help me write a letter to my dh's employers mag who just advocated CIO [Archive]

Can Dance

07-27-2007, 09:56 AM

Basically they said all of these things: they don't need night time feedings after 6 months because they no longer need to eat. :banghead :banghead and if you HELP your baby sleep, you are making them dependent on you, FOR LIFE!! and by 3 months they should be sleeping a SIX HOUR STRETCH!!! 3 MONTHS! and if THESE don't work, then just let your baby scream FOR AN HOUR until they fall asleep without you. and DONT WAVER while your baby screams. because its ALL ABOUT YOU you know!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

this was in my dh's employers "health" magazine. I think I am going to write the editor and especially to the point letter. grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. I can't believe I used to believe this stuff!!! :jawdrop

I do need some online resources saying why CIO is BAD and that babies do continue to wake up with or without parental assistance and they take longer to go back to sleep, that kind of thing. help?

Soliloquy

08-06-2007, 07:57 PM

"It is clear that children of differing temperaments need different things at night, just as they do during the day," said Sara Harkness, the director of the Center for the Study of Culture, Health and Human Development at the University of Connecticut.
Dr. Harkness, who has conducted cross-cultural research on infant sleep habits in several countries, said no studies have borne out the connection originally drawn by Dr. Ferber and others between teaching babies to sleep alone and their ability to develop autonomy.
"It's an American myth," Dr. Harkness said. "It's fine to think about training children to be independent, but there has been this misguided effort to extend it to an area where it's really not developmentally appropriate." http://www.drjaygordon.com/development/faqs/faq043.asp

Nightwaking has survival benefits. In the first few months, babies' needs are the highest, but their ability to communicate their needs is the lowest. Suppose a baby slept deeply most of the night. Some basic needs would go unfulfilled. Tiny babies have tiny tummies, and mother's milk is digested very rapidly. If a baby's stimulus for hunger could not easily arouse her, this would not be good for baby's survival. If baby's nose was stuffed and she could not breathe, or was cold and needed warmth, and her sleep state was so deep that she could not communicate her needs, her survival would be jeopardized.

One thing we have learned during our years in pediatrics is that babies do what they do because they're designed that way. In the case of infant sleep, research suggests that active sleep protects babies. Suppose your baby sleeps like an adult, meaning predominantly deep sleep. Sounds wonderful! For you, perhaps, but not for baby. Suppose baby had a need for warmth, food, or even unobstructed air, but because he was sleeping so deeply he couldn't arouse to recognize and act on these needs. Baby's well being could be threatened. It appears that babies come wired with sleep patterns that enable them to awaken in response to circumstances that threaten their well being. We believe, and research supports, that frequent stages of active (REM) sleep serve the best physiologic interest of babies during the early months, when their well being is most threatened.

NIGHTTIME PARENTING LESSON #3:
Encouraging a baby to sleep too deeply, too soon, may not be in the best survival or developmental interest of the baby. This is why new parents, vulnerable to sleep trainers' claims of getting their baby to sleep through the night, should not feel pressured to get their baby to sleep too long, too deeply, too soon.
6. Nightwaking has developmental benefits. Sleep researchers believe that babies sleep "smarter" than adults do. They theorize that light sleep helps the brain develop because the brain doesn't rest during REM sleep. In fact, blood flow to the brain nearly doubles during REM sleep. (This increased blood flow is particularly evident in the area of the brain that automatically controls breathing.) During REM sleep the body increases its manufacture of certain nerve proteins, the building blocks of the brain. Learning is also thought to occur during the active stage of sleep. The brain may use this time to process information acquired while awake, storing what is beneficial to the individual and discarding what is not. Some sleep researchers believe that REM sleeps acts to auto-stimulate the developing brain, providing beneficial imagery that promotes mental development. During the light sleep stage, the higher centers of the brain keep operating, yet during deep sleep these higher brain centers shut off and the baby functions on her lower brain centers. It is possible that during this stage of rapid brain growth (babies' brains grow to nearly seventy percent of adult volume during the first two years) the brain needs to continue functioning during sleep in order to develop. It is interesting to note that premature babies spend even more of their sleep time (approximately 90 percent) in REM sleep, perhaps to accelerate their brain growth. As you can see, the period of life when humans sleep the most and the brain is developing the most rapidly is also the time when they have the most active sleep.
http://askdrsears.com/html/7/T070200.asp

I'm so sorry, I know I"m breaking the rules by posting such long quotes. :blush They're so good and to the point and from reputable sources, though, to prominent pediatricians.