The dark side: Nighttime parenting 101
It’s 10pm on a Friday. Only months ago, you might have celebrated the end of the work week with drinks, dancing, and a nice evening out. With a baby in the picture, though, your Friday nights probably look a little different.
Oh, there might be drinks (milk floweth!), and there might be dancing (of the desperate, please-close-your-eyes variety), but very few parents recall the process of getting their baby to go to sleep and stay asleep as enjoyable. Grueling, draining, and all-consuming, maybe --- but not enjoyable.
It doesn’t have to be that way. Legions of new parents can be saved from the so-called dark side with a simple change in perspective. It’s called nighttime parenting, and its four tenets call on the expertise of doctors and instincts of parents to do what is best for babies. As an added bonus, everyone in the family can get more sleep. From the ever-popular Sears Family Library, here are four important nighttime parenting lessons that will save your new family hours (which could be spent sleeping).
Please note that these tenets do not apply to newborns, whose night wakings (more often than not) are signs of hunger and should be promptly addressed. You’ll also want to be especially sensitive and responsive during developmental milestones and times of illness.
Nighttime parenting lesson #1: Babies have shorter sleep cycles than adults.
That mounting frustration you feel when Baby begins to stir only an hour after falling asleep? It’s normal; you shouldn’t beat yourself up about it. But neither should you rush to pick your Baby up immediately. He or she may simply be moving through the night’s first sleep cycle that, on average, is only 50 or 60 minutes long in babies. A brief period of light sleep between cycles is a sign of healthily developing sleep habits, and your baby is not necessarily calling out for you when he or she first begins to snuffle. In fact, Baby may not even fully awaken at all, and the last thing you want to do is reinforce wakings between each hourly sleep cycle. Try waiting a minute or two to see if Baby drifts back to sleep; if not, a gentle hand or a soft lullabye could do the trick.
Nighttime parenting lesson #2: Some babies need help getting back to sleep.
Just as you rocked, swayed, and sung Baby to sleep at bedtime, you may fall into the pattern of repeating these rituals with each night waking. While these rituals can create tender, lasting memories, they may also be a source of your sleep deprivation. Baby may begin to rely on whatever sleep-inducing method you’ve chosen, and it’s not high on any new parent’s wish list to spend twenty minutes in the glider every night at hourly intervals. Consider a different approach at bedtime: lie down next to your baby in the family bed, or lay a gentle hand on Baby’s tummy while he or she is in the crib. Try something that you can do from a prone position, so that you can recreate it during night wakings without leaving the bed. If nursing back to sleep works for you and your baby, we’ve got it on good authority that cosleeping moms sometimes sleep right through Baby’s waking up, latching on, and drifting off.
Nighttime parenting lesson #3: Night wakings have developmental benefits.
It may help tired parents to know that babies spend the majority of their sleep time in light (REM) sleep, and the fact that they are easily awoken from this state means two very good things: (1) Baby’s brain is hard at work, as it doesn’t require rest during REM sleep; and (2) Baby knows instinctively that being too deeply asleep is not in his or her best survival or development interests. It is what you do when Baby wakes up that will chart your sleep course for the next few years.
Nighttime parenting lesson #4: Baby’s sleep habits reflect temperament, not your parenting skills.
Whether you have an easy sleeper or not, it’s difficult to take credit (or blame, for that matter). Just as some adults fall asleep within five minutes of their heads hitting the pillow, others toss and turn for half an hour before drifting off. Babies are the same way, and it would be a disservice to the individual personality of your baby to try to train him or her to sleep a certain way. The sooner you can tap into the causes behind the night wakings (which, of course, can be ever-changing), the better and more sensitively you can respond. Be gentle with yourself and your baby, and follow your instincts. Your inclination to respond to, rather than ignore, your baby is supported by doctors across Canada and the United States, and you can do so in a way that limits the disruption to your own sleep.
From the November 2009 issue of The Source
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