Holistic Infant Sleep Booklet: Maternal Health Manuals, #4

By Jacky Bloemraad-de Boer

There's a lot we can't control when it comes to our child's sleep. So much comes down to luck, temperament, time and patience. However, understanding the science and evidence based information around infant sleep gives parents anticipatory guidance to establish healthy sleep/wake strategies and routines that are so important to the child's health and wellbeing. In this booklet on infant and child sleep I systematically lay out the biological and environmental elements that influence sleep and the strategies based on these elements that help improve a child's sleep. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jacky Bloemraad-de Boer
• Release date: Jan 12, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224614035

Book preview

Holistic Sleep Booklet

Jacky Bloemraad-de Boer, midwife, L.Ac., nutritionist

Copyright © 2024 by Jacky Bloemraad-de Boer

All rights reserved.

No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

Contents

1.Preface

2.Introduction

3.Attachment and Sleep

4.Sleep Biology (Sleep Science)

5.Chronotypes

6.Sleep Cycles

7.Self-Soothing

8.Sleep Cues

9.Sleep Onset Latency

10.Sleep Hygiene

11.Temperament and Sleep

12.Wake Windows and Naps

13.Feeding and sleep

14.Culture and Infant Sleep

15.Sleep Digression

16.Safe Sleep

17.Sleep-promoting Strategies

18.Conclusion -The puzzle pieces

19.References and Resources

Preface

There is a belief that our babies need to be trained in order to sleep properly, hence the coined term, ‘sleep training’. But if this was true, it would mean that sleep is a skill we can teach and from a biological perspective, it isn’t. In this booklet on infant and child sleep I systematically lay out the biological and environmental elements that influence sleep and the strategies based on these elements that may help improve a child’s sleep. In the years that I have been supporting families I have found that this approach is the most sustainable and also the most effective. Attempting to ‘train’ a child to sleep can have some effect, with some children, but if it works the research shows that it tends to not be long-lasting.

This is a short, reference booklet and not a sleep tomb. There are many more sleep issues and sleep questions that I have not tackled. I have attempted to be concise in the information I share, to avoid an overload of information, but there is still a reasonable amount to plough through. You may be tempted to skip straight to the ‘Strategies’ chapter (note I don’t call it ‘solutions’) but because the strategies are based on the various elements like sleep biology, attachment, sleep hygiene, feeding, safety and more, it increases the understanding of why a strategy might work; thereby generating trust in what you apply to improve your child's sleep, which tends to have a positive effect.

Introduction

Infant sleep can often be confusing and confounding. Even though babies spend much of their time sleeping - both during the day and at night - they do not sleep all night and will often only sleep on their caregiver. Most parents know that their babies will have irregular sleep patterns but not many are prepared for what this might mean practically in their day-to-day lives. Unrealistically, parents truly believe that their baby will be sleeping through the night after a maximum of 3 months. Most babies do not sleep through the night for the first year of their life. Popular beliefs about when babies should be ‘sleeping through the night’ are based on studies conducted in the 1950s and 1960s on formula-fed babies. The term ‘sleeping through the night’ in these studies actually meant that these babies slept without waking from midnight to 5am.

In a much more recent study of 55000 children aged 6-18 months over 80% of them woke 1-3 times per night, most requiring at least one night feed [El Halal et al, 2019].

There’s a lot we can’t control when it comes to our child’s sleep. So much comes down to luck, temperament, time and patience. However, understanding the science and evidence based information around infant sleep gives parents anticipatory guidance to establish healthy sleep/wake strategies and routines that are so important to the child's health and wellbeing.

Studies and expectations aside, sleep deprivation can be brutal and wanting better sleep is reasonable. When you are already frazzled you just want a quick fix but backed with the knowledge of why a baby/child might wake frequently will fortify your efforts and give you more confidence when choosing which of the suggested sleep strategies might work for your particular child and family.

Attachment and Sleep

Attachment is the most fundamental human need, it is the emotional relationship between parent/caregiver and child. Babies and young children are meant to be dependent on their adults. A secure attachment relationship provides a base for optimal development to unfold because attachment refers to the relationship from the child’s perspective.

Secure attachment builds through sensitive, warm, responsive parenting. Our babies cries are proximity-seeking, they seek the warmth and comfort of a loving caregiver. When they make bids for connection, and we meet their needs as best we can, they learn that the world is a safe place, and they can trust and depend on us and it creates the blueprint