Sleep "conditioning" from day 1

amother

Bellflower

Wed, Aug 14 2024, 9:38 am

Hi OP
With my first I paid for several online courses and tried to really follow through with my baby. I was in tears night after night how it seemed to work for the instructor but somehow I was incompetent. I made my husband watch these courses too and we just couldn't implement it.

What no one told me is that these methods don't work for colicky babies. They're in pain and cannot be helped by certain rocking motions, wake windows etc. It took a while for me to realize the courses are working with ideal babies but not mine.

You need to tune into your baby to see what works.

amother

↑ DarkOrange

Wed, Aug 14 2024, 9:46 am

amother Bellflower wrote:

Colick usually means something else is wrong. Like reflux, food allergy or sensitivity etc.. doctors just write it off but there is always an answer. Poor babies.

amother

↑ Cantaloupe

Wed, Aug 14 2024, 10:09 am

tichellady wrote:

You can try these methods but if your babies are like mine they will fall asleep while nursing and cry when you put them in their bassinet, no matter how many books you read on the subject

It's never an exact science, babies are not robots. Also I find the first few weeks you just go with the flow & survive, babies just do there own thing.

amother

Skyblue

Wed, Aug 14 2024, 10:14 am

The first month just focus on getting better, resting, and eating well. They kinda just do their own thing at this time anyway
The second month you can start sleep shaping- wake them up the same time every day unless you notice they wake up themselves around the same time, then choose that time to be their wake up time.
And set a routine for bedtime- bath at the same time each night, bottle, and bed. Keep them in the daylight during the day- bright lights, activity, etc, and at night after bath time dim the lights. This helps them learn to distinguish between night and day because their circadian rhythms aren’t developed yet.

And most importantly- newborns are not capable of self soothing until about 3 months. The idea time to sleep train is between 3-6 months because of this. Your baby needs you to soothe them so they can learn to do it on their own. Don’t be afraid of spoiling your baby- you’re not!

Two great books I recommend reading are Gentle Newborn sleep guide by Kim west, and precious little sleep by Alexis Dubief. Their methods are working very well for me.

Good luck!

↑ tichellady

Wed, Aug 14 2024, 10:30 am

amother DarkOrange wrote:

Colick usually means something else is wrong. Like reflux, food allergy or sensitivity etc.. doctors just write it off but there is always an answer. Poor babies.

Not always . My daughter had colic and outgrew it and doesn’t appear to have reflux, allergies or food sensitives. I think her gut wasn’t developed well but there isn’t much to do for that. It was terrible but I don’t blame our doctor

amother

DarkKhaki

Wed, Aug 14 2024, 10:54 am

Oh how hard I tried to do "awake but drowsy". My newborn was not having it. She'd scream the minute I put her down. In hindsight, she was probably hungry and overtired.

Besides that, whenever she did sleep in the crib, it was for no more than 40 mins.

I gave up after a couple of weeks and started doing wrap naps. She slept 1.5-2 hours each time in her wrap and I nursed to sleep at night.

Now, she's not the best sleeper at 10 months old, but I plan to sleep train at 1.

amother

Clematis ↓

Wed, Aug 14 2024, 10:56 am

the world's best mom wrote:

I did my own technique, called hold your baby as needed and nurse on demand. Sleeping is not easier, but this is important for babies. They will learn to sleep on their own later, when it's age appropriate.

This. Nursing to sleep is wonderful for baby. Don’t rob yourself and baby from this incredible opportunity.

amother

↑ Clematis ↓

Wed, Aug 14 2024, 10:57 am

amother Skyblue wrote:

Babies aren’t able to self soothe at 6 months either. They learn they are being abandoned.

amother

↑ Clematis ↓

Wed, Aug 14 2024, 10:57 am

Delete double post

amother

Seagreen ↓

Wed, Aug 14 2024, 11:18 am

amother Clematis wrote:

Babies aren’t able to self soothe at 6 months either. They learn they are being abandoned.

And you know this, how?
Did a 6 month old tell you?

amother

↑ Denim

Wed, Aug 14 2024, 11:23 am

amother Skyblue wrote:

What time should bedtime be?
How many hours of night sleep?

amother

↑ Clematis ↓

Wed, Aug 14 2024, 11:34 am

amother Seagreen wrote:

And you know this, how?
Did a 6 month old tell you?

From Dr Markham,
A 21 month old is still a baby, and in my view needs parenting at night just as much as during the day. The idea that little ones learn to self-soothe by being left to "figure it out for themselves" is wish-fulfillment. Humans learn to self-soothe by being soothed. That's simply how brain development works. When a baby or young child cries and is soothed, he experiences soothing biochemicals and begins to develop the neural pathways to deliver those soothing neurotransmitters to himself for the rest of his life. His neurology organizes itself so that he does learn, eventually, to soothe himself. But if he cries and no one responds, it triggers his survival panic. That's because nature has designed us for survival, and a 21 month old left without parents nearby is indeed in danger of his life. Naturally, he panics.

