Sunrise Appearances

July 2004

I would like to thank you all for your interest, and the many amazing emails I received.

The segment topic was a slightly tricky one to manage as it was essentially in two parts.

I was asked to come on as a reply to the ‘shaken baby’ segment that had aired the previous day and received a tremendous response from tired and exhausted Mum’s and Dad’s.

I was very aware that we were targeting a group of parents that were very tired and frightened by the emotions they felt when they couldn’t stop their baby from crying, but we naturally would have a second group of parents that have your average array of sleep time issues to manage. So while my answers were essentially geared towards ensuring we were catering for the first group, and the second group of Mum’s, Dad’s and carers would have a series of tips to work with.

I will highlight these further in this writing, as there is a lot of information that parents need, and 6 minutes often isn’t enough to explain it all, but it is a wonderful platform to get many parents to start looking in the right places. Sunrise are tremendous with the ongoing care and quality viewing for parents on so many varied issues by providing frank and honest discussion about the topic of parenting (which we all know is often a little difficult to come by), and I am pleased to be a part of that line up.

My answer is essentially in two parts.

The two key issues we needed to discuss yesterday were categorized under two segments.

1. What do you do when you are at ‘that point’ and it’s two o’clock in the morning and your baby is screaming again, and you are feeling like you could harm you baby out of pure frustration and exhaustion?

Do whatever it takes to calm them down is my first response.

Throw away all your learnt ideas on what you ‘should’ be doing at sleep time, and just try and stop them crying by catering to their emotional distress, so that you are less stressed. An infant crying will cause a chemical reaction in your brain, it is often extremely overwhelming when you are trying to get them to go to sleep, and they won’t stop crying, so we need to try and just stop the crying once you have reached that point, and try to not ‘fix’ or ‘correct’ the problem at that point.

Feeding, holding, swinging in a hammock, pushing in a pram, offer a dummy, wrap them firmly, let them sleep on you, if it get them and ultimately you some more sleep, and always remember a child will mirror image a mothers emotional state exactly. The more frustrated and upset you get, the more upset they become.

If all else fails and you cannot handle it anymore, you need to follow these few simple steps.

Lay them down in the cot, on their back, ensure all the toys are removed and there is no excess bedding and leave the room, closing the door behind you.

Go to your room, and put on headphones, run a bath and get in with some music playing and know that the worst that can happen is ‘they will lose their voice’ and this is reserved for if you think you may harm your baby. When you have calmed, call a friend, family member or if you are desperate, go to a neighbour’s house and ask them to look after him/her for one hour. Then go for a walk, go home and have a sleep. Do whatever it takes to stop yourself from harming your baby. If you cannot call on anyone, your infant will be fine for up to one hour in their cot if you are feeling out of control.

If you still feel frightened after this hour and your baby is still screaming, go to the hospital, clinic or your nearest GP, and get help immediately, both you and the baby may need care.

One thing that a lot of my parents say to me when I speak to them before we have started any form of management is “I’m so exhausted”, but when I ask them when they go to bed at night they say “I need to stay up because it my only ‘me’ time I have all day” even if it is 2 hours.

I disagree, if you can get some sleep, anywhere in the day, which ultimately will help you cope and stay calm under tremendous pressure, your child will calm down, and you will get more you time. So while the going is tough, sleep anytime you are given the opportunity, and remember housework comes second to your sleep when you are struggling.

There are many books that will have sections on what to do when you can’t cope any more, or how to soothe the crying but try to remember that these strategies are not a long term solution. These aided sleep management strategies mentioned above, when used as a long term solution create the situation you see above where you are constantly having to attend to your child because they have not learnt independent strategies for settling times and re-settling times.

So while these hand on approaches are a good way to soothe your baby to settle so you feel less stressed and the quickest way to get them back to sleep, to use them as a long term strategy comes with a price tag. That price tag is that you are your child’s sleeping aid. Not unlike their need for a blanket, a dummy etc. So anything you do to assist your baby to go to sleep or back to sleep, will become what they ‘think’ they need to go to sleep, or back to sleep with. It is simply a learnt pattern and we need to look at changing those learnt patterns by equipping them with the essential tools they need to go to sleep independently and ultimately go back to sleep independently, which is what we call sleeping through.

2. The second part to the segment yesterday were my hints, which I didn’t have a chance to finish explaining.

What can we do in the immediate time frame to reduce or stop our babies from waking?

Now based on the information that people would find on my site from previous sunrise episodes, I wanted to build on this to offer more important clues to helping people to solve their babies sleep time problems (so be sure to have a read through the facts from previous sunrise segments to help you work through and unravel your sleep time puzzle).

• Avoid creating associations… what are they? Anything that involves your intervention. Remember that babies need to wake up in the same environment that they initially went to sleep in, so if that involves you, then be sure to expect your infant to continue to need you through the night.
  
  There are two parts to settling: The initial settling, and re-settling. In children that do have difficulty with sleep about 50% of these infants have both settling and therefore re-settling issues, and the other 50% have no problems with settling and have independent strategies for settling, but learnt associative patterns with re-settling.
  
