Child Sleep Training Issues
Will crying during sleep training psychologically damage my child?
The crying in itself will not affect the child psychologically. It's important for parents to understand something: the issues, the sleep disorder and the behavior disorder that the child has over the long term is actually probably worse than the few days or the week or so that the child is gonna spend crying. You must understand that they're crying when they're being trained. They're not gonna cry the same amount every night. It's gonna get less and less. But how it affects quality of life, how it affects the interaction between the parent in the daytime when you have exhausted parents and you have a child who's demanding. Think about it that way versus a child who's cried for a few days who's sleeping better, the parents are sleeping better. The child is not perceived as being demanding or irritating in the daytime, and generally, the quality of time and the quality of care that the child receives and the enjoyment that the parents get in the day is far outweighs the brief moments of crying that were encountered when they were training.
What is the best way to cope with my child's crying during sleep training?
Coping with your child's crying during sleep training depends on your make up. If you have resolve and you can stand it, then it's really just a case of hanging in there, and watching the clock until you can go in to reassure the child that you still exist. If your personality type is that you just cannot stand hearing the child crying, the best thing to do is have someone else deal with the sleep training. You may be at the sleep training if you want to, but you have to have an agreement that you cannot go in. Prearrange that, no matter what, “I am not going to go in even if I desperately want to hold my child, my poor baby that's crying, I can't stand it.” You've got to have the systems in place that if you desire to do that when you're child is crying, somebody's got to say to you, “No, you're not going in there.” If that's not going to work for you, then the best thing is to go out of the house and do something else while your partner trains your child.
Will sleep training affect my child's attachment to me?
Sleep training will not affect your child's attachment to you because children attach better during conscious hours, during the daytime, as that's when they're interacting with their parents and that's when they are spending quality time with their parents. Babies are doing things, parents are saying, "What a great job you did", or they're building something and mom says, "Oh, wow, that's such a good thing you did", or if they're bringing something to a parent, "Look what I made", and mom says, "Wonderful, wonderful". So there are many rich encounters that take place during the day, which will not take place during the night. The fear that parents have about not holding their child at night affecting attachment is unfounded as this plays such a small role, and when a child is sleeping better at night, the quality of interaction between child and parent in the day far outweighs, by far, those concerns.
What do I do if my partner and I don't agree on our child's method of sleeping?
If partners don't agree on the child's method of sleeping, you have to come to some position where there is agreement, where you agree to disagree. If you agree to disagree then one party has to not be there. If you're going to have conflict between partners when you do sleep training, you've failed before you've started. When the one partner says, "I want to do it," the other partner says, "I don't want to do it." so you just cannot proceed. You have to get beyond that point to have successful behavioral sleep training.
What are common mistakes during sleep training?
The most common mistakes that parents make when in sleep training are not preparing properly in terms of their environment, in terms of their resolve and in terms of the technique they're going to use. Another mistake parents make is when initiating training, they're not consistent. I believe that those are the prime things in sleep training, because if you're inconsistent, you're just empowering a child to continue doing what they've done before.
Can I stop sleep training if it becomes too difficult for me?
Once you start this process, there is no stopping, because the child is going to try or going to fuss, and is going to do their absolute best to get the parents to resume the old habit. One has just got to remain consistent. If you're inconsistent and you eventually give in and say, "I just can't take it any more; I'm going to pick up my child," then what you've done is you've rewarded the child for the prolonged crying. So, when you decide that we're going to start again and do the sleep training, you've made the child much more robust, and in fact before, when they could cry for 10, 15 minutes, they're now feeling the power to cry for 30 minutes before they can ever show any signs of thinking about "Maybe this is not a good idea. Maybe I really should go to sleep on my own." Once you start, it's like a golf swing; you've got to swing right through.
What do I do if my child won't stay in his bed during sleep training?
Some parents ask the question "What if I have an older child, a child that's able to climb out of the crib? What happens if they won't, or if they don't sleep in the bed? What happens if they won't stay in the bed? Well you still got to get the message across to them that it's new and they have to go to sleep where they are. If you're going to use the more rapid extension technique, and you leave them within three macro seconds, the child's going to be out of the bed, running out the door looking for you. Then you're going to have to pick that child up and briefly say "No, it's time for you to go to bed; you're a big boy/big girl and you've go to sleep on your own." You put them back in their bed, you go out of the room and within five macro seconds, they'll come out again. You may have to do this again. So, in order for you to sort of playing this rapid to and fro thing, you may have to say to a child "Look, if you keep coming out of the bed, I'm going to have to close the door". An alternative to closing the door is that you can get door hooks where the door can stay slightly ajar; the child can stand by the door and look around and see what's outside, but not get out the door. Then they stay there and they can cry and fuss and tear their clothes off, whatever they want to do, and have their tantrum until such time that they fall asleep. Now periodically, you can go to the door and say "You know its time for you to go to sleep," and walk away. Invariably those children will just fall asleep ultimately out of exhaustion, right there by the door, but that doesn't matter because once they're asleep you can pick them up, you can put them back in their bed, and then you can leave them. When they wake up which you're going to assume they will do during the night, you just have to repeat exactly the same process. If you're going to use the less aggressive approach for the older child who can get out of bed, it's a simple thing; you just stay in the room and if they clamber for your attention, then you have to pick them up and you have to put them back in the bed. Then they're going to come back up and you have to put them back in the bed; you're just going to have to keep doing that until such time that they realise, "My goodness, it's just not worth my while getting out of bed because all that happens is Mum just picks me up and puts me back in the bed; she doesn't even say anything, she just puts me back in the bed. This isn't fun; I might as well stay where I am".
