The baby Sleep

Pediatrician Dr. William Sears, in The Baby Book (Little, Brown and Company, 1993) says, “Encouraging a baby to sleep too deeply, too soon, may not be in the best survival or developmental interests of the baby.”

There are two best ways to put babies to sleep

 1) The parent-soothing method

 2) The self-soothing method.

Both have advantages and also possible disadvantages

1  1)   Parent-soothing method.

When baby is ready to sleep, a parent or other caregiver helps baby make a comfortable transition from being awake to falling asleep, usually by nursing, rocking, singing, or whatever comforting techniques work.

Advantages

Baby learns a healthy sleep attitude – that sleep is a pleasant state to enter and a secure state to remain in.

Creates` fond memories about being parented to sleep.

Builds parent-infant trust

Disadvantages:

Because of the concept of sleep associations, baby learns to rely on an outside prop to get to sleep, so—as the theory goes—when baby awakens he will expect help to get back to sleep. This may exhaust the parents.

2. Self-soothing method

 Baby is put down awake and goes to sleep by himself. Parents offer intermittent comforting, but are not there when baby drifts off to sleep.

Advantages:

If baby learns to go to sleep by himself, he may be better able to put himself back to sleep without parental help, because he doesn’t associate going to sleep with parents comforting. May be touch on baby, but eventually less exhausting for the parents.

Disadvantages:

Involves a few nights of let-baby-cry-it-out

Risks baby losing trust

Seldom works for high-need babies with persistent personalities overlooks medical reasons for night waking

Source

familias-madeira.com/Elizabeth.Pantley.The.No.Cry.Sleep.Solution-1.pdf

askdrsears.com/topics/health-concerns/sleep-problems/31-ways-get-your-baby-sleep-and-stay-asleep