Sleep Training by Sian Hughes
This is a life skill, and I will learn
to go back to sleep without crying.
It is normal to find myself alone
at night. It is normal to call out
and for no one to come. I will adjust.
Already I barely acknowledge the sound
of my screaming, night after night.
It is almost like silence to me, almost
like the night itself. I will learn
to close the door, turn aside, and sleep.
This poem reminded me of when T was a baby and, fed up with spending every evening lying next to him in his cotbed until he fell asleep, we decided that controlled crying was the only thing to do. It had been recommended to me by my health visitor and numerous mums at various baby and toddler groups. I think we tried it for two nights but were unable to do it both times. One time I really wanted to do it but my husband gave in and picked up T. The other time I was the one who went to T while my husband wanted to stay "strong". Both times, we both realised that it was something we just couldn't do. All my instincts were screaming out to me that it was wrong, that my baby was crying because he needed me and I had to go to him. After two nights we listened to our instincts and went back to lying in the cotbed every evening. Later we found gentler ways of helping T fall asleep.
Since then I have read quite a lot on the subject and I am so relieved that we followed our instincts. When a baby cries, stress hormones are produced that actually distort the way the brain develops if a carer is not there to soothe the baby and reduce that stress.
If a baby is left to cry himself to sleep he will always associate sleep and bedtime with terror and anxiety. Even when he has learned to fall asleep without crying, he is still falling asleep in a state of terror, he has just learned that it is pointless to try to communicate that terror. T now goes to bed and falls asleep quite happily whereas I know parents who have used controlled crying and now have young children who refuse to go to bed and constantly get out of bed - not surprising since for them sleep is a scary place to go.
2 comments:
Its quite a scary poem and makes me feel sad. I thankfully have never been in that awful state where controlled crying could be seen as a fix on the basis that we haven't really had any sleep problems yet - or maybe "problems" are just a view point and what we deal with would be considered a problem for someone else.
I'm glad you caved in. I cave in all the time and my DS comes to bed with us as soon as he cries. We just love it too much to want to do anything different :o)
:)
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