Surviving The End Of Daylight Savings
As parents, we bear an enormous responsibility. It’s not just about keeping our little ones alive, warm, fed and happy. We’re all looking to raise exceptional human beings who are emotionally intelligent and overall, well adjusted. We’re responsible for the quality of our kids’ lives long after they’ve left the nest, and many of the decisions we make today are going to determine who they are later in life.
I can definitely see why many parents find the idea of attachment parenting appealing. I myself find many positive things about this parenting style- after all, most of us want to love our kids unreservedly, especially in those first few years. Our instincts are all about holding our babies close, meeting their every need the moment it arises, and protecting them.
Attachment parenting is a parenting philosophy that was popularized by Drs. William and Martha Sears in their 1993 publication, “The Baby Book.” The idea, in a nutshell, is maximum closeness and responsiveness. You wear your baby, you share a bed with your baby, you breastfeed on demand, and you answer their cries immediately. In theory, this creates a strong attachment between mother and baby, which results in well-adjusted children who grow up to be happy, healthy, contributing members of society.
Now, all of these theories have been debated endlessly and passionately, but there’s no strong evidence to show that attachment parenting is better or worse than other parenting styles. This is about whether attachment parenting and sleep training are mutually exclusive.
Dr. Sears included a catchy bullet point list of the principles of attachment parenting that he refers to as “The Seven B’s.” Birth Bonding, Babywearing, Breastfeeding, Bedding Close to Baby, Believing in the language value of your baby’s cry, Beware of Baby Trainers, Balance.
So the first three have nothing to do with sleep training. You can bond with your baby as much as you want, breastfeed on demand, and wear your baby in a sling everywhere you go, and as a pediatric sleep coach, I would tell you that’s all perfectly fine.
The three that follow are the ones that tend to give attachment parenting advocates pause when they think about sleep training.
Sleeping close to baby is another term for bed sharing, which Dr. Sears is a big fan of. It’s a common myth about pediatric sleep coaches that we’re firmly against bed sharing, when in actuality, if this is something that works for your family, and you can honestly get quality sleep, (and it’s done safely for young infants) there’s no real problem. The consensus from most of my colleagues is that babies sleep better, and so do their parents, when they aren’t in the same bed as you. More people in bed means more movement, more movement means more wake ups, and more wake ups means less consolidated sleep.
However, if your definition of bed sharing is that one parent is sleeping on the couch and one of you is sleeping in bed with baby, waking every 45 minutes to breastfeed back to sleep, that’s not what would be commonly described as “quality sleep” but something that’s done out of desperation. For anyone who wants to keep their little one close, I suggest sharing a room instead of a bed. As long as baby has a separate space to sleep, like a crib or a play pen, then sleep training is once again a viable option.
What about crying? Crying is how babies express themselves, and they do this for a number of reasons. A lot of families are relieved to know that sleep training does NOT require them to leave their babies to cry until they fall asleep. In fact, I typically don’t recommend waiting more than a few minutes before responding.
Those who get into this field of becoming a sleep coach usually all have something in common- we’re passionate about helping families. We’ve been through this issue ourselves, we’ve found a solution, and we’re devoted to helping others the same way we helped our own babies because we know, first hand, the difference it makes in people’s lives.
Lastly, this whole discussion calls for Balance. “Wear your baby everywhere, breastfeed on demand, respond immediately to every whimper, sleep next to them, and hey, remember to take some time for yourself, because it’s all about balance”
Motherhood is incredibly demanding. You have to be patient, understanding, energized, empathetic, entertaining, and focused to be a good parent. It would not be fare to say you could accomplish all of this racking up a sleep debt every night.
It reminds me that we, like our babies, are unique, and all of these parenting recipes need to be tweaked and adjusted to suit our individual family needs. So if attachment parenting is your thing, more power to you. The best parenting strategy is the one that works for you and your family. But if your little one isn’t sleeping and bed-sharing doesn’t seem to be rectifying the problem, I urge you to consider bending “the rules” a little and getting some help.
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