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Welcome to parenthood! For many of us, parenting is like being dumped in a foreign country, where Protohumans reign and where communication is done through cryptic cries and colorful fluids. And to top it off, in this new world, sleep is like gold: precious and rare. (Oh, so precious.)
Throughout the history of humanity, children were generally raised in large and extensive families, filled with aunts, uncles, grannies, grandparents and siblings . Adding another baby to the combination did not really make a big bump.
Nowadays, however, many mothers and fathers go there alone. As a result, caring for a newborn baby can be relentless. There are too few arms to swing, too many chests to sleep and too few hours in the day to run out The great british pastry. At some point, many parents need their baby to sleep – alone and silently – for a few hours.
And so, for the sake of conservation, many of us are turning to the common practice of sleep training, though controversial, in the hope of persuading the baby to sleep on his own. Some parents swear by this. They say that's the only way for them and their babies to sleep. Other parents say that letting a baby cry is dangerous.
So what does science say? Here we try to separate the fiction from the fact – and offer some reassuring advice to distrustful parents. Let's start with the basics.
Myth: Sleep training is synonymous with the "raining" method.
Fact: Researchers are currently studying a wide range of softer sleep training approaches that can help.
Jodi Mindell, a psychologist at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, helps thousands of babies and parents sleep better in the past 20 years. In fact, most of the time, it's do not this.
"Unfortunately, the sleep training really went bad because it was equated with that nickname called" scream it, "Mindell said.
And indeed, the "cry-it-out" approach seems cruel to many parents. "You put your baby in their cradle or their room, you close the door and you do not come back the next day," says Mindell. "But that's not the reality of what we recommend or what parents usually do."
And that's not what scientists have studied in the last twenty years. Cry-it-out Mindell, who is behind one of the most cited sleep training studies Sleep at night).
In the current scientific literature, the term "sleep training" is a generic term for a variety of approaches to help babies learn to fall asleep alone. This includes much milder methods than the cry-it-out method or the so-called Ferber method. For example, for sleep training to begin, the parent needs to sleep next to the baby's crib (a method called camping while camping) or simply to educate parents about baby sleep.
"All of these methods are grouped together in the scientific literature as" sleep training, "said Mindell.
In many studies, parents are taught a very gentle approach to sleep training. They are told to place the baby in the cradle, then to calm him down – by tapping or rubbing his back – until he stops crying. The parent then leaves the room. If the baby starts to cry, the parent is supposed to register after waiting a while. In one study, these types of mild interventions reduced the percentage of parents reporting sleep problems by about 30% five months later.
Myth: There is enough time to let your babies cry when you try to sleep, train them.
Fact: There is no strict formula that works for all parents (or babies).
According to Mindell, there is not a magic number of minutes that best suits to monitor a baby after having it folded. It really depends on what parents feel comfortable with.
"It does not matter if you come back to monitor the baby every 30 seconds or if you come back every five minutes," she says. "If it's your first child, you go every 20 seconds." But at the third, she jokes, 10 minutes of tears may not seem like much.
There is no scientific evidence that checking every three minutes or every 10 minutes will work faster or better than checking more often. There are about a dozen quality studies on sleep training. Each study tests a slightly different approach. And none of them really compares the different methods. In many studies, several methods are combined. For example, parents are taught how to train to sleep and organize a good bedtime routine. So, it's impossible to say that one approach works better than the other, especially for every baby, says Mindell.
So, instead of looking for a strict formula – for example checking every five minutes – parents should focus on what Mindell calls "the magic moment" – that is, the moment when the "magic moment" – that is, the moment in child can fall asleep independently without you in the room. For some children, more soothing or more frequent recordings can help to bring out the magic, and for other, less soothing babies, a reduced number of recordings can yield better results.
I remember that with my daughter, I finally figured out that one type of crying meant that she needed a little attention, but that she did not feel like it. another wanted her to stay alone.
Even a good bedtime routine can make a difference. "I think education is the key," Mindell said. "A study I just reviewed found that when new parents discover how babies sleep, their newborns are more likely to sleep better at the age of 3 and 6 months."
"So you just have to find what works best for you, your family and the baby's temperament," she says.
Myth: This is not a real sleep workout if you do not hear tons of tears.
