Four a.m. can be an ugly time of day for parents whose child has yet to sleep through the night.
Every parent who has ever tried to calm a crier seems to have his or her own theory on how to get the job done, but for the past 20 years, mainstream sleep advice has fallen into two divisive camps, outlined by a pair of best-selling authors:
You were either a follower of Dr. Richard Ferber (let them cry) or Dr. William Sears (bring them to your bed).
That may be changing. Today’s parents seem to be more skeptical of the one-size-fits-all formulaic approaches.
“I’m not the most confident person in the world, but on (motherhood) I am pretty sure I know my child,” says Wendy Wallach, a 36-year-old Denver mother of two sons, Jack, 3, and Wyatt, 6 months. “No one says every person in America needs a nap at exactly 4:30, so what makes you think every baby needs one then too?”
Perhaps in part because of this generational change, a strange advice détente is occurring.
In October, Sears released “The Baby Sleep Book,” in which he acknowledges parental burnout and that co-sleeping might not be a good choice for everyone. Perhaps a bit more baby independence might be a good thing after all, he wrote.
And while he says he will never encourage crying it out, Sears’ son and co-author, Dr. Robert Sears, said the book is meant to be “more inclusive” of all styles of parenting.
Next spring, Ferber will supposedly be doing a bit of revising of his own. Although his new book will not be released until April, he said in a recent TV interview that he will offer alternative solutions in addition to his controversial crying schedule. He also reportedly has softened his stance against sharing a parents’ bed.
When questioned whether he was backpedaling from a formula that has sold millions of books, Ferber said he never meant for his 1985 tome, “Solving Your Child’s Sleep Problems,” to be the answer for every child, and he now says his original book has been misinterpreted.
In some ways the baby sleep wars of the 1980s and ’90s were a sign of the times. A whole generation of well-educated but nervous parents were having children at a time when more information than ever was bombarding them. Moms and dads were more than willing to silence their own instincts in favor of “expert” advice.
Dr. Dean Prina, a Denver pediatrician for 25 years, says he sees a change in today’s rookie moms and dads. They are much less willing to fall in step simply because a doctor or other “expert” is doing the talking.
“They like to question the status quo. They want to be part of any decision-making process,” Prina says.
Even though the American Academy of Pediatrics recently recommended against letting babies sleep with their parents, Wallach ignored its counsel and brings her youngest into bed with her and her husband.
Her biggest struggle comes with their 3-year-old, who does not go to bed easily or stay there. On bad nights, it takes a dozen or more false starts before he settles.
When she has mentioned it to older co-workers, Wallach was stunned at how quickly they spit out advice from the various sleep “programs.”
“All of them seem to have an answer for everything,” she says of the women now in their 40s and 50s. When asked once how much her baby weighed, one of the women quickly calculated in her head how much sleep he needed.
Wallach is puzzled by their stridency.
Parents are better at filtering information, says Karen Riley, an assistant professor in the Child, Family and School Psychology Department at the University of Denver.
People have grown more sophisticated as consumers of information, Riley says, partly because they came of age with the Internet and the 24-hour news cycle. It’s no big deal to be inundated with research and theories – much of which they disbelieve anyway, she says.
Today’s parents also are more willing to admit something is not working and move on, says Riley.
“(They) are just as educated or maybe more so, but they are also more relaxed. They are demanding middle-of-the-road solutions rather than that one magic, perfect answer,” agrees Elizabeth Pantley, author of “The No-Cry Sleep Solution.”
As a 47-year-old mother of four, she remembers the era of dogmatic approaches well. But she also realized quickly that no one sleep regime works for every child. “All children are very, very different.”
Pantley, who contends she is neither in the Sears nor Ferber camp, sees any lessening of tension between the two as a positive step toward saner parenthood.
“It’s all good,” she says. “It’s good that Ferber is softening, and it’s good Sears is saying parents do matter. Finally a realistic midpoint.”
Staff writer Jenny Deam can be reached at 303-820-1261 or jdeam@denverpost.com.
