Should We Let Our Adopted Babies Cry It Out? - Weekend Wisdom

Question: We have been matched with an expectant mom due in a couple of months. She is having twins. As we are preparing for the next steps, sleep training has come up frequently in newborn care books. What research is there on the cry-it-out method or other popular sleep training methods in relation to adopted children? We want to make sure they know their needs will be met and build a strong adoption bond, but we also want to eventually work towards them being able to sleep through the night.

Resources:

• Did Denmark Actually Ban "Cry it Out?"
• Video: The Attachment Cycle - Empowered to Connect
• Sleep Issues with Adopted, Foster, or Relative Children
• Balancing Attachment with Getting Sleep

Transcript

Please pardon any errors, this is an automated transcript.

take your questions, we comb through our archives, we look for expert -based solutions
to what it is that you're facing, and we craft them into an answer that we hope
strengthens your family and other families who are listening. So if you have a
question for weekend wisdom, please send it to info at creatingafamily .org. And we'll
put you in the queue and we'll do our research and we'll find something to
hopefully strengthen and support your family. Today's question comes from Kaylee.
She says, Hello, thank you so much for all the wonderful podcasts and resources you
prepare. It is incredibly helpful. I apologize if the below has been asked before,
but here's my question. We have been matched with an expectant mom who is due in a
couple months. She's having twins. As we are preparing for the next steps, sleep
training has come up quite frequently in the newborn care books that we've been
reading. What research is there on the cry -it -out method or other popular sleep
training methods in relation to adopted children? We want to make sure that we know
their needs and meet those needs and build a strong adoption bond, but we also
eventually want to work towards helping them sleep through the night. Thank you,
Kaylee. Well, Haley, wow, twins, you must be feeling a big mix of nervousness and
joy and anticipation and suspense and, oh my goodness, are we ever going to sleep
again? And all of that is completely normal. So let's talk about sleep with newly
adopted twins in a way that keeps things practical and grounded in what we know
from attachment science and sleep science. But first, I feel like I need to offer a
caveat or two about prenatal exposure. You don't mention whether or not the twins
have had any known prenatal substance exposure to alcohol or drugs, but if it's even
a possibility, it's something that you should be paying attention to. Babies who
experience substances in utero often have more sensitive,
delicate, nervous systems. This means that they may struggle with feeding issues.
that they may be experiencing and taking in and then finding what soothes this
particular baby. If you're meeting the babies in the hospital, it's perfectly
acceptable to ask the nurses, what have you figured out that helps this baby calm
or soothe? And they often will already know the answers to that. The magic tricks
of soothing prenatally exposed babies are sometimes different or more intense and more
intentional than the methods that maybe one would use on a baby who has had no
prenatal exposure. So that leads us into sleep training and the topic of sleep
issues for babies. And there's a lot of debate and competition and even shame around
the topic of sleep training. It's a pretty hot topic in every mommy circle I've
ever been a part of. The reality is that sleep training for adopted children should
be viewed through a different lens, similar to how you are viewing it if you know
that they have prenatal exposure. That's a different lens. So viewing sleep training
through the lens of adoption should be different. I recently read an article that
broke down the cry it out method and the science of infant sleep, and I will link
it in the show notes to give you some context for the information that I'm about
to share with you today. I thought it was a great article, but again, that's coming
from my lens of sleep training being a hot topic and a controversial topic in all
the mommy circles I've ever been in. And I've done bio -parenting and adoptive
parenting both. So I maybe have a different lens than some other people who would
read the article. But I'll link it in the show notes for you. So let's start with
the framework of the science of attachment to answer your questions about sleep
training. For adoptive families who are starting from scratch to build this attachment
relationship, meaning you haven't carried the child and you haven't had that
biological exchange of attachment going on for the nine months leading up to birth.
For adoptive families, there's two simple questions that can help you decide what to
do about sleep and sleep training. The first question is, does my method or
preferred approach support my child feeling safe? And the second question is,
does it teach them that we will respond to their communications. Within that
framework, there's plenty of room to guide you and your child towards healthy sleep
habits while still protecting that developing attachment relationship between you and
the babies. And again, we are couching all of this in terms of the science of
attachment, but also the fact that there's two of them that you have to take care
