14 Apr New parents often seek advice for tips and advice about raising a new infant. There are so many conflicting views and perspectives about parenting t
New parents often seek advice for tips and advice about raising a new infant. There are so many conflicting views and perspectives about parenting that new parents receive from family members, healthcare providers, and Internet searches. Using scholarly sources such as your textbook and or journal articles, answer the questions below as if a friend were asking you to provide advice:
- What is infant sleep training? Is it safe? How do new parents know if their baby needs them, or should they let the baby cry it out? Are there attachment issues new parents should be concerned about when a baby cries for too long?
- Should parents wake a baby who has been sleeping for more than four hours to feed them?
- What books, toys, or videos should parents give a baby to give them an intellectual advantage? Are there ways parents can facilitate a higher level of intelligence in a child?
- Siblings are often very different in temperament. What does that mean? Why does that happen?
Hello Class,
Infant Training
Over the years, the extinction method (cry it out) has been a safe sleep training technique recommended for infants’ sleep disruption. For this technique, the parent completely ignores the infant’s cries, allowing independent settling (Blunden and Dawson, 2020). The baby’s communication, crying, and squealing help parents know when their baby needs them. In the past, people argued that leaving babies to cry out for long helps them develop self-control. However, attachment theory proponents, including Middlemiss et al. (2012), suggest that the lack of maternal response to a baby’s crying can elevate infant cortisol, impacting brain development and cognitive function.
Waking up Sleeping Infants to Feed
Feeding-on-demand has been recommended where the infant regulates their feeding (Brown and Arnott, 2014). However, some infants sleep for more extended periods, which makes feeding-on-demand an issue, and hence, they should be awakened to feed after 3-4 hours. Such feeding ensures that they get the right amount of weight.
Children Intellectual Advantage
Children’s cognitive development comprises thinking skills which refer to the capability to process information and appreciate how the world functions. Play, books, and toys offer opportunities for children to practice diverse thinking skills, including cause and effect, problem-solving, symbolic thinking, and imitation. An example of a toy that can facilitate that includes Educational Insight Magic Moves. For books, Angry Octopus by Lori Lite and Calm Down Time by Elizabeth Verdick can also assist.
Siblings Personality Differences
Siblings’ differences can be explained using the non-shared environment theory, where children grow up in the same family but experience different events (Plomin and Daniels, 2011). Part of such differences includes being to varying ages during family events, including divorce or parents’ death, which affect siblings differently.
Conclusion
Sleep training is a topic that has elicited diverse reactions. For some, it is a safe intervention for infant sleep disruption. Others argue that the lack of maternal response after crying affects the infant’s brain development and cognitive function. When it comes to feeding infants, those who sleep for longer than 4 hours should be woken up to feed, ensuring they gain the right weight. Various toys, plays, and books can be used for kids’ intellectual and cognitive development. Examples earlier mentioned are Educational Insight Magic Moves and Angry Octopus, among others. Lastly, siblings may have different personalities that may be explained by their different experiences when growing up.
Question
As a parent, would you sleep train your child? What would be your fears?
References
Blunden, S., & Dawson, D. (2020). Behavioral sleep interventions in infants: Plan B – Combining models of responsiveness to increase parental choice. Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health, 56(5), 675–679. https://doi.org/10.1111/jpc.14818
Brown, A., & Arnott, B. (2014). Breastfeeding Duration and Early Parenting Behaviour: The Importance of an Infant-Led, Responsive Style. PLoS ONE, 9(2), e83893. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0083893
Korownyk, C., & Lindblad, A. J. (2018). Infant sleep training: rest easy? Canadian family physician Medecin de famille canadien, 64(1), 41.
Middlemiss, W., Granger, D. A., Goldberg, W. A., & Nathans, L. (2012). Asynchrony of mother-infant hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis activity following extinction of infant crying responses induced during the transition to sleep. Early Human Development, 88(4), 227–232. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earlhumdev.2011.08.010
Plomin, R., & Daniels, D. (2011). Why are children in the same family so different from one another?. International journal of epidemiology, 40(3), 563–582. https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dyq148