If this happens once in the context of a secure and loving relationship with both of his parents, I would hope that it would have little effect, although this is not a question science has yet answered. However, science has made great progress in the past decade in mapping infant brain development and forming credible hypotheses on the effects of various parenting practices on babies. I think most researchers in the field would agree that repeatedly leaving a 21 month old to cry will certainly have an effect on the child's neural development. All the brain research I have read suggests that leaving a little one alone to cry will make this human more likely to panic in challenging emotional situations, especially ones that threaten abandonment. (That means that he would have a harder time than usual dealing with a romantic breakup or a death, or even the rejection of being fired or not chosen for something.) His tendency to get upset about little things will be heightened and his ability to soothe himself will be compromised, which could make for a more "dramatic" and "difficult" personality.

We know that with children who are preverbal, there is less continuity in their feeling states, and memories are stored differently. That means that while a baby who has been left to cry may seem fine the next morning, he is storing up those experiences of having been terrified, and they are still affecting him. We don't know exactly how, but we certainly know that children who are slightly older who have experiences of feeling abandoned remember those experiences as traumatic throughout their lives. We also know that fear is at the root of much of the acting out that children do, including, often, their angry and obstinate behavior.

So while leaving children to cry alone at night may teach them to give up on calling for us, everything I have learned has convinced me that the cost is just too high.

amother

↑ Seagreen ↓

Wed, Aug 14 2024, 11:51 am

amother Clematis wrote:

Noone advocates 'leaving your baby'. Parents go in to soothe continuously throughout.

I'm not going to argue with you but from personal experience of having many (bh well adjusted) kids, & sleep training those who were not sleeping longer stretches after they started solids & I knew they werent hungry, I do see that leaving a baby for a few minutes to cry & refusing to take them out of a crib, makes them realize that even if they cry, they will still need to go back to sleep.

amother

↑ Clematis ↓

Wed, Aug 14 2024, 12:20 pm

amother Seagreen wrote:

Coming in and out aka Ferber is very harmful as well. It’s just is. Babies store the trauma in their memory and it’s painful in the here and now for them and it has potential to have long term ramifications to their emotional health.
What was done in the past there is no looking back but for a new mother about to have a baby please don’t give advice that has harmful ramifications. I wish you only the best.

amother

Mauve

Wed, Aug 14 2024, 12:38 pm

amother Cantaloupe wrote:

The first several months I just put to sleep automatically after they're up for a bit or even right after feeds. They really need to sleep most of the time. No need to wait for signs of tiredness.

What do you mean by “put to sleep”?

amother

Clear

Wed, Aug 14 2024, 12:45 pm

1. Make a difference between night and day from day 1. At night, a small nightlight but no real light, feeding without shmoozing and playing, speaking only quietly.
2. In the morning, after the first feed, take them to a different room so it emphasizes the difference, change, bath.
At night keep them in the bedroom.

amother

↑ Seagreen ↓

Wed, Aug 14 2024, 1:09 pm

amother Clematis wrote:

I've seen zero harmful ramifications.
You have absolutely no proof that any trauma later in life would have been due to the fact that a baby was sleep trained.

amother

↑ Clematis ↓

Wed, Aug 14 2024, 2:04 pm

amother Seagreen wrote:

I've seen zero harmful ramifications.
You have absolutely no proof that any trauma later in life would have been due to the fact that a baby was sleep trained.

Unfortunately I have seen long term ramifications. Anxiety prone and break in healthy attachments and more.

See below from Dr Markham in regards to Ferber. This is just an excerpt there is more in the article.

With a very determined and resourceful baby, this crying can go on all night, but more usually the baby will become exhausted and fall asleep after a few hours. When he reawakens later in the night, the process is repeated. Often the next interval of crying is shorter, either because the baby has given up on the parent staying, or because he is exhausted. Sometimes it is longer, because the baby is re-energized (or an extremely determined person, who will someday accomplish great things by virtue of his strong will.) Usually, though, the crying diminishes on subsequent nights, as the baby learns not to expect the parent to stay with him.

While listening to their baby cry is hard on parents (not to mention the baby), most babies do eventually give up calling for their parents, and sleep. Because they do not yet talk, and live so completely in the moment, we do not hear from them the next morning how they felt about the experience.

However, even when parents are consistent, this approach does not work on all children. Some babies are still crying on the seventh night in a row. It is not uncommon for babies to get an ear infection in the middle of it (from the congestion caused by the crying); it is recommended that the Ferberizing be discontinued during the round of antibiotics that follows, to be re-initiated later. In addition, since any change in the routine (a brief illness, a trip to Grandma's) requires parents to respond to the baby's cries and then to repeat Ferberizing on another night, this process must be endured repeatedly by both baby and parents.