Fact: Smoother approaches work too. And sometimes, nothing works.
You do not have to hear tons of tears if you do not want to, Mindell says.
The scientific literature suggests that all soft approaches – such as camping and parenting – can help most babies and parents sleep better, at least for a few months. In 2006, Mindell reviewed 52 studies of different sleep training methods. And in 49 studies, sleep training decreased sleep resistance at bedtime and at night, according to parents' information.
There is a popular belief that "shouting" is the fastest way to teach babies to sleep independently. But there is no proof that is true, says Mindell.
"Parents are looking for the most effective method," said Mindell. "But it depends on the parents and the baby – it's a personalized formula, no question."
And if nothing seems to work, do not push too hard. Sleep training in about 20% of babies it does not work, says Mindell.
"Your child may not be ready for sleep training for some reason," she says. "Maybe they are too young, or do they suffer from separation anxiety or an underlying medical problem, such as reflux."
Myth: Once I sleep, train my baby, I can wait for him to sleep all night.
Fact: Most sleep training techniques help some parents for a while, but they do not always stick.
Do not expect a miracle of any sleep-training method, especially with regard to long-term results.
None of the sleep training studies are broad enough – or quantitative enough – to tell parents how much a baby will sleep better or less often after trying a method, or how long the changes will last.
"I think this idea is an invented fantasy," said Mindell. "It would be great if we could say exactly what improvement you will see in your child, but any improvement is good."
Even the oldest "cry-it-out" studies cautioned readers that loud crying sometimes occurred at night and that reconversion was probably necessary after a few months.
The vast majority of studies on sleep training do not measure the amount of sleep or waking of a baby. But instead, they rely on parents' reports to measure sleep improvements, which can be biased. For example, one of the high quality studies found that a moderate sleep training method reduced by about 30% the likelihood that parents would report sleep problems in their child's home. ;a year. But by the time these children were 2 years old, the effect has disappeared.
Another recent study found that two types of sleep training help babies sleep better – for a few months. He attempted to compare two approaches to sleep training: one in which the parent gradually lets the baby cry for longer periods of time and the other where the parent adjusts the baby's bedtime (# 39 when he naturally falls asleep) and then slowly the parent moves the time until the desired bedtime. The data suggest that both methods have reduced the time it takes for a baby to fall asleep at night and the number of times he wakes up at night.
But the study was quite small, only 43 infants. And the size of the effects varied greatly between the babies. It is therefore difficult to say what improvement is expected. After the two methods, babies woke up again, on average, once or twice a night, three months later.
At the end of the day, do not expect a miracle, especially when it comes to long-term results. Even if the training has worked well for your baby, the effect will probably be less, you may be back to square one and some parents will choose to do the training again.
Myth: The training to sleep (or NOT training to sleep), my children could harm them in the long run.
Fact: There is no evidence that either choice hurts your child in the long run.
Some parents worry that sleep training will be harmful in the long run. Or that not doing it could create problems for their children later.
Science does not support any of these fears, says Dr. Harriet Hiscock, pediatrician at Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne, Australia, who has authored some of the best studies on the subject.
Hiscock has notably led one of the few long-term studies on the subject. It is a randomized controlled trial – the benchmark in medical science – with over 200 families. Blogs and parenting books often cite this study as "proof" that the alarm call method does not harm children. But if you take a closer look, you will soon find that the study is not intended to "shout". Instead, he tests two other softer methods, including the method of camping.
"This is not closing the door on the child and leaving," says Hiscock.
In this study, families either learned a light sleep training method or were given regular pediatric care. Then, Hiscock and his colleagues checked with families five years later to see if the sleep training had any adverse effects on the emotional health of the child or on his relationship with his parents. The researchers also measured children's stress levels and looked at their sleep patterns.
In the end, Hiscock and his colleagues could not find any long-term difference between the children who had been trained to sleep and the others. "We concluded that there was no adverse effect on the behavior, sleep or parent-child relationship of the children," Hiscock said.
In other words, progressive sleep training did not make a difference in weight – good or bad – when children were about 6 years old. do not to sleep to train a baby.
"I just think it's really important not to make parents feel guilty about their choice [on sleep training], "Hiscock said." We need to show them scientific evidence and then let them make their own idea. "
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