Baby Coach Teaches Newborns to Sleep All Night

Baby Coach Teaches Newborns to Sleep All Night (ABC News)

Grrr...

Yes, you can train your baby to sleep through the night (12 hours by 12 weeks???). The question is, should you? In my opinion, no. Research has shown that babies are meant to be light sleepers - for one thing, this reduces the rate of SIDS. One of the reasons that breastfed babies are less likely to die of SIDS than formula-fed babies may be that babies on formula sleep more deeply and are less likely to wake up if they have breathing problems. For little babies, getting enough to eat in their tiny tummies is more important than your getting a full night's sleep. Although, yes, babies and mommies will be happier when they sleep in 3-, 4-, or 5-hour stretches rather than waking every hour, and I don't object to baby sleep training (not cry-it-out, though) for that purpose, babies are just not meant to sleep through the night until they are much, much older. Besides which, the "technical" definition of "sleeping through the night" is 6 hours (not 8 or 12), and breastfeeding less often than every 4 hours during the day and 6 hours at night will not bring your hormone levels up sufficiently to supress ovulation and the return of fertility.