We shed some light on common sleep myths

Responsive sleep and development educator and mama, Dr Ainslee sheds some light on common sleep myths.

Baby sleep can be a contentious topic, everyone has a different opinion and they're often not afraid to share it. While the advice that friends and relatives give is usually well-meaning, sometimes it can leave you questioning yourself, or feeling bad about the way you're doing things. Please know that when it comes to baby care there are thousands of ways to do things, and none of them are "wrong", what is important is that you feel supported to parent in a way that aligns with your values and feels right for you, your baby and your family. So how can we tell if the well-meaning (but often unsolicited) advice that is coming our way is in alignment with what our baby is actually capable of doing or not? Is there a need to teach babies to self-soothe? If we contact nap are we making a rod for our own back? And if we give a bottle or formula before bed will it make a baby sleep through the night?

Let's take a closer look at these and see if they are worth paying attention to. A good thing to take into account is where the information came from that formed the basis of a lot of these theories.

It all began back in the late 1800s and early 1900s when some prominent male figures (who likely had never cared for a baby) created some guidelines and wrote books on how best to care for babies. These guidelines were along the lines of 'babies should be seen and not heard'. This was paired with the first wave of behaviourism research, which involved experiments on animals. Famous experiments like Pavlov's Dogs founded some pivotal information in behavioural research. Pavlov found that when he fed dogs they would salivate, he decided to ring a bell while he fed the dogs and eventually he was able to ring the bell and the dogs would salivate because they thought food was coming. This is something called classical conditioning and it was assumed that this type of conditioning could be applied across all species of animals, including humans. The reality is that this cannot be applied to human infants, yet we have generations of advice and guidelines that are based off the premise that it can be.  

Another assumption was that a parent's behaviour dictates a baby's behaviour. The general western societal message was, and often still is, 'If your baby of X months old isn't sleeping through the night yet, then it is likely because of the parent's behaviour'.

The 1900s was a long time ago, now we have a lot more research which leads us to a greater understanding of human infant brain development, infant attachment science, infant psychology, and biologically normal infant sleep. We are at a tipping point in history, where parents feel that many of the previous statements are outdated, and are looking to find support and break the cycle that is generations deep. Leaving babies to cry it out for long periods of time to learn how to self-soothe, avoiding eye contact with them, not doing contact naps in fear of not being able to 'break the habit' and feeding bottles of formula to ensure they will have a 'full tummy and sleep through' are all undertows in amongst our western society that underpins a lot of communication around infant sleep these days.

So let's unpack some of these concepts. Do you really need to teach your baby to self-soothe? If you contact nap, does that mean you will be doing it forever? Can you spoil your baby? The term self-soothe was made up by Thomas Anders in the 1970s. Anders was studying infant sleep and made a pivotal finding. He found that infants fell into two categories, infants that signal between sleep cycles and needed support to get back to sleep, and infants that didn't signal between sleep cycles. Anders needed a term to explain the latter group of infants in his research so he coined the term 'self-soothers', the other group were described as 'signallers'. He linked that back to the likelihood that whether an infant was a signaller or a self-soother depended mostly on their inbuilt temperament rather than something that was a learned skill.

Over the years the term 'self-soothe' has been misinterpreted and adapted and has had some unintended consequences. So, here is the low-down on the term self-soothe: babies cannot necessarily learn to self-soothe. In order for a human to self-soothe, they need to be able to self-regulate. Self-regulation comes from a part of the brain called the frontal cortex which functions primitively (is not mature yet) in babies. The frontal cortex doesn't fully mature until we are in our 20s. So essentially, babies cannot self-soothe, nor is it something they can learn at the developmental stage they're in. Can they have a temperament which means they are more inclined to signal less and if they are fed, dry and content they can go back to sleep when they wake? Yes. Can they suck on their hands or a dummy and go back to sleep? Yes, sometimes. But can a baby self-soothe when it is in a heightened state of dysregulation? (such as when they are stressed and crying). No, they can't.

Every time we help a baby to regulate and calm down, we are helping them build the neural wiring that enables them to regulate and 'self-soothe' in years to come – not days or weeks – but years. It is okay to respond to your baby when they need you. Your attentiveness is not reinforcing wakes, it's showing them they are loved, cared for and have support when they need it. With all of this said, if you are struggling with night wakes or sleep in general then there is lots we can do to support parents in a responsive way that doesn't involve crying it out. It is also important to remember that night waking is normal, we just live in a society that has expectations around infant sleep that don't always align with infant biology. However, if you think the night waking is excessive, there could be reason for further investigation. Often parents are scared that night waking will impact their child's development, we have research to support that this isn't the case, and in fact night waking is a part of the brains maturation process. Night waking can be incredibly variable across different infants of similar ages and once again is an example of how there is no one-size-fits-all model to approach sleep for each different family.

'GIVE YOUR BABY A BOTTLE AND THEY'LL SLEEP THROUGH' MYTH

Will giving a breastfed baby a bottle of formula before bed help them sleep through the night? There is always the anecdotal cases where this works for some babies, however we know that it is likely coincidence and not actually caused by the formula itself. To be fair though, once upon a time back in the day, the first formulas were pretty heavy and may have knocked babies out after a feed but that isn't necessarily a good thing. Babies are wired to wake, it is a biological need that they wake overnight for food and connection and it especially helps with SIDS prevention. Please remember that babies don't just wake for food alone.

Humans are carry mammals, which means we are designed to hold our infants and keep them close, for this reason human breast milk has lower levels of proteins and fat than other mammals, such as seals. Some species of seals, for example, can breastfeed once a week, go out to sea and catch food for sustenance, then come back to a baby seal that is thriving a week later. Humans are designed to carry our young and because of that, the milk we make is easily digested and feeds are frequent (comparative to other species). The research we have, when zoomed out to look at large portions of the population, suggests that across the board formula-fed babies and breastfed babies wake similar amounts during the night. So, rest easy that regardless of how you feed your baby, if they don't have any health complications, feeding is going well, and baby is healthy and gaining weight, it likely won't be impacting how they wake overnight.

'CONTACT NAPPING IS MAKING A ROD FOR YOUR OWN BACK' MYTH

I remember having guilt around contact napping when my first baby was young; a hangover from Western societal pressures that sleep should look a certain way, when in actual fact, sleep can look incredibly different from baby to baby and family to family.

Whether infants thrive on contact naps or not is heavily temperament dependant. It is likely if you have a more sensitive child that they will prefer more support to sleep, such as contact naps. If you have a child who is more relaxed and easy going in temperament, it might mean that they are happy to sleep alone. The most important take-home here is that if parents have an infant that thrives on contact naps and finds it difficult to sleep elsewhere, this isn't the fault of the parent, it's heavily inbuilt to that child's temperament and personality.

So how do we manage contact napping then? Provided the parents are managing and are okay within themselves, then contact napping is not a problem. However, if a parent is struggling with minimal free time without an infant attached to them and contact fatigue (yes, this is a very real thing) then there are responsive strategies we can use to give parents more support, or help the baby sleep elsewhere. This is where things like motion naps (in a pram or car) can be an excellent resource for parents. Ultimately, baby sleep is very unique and individual to every baby and every family, please know there is no "right" or "wrong" way to do baby sleep, it is absolutely okay if sleep looks different from family to family.

Dr Ainslee is a responsive infant sleep expert and chiropractor who focuses on holistic support and education for families. To see how she’s navigating sleep differently with her second baby follow her on Instagram @babysleepwithainslee or check out her website brainunderconstruction.co.nz.