This story is from November 19, 2023
How baby sleep gurus are helping frazzled parents get shuteye
From holding babies for naps to bed-sharing and following wake windows, moms and dads are now using gentler methods to make babies snooze well
Vaishnvi Ray and Nishaant Parvathaneni were over the moon when they saw two pink lines on the pregnancy test. They couldn’t wait to embrace parenthood. But barely three months after the birth of their daughter, the 27-year-old mother and wellness coach found herself with dark circles and disheveled hair, and feeling so depressed that she was considering therapy. All this because little Aditi would wake up innumerable times through the night. The young couple had to rock her for up to an hour, even as their arms hurt. The moment they would gently place her in the crib, she would wake up wailing and the whole process would begin again.
Ray and Parvathaneni got similar advice from pediatric sleep experts, but they were unable to bear the thought of letting their bub “suffer alone”. Finally, they came across infant sleep counsellor Himani Dalmia who suggested embracing gentler and more baby-centric approaches to improve their child’s sleep. “Within days, Aditi’s sleep improved considerably and I got to rest too. To be honest, I finally started enjoying motherhood only then,” says Ray.
Other urban Indian parents too are approaching sleep coaches, joining support groups or doing their own research online. More than 60,000 parents have joined the Gentle Baby Sleep India, a Facebook support group founded by two moms, Dalmia and journalist Neha Bhatt, to help parents inculcate healthy sleep habits in their infants and toddlers. The group receives close to 100 joining requests daily and is always buzzing with activity. New moms and dads freely share their troubles and senior members give advice to help them navigate the turbulent first year, especially the ‘sleep regressions’ which babies go through at 4,8, 12 and 18 months. “It feels good to know I am not the only mom who is wide awake at 4am,” says Ray.
In stark contrast to the conventional sleep training approach, GBSI encourages parents to comfort a crying child. “The idea that it is okay to let the child cry is increasingly being questioned the world over. A lot of research has pointed to the psychological damage caused by this practice,” says Dalmia. She adds that babies need responsiveness. “Ignoring their needs does not mean their needs go away; it just makes them repress those needs and, sometimes, develop unhealthy response systems,” she says.
Hold them for naps
Ask any mom or dad about the toughest part of parenting in the first year and they are likely to talk about the act of transferring a sleeping baby from the arms to the bed or crib without waking him up. Many even jokingly liken this nerve-wracking process to that of disposing off a ticking time bomb that could go off at any moment and render their efforts (one hour of nursing, rocking, shushing or swaying) futile. That’s why gentle sleep experts are against putting the baby down at all. In fact, one of their topmost recommendations is to 'hold the baby for naps' (in the arms or on the lap) during the day so she sleeps longer and deeper. “It is natural for the baby to wake up when separated from the caregiver. It is an evolutionary instinct because when babies were in the wild the only way to survive was by clinging to parents,” says Bhatt. She adds that the person holding the baby can easily ‘bridge’ the nap and put the baby back to sleep — by nursing or rocking — in case she wakes up before the desired duration. It is ideal for infants to nap two to three times a day for at least 45 to 90 minutes each time. Research has established that babies who nap well during the day get more sound sleep at night compared to those who are excessively tired because of long waking hours.
Himani Dalmia, Baby sleep expert
But don’t moms need to complete tons of tasks while the baby sleeps? “Holding a sleeping baby may not be convenient but it is the biological norm. You can’t tell a kangaroo mom to not hold the baby in her pouch,” says Dalmia. She believes moms should “invest in naps” rather than trying to run away to do chores while the baby sleeps as they are likely to have to run back anyway when the baby starts crying. “The parent can relax, read a book or catch up on emails while holding the sleeping baby. This way you are giving the baby what she needs and ensuring she is happy and well rested. Later, when the baby wakes up, you can hand her to a grandparent or nanny or put her in a play gym or carrier and attend to your chores,” she says.
Ray follows this recommendation to the T. She plugs in her earphones and listens to her favourite podcasts while Aditi snoozes on her chest. She has even kept a bell on the bedside table so she doesn’t need to move and can call her husband to the room — he works from home — if she needs something.
Delhi mom Eesha Bagga Bhargava feels 'holding for naps' is not practical, but she does it too — for the sake of her nine-month-old daughter Kiara's sleep and for her own sanity. “Now that Kiara naps well, she is more playful in the evening and also sleeps without fuss at bedtime. She wakes up only twice at night for milk and promptly goes back to sleep,” says the 31-year-old, adding that when she is busy with work, Kiara's nanny holds her during naps.
