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Professional Philosophies PDF  | Print |  E-mail

The Baby Calmer’s Professional SLEEP SERVICES are based on the awareness that:

  • the maturation and regulation of sleep is always best helped by developmentally appropriate expectations and consistent responses, along with long-term, gentle and responsive parenting.

  • since each baby is unique, there can be no guarantees as to how long a baby will take to learn new sleep behaviours. Some babies display a notable difference in two to three days, whilst change in others will be much slower, sometimes taking even up to a month.  Similarly, long-term research and the wisdom of well-respected practitioners and authors in this field have established that there are no ‘quick fixes’ when effectively responding to sleep issues in babies.  This is because babies do not operate on an immediate level – it takes time for them to learn new skills and behaviours.  As such, it is important to be mindful that a home-visit by The Baby Calmer ought be considered as the first step towards the in-depth, individualised, long-term solutions your baby’s sleep problems may require.

  • whilst it can be very frustrating to work within a baby’s timeframe (particularly whilst experiencing your own stress through lack of sleep and depleted energy), responding to your baby’s individual needs, developmental stage and timeframe are paramount.

  • it can very difficult for you to respond to your baby’s needs most effectively when you are also feeling uncertain, stressed, fatigued, anxious, distressed and/or sleep-deprived.  Along with efforts to relieve both your own and your baby’s distress, these feelings can lead to the introduction of temporary solutions which unintentionally create unsustainable patterns of reliance by which your baby will continue to measure his or her own distress relief.

  • there is no other signal in the world that can set off such intense responses in parents as a baby’s cry.  You may find that your baby’s cries are distressing; they may elicit stress and anxiety in you; or you may find them to be exceptionally disturbing.  It is not uncommon for your baby’s cries to trigger a flood of upsetting feelings from your past.  When you are fatigued and stressed, your baby’s innocent cries can feel like stinging attacks.

  • babies should never be left alone to cry. They communicate their needs, their frustrations and their distress by crying.  When baby’s are left alone to cry, they lose trust in their parent’s or caregiver’s availability and ability to comfort them.  They also lose trust in their own ability to influence ways in which they can alert parents and caregivers to their needs.  If an infant’s cries remain ignored, this trauma elicits a process called the ‘defeat response’.  By not responding to a baby’s cries, parents and caregivers may not realise that they are teaching their babies that their cries have no communicative value.  Babies will eventually abandon their crying because they learn that it will not elicit a response.  It is for this reason that ‘controlled crying’ is “not consistent with what infants need for their optimal emotional and psychological health” (The Australian Infant Mental Health Association, 2002).