"Sleep training is harder on parents then kids."
"Most kids are good sleepers, an the ones who are not can usually be made into good sleepers with training."
"Many parents worry that letting their kids cry it out will cause some type of irreversible damage to their psyche and the parent-child bond, but there won't be any long term damage."
Lewis J Kass, M.D., FAAP Yale-trained Board Certified Pediatric Pulmonoligist and Specialist in Sleep Medicine and Sleep Disorders
"I personally believe that the majority of babies thrive and are happier in a routine."
"I would typically arrive at a home a few days after the birth and live with the family 24/7 for periods of 3-5 days, or sometimes several weeks to six months."
"The aim of the routine is not to push your baby through the night without a feeding but to ensure that structuring his eating and sleeping during the day will keep his nighttime waking at a minimum."
"If the baby is fed every time he cries, mothers tend not to look for other reasons as to why the baby may be crying-- overstimulation or over tiredness, for example."
"Of course, all babies must be fed if they are genuinely hungry; no baby should have to cry to be fed or should be kept on a strict timetable if he is genuinely hungry. But in my experience, and if research on sleeping problems is anything to go by, a huge number of demand-fed babies do not automatically fall into a healthy sleeping pattern months down the line."
Gina Ford, Child Care Expert in Great Britain, helped 300 babies in home as a Maternity Nurse
"The process of falling asleep is learned."
Dr. Christian Guilleminault & Dr. William C. Dement, Founding Editor of the world's leading journal of sleep research.
"The truth is that some parents swing back and forth between firmness and permissiveness so often, they cannot make any cure stick."
"Sleep problems not only disrupt a child's nights, they disrupt his days, too, by making him less mentally alert, more inattentive, unable to concentrate, and easily distracted."
Marc Weissbluth, M.D. - 43 year Pediatrician; Founded Sleep Disorders Center at Childrens' Memorial Hospital in Chicago and is Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at the Northwestern University School of Medicine.
"Every day I get phone calls from parents who are anxious, confused, overwhelmed, and, most of all, sleep-deprived. They bombard me with questions and beg me for solutions because the quality of their family life is suffering. No matter what the specific problem, I always suggest the same remedy: a structured routine."
"Stand back and wait a heartbeat; you don't have to swoop down and pick up your baby the moment she cries. Take three deep breaths to center yourself and improve your own perception. It will also help you clear your mind of other people's voices and advice, which often make it hard for you to be objective."
"Crying is your baby's language. This moment of hesitation is not to suggest that you should let your baby cry. Rather, listen to what he's saying to you."
"You need to foster your baby'e self-soothing skills."
"Babies come into the world as a blank state, and they depend on you to teach them routine."
Nina Vaid Raoji, RN; MSN, APN
"The core of any baby sleep training method is routine."
"Myth: Letting a child cry at night leads to resentment and psychological damage. Truth: This myth is rooted in visceral emotion and has absolutely no medical or scientific basis. Granted, no parent likes to hear his or her child cry. Even understanding that crying is a newborn's only mode of communication, it understandably can still be very tough to hear. But the reality is that crying in and of itself does no harm to baby. Understanding why exactly your baby may be crying-- and having a levelheaded response to it- is far more productive than going to great lengths to avoid it altogether."
"The longer a baby goes between feedings, the longer she'll be able to sleep."
"We want to train your baby to be an efficient feeder-- allowing for a comfortable amount of time between feedings-- and not to be a grazer. Grazers have a much harder time when we try to get them to sleep through the night."
Drs. Lewis Jassey & Jonathan Jassey, who have treated over 15,000 patients in their 35 years as active Pediatricians in private practice in Long Island, New York.
"Four Foundations of Baby Sleep Success:
1. A baby must adapt to the existing family; the existing family does not adapt to a baby.
2. You must feel empowered as a parent.
3. Sleeping is a learned skill that you need to teach your baby.
4. Sleep training requires commitment and hard work on the part of the parents."
"Six Benefits of Baby Sleep Success:
1. There is little crying involved.
2. You will have happier, more cooperative children.
3. You will be using proactive parenting.
4. You will have a predictable schedule.
5. You will be able to deal with more than one child effectively.
6. You can follow this plan on your own."
"Babies need to eat every three hours because steady weight gain is very important in the first few weeks of life. You will need to wake up your baby to feed him if he is sleeping past the three-hour mark. In addition, you do not want your baby to get int the habit of sleeping for long stretches of five to six hours during the day. You want these stretches to occur at night."
"It is also important not to feed your baby more frequently than every two and a half hours during the first six weeks, unless there is a medical reason and your pediatrician advises you follow a more frequent feeding schedule. Your baby's digestive system needs time to process the food."
Suzy Giordano, "The Baby Coach" Suzy is the mother of 5 children and has been implementing her baby sleep methods with thousands of Washington D.C. families as a baby sleep consultant for the last 25 years. She has been in Parents Magazine and on ABC News; while the Washington Post calls her the 'underground legend'."
"How do you establish a baby's routine that is predictable, yet 'flexible,' enough to meet a baby's growing and changing feed-wake-sleep needs? Part of the answer comes from understanding the meaning of flexibility. The root word, 'flexible,' means 'the ability to bend or be pliable'."
" 'Just listen to your baby's cues' is good advice. You know what to listen and look for. As a baby nearing the end of a sleep cycle, he will often make little suckle sounds and may even bring his hand towards his mouth and begin sucking. Then the parents may hear a slight whimpering, which can grow into a full cry. Those are all cues that it is time to eat, but there is no need to wait until the baby is in a full cry before feeding him, especially if the other signs are present. The hunger cues should always trump the time on the clock."
"What if your baby is hungry sooner than 2 1/2 hours? Even when Mom has been working to make sure her baby is receiving full feedings, additional feeding times are sometimes necessary. This usually occurs during a growth spurt."
"When attempting to establish a feed-wake-sleep plan, parents must determine the first feeding of the day and try to stay as consistent as they can. Without a consistent first-morning feeding, a mother can and will be feeding every 3 hours, but each day has a different rhythm. That will work against stabilizing the baby's hunger metabolism and will eventually affect the length of baby's nap time."
"Enslavement to the clock is almost as great an evil as a mother who is in bondage to thoughtless emotions. Another side to the problem of infrequency (on feeding) is that some demand-fed babies demand too little food."
Pediatrician Robert Bucknam, M.D. & Gary Ezzo, MA (authors On Becoming Babywise)
