How To Get Your Baby To Sleep Without Crying It Out
Tags: Baby, Sleep, How To, Without Crying

How To Get Your Baby To Sleep Without Crying It Out

Methods to teach a baby to sleep without letting him cry

Can I teach my baby to sleep through the night, without letting him cry?

If you don’t like the idea of ​​letting your baby cry, or if you’ve tried teaching them to sleep by letting them cry and it doesn’t work, you may want to consider a more gradual approach that involves fewer tears.

Like any method, what worked for other children may not work for your baby. You may have to try and ditch various methods until you find the one that works best for you.

If you are not sure what to do, you can read books written by several experts on this topic or enter our forums to see what other moms and dads have been up to. Before starting, you can also read our article with basic steps to teach babies to sleep.

Discover the breakthrough story of how a 31-year-old mother who finally found a trick to get her baby to sleep by using this simple method.

What is the theory about the method of teaching sleep without crying?

Experts and dads who support methods for teaching sleep without crying believe that bedtime offers an opportunity to connect with your child, develop a warm nighttime routine and respond quickly to your baby’s requests for food. and consolation.

Some of these experts argue that the method of teaching sleep by letting the baby cry is not good for the child. William Sears is a pediatrician who defended the “attachment method” and dedicated an entire chapter of his book Your Child Will Sleep … And You Too: How To Help Your Baby To Sleep Peaceful Through The Night (The Baby Sleep Book), to criticize the method. to teach sleep let cry. Sears, along with other proponents of learning to sleep without crying, such as Elizabeth Pantley (author of Baby’s Sleep Without Tears, The No-Cry Sleep Solution) believe that crying techniques can cause your child to create negative associations with sleep and sleep times, which can persist. lifetime.

Sleep experts who approve of the method of letting cry (as well as most pediatricians) disagree. They claim that it is not traumatic for the baby to cry alone for a short period of time with frequent visits from the mother or father and that the end result is a calmer and happier child. They believe that the strategy for sleeping without crying can make babies very dependent on parents’ comfort before bedtime and that this will make it more difficult for them to learn to calm down during sleep.

What do experts say about sleeping without crying?

There are sleep experts who have written books advocating the crying sleep method. Pediatrician William Sears, parental educator Elizabeth Pantley, and nurse Tracy Hogg are three of the most famous.

Dr. method William Sears

Pediatrician and Author Your Child Will Sleep … And You Too: How To Help Your Baby Sleep Well All Night (Baby Sleep Book)

William Sears’ website is in English, but you can translate it with this Google tool.

Sears emphasizes child-centered teaching sleep and advises parents to exercise caution in teaching advertised sleep styles for all children. Recommends patiently helping your baby learn to sleep at their own pace and encouraging parents to sleep with their baby and to hold and breastfeed until the baby is asleep, as well as other forms of close contact. to create positive associations before bed and healthy habits later in life.

Elizabeth Pantley Method

Parents, educators and authors of the dreams of babies without tears (The No-Cry Sleep Solution)

Elizabeth Pantley’s website is in English, but you can translate it with this Google tool.

Pantley offers gradual learning of all aspects of sleep, tailored to suit your baby’s needs. She recommends holding and feeding your baby until he is sleepy before putting him to sleep and responding immediately if he cries.

He emphasized that parents keep a list of their sleeping hours at night, when they wake up and take their nap. Pantley describes a six-step process for teaching babies to sleep in their cribs.

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Tracy Hogg’s Method

Licensed Practical Nurse and co-author of A Practical Guide to Be a Happy and Quiet Baby (Baby Whisperer’s Secret)

Tracy Hogg agrees with Sears that the association with sleep time should be positive, but she disagrees with their technique. She advises that your baby does not rely on cues such as breastfeeding, patting gently on the back, or holding him to sleep. Instead, Hogg recommends holding your baby if he’s crying, calming him down, and putting him back to sleep as needed. He considers his technique to be halfway between attachment nurturing, as promoted by Dr. Sears, and the technique of teaching sleep by letting cry.

Practical tips for finding solutions without crying

• Create a regular nap schedule. A consistent sleep routine during the day can help regulate your sleep at night.

• Put your baby in bed early, such as 6:30 or 7 pm. Don’t get caught up in keeping your baby awake to make him more tired. Babies who are too tired may take longer to fall asleep. Some experts say that babies who sleep earlier also sleep longer.

• Make changes slowly. If your baby is sleeping late, don’t suddenly switch her bedtime from 9:30 to 7:00, for example. Increase sleep time a little each night until you reach the time that is most convenient for you and your baby.

• Find a quiet and sticky bedtime routine. For example, take a shower, book, lullaby, and then go to sleep, at the same time every night.

• Create a few “chord sounds” as Pantley calls them, to signal to your baby that it’s time for bed. Sounds can be as simple as “Shhhh” or softly saying the phrase “It’s time to sleep”. Repeat the sound or phrase as you soothe your baby to associate it with sleep.

• Create a comfortable and tailored sleeping environment for your child. Some babies need more silence and darkness than others. Recorded soft music, nature sounds, or the sound of water in the aquarium can also be soothing. Make sure the sheets are warm (warm them with a hot water bottle or microwaveable cloth, for example before putting the baby to sleep) and make sure there are no wrinkles or buttons that irritate them. Smaller babies may sleep better wrapped in a tamale. Don’t put too many clothes on or make the room too hot.

• Don’t respond to every little sound your baby makes. Learn to distinguish true crying from complaints of sleepiness. If you are not sure, it is okay to wait a little outside the room so you don’t wake your baby, if he is asleep.

Does the method of sleeping without crying work?

It’s important to remember that no single method works for all babies or even one baby all the time. You have to get to know your baby, be flexible, and see what works for you.

Proponents of the crying sleep method admit that this approach takes time, perhaps longer than the crying sleep technique, but they say it is less traumatic for babies and parents in the long run.

Elizabeth Pantley says that when it comes to teaching sleep, parents have a choice between timing and tears: “There’s really no way to turn a baby who wakes up multiple times at night into a baby who sleeps like little nymphs, without one of two things: water. eyes or time. Personally, I choose the second one ”.

This strategy for teaching how to sleep without crying might work out well for you, but if it doesn’t, you may want to try the crying sleep method.

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