I don't know if there are any new methods of "sleep training" these days....but I thought it isn't really practiced anymore? At least I don't know of any mother here that does it.
Usually when questions regarding sleep come up during la leche league meet ups we tell mothers this:
- Night wakings are important for development (especially brain)
- Night wakings can prevent SIDS due to the baby not spending much time in very deep sleep (SIDS is most common until 1 year of age)
I researched sleep training and can hardly find any good source that recommends it:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blo...ents-misled-cry-it-out-sleep-training-reports
5. Parenting media fail to understand traumafrom an infant’s perspective:*
In light of developmental neuroscience, the advice parents get from the baby-sleep-training instruction books is:
Risky for babies under six months, whose nervous systems are calibrating set points for life (Caldji, 2000).
Damaging for babies at risk for an*attachmentdisorder, conservatively estimated at 40% of babies, which puts them at risk for mental illness.
Ill-advised for*all*babies who experience intense levels of panic from natural and healthy instincts that*compel them to stay close to parents when sleeping.
Dangerous for*all*the babies who don’t just fuss for a couple of minutes but go into full hyper-arousal and then dissociative withdrawal. This is a common response for a distressed infant (Perry, 1998).*
The cry-it-out advice is risky because in these cases, being left to cry is a trauma.
Being left alone at all is stressful for baby mammals (Levine, 2005). Their biological systems become disorganized when separated from caregivers because they have no sense of safety apart from adults. When their*distress calls (cries) are then ignored*they instinctually panic—their lifeline is gone. (More on the brain’s*Separation distress neuro-circuitry.) Once we understand that babies are operating from a survival instinct-dominant, immature brain with limited ability to rationalize, the*plentiful trauma research clearly applies.*Infants can experience PTSD, toxic distress, depression and dissociation in response to crying-it-out.
This is how distress (signaled by crying) becomes trauma.
I let my children dictate their sleep all the way. My first began to develop a sleeping pattern at 1 month, sleeping 4 - 3 - 3 - 2 - 2 hours until 6 months. Then he began sleeping a longer stretch of 6 hrs. Past a year he began sleeping through the night. I had 4 hours of free time every night after he went to sleep. We never had any trouble getting him to sleep, he still sleeps great at 5 years old.
My 3 month old is currently sleeping at night: 5-6 hrs and then wakes again after 2, stays up for 2, naps for 3 hours, stays up for another hour, naps another three.
With his gum aches I had to hold him while napping because he would frequently wake. Now I can put him down after he falls into a deep sleep. If I can I lay with him and he sleeps better but I have been able to get up the past week. I am positive he will sleep well during the day on his own when he is ready just like my first.
I understand with multiple children nap time is not an easy task, especially in modern life. I just don't see a better solution than suffering through the first few months
When I think back of how hard the beginning was for us...We dealt with multiple infections after birth, then his reflux and gas, my broken ribs felt a lot worse then too, he hardly slept because Reflux Episodes would wake him...and now everything is better and we sleep so well at night.
I would not worry about "bad habits". A babys mind does not have the ability to "manipulate" you (scientifically proven)...so everything they want, they really need. Even if it is being held all day (emotionally) They act on instincts. Studies have also shown that babys that stop sending cues often simply give up because they don't expect to get help. Not because they learned to "self soothe" or be content. Even if no crying was involved...it teaches that mom ignores cues to say it simply (not judgemental here but this is how science sees it.
What is good listening to every tiny cue is that babys stop crying. Both of mine did. The most he will do is fuss a bit but only when he is very tired. Other than that he has little signs or even tries to babble to explain what he wants
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She did go to sleep after that though.. thankfully she didn't wake up when I put her in her crib and we all got to sleep by 8pm and she slept until 345am (we wake up at 4am so it was almost the entire night!). It's so hard to see her cry like that though.
