Helping Your Baby to Sleep: Why Gentle Techniques Work Best

Every day in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and many other countries around the world, new parents are encouraged to 'train' their child to sleep - a practice in which they ignore their baby's crying and distress. In Helping Your Baby to Sleep, authors Beth Macgregor and Anni Gethin argue that this 'controlled crying' approach is detrimental for children and can have serious long-term effects. This practice produces anxiety in both parent and child and creates a burden of stress on babies with which they are ill-equipped to cope. In this groundbreaking book, the authors present important research into babies' emotional and brain development, and offer gentle sleep techniques that take into account a baby's natural sleep habits. They write: 'There are so many myths about babies and sleep - it is no wonder that many parents are unaware of babies' true sleep needs. When parents recognise that there is great variability in children's ability to sleep through the night, they can be reassured that it is normal for their baby to wake up and to need help to return to sleep. We show parents ways to tune into how their baby thinks and feels, so they can be more responsive to their child's needs. Babies thrive when their parents are sensitive to their needs, both during the day and at night. We believe this type of parenting also helps build a powerful bond between baby and parent - a connection that lays the foundation for the child's healthy emotional and psychological development.'