  Try and minimize the level of support you give them right up to them falling asleep. Make sure you soothe them, wait until they calm, then say some simple cue (that is the same every time) and leave for a minute. Repeat this pattern, and remember it takes a little bit of tie to learn something new, so don’t expect that they will get it immediately. But while we are asking them to settle and re-settle themselves, make sure they are actually able to fall asleep in the first place.
  
  How do I do this? This is the tricky part, it takes me a fair bit of time to work through each baby’s individual needs, and I wont just give a generic answer, because the fact that I individualise my routines for my babies is why I have a 99% success rate. So you need to start looking at your days to solve your nights and looking at your nights to solve your days.
  
• Sleep debt... We never compensate for poor sleep at the right time with good sleep at the wrong time. E.g. If your child slept very poorly through the night, we don’t allow them to take a massive three hour morning nap to compensate, this will simply perpetuate a cycle of poor sleep at night and a big morning sleep.

We always want to lock in our nights sleep first, that’s the most important, then we balance the remaining sleep requirement into management daytime sleep cycles.

There was a point that many people found interesting on sunrise yesterday and that was the parts of the day sleep that impacted the night pattern the next day, so here it is. Many people will immediately see issues that are quickly solvable by simply reading this, for others, your sleep time issues may be more complicated as there are many layers to every child’s sleep time puzzle.

Their daytime sleeps are concerned:

The morning sleep impacts between 12:00am and 6:30pm

The afternoon sleep impacts between 7:00pm and 12:00am

A morning nap that is provided too early will promote a cycle of early morning prolonged wakings, or early morning wakings that can only be solved with a feed (4:00 - 5:00am)

An afternoon nap that is provided too late will promote late settling and bedtime (8:00 -10:00pm).

How early is too early and how late is too late varies from child to child, and how long each sleep should be also varies. I work with three rough routines for my 6-12 month olds and 2 routines for 12+ plus.

Again, no two routines are usually ever the same and a slight change can be the difference between a full night’s sleep and an early waking. I will need time to evaluate each child’s sleep requirement.

• Misleading your babies. Don’t trick you babies into thinking they will sleep in your arms, only to put them in bed and sneak off when they have finally gone to sleep. I know no one means to do this, and would never intentionally break this trust barrier, but it’s being dishonest. Let them go to sleep in the environment they will wake up in. Remember, if we want our babies to sleep all night, they need to learn to be in their beds awake, because they will wake naturally through the night.
  
  I always make sure I say my cues, leave and close the door so they can hear me leaving. I also role play with dolls and teddies this scenario with children from six months of age, so it becomes familiar to them, and they learn that I just outside the door listening for their cries, and I will attend with empathy and love if they are crying. All my parents on the first day say “Sheyney, they aren’t looking at you, are you sure they are old enough to understand” and within a day or two, the children are listening as intently as me for crying, and often anticipating me reaching for the door handle by watching my hand and the door handle. I also see amazing results with number of attendances (as highlighted on the forums in some of my ‘management in progress’ posts in the 6-12 and 12-18 months old sections), children will require the exact number of attendances as I roll play through, and as I drop from 3 to 2 they will do the same. I can often go from 4 attendances the first settle of day one to no attends on the last settle of day one.
  
  So in conclusion, be honest with your babies, start to ask them to go to sleep for you, rather than waiting for them to fall asleep from exhaustion before they go to bed. So if you don’t plan on being there through the night, don’t be there during the day.
  
  
• Earn your sleep... How do I do that?
  Make sure you are not having them sitting all morning in the pram the car, on your hip etc. If our bodies are to anticipate that they need to sleep in past 4-5 am each morning they need to know that they have a big morning ahead of them, and I’m not talking about simply running them physically ragged. You have already got a physically exhausting day ahead for them anyway so you earn no extra sleep making them physically tired. I’m talking about making sure you are providing age appropriate toys that are challenging that provide stimulation across the board developmentally i.e. cognitive, problem solving toys, language experiences, social experiences and physical challenges and always incorporate areas of interest and ensure they have time and space to explore their environment. Remember it’s not just toys that provide challenge and stimulation (a.k.a. sleep points) for our children, and the most important time to earn these sleep points is in the morning.
  
  
• Don’t attempt control crying as a single strategy PLEASE.
  I have seen this strategy do the most damage in terms of teaching a baby to cry for prolonged periods of time before their parents ultimately pick them up…which simply teaches them to cry for a long time. Why are they crying for a long time?? Usually because the first steps to any sleep training have not been catered for…to start trying to solve your sleep problems at sleep time is like trying to step on the tenth rung of a ladder…it’s the last place to start.
  
  So where should I start… what is the first rung of the ladder??
  
  Go back and have a look at the transcript from my first Sunrise appearance to see all of the things I address before I even put the baby into bed the first time.

Finally, if you are trying to solve things yourself, make sure you have a plan, follow it, and be consistent, and if you don’t see results within 24-48 hours, or you are having a really difficult time still after three days, stop, because you have misses something. Alternatively, contact me, and jump on my waiting list, and I can help you with the strategy planning.