Fact One:
Who wouldn’t want a child to sleep through the night? It just makes
sense. To increase your likelihood of success, establish your infant in a
parent-guided feed/wake/sleep routine. The key to success lies in the
order of these events. First comes feeding time for baby, followed by
some waketime. Naptime concludes the sequence. This routine
interaction with these three activities encourages healthy nighttime sleep
patterns. After the first week following baby’s birth, mother’s job is to
establish this sequence.
Many parents mistakenly reverse the last two events, allowing sleep
to conclude a feeding. When baby wakes from a short nap, cranky and
fussy but not necessarily hungry, parents shake their heads and pull their
hair wondering what went wrong. This frustrating circumstance is easily
eliminated when parents maintain the prescribed order. In contrast,
allowing an infant to regulate his own life leads to the formation of
nighttime sleep disturbances and poor sleep habits.
To achieve optimum sleep development, start with a basic
feed/wake/nap routine. Since most babies do not have the ability to
organize their own sleep into healthy patterns, parents must take the lead.
Here is where parenting begins, with wise decisions in the best interest of
your child. Consider the alternative. Is the parent’s job simply to respond
to an infant’s demands? When, then, would this concept switch over to
allow the parents to direct the child? Toddler years? Preteen or teen
years? Hardly. By then you’ve missed the boat, and your child sails full
speed ahead oblivious to fundamental skills like falling comfortably
asleep alone. That’s only the beginning.
Marisa’s parents wrongly believe their baby should regulate her own
routine and that their job is simply to respond. After all, a baby knows
when she is hungry and when she is ready for sleep. Right? Well, no one
would dispute that babies know when they are hungry. However, a
problem arises because they are not capable of regulating their hunger
patterns. They need parents to do this for them. Babies also know when
they are tired, but they are not capable of establishing stable sleep/wake