We often talk about how normal most sleeping patterns are, despite being seen as abnormal in our society, but what about the situations where your infant's sleep truly is abnormal? That it's telling you something else is wrong?
We do a lot to try and ensure our children are empathic. And yet, there is one thing I see happen with alarming regularity in our young toddlers that sabotages so much of what we are aiming for.
After having a crappy day myself and shutting myself in the bedroom because I was ready to scream at everyone and throw whatever I could find out the window, I had to write this. So… how many of these can you relate to?
The entire tagline reads “A journal jumps on the Dr. Sears bandwagon to say sleep training is dangerous. Science says otherwise.” Let’s first get something clear – journals publish special issues all the time and journals publish research and opinion pieces and reviews from researchers who work in the relevant fields.
The system we have adhered to as a society puts the onus of do no harm on those who are acting. If you want to act against what we know to be what infants need and are asking for, namely responsiveness, should it not be you who has to prove no harm?
Recently an article came out in the Daily Mail in the UK with the headline “Sleepless nights caused by crying babies ends one in three marriages, research claims”. Okay, first, it’s the Daily Mail so no one should take too much stock, but the fact remains people will.
. Herein I’d like to talk about a piece from 2008 that looked at elective c-sections and later maternal responsiveness. Not because I want to cause a stink for those who had a c-section, but because we need to understand the effects of our modern birthing practices on those intimately involved – the mother and the infant.
Helping an infant return to sleep easily, then, is an essential gift to give our infants—as well as an important goal for parents who need to rest. The science of nighttime care provides a good foundation for parents trying to calm their babies. It clarifies what is important to know about calming babies and why certain types of calming are most likely to be helpful.
My experiences led to my husband and I discussing things we’ve heard either while out as parents or as kids and I thought I’d share them here with my own take as to why they are not things I plan on ever saying to my daughter and why I hope you won’t either.
In this part, we’re going to look at the last piece of pertinent information—viewing the difficult infant as a ‘plastic’ infant—and then finishing with a look at what we can do going forward.
