Suzanne from Kittaning, PA, was our lucky listener on the most recent episode of  The Mommy-Muse Is In: Empowering Your Journey into Motherhood.  She wrote the first listener question to be asked on the air of our special guest, Babies2Sleep.com expert Karen Pollak.  As a result, Suzanne gained valuable information and a $75 gift certificate to BellaMaterna.com, creators of the most beautiful maternity and nursing lingerie essentials I’ve ever seen!

A lot of you are more than a little interested in solving sleep issues, so here is the inside scoop on the question of “crying it out”:

Suzanne:         “Does your guest recommend letting a child “cry it out,” and if so, at what age is it recommended?  I hear so many different ideas and opinions about it and could use a little guidance.”

Karen Pollak:  “That’s an outstanding question.  The first thing I want to say is there are  a lot of misconceptions around what “cry it out” means.  I believe that Richard Ferber, who uses a “progressive waiting” approach, coined the phrase “crying it out”, but a lot of people think it’s about leaving the baby alone to cry until the child finally falls asleep, no matter how long it takes or how hard they cry.

                        I want to express my concern for anybody that thinks that is a practical, viable, emotionally healthy option to do.  That’s not what is intended with what you might call a “cry it out” method.  I have found that babies can’t talk.  They only have one way of telling you that something isn’t right for them; they’re hungry, tired, uncomfortable, in pain, bored, or they’re confused.  A lot of times, my clients say, “I don’t want to let my baby cry it out.  I just won’t do it,” but they think it means we’re going to shut the door and have a cup of coffee while the baby is crying in the room.

                        Helping your child develop a new skill is challenging, whether they’re three months old or thirteen years old.  A thirteen year old can express their frustration but a three month old can’t.  To answer the question, using the cry it out method, as its intended, is not a bad thing if it’s used properly, for a finite period of time, as prescribed by the practitioner whose process you’re following.

                        Mark Weiss uses something called the “extinction method”.  Richard Ferber uses the “progressive waiting” approach, where the increments of leaving and returning to the nursery increase over time, but it’s only for a finite period of time.  There are others; Elizabeth Panty’s “no cry sleep solution”, Kim West’s “sleep lady shuffle”.  There are so many different sleep training options out there.  Is it something I use, is it something I think works?  The answer is yes, and yes, however, I have designed a process.  I call it my “twelve step program,” where we are looking at all of the different elements that need to be in place for a child before you would talk about any sleep training methodology, whether it be cry it out or not.

                        Those things include looking at issues such as if the child is getting adequate milk intake throughout the day.  The calculation is 2 to 2-1/2 ounces per pound of baby weight.  A twelve-pound baby should be consuming 24 to 30 ounces of milk in a 24 hour period.  From wake-up to bedtime, if that child has only had 18 ounces, we know that waking from the middle of the night is nutritive in need. 

                        If your child has had 30 ounces of milk before bedtime, those wakeups are probably not nutritive, but a sign that the child has not developed the skills to self-soothe.  That’s another thing I work on with clients; helping their children learn to self-soothe with a transitional object, putting your child down drowsy but awake so they feel the sensation of going to from awake to asleep, so in subsequent waking they can put themselves back to sleep. 

                        Babies have shorter sleep cycles than we as adults do.  They will wake up, maybe fuss a little, reposition, but that doesn’t necessarily require our intervention.  It doesn’t require sleep training, if our child has the skills that they need.  They nap productively during the day.  Their room environment supports the need for sleep in terms of light, noise, temperature, distracting décor.  All of these pieces really need to be in place before one forays into which sleep training method should I choose.”

For those of you who are interested in learning more about Karen Pollak’s enlightened approach to improving the quality and quantity of sleep for both parents and children, check out her resources at ww.Babies2Sleep.com.  And remember, all you need to do is send in a single question to mommymuselive@gmail.com before each The Mommy-Muse Is In show to be eligible to win one of our wonderful weekly prizes!

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