The No-cry Sleep Solution (49 page)

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The No-Cry Sleep Solution

Mother-Speak

“I found it virtually impossible to soothe my daughter back to sleep without the breast. She would just get agitated and angry. Our answer was to have Daddy go to her when she woke up to resettle her. The first few nights she was quite irri-tated that it was Daddy and not Mommy coming to her beck and call. But, by the end of the week, she was totally in love with her Daddy. My husband still says that helping to night wean her (though he was sleep deprived at the time) was one of the most important ways he has ever bonded with his little girl. I noticed that closeness in their relationship immediately, and it still hasn’t gone away, even though we’re long past that time.”

Deirdre, mother of nineteen-month-old Violet

deal with weaning from the pacifier. Many parents find that they are comfortable with that scenario.

Tell your helper that it isn’t “do or die.” In other words, if baby starts to cry and gets upset, or if your helper is losing patience, tell him or her that it’s OK to bring the baby to you. And try again with the next waking. When Baby comes to you (notice I said “when,” not “if ”), follow the ideas in the section called Help Your Baby to Fall Back to Sleep on His Own While You Continue to Breastfeed and Co-Sleep starting on page 130.

Help Baby to Fall Back to Sleep in Her Crib

This idea may help crib sleepers.

It’s likely that every time your baby is crying or calling out to you during the night you are doing something to help him to fall back to sleep. To gradually get Baby to go back to sleep without your

Review and Choose Sleep Solutions

145

Jared and Jarell, seven months old

assistance, you need to shorten these helping routines during the night.

When Baby wakes, you probably have a specific routine to get her back to sleep, such as picking her up, rocking her, nursing her, and giving her a bottle or pacifier. As you read in Chapter 2, your baby thinks she
needs
this routine to go back to sleep. We don’t want to go cold turkey and cut out the familiar, nurturing pattern that you have established; that’s a sure way to cause stress and tears. Instead, very gradually modify the
length
of your help routine so that you are doing less each night. Eventually, your baby will develop a new routine that doesn’t require your presence.

146

The No-Cry Sleep Solution

When your baby wakes up, go ahead and use your regular means of getting him back to sleep, but gradually
shorten the
duration
and
vary the technique
. So, instead of letting him fall asleep totally, encourage drowsiness and then see if he’ll finish falling asleep on his own. If he fusses, repeat the process. This may take three, four, or more attempts the first few nights; and you may even have to abort your mission on some nights. Over a period of a week or two you will see definite progress, which you will evaluate when you do your ten-day logs.

Your nights might now look something like this:

• Baby wakes.

• You pick her up; sit in a chair; and rock, nurse, bottle-feed, or take her to bed with you until she’s soundly asleep.

• Then you probably ease her gently into the crib without waking her. When you move baby from your arms to the

crib, you do it very slowly and carefully, so as to not wake her.

• Then you creep out of the room and await your next call.

If you are going to use this suggestion, and if your baby uses a pacifier, bottle, or the breast at every night waking, then you will want to incorporate Pantley’s Gentle Removal Plan (pages 126–

129) along with the ideas that follow.

I have found that many mothers have been told to respond to their babies immediately and never let them cry. One problem here. “Experts” forget to tell you that babies make sounds
in their
sleep
. Babies moan, grunt, snuffle, whimper, and even cry
in their
sleep
. Mothers often run to their little ones at the first noise and scoop their babies out of their cribs. I did this with my first baby, fourteen years ago, and I can still remember that sometimes she was asleep in my arms before I even got to the rocking chair to sit down. What I didn’t know was that she had never really been awake.