“Mothers and children are human beings, and they will sometimes do the wrong things.” This is what my physician used to call, “Ignoring the cause and treating the symptoms.” The reason I bring this up is that a lot of parents I’ve talked to say that their big problem isn’t getting their child to go to sleep, it’s getting them to stay asleep. “She’ll fall asleep almost as soon as she starts nursing,” is a common line, “but then 15 minutes later, she’s up again, and she howls until I come into the room and pick her up.” It’s the single biggest mistake that most mothers make at bedtime, and I’m happy to tell you, it’s a relatively simple fix. Get your baby into her crib before she falls asleep! The reason for this is simple. Your baby has to learn how to fall asleep without you. That way, when she wakes up in the night, she’ll have the skills to go back to sleep on her own, leaving you undisturbed and happily snoozing through her wake-up. It sounds simple, but so many parents can’t get past those first few nights of crying. The temptation is just too overwhelming when they know they’ve got that one little trick that will get their
baby to go to sleep. But that one little trick is the equivalent of pulling the batteries out of the smoke alarm. It may stop the agony for the moment, but you’ve still got a problem on your hands. Sooner or later, you’re going to have to deal with the underlying issue, which is that your child can’t fall asleep without you. Whether they’re being nursed, rocked, cuddled or sang to sleep, it’s entirely dependent on your presence in that room, and that means that every time she wakes up, you’re waking up. And it’s not going to stop until you teach your child to fall asleep, on her own, in her crib. That means no relying on nursing, pacifiers, rocking motions, or hypnotic storybooks. (More information on sleep training your baby can be found here.) So the bad news is, the little gimmicks only work for the short term, and they generally teach bad sleep habits that can be hard to break down the road. The good news is, as soon as you’ve taught your baby this invaluable skill, she’s going to sleep much more soundly. sleep sense | 11