Nighttime Parenting

There are several different nighttime parenting styles and ultimately you have to decide what works best for your family.

• Create Secure Environment
• Different Soothing Methods
• Combination of Soothing Methods
• Cry It Out?
• "Sensible Sleep"
• Our Family Approach
• Ask for Help
• Baby’s Temperament
• Sleep Should Eventually Happen
• Works Cited

Create Secure Environment
Now days, you may hear many of your friends boost about their children sleeping through the night and wonder why can’t you get your baby to sleep. I agree with what is written by Sears, in that you need to "[d]evelop a realistic attitude about nighttime parenting. Sleeping, like eating, is not a state you can force a baby into" ("31 Ways"). As discussed by Sears, you may not be able to "force" your baby to sleep but you can create a secure environment "that allows sleep to overtake your baby." You want to remember the "realistic long-term goal is to help your baby develop a healthy attitude about sleep:  that sleep is a pleasant state to enter and a secure state to remain in" (“31 Ways”).

According to the Disney article, most babies can sleep without waking to eat according to the following schedule:

Remember, that the above schedule is the "norm" for most babies. Each baby is an individual and if "your child was a preemie or has acid reflux, he'll likely need to eat more often..." (Disney). We were very fortunate with my son and daughter in that overall they slept fairly well. I think it was a combination of our nighttime parenting, their temperaments, whether they were teething or not, and how much they were able to eat during the day. My son and daughter slept at night according to the following schedule:

*The total sleep time is the time for the entire day including naps according to Sears (357). My son and daughter generally slept the "average" total sleep time. Please refer to "Sleep Amount" for more information as to how long most babies sleep.

As indicated in the table above, my son slept great until he was around 6 months. When my son turned 6 months he started having nightwakings, one or two times a night and sometimes more.  So when my son started having night wakings at 6 months, at first I didn’t understand. Reading information, I realized that it is not uncommon for babies to start having nightwakings even if they previously slept well. I used various soothing techniques to help my baby get back to sleep. My daughter slept well although she started to wake up again around 7 1/2 months. Most research warns to eliminate the night feeding so the baby does not depend on a bottle or breastfeeding to fall asleep. Both of my children could initially fall asleep on their own without breast or bottle but when they woke up in the middle of the night it was easiest to just give them breast or bottle.
(To Top)

Different Soothing Methods
Just like everything in parenting there are different soothing methods. We did a combination of parent-soothing and "self-soothing." Most of the time, we started out with the parent-soothing method and eventually my baby learned how to do the self-soothing method even though we never did the cry it out approach.

In the parent-soothing method, “a parent or other caregiver helps baby make a comfortable transition from being awake to falling asleep, usually by nursing, rocking, singing, or whatever comfortable techniques work.”  The benefit would be that this “builds parent-infant trust....” but the disadvantage is that “baby learns to rely on an outside prop to get to sleep…” (Sears, "31 Ways").

The self-soothing method is when the baby “is put down awake and goes to sleep by himself. Parents offer intermittent comforting, but are not there when baby drifts to sleep.”  The advantage would be “baby learns to go to sleep by himself, he may be better able to put himself back to sleep without parental help….”  The disadvantage would be this may require the parent to do the cry it out approach (Sears, "31 Ways").
(To Top)

Combination of Soothing Methods
We did both soothing methods as we always started with the parent soothing method by rocking my baby after he ate his last bottle for the night. Early on we would lay him in his crib before he was in a deep sleep and let him drift off on his own. If he ever showed any discomfort (and he wasn't settling himself on his own) then we would pick him up and rock him longer.

We were fortunate and never had to use the cry it out approach. Throughout the first year, our method evolved several times. Some months he would go to sleep well by himself and then later probably around six months or so it required putting him in a deeper sleep before putting him in his crib. In addition, due to the eating problems, we had to get him to sleep in order for him to drink his bottle. Refer to "Feeding Tricks" for more information on this. In the end, our child was able to develop good sleep habits, including self-soothing techniques even though we still provided parent-soothing when needed.
(To Top)

Cry It Out
I know a lot of wonderful parents that have to use the cry it out approach otherwise their baby would not go to sleep. Eventually both parents and baby need to figure out how to help the baby sleep. In general, if you do decide to do the cry it out approach, I believe most research recommends you at least avoid it for the first six months. What is the Cry It Out approach? Some may refer to this approach as "Ferberizing."'

