Crying on settling to sleep and re settling back to sleep would easily be one of the most widely controversial, misunderstood and frightening areas of a child’s day for a good proportion of parents around the world.

So what’s going on? Why are we finding this once seemingly simple task of putting a baby to bed one that is growing into a nightmare of epidemic proportions for many a sleepless family?

This was to be explored when I was invited back onto the 7Sunrise program on Friday, 1st February 2008. Unfortunately, due to some significant technical difficulties through my particular segment, we ran short of time and are now relying heavily on this more detailed facts sheet to fill in some of the gaps. Sunrise is always keen to provide up to date and popular topics for parents, and even despite the complications experienced, over 18,000 new visitors came to The Australian Baby Whisperer’s website in the first few hours following the live segment at 8.40am to find out more on the topic. After six years of working with the Sunrise team, I have to say that they would have to be the nicest bunch in the industry, and such a delight to work with. I love them all even more after our somewhat exciting, but a little frustrating segment on Friday for all their support, flowers and encouragement. Thank you!

So what is going on? Why is there a crisis of epidemic proportions in this country?

I believe that there are many causes of the crisis, but the one that is most relevant, and as far as I am concerned is the ultimate end result of all the varied causes of the crisis is a growing fear or anxiety around a baby crying at all when it comes time for sleep.

In 1998 we were blessed to discover some of the causes of cot death, and thanks to the wonderful research of the SIDS foundation amongst others, were then able to alert parents about some of the potentially dangerous practices that could possible pose a significant Sids risk factor in their child’s environment. This research, thank God, has been responsible for saving over 5000 children’s lives since the beginning of the campaign.

As a result we started putting our babies on their backs to sleep, and along with reducing the level of excessive warmth, increasing visual stimulation through the loss of bumpers and removing some of the natural sense of security and digestive relief that once came from lying on their tummies, we suddenly started seeing our babies feeling a lot more exposed, less settled, and far more over stimulated when it came to going to bed. This ultimately led to tears, and lots of them.