of and that you need to be rested to take care of. So let's talk about the
context of adoption and attachment specific to sleep,
because sleep and the ability to settle starts with that sense of safety,
that first question, does my method or my preferred approach help my baby feel safe?
I am going to link also my favorite video about the science of attachment in the
show notes in case you hadn't seen it before, but here's the science of it in a
nutshell. Crying is a communication, and it's often the only communication that your
child has until they develop language. I mean, it's literally the only language they
have until they have words. So every time your baby cries and you respond by
feeding, rocking, changing, or just offering comfort a back rub or, you know,
a little pat on the bum, your baby's brain builds neuropathways that says,
I expressed a need and someone comes. I am safe. And that's the cycle.
So this cry and response and relief loop is the foundation of secure attachment.
They cry, you respond, they feel safe, they know that the next time they cry,
you will respond and they'll feel safe. And it just keeps building on itself. You
don't have to be perfect in your responses by any means. And trust me, with twins,
you won't be. With any baby, you won't be. And you don't need to jump up at every
sound they make. But consistent responsiveness over time teaches a baby's brain that
the world is predictable and that caregivers are trustworthy and that they can feel
safety. So for adopted infants who may not have had that predictability thus far,
maybe they've had very unpredictable in utero experiences or unpredictability in the
early weeks and months before you take placement of them to your home, this
consistency is even more important. It does not mean you can't rest, but it does
mean that responding to their needs is the paramount objective here.
So you are making yourself available, you're being predictable, you're being
consistent, and you're attuned to what you learn their cries to mean.
So here's a couple, you know, attachment -friendly strategies that will help everybody
gets sleep while still being available, attuned, and predictable for this baby.
The first one is to try and room share in the early months, whether that's a
bassinet or a co -sleeper or a side sleeper that's pulled right up next to your
bed. It allows you to reach over, pat their tummy if they're sleeping on their back
or, you know, rub their head if that seems soothing to them or just a quick shh,
which is very soothing to.
so to speak. It's building security, it's draining stress that they might be feeling
in their little central nervous system, and it can lead to easier nights. If they're
regulated during the day, it helps them figure out how to be regulated at night
better. A third thing that you can do in these early days and months that will
help build healthy sleep habits is to learn their language. They're incredibly noisy
sleepers. I have never understood why people say, oh, I slept like a baby. babies
don't.
something. And over time, as you learn these babies, you'll learn what sounds mean,
I'm awake and I need help. And what sounds mean, I'm just resetting myself or I'm
just trying to get comfortable. And so figuring that out, we'll take some time.
It'll take trial and error. It'll take practice. It'll be helped by things like room
sharing in the early months overnight and baby wearing during the day because you're
intimately getting to know their rhythms and their cycles. The fourth thing that can
help with building those healthy sleep habits at night is to embrace the fact that
these twins are two different people, even if they're identical twins. They are two
different, distinct, unique people. One might sleep longer than the other. One might
sleep deeper than the other. One might have some sensory sensitivities to light or
to scritchy clothes. One might need more help settling and soothing than the other
one. All of that is totally normal. It exists on a very wide range of normal. And
you're not doing anything wrong. You've just got two nervous systems to figure out,
two little personalities and temperaments to figure out. And you're just going to
keep trying and trying and trying until you figure it out. And it's not that you're
doing anything wrong again. I also want to encourage you and your partner, if you
have one, hopefully if you are adopting twins, you have some consistent, safe other
adult around with you every day. But I want to encourage you and your partner to
set some realistic expectations for what sleep might look like in these early days.
The range of what babies might need as to cumulative hours of sleep and the range
of how much sleep they actually get in any given little deposit of time is vastly
different for every baby and for every stage that they're experiencing. So in these
early days, while you're figuring all of that out, lower your expectations of what
sleep looks like and what you can do or get done while they're sleeping and
surround yourself by people who will support you to rest when they're resting.
And I know that sounds trite. I know that for ages and ages and ages, grandmothers
have been saying, sleep when the baby sleeps. They're not wrong. It's hard, and it's
harder when there's two of them, but rest doesn't have to look like sleep for you.
It can just be putting your feet up with a nice cozy blanket and laying your head
back on the back of the chair with two babies asleep in your arms. And that's
