Sleep Learning, and Parenting a Middle Ground
I think there’s a tendency in childcare books and in advice of extremes. One camp says babies are evil geniuses, adept at manipulating their caring, sleep-deprived parents. The other says babies are like little buddhas, who know exactly what they need, if only their parents are attuned enough to divine it. The reality, of course, is much more murky and middle ground. It also changes as babies get older, and can learn cause and effect.
Our first parenting book was the Dr. Sears Baby Book. Initially, I thought it was great. I aspired to be an attachment parent. I had not, however, consulted Drake about this. Drake did not like the sling. Drake did not like to be held. And Drake would not, could not, sleep. I consulted the Sears Baby Book, where it said disparaging things about sleep training, and that it set children up for unhealthy dependencies later in life. It was not what I needed to hear at the end of my rope. Next, I consulted The No-Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley. It also disparaged the so-called sleep-training books as cruel. I read it, I tried its recommendations, but Drake’s sleep did not improve. Finally, I took the advice of our pediatrician, and I purchased the book of the sleep trainer the other books reviled: Dr. Ferber. I read the book, and was shocked at how reasonable it was. I’d expected some baby-ignoring devil based on what I’d read in Pantley and Sears. My husband and I followed the advice in the Ferber book, and finally Drake’s sleep improved. He liked to go to bed, and he slept well once there.
It was the Ferber book I opened when Guppy began to wake more often, at about four months. I supplemented it with a book by Jodi Mindell, billed elsewhere as a “kinder, gentler Ferber” though I found it so nearly the same I’m surprised at the lack of attribution. This time, I tried to approach it more like sleep learning than sleep training. We checked on Guppy at lengthening intervals. I decreased the duration of night feedings by a minute a night. I stopped nursing him right before bed and directly after waking to differentiate those events. Gradually, Guppy learned not only to fall asleep by himself, but that waking did not mean nursing. Within days, he was sleeping longer and waking less. Guppy did cry more for a time, which set the rest of us on edge. Faced with little sleep and much crying, it was often difficult to determine the best thing to do. But now we are all four doing much better than we were a month ago.