May 30, 2016.

Lack of sleep for parents of newborns is often a great source of stress after birth, especially when baby crying is persistent. If it is customary today to meet the child’s demand, a new study could upset this habit.

Ignoring a child’s crying results in a better quality of sleep, for the baby as for his parents. This is the finding established by researchers from the School of Psychology at Flinders University, Australia, and published in the journal Pediatrics.

For 12 months, the researchers observed the cases of 43 children, aged 6 to 16 months, with sleep problems. Their parents were divided into groups and were assigned a method known as “sleep training”.. The first group was asked to use the Ferber method, also known as the “5-10-15 method”, which consists of waiting 5 then 10 then 15 minutes, when their baby cries, before going to see him.

The other group observed the gentler technique of “Fading”, which first involves delaying bedtime to a time when the child will fall asleep without any difficulty, then advancing bedtime by 5 minutes each day until a more correct time for a child . Finally, the third group was not imposed any particular method.

At the end of this study, scientists observed that children of parents who used a sleep training technique fell asleep 13 minutes earlier than others, and woke up less often each night. In addition, scientists did not notice any significant difference when analyzing babies’ cortisol levels. This steroid hormone is triggered under stress.

” It is known that sleep deprivation can be a big source of stress in a family. In particular, it can lead to a form of maternal depression. We hope that these results will be of help for these parents who are looking for the behavior to adopt when their child is sleeping. “, Concluded Michael Gradisar, one of the authors of this study.

Read also: The infallible technique to stop baby crying in less than 10 seconds