfson says--if hunger doesn't awaken them.
"With the focal feeding, you are offering the baby a chance to nurse before you go to bed. It gives you control, and it makes the baby less likely to wake up during the night."
Finally, Wolfson recommends that parents try not to rush to the baby at her first whimper. During normal sleep, adults and infants alike periodically move toward wakefulness, Wolfson says. "When we say `sleeping through the night,' we don't mean that babies never wake up. If you run in right away, you will never know whether they were really awake or if they would have fallen back into deep sleep on their own."
Many parents intuitively feel that counting to 60 before answering their baby's cry demonstrates a lack of love. But "as long as you are providing lots of attention and affection during the day," Wolfson says, "you won't be doing any harm at night if you don't jump every time the baby whimpers. It's equally important for the baby to know that you are going to help him learn to control himself."
Wolfson says that control is really the underlying concept she tested in her study. "We are hoping not only that the babies will have better sleep patterns throughout childhood and throughout life," she says, "but that the parents will feel better equipped to handle difficult situations that inevitably arise."
PHOTO: A feeding between 10 p.m. and midnight may reduce how often babies wake up inthe early morning hours.
COPYRIGHT 1989 Sussex Publishers, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1175/is_n4_v23/ai_7502265
content by:
By Susan Chollar
Publication date: April 89
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