Dr. Richard Ferber…holds that bad sleep habits are learned and therefore can be unlearned (I couldn’t agree more). To that end, he recommends that parents put babies into their own cribs while they’re still awake and teach them how to fall asleep on their own (a point I also agree with). However, when a baby cries instead of drifting off to sleep , in effect saying, “Come get me out of here,” Ferber suggests letting him cry it out for ever-lengthening periods – five minutes the first night, ten the next, fifteen, and so on (which is where Dr. Ferber and I part company) (Hogg 170).

“Sensible Sleep”
Hogg promotes a “sensible sleep” approach which I believe is a middle ground approach between an ALL parent-soothing method and the cry it out approach. According to Hogg, the following describes sensible sleep:

Independence is not neglect….It means meeting her needs, including picking her up when she cries, because, after all, she’s trying to tell you something. But it also means putting her down as soon as the need is met.

Observe without intervention…don’t rush in.

Don’t make your baby dependent on props….By the way, a prop is different from a transitional object, like a stuffed animal or a blanket, that your baby adopts and becomes attached to.

Develop bedtime and nap time rituals…babies are creatures of habit.

Know how your particular baby goes to sleep…keep a sleep diary (175).

These sensible sleep tips really worked for our family. To see how our family approach implemented sensible sleep, refer to the next section.
(To Top)

Our Family Approach
This section discusses how we implemented the five sensible sleep ideas in our family.

Independence and Observe Without Intervention
We tried to help our baby become independent by observing without intervention unless it was absolutely necessary. For example, my baby may “cry out” as we are leaving the room but then he immediately settles down. Or some nights he may fuss for awhile but he generally calms and eventually goes to sleep. As long as he is doing “gentle” protests, I let him go, but if he cries and doesn’t seem to be quieting within a minute or his cries seem to be getting louder not softer or cries hard then I go get him and calm him down.

My baby cries out a lot in his sleep, either he had a bad dream and woke up suddenly or it could be related to the acid reflux or teething pain?  Generally, there is no need for us to go in as he immediately goes back to sleep. We usually know right away if it is a cry that he is trying to go back to sleep himself, such as possibly searching for his pacifier, or one that requires Mommy or Daddy to help.

Don't Use Props, Use Transitional Object
Although, props like a pacifier are usually not recommended, for us, it worked well letting our baby have his favorite prop, his pacifier. My baby always loved his pacifier. We primarily use it for bedtime and nap time and my baby didn’t always need it.

As my baby got older (and we felt safe giving him a blanket in his crib) he definitely liked snuggling with any soft blanket. If we didn’t immediately give it to him he would point to a blanket and then put it up to his face as he drank his bottle. The good thing was that he wasn’t particular with a specific blanket as long as it was soft he liked it, so I could continually rotate the blankets to be washed. Then around 1 1/2 years old my son only wanted the one blanket. I had to buy another one (same exact one) and he didn't want the new one just the old one since it didn't feel the same. Eventually, he would use the new one but he still preferred the old one. If you have the choice it may be best to have a backup early on of some of the standard "loveys" you give your child so you can wash them at the same time and so they all "feel" the same.

In addition, to the soft blanket my son started to become attached to his stuffed puppy. I should get a backup of his puppy. My son calls all of these things, his pacifier, blanket and puppy his "goggie." When he is tired or gets upset he asks for his goggie which means he wants fri st his pacifier, then his blanket, and then his puppy all of which are his favorite transitional objects.

Bedtime Rituals
Most of the research I read promoted a bedtime routine, whether it was in Secrets of Baby Whisperer by Hogg, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Children by Weissbluth, The Baby Book by Sears, or Dr. Spock’s Baby and Child Care by Spock. The bedtime routine article is coming soon.

Know Your Baby
I highly recommend documenting daily activities including your baby's sleep schedules. Please refer to the "Document Daily Schedule" article and also this template for a baby 0-6 months and this template for a baby 6+ months. 
(To Top)

Ask for Help
I hope you are fortunate as I was to have a spouse that is willing to help. I tried to do the majority of the middle of the night wake-ups (once I was home full time with my baby) since Erik had to go to work the next day and the thought was since I was home I could technically take a nap during the day when my baby napped but we all know that rarely happened.