The great sleep debate
While conventional sleep training experts insinuate that gentle sleep trainers reduce a parent to “a human mattress” and warn that the child would need human contact through the night too, Bhatt says this is not the case. “Night sleep is very different from day sleep. Babies who are held for naps during the day do not need to be in the parents’ arms at night and this does not become a habit. Moreover, children naturally outgrow the need to be held between seven and eleven months,” she adds.
Gentle sleep proponents point out that human babies are born at a very premature stage of development and complete their gestation outside the womb, but in contact with the parent. Dr James McKenna, who heads the Mother-Baby Behavioural Sleep Laboratory at Notre Dame University, coined the term ‘breast sleeping’ and proposed that human infants are designed to sleep, and grow, snuggled up with the mother. His research found that a baby’s breathing, oxygenation, stress regulation, calorie absorption and heart rate regulation improve in proximity to the mother. That’s why Dalmia often tells anxious moms that “snuggling with the parent is like being attached to a charger.”
The GBSI group, which follows the principles of attachment parenting, also prescribes bed-sharing at night for parents and kids. But not all gentle sleep coaches are strict about co-sleeping. Angelina Gupta, a no-tears sleep coach who is not affiliated to GBSI, devises sleep plans based on what the mother desires. “If a mother wants to make her child sleep in the crib, I help her achieve that without using harsh sleep training,” says the Bengaluru-based mom who has helped over 8,000 parents with their baby’s sleep issues over the past six years.
Sleep experts suggest creating a conducive sleep environment (blackout curtains, mildly cool temperatures) and understanding ‘sleep cues’ and ‘wake windows’ (the maximum time a child can stay awake as per his age) to prevent overtiredness. Understanding the impact of ‘overtiredness’ is often an “aha” moment for parents, says Dalmia. Most parents feel that skipping or cutting down on day naps will make their baby sleep better at night, but the opposite happens. “If the baby is awake beyond a certain time, the body releases a stress hormone called cortisol which acts like a shot of energy. Cortisol collects through the day and causes the baby to resist falling asleep and wake up repeatedly at night,” explains Dalmia.
Happy babies, happy parents
Software engineer Sayali Yadav admits she was making mistakes with her 18-month-old daughter Soha’s routine. At night, she used to keep delaying Soha’s bedtime, hoping it would make her sleep longer. And for day naps, the nanny used to switch on the television and rock Soha to lull her to sleep. Gupta helped Yadav eliminate this television-sleep association and inculcate good sleep hygiene. “Soha has started sleeping through the night. She even picks up her own blanket and comes to me, asking me to put her to bed,” says the 30-year-old. “I look forward to our bedtime routine; she loves to hear me sing a song or two while cuddling in bed.”
Bhargava feels she is performing better as a parent and is more focused at work — she runs a virtual career guidance platform — now that she gets adequate sleep. “I am not a nice person if I am not well rested. For the first three months, I was so frustrated. I feel sleep is important for the baby and also for the mother’s mental health,” she says.
SLEEPING AIDS FOR TOTS
SLEEPING AIDS YOUR BABY DOES NOT NEED
THE GENERATIONAL SLEEP GAP
Vaishnvi Ray and Nishaant Parvathaneni were over the moon when they saw two pink lines on the pregnancy test. They couldn’t wait to embrace parenthood. But barely three months after the birth of their daughter, the 27-year-old mother and wellness coach found herself with dark circles and disheveled hair, and feeling so depressed that she was considering therapy. All this because little Aditi would wake up innumerable times through the night. The young couple had to rock her for up to an hour, even as their arms hurt. The moment they would gently place her in the crib, she would wake up wailing and the whole process would begin again.
Ray and Parvathaneni got similar advice from pediatric sleep experts, but they were unable to bear the thought of letting their bub “suffer alone”. Finally, they came across infant sleep counsellor Himani Dalmia who suggested embracing gentler and more baby-centric approaches to improve their child’s sleep. “Within days, Aditi’s sleep improved considerably and I got to rest too. To be honest, I finally started enjoying motherhood only then,” says Ray.