rest. Let your body rest. Let your body acclimate. So instead of aiming for this
ideal of everyone sleeping through the night, maybe consider aiming for steady,
consistent routines that are going to be building towards sleeping through the night
eventually. Anything you can do to surround yourself with help to get to that point
for as long as you need it is stuff that you should be doing. So that might look
like setting up a predictable feeding schedule, setting up a calming nighttime rhythm
that you replicate every night. Even if they don't fall asleep through that nighttime
routine, making sure you do it every night will start to signal their brain and
body to respond. So have a quiet dim space, quiet voices, quiet music,
a white noise machine, follow the same routine every single night. The point isn't
to create the perfect nighttime routine. The point is to create a pattern that their
bodies and their brains can come to count on that will tell them, okay, now it's
time for my body to come down off the days high and relax and rest so that I can
sleep. You are going to kind of hold that expectation of sleep like a baby loosely.
And then you're also going to hold the expectation that they fall asleep every time
you do this nighttime routine loosely. And then you're also going to try and
surround yourself by those people who can help you do this. Twins are no joke.
And if you're exhausted, everything about raising these twins is going to feel harder
and bigger and becoming emotionally available for when that baby needs you, requires
that you surround yourself by people who are willing to get it and willing to walk
through that time with you. Your focus is on building that healthy attachment and
that predictability and that sense that they can count on you to feel safe. And so
you should kind of create like this little ecosystem around your family, asking for
people to come and take a shift when you just really need to sleep? Can they come
and just hold the babies, asking if somebody could stock your freezer with meals?
Somebody could come pick up your laundry and do your laundry every week for you
until somebody gets some sleep. Extend a leave from work since you're having twins,
see if you'd be eligible for extra time off. Some people hire nighttime doulas or
postpartum helpers, And if you can swing that financially, it might be a great idea
to help you get through the hump of the early days and weeks of parenting twins.
If you can try and train yourself to keep a canned response ready when people say,
hey, let me know if I can help. You immediately say, hey, a frozen meal for my
freezer would be awesome. Or would you come pick up the load of sheets and towels
that need to be washed this week. Having some sort of canned response to those
inquiries because people are pretty quick and free to throw out that, hey, let me
know if I can help. You need to be just as quick to respond with, this is exactly
what I need to help. So let people in. Let your babies experience other safe,
calm caregivers that are supporting you in this process. And the bottom line is that
the science of attachment can sometimes feel like it's at odds with the science of
sleep training. And that will be especially true to your brain and body in those
very early weeks and months of bringing the twins home. So instead, maybe consider
training yourself to be flexible, to reduce expectations, and to build the basic,
easy to implement routines and rhythms into your home that allow you the space and
freedom to respond consistently and compassionately to your baby's communications.
You're going to be wiring their brain for safety and connection when you do this.
And ultimately, it will be a much more peaceful experience that can lend itself to
not just good sleep for all of you at some point, but also good, healthy, secure
attachment between you. You don't have to choose between the two, but you may have
to delay the sleep training mentality while you're focusing on the getting everybody
rested and building strong and secure attachment. Remember that safe babies settle
more easily. And when I say safe babies, I mean babies who feel safety because of
your consistency and your predictability. Safe babies learn better how to adapt to
the rhythms of your family's nighttime routines. And over time, yes, safe babies do
sleep. So work on building the relationship that makes all of that safety possible.
And truly, these babies are so lucky to have you already digging into this kind of
information for them and on their behalf. It's impressive that you're being so
thoughtful about how to get all of this right and just take yourself off the hook
and say it's not about getting it right. It's about getting present and consistent
and predictable for this baby to feel safe in my care. Thanks so much for
listening. I hope that this helped you, Kaylee, but I also hope that it helped
other listeners who may be struggling with sleep in those early days and weeks home
with a brand new baby. Pre -congratulations to you on the twins that you are
expecting through this adoption process. We wish you the best and we hope that you
come back and check in with us. You can find us on Facebook at Facebook .com slash
groups slash creating a family. We'd love to hear how things are going and I think
it'd be a great place for you to connect with other new parents as well. Thanks
again for listening and we'll catch you next week.