Wait A Minute

One of the most important (and difficult) things to do while teaching your baby how to sleep is allowing them to be frustrated as they develop self-soothing strategies. Like any skill, it requires practice, even though the practice may be loud and going on at 3:00 AM. As parents, we are programmed to intervene when our children exhibit signs of distress so the tricky bit is fighting against that instinct and letting baby try to figure things out on their own.

Often a parent’s desire to make crying stop overrides their rational understanding that children don’t learn if we do everything for them. This applies to sleep as well. Babies have little to no self-soothing skills, depending on their age, and picking up your baby as soon as they make a peep denies them the opportunity to practice developing these necessary skills. Babies are programmed to survive and they do this by loudly announcing their desires and emotions to everyone around them. But just because your baby is fussing when you put them in their crib at bedtime, it doesn’t mean that they are in actual distress or that you need to intervene; they are simply trying to figure out how to click their brain down into sleep mode and loudly informing everyone of their feelings during the process.

Allowing your baby to fuss for specific chunks of time as they practice self-soothing is not the same as crying it out. Crying it out is the practice of putting your child to bed and letting them cry without intervention until they fall asleep. What we are doing by waiting a few minutes before responding to crying is giving baby short blocks of time to practice self-soothing skills before we enter and assist in the calming process until baby is able to calm themselves without parents.

By Hannah Mira, Founder of Bonsoir Bebe Sleep Consulting