Generally, there are 2 schools of thought.
1. Give your child lots of love. Lotsa hugs. Lotsa cuddling. Immediate attention.
When the child is ready and gets over the separation anxiety, the night wakings will pass.
2. The Ezzo method and controlled crying.
Here's a pretty good summary taken from BabyCentre:
"Ezzo's method is based on a highly structured feed / wake / sleep routine. It's a 24-hour infant management program he calls parent-directed feeding, or PDF. This means that you, not your baby, decide when he eats, sleeps, and wakes. Ezzo sets out strict hourly, daily, and weekly feeding schedules that he says will teach your infant to sleep through the night by eight weeks if you follow them faithfully. By three months, Ezzo promises your baby will sleep for nine to 11 hours each night."
Also, Ezzo believes that "his method produces obedient, respectful children. Bucknam claims that firmly disciplining your infant will save you trouble later when he's older. He compares babies who are fed on demand (and whom, by extension, he considers undisciplined) to PDF babies and concludes that demand-fed babies become more whiny and demanding as they get older."
Sounds too good to be true? Here are some more links for your viewing.
http://www.geocities.com/heartland/8148/ezzo.html
http://www.babycenter.com/refcap/9108.html
http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/1998/08/cov_06feature.html
While some parents have been hailing it as the miracle of the century, some experts have expressed concerns that this is the cause of insufficient weight gain, dehydration and general failure to thrive that is afflicting many infants on the Ezzo Method.
In deploying the Ezzo method, we should have a "detachment" from the infant and also practice the controlled crying method. "Controlled crying involves leaving the infant to cry for increasingly longer periods of time before providing comfort. The intention of controlled crying is to let babies put themselves to sleep and to stop them from crying or calling out during the night."
Again, there are concerns that this method neglects what infants need for emotional and psychological health.
We don't deny that sometimes, we have tried letting Ignatius "cry it out" when he's throwing a tantrum. But he cries while we carry him.
And I vaguely remember that when he was only a few months old, we let him cry for about 20mins for 2 nights.
The other times, we followed the 1st method of lots of reassurance and hugging.
So has there been any impact on Ignatius when we try the more detached style?
Hmmm...well I think our general feel is that if we don't go overboard and do it for extended periods, he does seem to get the idea that he is being disciplined and toes the line. For a while. But like all children, he'll be up to his antics again sooner or later.
I suppose the key, again, is moderation in everything you do. The guidelines by Ezzo are good to know, and may be effective. But tailoring it to your child's needs/temperaments/psychological makeup is necessary, I feel.
Food for thought.
said...
hey.. this method is quite similar to Gina Ford's The new contented little baby book. i followed the book closely, the 24hr routine set up etc. matthew was sleeping thru the night by 5 wks. after a bout of sickness at 6 mths, he started waking 2-3x a night. a couple of weeks back, we were determined to kill that habit. when he wakes up at night, we just tell him, "no milk, it's not time, go back to ur bed to sleep." he would ngeh ngeh ngeh but willing went back to his bed to sleep, w/o much struggle. for the past week, he has been sleeping thru fr 9pm to 7am. in fact he's quite on the dot waking up. 6:50am sharp to be exact.
When Ignatius is ready, he'll be ready. even with controlled crying, if he's not ready, he's not. so be patient.
said...
M's mommy
you're right in saying be patient and wait for them to be ready.
currently, ignatius can put himself back to sleep without us during the nite. BUT he still needs to sight us. hoping he'll grow out of that soon so we can move back to our room...and more importantly, our bigger bed! haha
said...
Ethan follows the Gina Ford routine too, starting from 2 months, and has been able to fall asleep by himself within 1 week, and since 3.5 months, has been sleeping from 10pm to 7am, and dropped the 10pm feeding around 4 months! Before that he was on "demand feeding" and had no routine whatsoever, making mom and dad really really tired... Ethan is now 6 months old and is a healthy and chubby little happy boy!
said...
hi Ethan's mom
thanks for dropping by.
wow, Ethan's routine sounds like a godsend! maybe for no2 i'll go buy a copy of the book and read it to see what the Gina Ford routine is all about. i've only heard of it when i met M's mommy!
and i popped by your site, and Ethan is SO CUTE!!!!!!!!