Sleepy-time Stress

Reviewing Sleep Strategies

By Laurie Dove

Dr. Sears, author of several books on the subject including Nighttime Parenting, now promotes sleep-sharing as a way for babies to learn that sleep is a pleasant state to enter. Dr. Sears posits that when babies fall asleep with a parent, they sleep better and for longer periods of time. For breastfeeding mothers, co-sleeping can make feedings more convenient. It's also a good way for working mothers to increase the amount of interaction with babies, Dr. Sears adds.

Other approaches to getting a good night's sleep include Dr. Gary Ezzo's scheduled feeding and sleeping method.

Dr. Ezzo, the author of Babywise: How 100,000 New Parents Trained Their Babies to Sleep Through the Night the Natural Way, advises new parents to schedule a newborn's day – manipulating when the baby should eat, sleep and play. Dr. Ezzo warns against "demand feeding" of infants, saying it may produce a "high-need" baby with excessive crying and unstable sleep cycles. Like Dr. Ferber, Dr. Ezzo says parents should not respond immediately to a baby's cries at bedtime.

In part because Dr. Ezzo's method rejects widespread medical opinion that breastfed babies should be fed when they indicate hunger, it has received criticism from the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Despite cautions of the medical community that Babywise can be harmful if newborns aren't receiving adequate nutrition, it's a method that has worked for many parents. Dionna Sanchez, a Boise, Idaho mother of two toddler daughters, started her children on the schedule soon after birth and has been pleased with the results.

Want to see more?

• The Crying Game: Soothing Your Newborn
• Crying Baby, Sleepless Nights: Why Your Baby is Crying and What You Can Do About It
• The First Year: Birth to 3 Months
• Talk about it!