Other urban Indian parents too are approaching sleep coaches, joining support groups or doing their own research online. More than 60,000 parents have joined the Gentle Baby Sleep India, a Facebook support group founded by two moms, Dalmia and journalist Neha Bhatt, to help parents inculcate healthy sleep habits in their infants and toddlers. The group receives close to 100 joining requests daily and is always buzzing with activity. New moms and dads freely share their troubles and senior members give advice to help them navigate the turbulent first year, especially the ‘sleep regressions’ which babies go through at 4,8, 12 and 18 months. “It feels good to know I am not the only mom who is wide awake at 4am,” says Ray.
In stark contrast to the conventional sleep training approach, GBSI encourages parents to comfort a crying child. “The idea that it is okay to let the child cry is increasingly being questioned the world over. A lot of research has pointed to the psychological damage caused by this practice,” says Dalmia. She adds that babies need responsiveness. “Ignoring their needs does not mean their needs go away; it just makes them repress those needs and, sometimes, develop unhealthy response systems,” she says.
Hold them for naps
Ask any mom or dad about the toughest part of parenting in the first year and they are likely to talk about the act of transferring a sleeping baby from the arms to the bed or crib without waking him up. Many even jokingly liken this nerve-wracking process to that of disposing off a ticking time bomb that could go off at any moment and render their efforts (one hour of nursing, rocking, shushing or swaying) futile. That’s why gentle sleep experts are against putting the baby down at all. In fact, one of their topmost recommendations is to 'hold the baby for naps' (in the arms or on the lap) during the day so she sleeps longer and deeper. “It is natural for the baby to wake up when separated from the caregiver. It is an evolutionary instinct because when babies were in the wild the only way to survive was by clinging to parents,” says Bhatt. She adds that the person holding the baby can easily ‘bridge’ the nap and put the baby back to sleep — by nursing or rocking — in case she wakes up before the desired duration. It is ideal for infants to nap two to three times a day for at least 45 to 90 minutes each time. Research has established that babies who nap well during the day get more sound sleep at night compared to those who are excessively tired because of long waking hours.
Himani Dalmia, Baby sleep expert
But don’t moms need to complete tons of tasks while the baby sleeps? “Holding a sleeping baby may not be convenient but it is the biological norm. You can’t tell a kangaroo mom to not hold the baby in her pouch,” says Dalmia. She believes moms should “invest in naps” rather than trying to run away to do chores while the baby sleeps as they are likely to have to run back anyway when the baby starts crying. “The parent can relax, read a book or catch up on emails while holding the sleeping baby. This way you are giving the baby what she needs and ensuring she is happy and well rested. Later, when the baby wakes up, you can hand her to a grandparent or nanny or put her in a play gym or carrier and attend to your chores,” she says.
Ray follows this recommendation to the T. She plugs in her earphones and listens to her favourite podcasts while Aditi snoozes on her chest. She has even kept a bell on the bedside table so she doesn’t need to move and can call her husband to the room — he works from home — if she needs something.
Delhi mom Eesha Bagga Bhargava feels 'holding for naps' is not practical, but she does it too — for the sake of her nine-month-old daughter Kiara's sleep and for her own sanity. “Now that Kiara naps well, she is more playful in the evening and also sleeps without fuss at bedtime. She wakes up only twice at night for milk and promptly goes back to sleep,” says the 31-year-old, adding that when she is busy with work, Kiara's nanny holds her during naps.
The great sleep debate
While conventional sleep training experts insinuate that gentle sleep trainers reduce a parent to “a human mattress” and warn that the child would need human contact through the night too, Bhatt says this is not the case. “Night sleep is very different from day sleep. Babies who are held for naps during the day do not need to be in the parents’ arms at night and this does not become a habit. Moreover, children naturally outgrow the need to be held between seven and eleven months,” she adds.
Gentle sleep proponents point out that human babies are born at a very premature stage of development and complete their gestation outside the womb, but in contact with the parent. Dr James McKenna, who heads the Mother-Baby Behavioural Sleep Laboratory at Notre Dame University, coined the term ‘breast sleeping’ and proposed that human infants are designed to sleep, and grow, snuggled up with the mother. His research found that a baby’s breathing, oxygenation, stress regulation, calorie absorption and heart rate regulation improve in proximity to the mother. That’s why Dalmia often tells anxious moms that “snuggling with the parent is like being attached to a charger.”
