TABLE 3.

Sleep problems: popular sociocultural and clinical advice which disrupts parent–infant biobehavioral synchrony.

First wave behavioral belief	First wave behavioral strategy	Disruption to parent–baby biobehavioral synchrony
Teaching self-settling improves infant sleep
	Don’t let baby fall asleep with breastfeed or bottle-feed	Overrides powerful biological cue of sleepiness
	Put baby down in cot drowsy but awake, even if baby grizzles and cries for a time	Ignores infant cue; interprets infant cue as ‘resisting sleep’; baby may be crying due to suboptimal sensory-motor nourishment
	Create sleep associations with cot, white noise, swaddling, music, low sensory environment	Sleep is under stimulus-control of sleep pressure, not ‘associations’; baby develops negative associations with sleep place and rituals, interpreted as ‘resisting sleep’
	Sleep in quiet dark room during day	Worsened night-waking after 2–3 weeks, due to disruption of circadian clock
Feed-play-sleep cycles make life more manageable for parents
	Don’t let baby fall asleep with breastfeed or bottle-feed	Overrides powerful biological cue of sleepiness
	Put baby down in cot drowsy but awake	Baby cries due to suboptimal sensory-motor nourishment, interpreted as ‘resisting sleep’
	Space out feeds	Baby cries due to hunger; Undermines breastfeeding success
Baby needs a lot of sleep for optimal brain development
	Sleep breeds sleep	Worsened night-waking after 2–3 weeks, due to disruption of circadian clock
	Achieve ‘second sleep cycle’ during day-time naps	Worsened night-waking after 2–3 weeks, due to disruption of circadian clock
	Sleep routines with estimates of time awake and ideal duration of sleep	Baby is expected to spend longer asleep than actually needs, disrupting the biological sleep regulators
Mustn’t let baby get over-tired
	Prescribed list of ‘tired cues’	Disempowers parents by undermining confidence in their capacity to experiment and learn what they baby is cueing
	Put baby down at first ‘tired cue’	Promotes disruption of the biological sleep regulators, due to disruption of the circadian clock and inadequate sleep pressure
	Put baby to bed early at night (6–7 pm)	Promotes disruption of the biological sleep regulators, due to disruption of the circadian clock and inadequate sleep pressure
Mustn’t let baby get overstimulated
	Avoid leaving house or engaging in play or social activity in lead up to sleep times	Baby may be cuing for richer sensory-motor nourishment, not tiredness
Baby who grizzles and cries is ‘resisting’ sleep		Baby may be cuing for richer sensory-motor nourishment, not tiredness