NIGHTTIME PARENTING

NIGHTTIME PARENTING: HOW TO GET YOUR BABY AND CHILD TO SLEEP
William Sears, MD
New York: Plume, 1999 (rev.)
200 pages, paperback, $12.95
ISBN: 0-452-28148-2

Reviewed by Lynne Lamberg

This book encourages parents to share their bed with their newborn baby, and to continue to do so for the first several years of the child's life. Although a strong believer in this approach, Sears, a pediatrician and father of eight, is not dogmatic.

He states clearly at the outset, "Some babies sleep best in their own rooms; others sleep best in a bed in their parents' room; many babies sleep best in their parents' bed. Parents have varying preferences as well. The sleeping arrangement whereby all three of you (mother, father, and baby) sleep best is the right one for your individual family."

Nonetheless, he embraces bedsharing as part of an overall program of "attachment parenting," that is, a way to encourage the child to bond to persons, not things, and to promote caring family relationships. He believes a bedsharing child will feel more secure and therefore sleep better, and that parents who need not listen for every whimper will sleep better themselves. Bedsharing, he stresses, also makes breast-feeding much easier.

Many physicians, Sears notes, advise parents against bedsharing. Indeed, the American Academy of Pediatrics Guide to Your Child's Sleep discourages it, saying it increases the risk of smothering the baby and may contribute to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). By contrast, Sears asserts it may reduce these risks, because bedsharing babies spend more time in lighter sleep which promotes a protective arousal response. He cites sleep laboratory studies showing that active sleep stimulates breathing and heart rate. The debate is an ongoing one.

In this book, Sears also addresses topics such as letting a child who persistently cries in the night cry it out. He opposes this practice, saying it desensitizes parents and undermines the baby's trust. He reframes the portrait of a fussy, demanding baby, by using a more gentle phrase, "high need baby." These babies often sleep poorly, he notes, and the best way for a mother to deal with them is to adjust her sleep to that of her baby rather than trying to get the baby on her schedule.

Sears may be wrong, however, in his assertion that for the first few months, most babies don't differentiate between day and night. Observational studies show babies sleep longer at night within 48 hours of birth; they respond to time cues such as light and noise in the world around them. Parents can foster time awareness, by, for example, keeping play to a minimum at night.

This book includes lists of good books of bedtime stories, and even soothing bedtime music. Parents-to-be and new parents will find it offers plenty of food for thought.