Anna Wahlgren: HAPPY NEWBORN YEAR!GOODBYE Cry-It-Out/Controlled Crying Method!The principle underlying the Controlled Crying Method has its roots in the United States in the 1940s. It stipulates that infants shall cry themselves to sleep, while the parents look in on them every five minutes (at best) and let the infants know that the parents are there. This method makes the children responsible for calming themselves down as best they can. It demands strong nerves on the part of the parents, who are expected to suppress their protective instincts, which tell them to whisk their distressed offspring to safety. • The unanswered cries inevitably result in feelings of abandonment. For a young child who cannot survive on her own, abandonment equals a death sentence. • Sleep that is the result of resignation, despair and mental exhaustion is seldom particularly refreshing. That goes for all of us. • The vast majority of children that are “cured” by the Controlled Crying Method sleep far too little. The parents have to exhaust them before putting them to bed. Understandably enough, everyone wants to avoid hours of crying. • Sleep that children neither want nor enjoy is easily disrupted by the least bit of stress, such as teething or colds. The results obtained through the use of the Controlled Crying Method are therefore seldom permanent. The Method has to be applied again and again. My goal is to see to it that the Good-Night’s-Sleep Cure, which I have developed over 30 years – during which I have personally “cured” 800 children with sleep problems - replaces and consigns to oblivion the technique that goes under such names as the Cry-It-Out Method, the Ferber Method, or the Controlled Crying Method. To understand the difference between the Controlled Crying Method and the Good-Night’s-Sleep Cure, you have to understand the wolf analogy. You have to be able to understand survival anxiety from your child’s point of view, anxiety that you yourself experienced once upon a time. Unlike the Controlled Crying Method, the Good-Night’s-Sleep Cure places responsibility on the parents. It is the parents who must help their child find peace. It is the adults who must do battle with the wolf – survival anxiety – force him to turn tail and lock him out. It is the adults who must guarantee their child’s survival and much more besides. They must guarantee a good life, a secure life with good sleep, peaceful sleep, sufficient sleep and blissful sleep, sleep that their baby will soon joyously take, secure enough in herself to both dare and desire to sleep that well. The Good-Night’s-Sleep Cure works on all children with sleep problems because young children, just like all beings of flesh and blood, need and want to sleep at night. We all want to sleep peacefully. Children are no exception.
HELLO AGAIN Prone Position/Tummy Sleeping!From day one I advocate the good old prone position as the best sleeping position for infants. I don’t advocate this solely because I think that it is so much simpler and more efficient to calm a little child who is lying on her stomach. I also champion this cause because the prone position in and of itself is sleep inducing for infants. The fact is that young children who sleep on their stomachs from day one seldom, if ever, develop sleep problems. “Frog sleeping” is as natural for a human child as it is for all other life forms with four limbs, none of whom willingly go to sleep with their vital organs exposed and their legs in the air. A newborn baby can lift her head, turn it from side to side and unhindered take in air. • Runny noses drain. • Burps and spit ups can’t cause catastrophes. • As long as the baby is lying on a flat, smooth surface, the risk of suffocation is eliminated. If something happens to be covering the back of the baby’s skull, all she has to do is lift her head. • Infants who lie on their stomachs can practice those neurologically essential crawling movements from day one, which aids in the healthy development of motor skills and all of the five senses. As we all know, there is plenty of research showing that the number of cases of SIDS has been reduced substantially since parents have been advised to always put their infants to sleep on their backs. The problem with the WHO’s back sleeping recommendation, which dates from 1992, is that the vast majority of little children sleep restlessly, superficially and for a shorter time when on their backs. On their stomachs they sleep deeper, safer, sounder and longer. In the superficial sleep lies also the unsaid explanation as to why statistics have gone down: infants on their backs seldom if ever enjoy the vitally important deep sleep that they so intensely need – not the least for optimal brain development. Without adequate sleep, babies' health, wellbeing and development are compromised. The number of little children suffering sleep difficulties and by extension entire families experiencing sleep problems has escalated enormously since precisely 1992. The disturbing propaganda that is preached to all parents seeks to decree that tummy sleeping per se is dangerous, whereas back sleeping per se is safe. Neither is true. It is the irregular breathing with long pauses that are - or, more correctly, in cases of exception are, - life threatening. Tummy sleeping per se is not dangerous - it induces sleep. Back sleeping per se is not safe - it hinders sleep. It is worth noting that to this day, there is not one scientifically documented case of SIDS anywhere in the world where the deceased baby slept in the prone position and the cot was equipped with a breathing alarm. The children who died, and still die, from SIDS did so lying on their backs or sides – without apnea alarms.
COME TO STAY Apnea Alarm!Newborn babies' breathing is irregular. They can stop breathing for as long as 40 seconds several times a day, which is something that few adults can manage. And even though it is rare, it does happen that little babies during deep sleep 'forget' to inhale again after one of these long pauses in respiration. Respiratory activity does not function automatically from the beginning of life. The apnea monitor sounds an alarm whenever there is cessation in breathing for longer than 12 seconds. This gives the caregiver time to intervene before it is too late, as it can be in less than three minutes. The monitor comes with a sensory plate which is placed underneath the mattress without disturbing the child at all. A light blinks reassuringly on the alarm unit, which is placed somewhere visible to the caregiver - who is then relieved of worrying about checking on the baby's breathing every three minutes, a task no human can manage around the clock. The breathing monitor can then operate as round the clock surveillance in the same way as the smoke detectors that we all, hopefully, have in our homes. The smoke detector doesn't prevent your house from catching fire, any more than the breathing monitor guarantees that your child won't stop breathing, but you will have ample warning to intervene. You will have time to prevent the catastrophe that could have happened - and which would have been irreversible. In other words: Nothing to lose - everything to gain. HAPPY NEWBORN YEAR 2010!
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