Dear CarolMae,
I agree with you, no parent should have to wait until 6 months for a good night's sleep. However, if you are trained in infant development and paediatric psychology (which I assume you are as a sleep consultant, I know my post-grad focused a lot on this), then you know well, that a 7 week old baby CANNOT be 'trained' like an automaton, and that without knowing a full medical and birth history, random pieces of advice are unwise and can be dangerous.
However, you may not have carried on reading my post, in which I said, that although a baby of this age cannot be 'trained' as such, excellent sleep hygiene practices can be put in place from birth onwards, and self-soothing encouraged.
As I have a degree, a post-graduate degree and so far 3 years of medical training as a doctor, with a heavy emphasis on paediatrics, I personally, don't like to give specific developmental advice without at least speaking to the mum personally.
At 7 weeks, if medical and developmental issues have been expertly ruled out, then routine adjustment, empathy, sleep hygiene and many, many techniques can be employed to help, but there is no such thing as 'one size fits all'. The Gina Fords of the world may make a bundle from it, but if there really was such an easy way of sorting sleep issues a)The Nobel prize would be handed out and b)No parent would ever need any help.
I applaud your convictions and am sure you have many, many success stories. I'm just a bit more tentative to give advice without getting to know a family better, and I'm always happy to take a call or two gratis, if it makes a mum/dad/carer feel better.
All the best with your current sleep work, and if you'd like any links to empirical/clinical evidence, or evidence-based reports on infant sleep practice and disorders, feel free to email me. I've just been working in the sleep clinic at St.George's so have a lot of expert advice that I have access to, that is factually based rather than anecdoctal.
Either way, thanks for the response.
Menu
