It's the middle of the night and your baby wakes up crying, again!
Leaving him alone to "cry it out" is hard to do, but it's exactly what brand new research finds is best for everyone, especially the baby.
It's the sound every parent dreads, a crying baby at 4 a-m
Chris Stokes, father of 17 month old Zayden remembers it well.
"We'd wake up and hold him and give him a bottle just lay back down with him until he went back to sleep."
But that's exactly what you shouldn't do according to a new study by Psychologist Doctor Marsha Weinraub.
"Mothers
who rush to their babies in the middle of the night because they are
crying are doing a disservice to their babies. They're interfering with
their babies ability to learn to self soothe the way the rest of us do."
Dr.
wWinraub says babies who have trouble falling back to sleep are
generally fussy, have overly attentive mothers and are breast fed, used to falling asleep in their mother's arms.
"You wouldn't want to go to sleep in a cold bed either if you've been used to sleeping in arms."
They also tend to be male.
"It could be that boys in general are more fussy."
But
whatever the reason, the doctor says babies must learn to fall back to
sleep without being held or nursed and the study finds no harm to the
mother child relationship.
"It's very painful it's tugging at your heartstrings but you have to say that's my baby and she's learning a new skill."
"There is something inside that is just like 'no you gotta get up'."
"Parents have to learn to hold back."
