Sleep: If we don't sleep train, and we do family bed...what does the future look like?

User:

Jan Hunt

Director of The Natural Child Project, author of The Natural Child: Parenting From the Heart and A Gift for Baby. Co-editor with my son Jason, of The Unschooling Unmanual. I offer email and telephone counseling on attachment parenting, unschooling, and child advocacy.

Jan Hunt

We have the most lovely baby boy! He's incredible! We snuggle with him in our bed, and he has slept there for the last few months. I nurse him down and nurse him about every two hours at night. If we don't sleep train him (and we DO have rituals, the bath, the story, etc.) -- will we have to sleep train him when he gets older? What will the future look like? i.e. Do older babies still need sleep training? He's 8 1/2 months old. I have no interest in letting him cry.

 

The best "life skill" one can have is the capacity to love and trust others. This skill is not taught by sleep training but by love and compassion shown to him throughout childhood. A child who is sleep-trained learns to distrust others, and concludes that he must be unlovable or others would help him when he cries out.

If you cosleep until your child no longer needs that, there will never be a need to train him. Children are already "trained" by Mother Nature to know that they should sleep with their parents! And most children in the world do cosleep (see Cosleeping Around The World: http://www.naturalchild.org/james_mckenna/cosleeping_world.html )

More articles:

Ten Reasons to Sleep Next to Your Child at Night
http://www.naturalchild.org/jan_hunt/familybed.html

When Will My Baby Soothe Himself to Sleep?
http://www.naturalchild.org/jan_hunt/sleep.html

I hope you can find a more knowledgeable pediatrician.

Stay a loving momma and you'll never need to "train" your child - everything he needs to learn he will learn with joy, when he's ready.

I would be happy to talk with you further in a counseling call. Here is that information: http://www.naturalchild.org/counseling/ .

Best wishes,

Jan

Jan Hunt, M.Sc., Director
Natural Child Project
http://www.naturalchild.org
877-593-1547 / 541-593-1547

Attachment Parenting Counseling
www.naturalchild.org/counseling

"Children reflect the treatment they receive."



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