The Sleepless Generation
The unhappy results of the war on sleep-training.
by Melissa Rayworth
May 12, 2008
These well-meaning parents may be doing more harm than good. Last month's issue of the journal Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine offered results of several studies on kids and sleep. Among their findings:
· Kids who slept less than others or didn't sleep through the night as preschoolers were more likely to be aggressive, have attention difficulties and be anxious or depressed as young adults.
· Infant sleep of less than twelve hours per day was associated with increased odds of becoming overweight.
· In a study of more than 1,000 children, most had later weekend bedtimes that weren't balance by any additional hours of sleep. For most, late nights on weekends start early in life and result in less overall sleep.
Another study reported in the journal specifically explored parental involvement. The researchers concluded that co-sleeping — especially when a baby is brought into the parents' bed after awakening in the night — led to higher risk of negative sleep outcomes (trouble getting to bed, less time spent sleeping, bad dreams) when the kids reached preschool.
The key is consistency.
That study also found that early trouble sleeping (at five through seventeen months) was the likeliest predictor of similar problems in later years. It's hard to know what that means for parents. Should we assume these particular kids are inherently problem sleepers, or is it possible that well-meant interference from mom and dad gives them little chance to learn how to self-soothe, leading logically to sleep trouble as they grow?
I could have saved those researchers the trouble of tracking nearly a thousand Canadian kids for five years. The negative consequences of my parental behaviors are apparent each night at three a.m. when my son tugs at my sleeve. "Mom, come to my bed and lie with me," he says. "Honey, you should be sleeping right now," I murmur. "And so should I." I haven't slept solidly through the night in years, except when I've been away from my kids.
So where do we go from here? At my house, we've already begun doing this differently with Wyatt, our younger son, now seventeen months. He weaned himself from nursing two months ago, and since then we've been putting him in his crib sleepy but awake. We're calm about it, and so far he either doesn't cry at all or cries for about thirty seconds after we leave. I'm not sure whether it's his temperament, our approach or a mix of the two that's making this work.
The trick will be to get our older son on track before the younger one follows his lead. Nichols says her younger son sometimes gets inspired by his older sister's resistance to bedtime and stages his own rebellion.
We're essentially using the approach Hankin recommends: Put your child in bed, read them a story or two, and then "tell them, 'In five minutes, I'm going to go downstairs and you're going to sleep.' Tell them, 'If you cry and yell and scream, that's not what we do.' And if they do it, you go and say, 'What's this about? We're here, there's nothing to worry about.' You reassure them. And then you go.'"
The key, she says, is consistency.
Going to sleep happily is a skill we can teach Mason. But it's also one he needs to figure out without too much interference from us. "You really can learn how to do this," I told him last night, as the clock crept past 10:30. "Just like you learned to draw pictures and use the bathroom, you can learn this."
He just smiled his million-dollar smile and said, "Okay. But, so, can I have more warm milk and raisins?"
It was hard, but I said no.
Article photo: Cory Voglesonger
©2008 Melissa Rayworth and Nerve Media
About the Author
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Melissa Rayworth writes about American culture, sexual politics and parenting for The Associated Press and other national news outlets. She lives in Pittsburgh with her husband and two sons, making frequent trips to New York City for work and play. |
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