> Things do get a bit better when the child is sleeping longer. After about 6 months you can start techniques to help your child sleep through the night.
With the caveat that every child is different, there's no reason to delay "sleep-through-the-night techniques" until a child is 6 months old. We've found that by explicitly managing the eating schedule of our children, they've developed routines that get them sleeping through the night between 8 and 10 weeks.
Newborns are constantly adapting to the world around them. If you have a routine in place, they'll figure out how to adapt to it, and that can translate directly to more sleep for parents and happier parent <-> child bonding times. If it didn't have such a huge impact on parental quality of life, I'd say it doesn't matter how you approach getting them to sleep through the night. But it does have a huge impact, so it's foolish not to consider that when determining your approach to raising a newborn.
Hadn't ever heard it called "controlled crying" before. It looks like this is also called "self-soothing".
From reading the first few articles on a google search of the topic, this looks very similar in nature to the Baby-wise technique of establishing a routine which will cause the child to settle into a nighttime routine and let them sleep through the night.
Why wait until the child is 6 months old? I didn't see any reasons given on the (admittedly few) articles I read. Children crave routine, and ISTM that the best time to establish one is as soon as the parents are ready for it.
With the caveat that every child is different, there's no reason to delay "sleep-through-the-night techniques" until a child is 6 months old. We've found that by explicitly managing the eating schedule of our children, they've developed routines that get them sleeping through the night between 8 and 10 weeks.
Newborns are constantly adapting to the world around them. If you have a routine in place, they'll figure out how to adapt to it, and that can translate directly to more sleep for parents and happier parent <-> child bonding times. If it didn't have such a huge impact on parental quality of life, I'd say it doesn't matter how you approach getting them to sleep through the night. But it does have a huge impact, so it's foolish not to consider that when determining your approach to raising a newborn.