As parents to a newborn child, it can get overwhelming. Nursing a baby doesn’t come with a manual although there are many resources that you can consider. You will not be empty handed do not worry. Nothing beats a smile or giggle from your baby.
You will get sleepless nights but that is part of the whole process. You will eventually be good with sleep training the baby. Have you heard about Cry it Out Method? Many parents here in Singapore use this sleep training. In this training, you will leave the babies alone to cry until they sleep. It colloquially called CIO. Many parents here in Singapore consider this kind of sleep training; they say that it is fine to let the baby cry for a particular period of time (usually a very short period) before you actually offer comfort.
In 1985, Richard Ferber, a paediatrician, wrote Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems. He presented a similar method to get babies to sleep but did not call it CIO. From then on, many paediatricians agreed that crying is normal and CIO method works. Here are the things that you need to know about CIO method:
The theory behind it
The most common mistake of parents is to rock or nurse the baby whenever he/she wakes up at night. This is dependency. When you are not there, the baby will cry. The theory behind CIO method is to let the baby cry so he/she will learn how to calm himself/herself to sleep. Crying is not the goal of this method but it encourages the baby to adjust so he/she can sleep on his/her own.
It is two way – the baby can learn to sleep on his/her own plus parents can count on a good night sleep.
Other similar theories
Ferber is the most famous expert when it comes to sleep training method but there are other advocates that made significant contribution in sleep training. For example there is Marc Weissbluth who authored Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child that claim crying is a part of developing a good sleeping habit. There is also Baby Wise – an approach presented by Robert Bucknam and Gary Ezzo. They are encouraing parents to have a strict sleep, nap and feeding schedule.
There is nothing wrong if you want to try this sleeping method. Not all parents are convinced that this is safe but experts say that it is so do your baby a favour by teaching him/her to self-soothe. It can encourage dependency at such a young age. 