The GBSI group, which follows the principles of attachment parenting, also prescribes bed-sharing at night for parents and kids. But not all gentle sleep coaches are strict about co-sleeping. Angelina Gupta, a no-tears sleep coach who is not affiliated to GBSI, devises sleep plans based on what the mother desires. “If a mother wants to make her child sleep in the crib, I help her achieve that without using harsh sleep training,” says the Bengaluru-based mom who has helped over 8,000 parents with their baby’s sleep issues over the past six years.
Sleep experts suggest creating a conducive sleep environment (blackout curtains, mildly cool temperatures) and understanding ‘sleep cues’ and ‘wake windows’ (the maximum time a child can stay awake as per his age) to prevent overtiredness. Understanding the impact of ‘overtiredness’ is often an “aha” moment for parents, says Dalmia. Most parents feel that skipping or cutting down on day naps will make their baby sleep better at night, but the opposite happens. “If the baby is awake beyond a certain time, the body releases a stress hormone called cortisol which acts like a shot of energy. Cortisol collects through the day and causes the baby to resist falling asleep and wake up repeatedly at night,” explains Dalmia.
Happy babies, happy parents
Software engineer Sayali Yadav admits she was making mistakes with her 18-month-old daughter Soha’s routine. At night, she used to keep delaying Soha’s bedtime, hoping it would make her sleep longer. And for day naps, the nanny used to switch on the television and rock Soha to lull her to sleep. Gupta helped Yadav eliminate this television-sleep association and inculcate good sleep hygiene. “Soha has started sleeping through the night. She even picks up her own blanket and comes to me, asking me to put her to bed,” says the 30-year-old. “I look forward to our bedtime routine; she loves to hear me sing a song or two while cuddling in bed.”
Bhargava feels she is performing better as a parent and is more focused at work — she runs a virtual career guidance platform — now that she gets adequate sleep. “I am not a nice person if I am not well rested. For the first three months, I was so frustrated. I feel sleep is important for the baby and also for the mother’s mental health,” she says.
SLEEPING AIDS FOR TOTS
- Nursing: Breastmilk releases the hormone prolactin which calms the mother and child. Breastmilk produced at night also contains melatonin which promotes deep sleep
- Cuddling: Contrary to a popular belief, holding the baby in the arms does not create a bad habit. So, let the baby snuggle in your arms for longer and deeper sleep
- Books: Read to your child at bedtime as it not only broadens his or her horizons but also acts as a bridge between fast-paced action and slowing down
- Music: Instrumental music, light pop and soothing songs can instantly relax a cranky baby. White noise often works like magic. It could be the sound of water flowing, birds chirping in a forest or the whirring sound of a noisy fan
SLEEPING AIDS YOUR BABY DOES NOT NEED
- Swaddling: A tight swaddle is not recommended any more as studies have found it is associated with hip and joint issues in babies. A sleep sack or sleep bag which allows movement of limbs is a better alternative
- Rockers and swings: The traditional ‘jhula’ and modern rocker pose a major safety risk when the baby learns to turn over. The child can fall or even suffocate
THE GENERATIONAL SLEEP GAP
- Young moms and dads are often surprised, and also annoyed, when their parents and in-laws claim that their own kids used to be knocked out for hours even in a noisy environment or with lights on. Were kids from previous generations really better sleepers? Sleep experts say a lot of factors could be behind this
- Joint families meant more helping hands to rock or hold the baby to sleep. Young parents struggle alone now
- It was common to feed the baby gripe water (which contained alcohol) or add a few drops of herbal sleepinducing concoctions or ghee to cow’s milk or formula to get infants to sleep longer. Now, doctors discourage these additives, and more moms try to exclusively breastfeed too
- Awareness about sleep was scant and parents didn’t realise their kids were clocking in less than the recommended 10 to 14 hours a day
- Crankiness and behavioural problems were considered part of growing up. In fact, some believed crying helped ‘open up’ the lungs and ignored it
- Jhulas were common then but are considered a suffocation risk now
end of article
Visual Stories
- Malavika Mohanan redefines elegance in a timeless red chiffon saree
- 9 morning habits to get rid of stomach discomfort
- 9 popular Korean desserts to try before 2024 ends
- Inside Alia Bhatt's love-filled Christmas celebration with Ranbir Kapoor, Raha and family
- 10 perfect baby names for kids born on a Thursday
- 10 countries with most cancer rates, see where India stands
- 10 things true friends don't do
- New Year dishes traditionally prepared in various Indian states
- In pics: Anil Ambani's grand and luxurious home 'Abode'
UP NEXT
Start a Conversation
Post comment