> It should be noted that, unlike most behavioral interventions for infant sleep difficulties, 9,10 this protocol does not address any long-term improvement of sleep regulation.
I'd expect as much since this is the first thing a parent tries to do. Holding the baby when they wake crying several times a night will calm them, not exactly revelatory, but can come in handy even for more lasting solutions.
I find the lit/consultants have wildly varying degrees of severity for approaches, including for gradual extinction. The mistake I think we made prior to seeking intervention is feeding-to-sleep for too long, i.e. the baby would drink a bottle right before bed and get knocked out (mostly). They were always accustomed to being asleep in arms before being put down. I think if you feed slightly earlier in the routine-chain, with the lights on, you go a long ways to avoiding this issue, since you can rock them while they're awake for a time before putting them down. In some branded variants of graduated extinction, they suggest making sure your baby is super wakeful and basically dropping them in the crib right away after reading a book - this seems needlessly harsh when going from the opposite extreme, which is reflected in the baby's level of crying. We found that it went well to rock them until they were calm and drowsy (but still awake) before putting them down. The protest was mild and short-lived, but of course that's only our experience.
This. Be very careful implementing this paper's technique. It does NOT promote long-term sleep independence, which should be the goal. Crying before sleeping is not inherently bad. The objective function is not to greedily minimize crying. If you are interested in materials on sleep training, I recommend taking a more holistic view than a single paper. "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" is a good reference.
I'd expect as much since this is the first thing a parent tries to do. Holding the baby when they wake crying several times a night will calm them, not exactly revelatory, but can come in handy even for more lasting solutions.
I find the lit/consultants have wildly varying degrees of severity for approaches, including for gradual extinction. The mistake I think we made prior to seeking intervention is feeding-to-sleep for too long, i.e. the baby would drink a bottle right before bed and get knocked out (mostly). They were always accustomed to being asleep in arms before being put down. I think if you feed slightly earlier in the routine-chain, with the lights on, you go a long ways to avoiding this issue, since you can rock them while they're awake for a time before putting them down. In some branded variants of graduated extinction, they suggest making sure your baby is super wakeful and basically dropping them in the crib right away after reading a book - this seems needlessly harsh when going from the opposite extreme, which is reflected in the baby's level of crying. We found that it went well to rock them until they were calm and drowsy (but still awake) before putting them down. The protest was mild and short-lived, but of course that's only our experience.