Some of the more demanding nights, Erik had to step in as I got to the point that I needed to get some sleep. Also, during the time period where my baby wasn’t sleeping well (6 – 10 ½ months) some of those mornings Erik would get him for awhile so I could get a little more sleep; because after so many nights of interrupted sleep you need a few nights of getting at least six hours of uninterrupted sleep, at least I did. In general, Erik took weekend duty as well so I usually got to sleep straight through on the weekend, sometimes I would really look forward to the weekends.

It may also help to have someone other than the normal caregiver to try to put the baby to sleep. This person may use a different technique that works well for your baby. You never know what you might learn from that caregiver or what the baby may learn. As I'm sure you know babies do different things for different people. At 10 ½ months, MomMom (Erik’s mom) put our son in his crib while he was completely awake (and this was at a time when if I tried this he would scream) and after happily talking to himself for over an hour he fell asleep on his own. We swore, the whole time he was saying, “I’m waiting for Mommy or Daddy to come in and put me to bed…I’m waiting…I’m waiting…I’m waiting…” and after over an hour of this he got tired and went to sleep. He never cried this entire time just chatted to himself.

We tried to let him go to sleep on his own from that point on and it eventually worked but it was a slow transition. We first tried with naps and it sometimes worked and once that worked we moved on to bedtime. In general though, he would go down completely awake for Daddy but not always for me. Not sure the reason behind it, probably lots of reasons, he knew I was a softy, or he simply wanted some extra comfort from Mommy. This doesn’t mean from this point forward we never rocked my son completely to sleep. Sometimes, it was inevitable in that he would fall asleep before he finished his bottle or fall asleep within five minutes of us rocking/ burping him. Other times, if he was going through a “needy” period due to teething then I would go back to rocking him to sleep.

If we hadn't seen that it worked to put him in his crib completely awake when MomMom did it (which we use to do when he was little but hadn't done for awhile since he was more "needy" at bedtime due to teething) we may not have tried it so soon again. I will admit that at the time he once again was sleeping well (and going to sleep himself) his teeth finally broke through his gums. For us, teething definitely seemed to affect my son's sleep. The teething article coming soon.
(To Top)

Baby’s Temperament
As discussed in Secrets of the Baby Whisperer, babies have different temperaments generally defined as Angel, Textbook, Touchy, Spirited, and Grumpy. Thus, the different baby temperaments will cause the babies to sleep differently and require different night time parenting techniques.

Remember the “goodness of babies’ sleep is not a measure of good [parenting]” (Sears, The Baby 329). Although, I do think it is important to do nighttime parenting; establish a routine for your baby, make sure the baby is well rested during the day, and put the baby to sleep before she is overly tired, in the end if you are doing steps to help improve the baby’s sleep and the baby still wakes up, remember you can only control so much for the baby, you can’t force them to stay asleep.
(To Top)

Sleep Should Eventually Happen
I wish you the best of luck. I hope that you are able to determine what works best for you and your family and that eventually all of you can get some sleep. It may not be the same amount that you use to get pre-baby but I hope it is enough because as everyone knows in order to be a good parent you need to take care of yourself as well. Please refer to the "About Sleep," "Sleep Amount," "Tips: To Help Sleep" and the "Sleep Resources" articles for more information.
(To Top)

Works Cited

Disney. "Parentpedia: Nighttime Feeding. "Disney Family Parenting. 8 Dec. 2009
<http://family.go.com/parentpedia/baby/sleep/baby-nighttime-feeding>.

Hogg, Tracy and Melinda Blau. Secrets of the Baby Whisperer: How to Calm, Connect, and
Communicate with Your Baby. New York: Ballantine, 2001.

Sears, William M.D., Martha Sears, R.N., Robert Sears, M.D. and James Sears, M.D. The Baby Book:
Everything You Need to Know About Your Baby - From Birth to Age Two. New York: Little, 2003.

Sears, William M.D., Martha Sears, R.N., James Sears, M.D., and Robert Sears, M.D.. "31 Ways to Get
Your Baby to Go to Sleep and Stay Asleep Easier." AskDrSears.com. 26 Jan 2010
<http://www.askdrsears.com/html/7/T070300.asp>.
(To Top)

Last updated: January 2010