There are many studies claiming that repeatedly leaving babies to cry it out is a risk factor that predisposes kids to permanent brain changes and mental health issues in later life. However, advocates of Ferberizing say that because the parent keeps returning to the child's room, this offers the child reassurance that he has not been abandoned, and therefore keeps the experience from traumatizing the baby in the way that just letting them "cry it out" does.

The most recent claim that letting kids "cry it out" without reassurance may cause lasting damage is the finding that when a baby is left to cry alone, her cortisol level shoots up, indicating distress. That's not surprising. What is surprising is the research study* showing that on subsequent nights -- even when the baby is put into bed and does not cry -- her cortisol level still shoots up. Researchers interpret this as an indication that she is distressed. So why doesn't she cry? Because she has been "trained" -- she knows that no one will come.

*Middlemiss, Wendy et al. "Asynchrony of mother–infant hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis activity following extinction of infant crying responses induced during the transition to sleepEarly Human Development, Volume 88 , Issue 4, 227 - 232

Margot Sunderland's The Science of Parenting cites many studies that Sunderland claims support her view that repeated, sustained crying without adult reassurance causes babies' brains to develop less than optimally. My perusal of her sources showed some that probably should not be used to support her claim because they studied more extreme circumstances. But many of the studies seem credible.

Harvard Researchers who examined emotional learning, infant brain function and cultural differences claim that babies who are left to cry themselves to sleep suffer long-lasting damage to their nervous systems. The researchers claim that this makes these children more susceptible in later life to anxiety disorders, including panic attacks. The incidence of anxiety disorders has increased dramatically in recent years, but I personally don't think this is necessarily correlated to the practice of letting children "cry it out." My own view is that such a susceptibility could be caused by many aspects of childhood in 21st century North America and would need to be triggered by later trauma to play out.

So the question is whether the intermittent parental reassurance (but refusing to pick up the pleading baby) as specified by the Ferber method protects the child from the risks of just letting him "cry it out." Some anti-Ferber folks claim that the parent coming into the room and ignoring the baby's distress might actually increase the trauma by undermining the baby's trust in the parent.

It's hard to evaluate research in this area because there are so many other factors (many of which are arguably more important) in how babies develop. However, it is well-documented that sustained, uncomforted infant crying causes increased heart rate and blood pressure, reduced oxygen levels, elevated cerebral blood pressure, depleted energy reserves and oxygen, and cardiac stress. Cortisol, adrenalin and other stress hormones skyrocket, which disrupts the immune system and digestion. It's a reasonable guess that if this is repeated over time, these babies would build a slightly different brain, more prone to "fight, flight or freeze."

We know that with adults, even one panic-inducing experience like a car accident or mugging that causes an extreme stress response can have ongoing stress effects for years. Since babies' heart rates and blood pressure soar during Ferbering, I don't think there can be any doubt that sleep training without parental comfort causes the experience to be indelibly etched on the memory, much as any panic situation can evoke strong feelings years later. That the memory is sensory and preverbal just gives it more power, as it cannot be adequately processed.

So there are a growing number of critics who see Ferberizing as barbaric. Their position can be summarized as follows:

m-u-a-mama

Wed, Aug 14 2024, 3:20 pm

amother Crimson wrote:

3 out of my 4 children were born 3-6 weeks early… I know not all newborns are like this but my kids slept a ton so that was a big advantage..

My son was born at 36 weeks. He never ever ever slept. Not day nor night. He catnapped 20-30 min for 24 hours a day until I “sleep trained” at 6 weeks because I was dangerously sleep deprived

miami85

Wed, Aug 14 2024, 3:40 pm

In my experience every baby is SO different, I have 6 kids and very few were like the others. Some were great sleepers as newborns, some as older kids, some started off great and became nightmares as toddlers. And they have overall personalities that are very different from one another as well.
And then there was my eldest who learned how to be "bored" at 4 weeks and would just be awake and need to be entertained (not super surprising he ended up being diagnosed with ADHD later on).

So nothing is a "given".

Not even sure what "sleep conditioning" would be, I mean there are the 5-S's that we have found very helpful and not having an overtired/overstimulated baby"reduces cortisol which helps baby sleep better and being able to read your baby's cries and triaging them appropriately--like not feeding a gassy baby or trying to put to bed a baby who is hungry etc. So knowing which part of the "feed/burp/diaper/sleep" cycle you are up to is very important.

But I'm not really sure what else "conditioning" would mean.
Sleep personality is also highly genetic--like I am a deep sleeper and my husband can "fall asleep anywhere"--and I've seen these types of traits in my kids as well.