Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Motherhood: Articles on Infant Sleep

"Let her cry it out (CIO). She has excess energy that she needs to use up before she can fall asleep. That's what the experts say.", said my hubby one night in QW's early month when she often cried between 8pm to 11pm (of course not non-stop!). We referred to it as her witching hours.

Dr Richard Ferber theorised that babies will not learn to fall asleep on their own if they get used to being rock or nurse to sleep. Personally, I find the CIO method[1], also known as Ferber method[2], very heart wrenching and would prefer not to let QW goes through it. Hence, our decision to cuddle her when she cries.

I started to read up more on the No Tears method[3], and I am excited to share with you an article titled "Here are some lies people tell you about infant sleep"[4] written by Madeleine. I quote:
"You can't sell a solution if there isn't a problem, and in the past fifty years, we have increasingly categorized what amounts to normal, human infant sleep, as a problem need to be solved."
"There's a reason for all of it, I promise, even when we don't understand. It's not our job as parents to understand, it's just our job to parent. That's all."
"The thing is, the week after The Dark Time, Olive began crawling, started standing unassisted and popped out two teeth." 
When I read her quotes, it triggered my memory on what my Junior College (JC) mate shared with me once regarding growth spurts[5] and mental leaps[6]. It now seems logical to me that QW's crying is not without reason: it could be that she is experiencing growing pains, figuring out something, etc.

In her baby language, she is trying to reach out to us. Since we are not able to decipher (because I do not understand baby language!), the only thing left for us, parents, to do is to just be parents. That is, in this case, comfort her.

Which school do you believe? Whichever the case (sleep training or not), do not beat yourself over it. Happy parents = happy babies ;)

References:
  1. Babycenter - Baby sleep training: Cry it out methods
  2. Wikipedia - Ferber method
  3. Babycenter - Baby sleep training: No tears methods
  4. Sweet Madeleine - Here are some lies people tell you about infant sleep
  5. Babycenter - Growth spurts
  6. The wonder weeks - Mental leaps

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