Digesting "The No Cry Sleep Solution"

Gone are the days when grandmas and aunties dispensed common sense and showed us how to handle our babies. Now, we glean gems of wisdom from parenting books. Problem is, if you have 120 pages to fill, those gems can be hidden in a mass of fluff.
If you are a sleep deprived mother, you might not have the stamina to search page after page in The No-Cry Sleep Solution: Gentle Ways to Help Your Baby Sleep Through the Night for the tidbits that will save your sanity. In the spirit of “nothing extra,” here is what I learned from author Elizabeth Pantley’s work. There’s more in the book—but to be honest, not a whole lot more. If you want more detail, do check it out [click on the image or title to go to Amazon listing]. As far as I can tell after asking around, none of these tips are huge secrets; old-school midwives and expert grandmas have always known them.

Sleep Training is Possible. But Do Check Your Motives.

If your baby isn’t sleeping well, you can gently train her to sleep in a way that works for you and your family—within reason.

First of all, make sure you know what you want, and how reasonable it is. “Sleeping through the night” means a five-hour stretch. Only train your baby to do things you really need her to do. The baby is not trying to manipulate you; and there is no need to control your child simply for the sake of feeling “in charge”.

Build a Regular Routine.

Both babies and parents appreciate a sleep routine. Institute this while baby is still young (although it’s never too late to start). Doing a predictable, calming series of things (e.g. bath, jammies, storytime) before bed helps the baby feel safe and primes her baby to fall asleep. Don’t wait for your child to run out of steam and fall asleep from exhaustion; that’s unkind to both them and you.

Keep a diary of your child’s sleep. The minute you notice them acting sleepily, do your nap routine. You’ll soon see that naps follow a predictable pattern. Try to keep to that. Schedule excursions, etc. for the awake times. (In my own case, my son wakes at 6:30am, naps for half an hour at 8:30am, naps again at 11:30am or noon unless he's really excited, and again at 3:30 or 4pm. Dinner is at 5:30pm and bedtime at 6pm every day.)

Encourage the Sleep Behavior You Want.

You probably don’t want to train your baby to sleep only at the breast (or bottle), or only in your arms. Even if it’s adorable now, it won’t be in a year. So, avoid the association between sleep and nipple in mouth. And avoid the association between sleep and your body by your baby’s side. Remove the nipple, or creep away, as she is drifting off. If she rouses enough to fuss, replace the nipple or lay back down, lull her, count to ten, and try again.

If you want your baby to fall asleep in all sorts of situations (background noise, laser-light show) lull her to sleep in all sorts of situations.

Put your baby to sleep for the night early. She will sleep better, and you will have time to feel like a sane adult. 6:30 or 7 is not too early. If bedtime is cranky time, try moving it half an hour earlier. Babies need a lot of sleep—make sure they get it!

Do not rush to your child’s aid at the first snort. Make sure she’s really awake before you pop the nipple in her mouth. Again, you don’t want to train her to need the nipple in order to sleep. (However, if you want to lengthen short sleep periods to long ones: then you should nurse the baby back into deeper sleep before she wakes completely. In this way, your baby will get used to sleepign for a longer stint before coming up for air.)

Be Persistent and Patient.

Instituting any new sleep habit will take time. Babies are most trainable up until 4-6 months. Consider that whatever you train your baby to do will may be what she does until 18-24 months, if not beyond.

Keep your eventual goal in mind. Training really may have to be gradual—two steps forward and three steps back. Remember what your aim is—say, for baby to fall asleep, or go back to sleep, without nipple in his mouth. Try to progress toward that, but remain flexible. A teething baby may truly need that comfort in order to fall asleep. Babies are ancient creatures; they are not built for instant consumer (read: parent) satisfaction.

Be Flexible.

Do not try to train your child when s/he is sick, colicky, or teething. For my son, that ruled out most of the first several months, except for a week here and there. Remember that you are aiming for a trend; it’s not a matter of getting it perfect every night.

Every baby really does sleep differently. And one child’s sleep habits will likely change radically as s/he develops. We were delighted that our baby was a “good sleeper”—until he wasn’t. He recently settled on a 5-7 hr block of sleep, with some 30-60 min periods before, and a 2-hr periods afterward. Our baby happens to sleep well in our bed; not all do.

It seems to me that every person’s sleep is different, and it seems reasonable that a baby will likely sleep like her parents do. If you are an insomniac and your baby is too, that might just be the way things are. The notion that you can somehow ruin your baby’s sleep and cause them to have a sleep disorder later is an attractively worrisome idea, but I can’t see how it could actually be proved.

My Input: Three BIG Cheers for the “No Cry” Part!

Babies and small children need their parents to be there for them. Feeling safe allows them to grow up into well-adjusted people. Crying it out, or allowing the baby to cry for progressively longer periods of time, isn’t something I am comfortable with. Being abandoned just when you need more comfort—well, how would that make YOU feel?

I should say I know people who have tried various “crying” cures and claim success. With all love and respect to them: I must have a very different baby! The times we let my son cry alone for a few minutes were the worst moments of my early motherhood. I cried as much as the baby. He did not quiet when we left him alone; he screamed louder. Five, ten, fifteen minutes later, I had a traumatized, rattled baby who was not OK the next day. I later realized—duh, he was in pain from colic. I was too sleep-deprived at that point to be anything other than desperate. I could have used a couple wise old crones in my life at that point.

As it was, in the absence of the aunties of yesteryear, the nuggets found in The No-Cry Sleep Solution were welcome indeed.