La Leche League International - Sweet Sleep

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A Ballantine Books Trade Paperback Original

Copyright 2014 by La Leche League International

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

B ALLANTINE and the House colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wiessinger, Diane.
Sweet sleep : nighttime and naptime strategies for the breastfeeding family / Diane Wiessinger and [three others].
pages cm
At head of title: La Leche League International.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-345-51847-7 (paperback : acid-free paper) ISBN 978-0-345-54991-4 (ebook)
1. Breastfeeding. 2. Sleep. 3. BreastfeedingSafety measures. I. La Leche League International. II. Title.
RJ216.W59 2014
649.33dc23
2014019411

www.ballantinebooks.com

Book design by Elizabeth A. D. Eno

v3.1

To you. Listen to your heart. Rest on the research.
Sweet sleep to you and your little ones!

What if?

What if everything we did as mothers wasnt under constant scrutiny? What if every natural decision our bodies and our hearts led us to wasnt cause for a Facebook frenzy? What if every time we took our breastfeeding babies to bed with us it wasnt seen as irresponsible parenting? What if we didnt have to follow someone elses notions about sexuality, nurturing, and where our babies should sleep?

What if we could parent organically, without criticism, following our biologically programmed instincts, honoring the hormones that hundreds of thousands of years of mammalian parenting have placed in our bodies, brains, and, yes, breasts?

What if you had the education, resources, and support to make your nighttime choices with confidence, not fear?

I know how it could start: with the courage and devotion of a group of well-informed researchers and writers who speak up on behalf of safe bedsharing for breastfeeding families. It would take a book rooted in science, born out of love, and driven by a passion for helping mothers care for their breastfeeding children at night. Thats the book you hold in your hands.

Sweet Sleep is all about understanding and responding to your babys nighttime needs, understanding the challenges of the sleep decisions you make, and learning to parent safely and securely so that you all sleep better and grow stronger: baby, mama, family, and community.

Mayim Bialik, PhD, CLEC

Sleep (or the lack of it) looms large for parents-in-waitingand it is pointless to pretend that your sleep will not be disrupted by your new bundle of joy. His stomach is tiny, and he will need frequent feeds all around the clockhe cannot wait eight hours through the night to be fed just because you need to sleep. He doesnt know that you will come back once you leave his sight. If he feels abandoned, he will cry franticallyits his only method to attract attention and bring himself to safety. If he cries frantically, it will take a long time for him to calm down and you will have to help him.

The experience of sleep, and of being left alone for sleep, is very different for babies than it is for adults. The more quickly you can understand your babys needsfor comfort, food, reassurance, contact, lovethe less disruptive nighttime baby care will become, and the less anxious you will feel. Rigid guidance that insists the only place your baby should sleep is flat on his back in a crib with a firm mattress ignores the reality that most babies do not die unexpectedly during the night but that all babies need frequent feeding, tending, comforting, cuddling, and loving. How to strike a balance between risk avoidance and need fulfillment?

Baby care is about trade-offsbalancing your babys needs with your own needs, and adapting official recommendations to your own situation rather than following every guideline at all costs. This book takes issue with some of the sleep guidance currently given to parents by official organizations and experts. It explains why, whom that guidance is meant to influence, and what it is intended to accomplish. If you are not the mother and baby the guidance is directed toward, if compliance would carry a greater risk in another aspect of baby care than noncompliance, you should make your own informed choice about which guidance to follow. This book gives you the tools to do so.

The dramatic departure that this book offers is to approach sleep safety via the management of risks to infants in different sleep scenarios. It offers a packaged method (called the Safe Sleep Seven) to help parents identify risks they should avoid, and to reassure those parents whose babies fall into the minuscule risk category. And as one would expect from La Leche League, this book takes breastfeeding and safe sleep sharing as normal facets of baby care.

It makes no guarantees: it doesnt guarantee that your baby will be a good sleeper (be wary of books that do) or that your baby will be absolutely safe. There are no guarantees in life, and tragic events sometimes happen even in the absence of observable risks. The authors do a great job of explaining the magnitude of different risksthose you take every day without thinking and those you agonize over unnecessarily. They also point out those instances where parents sometimes unwittingly increase their babies risk because the reasons behind key guidelines are not properly explainedand parents take a greater risk in trying to eliminate a lesser one!

This book is like having a wise grandmother in your pocket. Its an antidote to new-parent sleep anxiety and the scary tales that you may have been told. It carefully guides you through your options; it unpacks the sensationalist headlines about SIDS and the old wives tales about spoiling. It puts you in control and encourages you to make decisions that suit your family after carefully considering your situation, your baby, and your needs. It gives you permission to trust your instincts (although the only permission you need is your own).