Your baby’s sleep cycle can drastically affect both their mood and yours. For example, a baby who only sleeps for 20 minutes at a time, aka a catnapper, can be cranky and keep YOU from getting precious rest as well. A few days or weeks of this pattern leaves you exhausted and looking for answers.
Trusting Your Instincts and Doing Your Homework
As parents, especially new parents with their first child, we often seek out advice from people we hold up as experts. We listen to what they have to say and follow out their advice often as if it’s required. What happens when an expert tells you something is normal, but it doesn’t feel normal to you?
Case in Point: One Tired Mom (No Sleep!)
One exhausted mama was told that it’s perfectly acceptable for her baby to sleep for about 20 minutes at a time. Her baby is stuck on a 20-minute sleep cycle that’s not going to help her or her little one in the long-run. The thing is a trusted expert told her that it’s completely normal that her baby is on this sleep cycle, and that there’s nothing wrong with it at all. Now, that mom is either going to have to decide to go against her gut feeling that her baby should be sleeping at longer intervals to follow through with what the expert is telling her or branch out from what she’s been told.
Next Steps
It’s not easy to go against a respected person with plenty of experience behind them. For many, the easy path is following along with what you’ve been told. You’ve got your answer, and in this case, you’re being told that it’s normal. That’s the word that many parents are hoping to reach with their baby’s behaviors and health.
The question then becomes what to do next? The good thing is that there are plenty of places to go for additional information. It something coming from a trusted professional doesn’t sound right to you or seems wrong in your case, it’s okay to look for more information. An excellent example of this is getting a second opinion. There are few professions as trusted as physicians. They go to school for what seems like forever, and are respected experts when it comes to their field. That doesn’t mean that people don’t see additional doctors to get another opinion on what’s going on with their health and wellbeing.
Getting a Second Opinion About Your Baby’s Sleep Patterns
When it comes to sleep training and other baby behaviors, there are many sources available online. Perform a search or two for articles that cover your question or what you’re hesitant about with what you’ve been told. Find another trusted professional, and ask them for their opinion and how they handle that particular behavior. Go forward until you’ve quieted that sense of unease and gotten a handle on your instincts. You’ll feel better knowing that you did some extra homework on your peanut and can move forward with addressing the situation.
Are you stuck in a rut with your sleep training and need to ditch something like the 20-minute sleep cycle? Contact me today to discuss your particular sleep situation so we can get you and your little noodle on track. You don’t have to settle on what doesn’t seem right even if an expert tells you it’s normal.
