Sleep training can be essential to creating a happy family environment, yet there are several methods available – some may be gentler than others.
Elizabeth Pantley’s No-Cry Sleep Solution, Tracy Hogg’s Baby Whisperer and Kim West’s Good Night Sleep Tight all advocate more gentle sleep training techniques. These methods involve gradually shifting your child’s go-to sleeping strategy; for instance if they prefer being rocked to sleep each time it’s necessary, gradually reduce how often this needs to happen.
Co-Sleeping
Sleeping with your infant provides bonding opportunities while decreasing infant feeding, fussiness and crying. Sleeping together is common in certain cultures and is the norm in many families who breastfeed or bottle feed their babies.
Compare this approach with crib sleeping, which separates parents and their babies, which typically leads to restful slumber for both. Babies tend to cry less when close to their mothers and mothers can easily wake them if their child needs something like diaper changes, nappy refills or feeds.
Different people have their own definition of co-sleeping, but generally speaking it involves sharing either a room or bed with babies during sleep or daytime naps (room-sharing), or having them sleep in a crib/cradle (bed-sharing). This arrangement may last from full time naps through to nights; permanent or temporary; breastfeeding in bed may even occur! According to research, infants sleeping close to their mother tend to wake more easily from deeper sleep which reduces risk for SIDS.
Room-Sharing
Sleeping together within arm’s reach has been shown to lower the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome by up to 50 percent, making room sharing recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics as an invaluable way of connecting with your newborn and strengthening bonds between parent and infant.
If sleeping with your infant, make sure their crib or bassinet isn’t close by so as not to have them pulled into your arms during night-time wakeups. This will prevent their being pulled in when their awakening occurs.
Parents who co-sleep with their babies often report getting more rest than those who do not, since waking less during the night and being able to respond swiftly to their child’s needs are two benefits of co-sleeping with babies. But new research published in Pediatrics (the official journal of American Academy of Pediatrics) casts doubt upon AAP’s recommendation that room sharing should cease after four months.
Fading
Fading, or the bedtime fading sleep training technique, utilizes internal sleep pressure in children to reduce night wakings and teach them to fall asleep quickly and deeply. Like the Ferber method (cry it out strategy), Fading requires parents to sit with their babies in their crib until they sleep – however this method may feel less emotionally taxing for young ones than “camping out”.
Start your fading sleep training routine roughly 30 minutes before your child’s natural bedtime and follow it night after night. Provide comfort when necessary — such as patting, singing to or soothing words when they become overstimulated or overtired — but give them time to self-soothe before offering further comfort so as to prevent negative associations being formed with sleep training methods like the fading approach which works great with babies of all ages and is one of the gentlest sleep training approaches available.
Gradual Extinction
Graduated Extinction can vary between experts; generally it involves ignoring your baby’s night waking by not responding to their cries with rubs, rocks or feeds; in hopes that this may teach them how to fall back asleep on their own.
Redirecting behavior can be challenging and time consuming for parents who choose this approach to training their child, often lasting weeks before successful outcomes are seen. Even then, parents often face emotionally draining episodes from this treatment method such as intense crying.
Though challenging, this treatment has proven its efficacy. According to one randomized study, infants who were taught self-soothing through this approach fell asleep faster and slept longer than those in the control group at two-year follow up time; additionally they displayed less signs of depression and experienced lower parental stress levels.https://www.youtube.com/embed/c3LDfk5q6bo