The Sleep Learning Plan: Pros and Cons

By the age of six months, babies are usually sufficiently developed in their sleep patterns to fall asleep and stay asleep on their own. They can distinguish between day and night and no longer need food during the night. If your child still has problems sleeping, this may be due to poor sleeping habits.

Sleeping is a matter of habit

For example, if your child always falls asleep in your arms, then they just haven’t learned to fall asleep alone in their crib. In addition, there is a high probability that your child will not sleep through the night either. Because during its natural waking phases , it automatically checks whether everything around it is still the same as it was before falling asleep. Of course, this is not the case if it was just in your arms and is now lying alone in its bed. The situation can be similar with other sleep aids such as pacifiers. Your child has become used to falling asleep and staying asleep only under certain conditions. Changing these habits is possible and also necessary in the long term in the interest of everyone involved

How to change sleeping habits

Humans are creatures of habits. So don’t expect your child to quietly say goodbye to their habits overnight. In the first few days of adjustment, your child will certainly cry and scream a lot. The authors of the bestseller “Every Child Can Learn to Sleep”, Annette Kast-Zahn and Dr. medical Hartmut Morgenroth, have developed a treatment plan that allows healthy babies from the age of six months to learn to fall asleep on their own and sleep better through the night. The plan is based in a weakened form on the well-known but also controversial method of Prof. Dr. Richard Ferber (“Ferbern”) .

Screaming to exhaustion is not a good solution

The change in sleeping habits is initially associated with a loss for your child: For example, if you want to get him used to falling asleep alone in his bed, but he has always fallen asleep in your arms, then he will lack something to fall asleep if is simply laid awake in his bed from now on. This will most likely not be taken lightly, but will protest loudly. Then, according to the recommendations of the book authors Annette Kast-Zahn and Dr. medical Hartmut Morgenroth Discipline required. Can you stand just letting your child cry until they fall asleep? Like most parents, probably not. Most of the time it comes down to the fact that the parents only want to calm down the child and give it back what they actually wanted to break it. The end of the song? Your child will learn that if they cry long enough, they will get what they want.

Treatment plan includes crying in moderation

The “plan for learning to sleep” presented in the book “Every Child Can Learn to Sleep” also includes letting your child cry for a short time. But you are also required to show him regularly that you are there for him, but that he is not getting what he wants. That’s a big difference, because your child learns that screaming gets your attention, but not his sleep aid. Below you will find the individual steps of the plan recommended by the book authors.

The “Learn to Sleep” Plan from Any Child Can Learn to Sleep

The plan for learning to sleep recommended by the book authors Kast-Zahn and Morgenroth includes the following advice combined with a time table as a basic pattern for your actions:

• Set sleep times for day and night : Choose times to suit your child’s sleep needs. Otherwise there is a risk that it is not tired enough. You can check this by keeping a sleep log if you want.
• Avoiding sleeping aids: limit the time used to falling asleep, such as carrying around or sucking on the breast, to time between going to bed. Give them at least half an hour before the scheduled bedtime.
• Evening ritual : Spend the last few minutes intensively with your child, especially before going to bed. A firm and quiet evening ritual gives your baby and later your child security. It should always be the same and be ended decisively by leaving the room.
• Allowing yourself to cry after a while : If your child starts crying, the authors suggest that you only go back in after the scheduled waiting time and comfort it by talking to it or stroking it. According to the procedure, however, you shouldn’t be teasing him or giving him any further aids. According to their recommendations, you should leave the room after two minutes at the latest. Under no circumstances should your child fall asleep in your presence, but calm down and fall asleep alone.

Recommended waiting times before going to your baby:

follow schedule

If your child doesn’t settle down, the authors recommend that you repeat the process and continue on the schedule until they fall asleep. The waiting times until you go back in to your child are slowly getting longer and longer. If your child cries even more when you are with them, they recommend that you only stay with them for a very short time. It learns that screaming doesn’t get what it wants: your presence or its previous sleep aid.

Peculiarity for daytime naps

If your baby still hasn’t fallen asleep 30 to 45 minutes into the day , try to keep him awake until the next bedtime. Otherwise there is a risk that an unfavorable sleep rhythm will be established. The same applies to “sleeping in”. Make sure your child gets up at their usual times.

It doesn’t work without consistency

According to the experience of the book authors, if the plan is followed consistently, an improvement can be observed in most cases after three days, and it rarely takes longer than a week or two to get used to it. Slight modifications of the plan are of course possible. For example, you can shorten waiting times. The most important thing is that you have a good feeling about the implementation of the plan. This is the only way you can consistently “pull through” it and have a chance of success.

Criticism of the sleep learning plan

Although this plan for learning to sleep and the accompanying book “Every Child Can Learn to Sleep” are classics, there is also criticism of this “procedure according to plan”. The main complaints are:

• A baby also expresses the desire for closeness and security by crying at night. The book can lead to the assumption that crying at night is always to be equated with a (negative) defiant reaction. According to her reasoning, the causes of crying are given too little consideration.
• Critics also confirm that the method works in the relatively short term and causes a change in behavior. They just question whether it’s worth the price. Because the child does not change its behavior voluntarily, but because it resigns. The child gives up and stops crying because it experiences: I’m not getting what I want after all. It feels left alone. His needs are not being met and this, according to the critics, can affect the baby’s trust in his parents and his self-esteem.
• The book is a guide to help a child learn to adjust their needs to those of their parents. Critics here question whether it is right that the needs of the little ones are so subordinate to those of the parents.
• According to the critics, what children need above all is security and a quick response to their needs. If this does not happen when the baby cries, anxiety and stress can arise. And this, according to some researchers, can produce negative changes in the brain.

Gentle approaches presented as an alternative

Sleep researchers, such as Professor Zulley from the University of Regensburg (see interview “ This is how sleeping works ”), advocate seeing sleep learning programs really only as an emergency solution, not as a standard educational measure. Instead of an approach aimed at short-term success, they prefer a long-term, step-by-step approach that is gentler on the child. We present such an approach in our article “Sleeping instead of screaming”.before. These approaches try to give the child a good and positive experience while sleeping and to enable him to set his own pace, with which he becomes independent in terms of sleeping. In our article “Sleep training programs versus gentle methods” we compare both approaches for you.