The No-cry Sleep Solution (23 page)

That’s the game plan that the interesting conversation with my single, male, childless friend prompted me to develop. I realized that, had I not been informed and confident on this particular issue, my friend’s opinion would have left me confused, worried, and self-doubting. At the very least, he did manage to shock me speechless.

So, your best defense is knowledge. It really is power, as they say. It’s the light that illuminates the dark halls (or cribs, in this case) of ignorance. The more you know, the more easily you will develop your own philosophies about child rearing. When you have your facts straight, and when you have a parenting plan, you will be able to respond with confidence to those who are well-meaning but offering contrary or incorrect advice.

Review and Choose Sleep Solutions

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So, your first step is to get smart! Know
what
you are doing, and know
why
you are doing it. Then, when those amateur experts share their advice, you can smile, say “Oh, really?” and then go about your business, with quiet confidence, in your own way.

There are a number of outstanding books about babies in the marketplace. I suggest that you read a baby book or two and build your store of knowledge. Your books will probably be well-used, highlighted, and dog-eared because you’ll find yourself referring to them often in the first few years of your baby’s life. Choose your books wisely; ask for recommendations from friends who share your parenting beliefs, and find authors who have philosophies that match your own way of thinking. As you read, keep in mind that no author will parallel your beliefs 100 percent, so you must learn to take from each one the ideas that work best for your family. Here are a few of my favorites:

The Baby Book
, William Sears, M.D. and Martha Sears, R.N. (Little, Brown and Company, 1993)

Attachment Parenting
, Katie Allison Granju and Betsy Kennedy (Pocket Books, 1999)

Your Baby and Child: From Birth to Age Five
, Penelope Leach (Knopf, 1997)

What to Expect the First Year
, Arlene Eisenberg, et al.

(Workman Publishing, 1996)

In my book, I will help you learn about babies and sleep. The best place to start, of course, is at the beginning.

The Biology of Newborn Sleep

During the first several months of your baby’s life, he simply sleeps when he’s tired. His waking-sleeping pattern mainly revolves around his stomach. He’s awake when he’s hungry and asleep when he’s full. You can do very little to force a new baby

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The No-Cry Sleep Solution

to sleep when he doesn’t want to, and conversely, you can do little to wake him up when he is sleeping soundly.

A very important point to understand about newborn babies is that they have very, very tiny tummies. New babies grow rapidly, their diet is liquid, and they digest it quickly. Formula digests quickly, and breast milk digests even more rapidly. Although it would be nice to lay your little bundle down at a predetermined bedtime and not hear a peep from him until morning, even the most naïve among us know that this is not a realistic goal for a tiny baby. Newborns need to be fed every two to four hours—

and sometimes more. During those early months, your baby will have tremendous growth spurts that affect not only daytime but nighttime feeding as well, sometimes pushing that two- to four-hour schedule to one to two hours around the clock.

Mother-Speak

“I remember when Rachel was a newborn, she would suck away happily for most of the day for a week or two at a time.

Had I not known that this sometimes happens, and that it is necessary for the wild growth babies sometimes experience, I might have tried to enforce a schedule. Instead, I simply accepted my role in life then: a binky with legs.”

Vanessa, mother of two-year-old Rachel

Babies are unpredictable, and a handful of them will make their own rules. Some newborns will sleep four or five hours straight, leaving their parents to worry if they should wake them for a feeding. The answer to this is an unequivocal “maybe.” If your baby happens to fall into this pattern you’ll need to talk to your doctor and find out if it’s OK for your particular baby to