The parents of young children and newborns in London are juggling with reaching their threshold for lack of sleep. The common thing among them these days is exchanging the number of a sleep trainer named Brenda Hart.
Her forte lies in sleep training. However, she also offers other services like helping with the newborns, potty training, and picky eaters. Her expertise in sleep training has made parents of these newborns and young children recommend her to nearly everyone with awe and wonder – relatives, friends, and even strangers whom they meet in parks.
However, they share Hart’s number with a caveat. She’s a no-nonsense woman. Her personality would make you wonder about her past. There are rumors that she has a twin and that she has worked as a governess in Dubai. Some say that she worked as a nanny by the night for a Prime Minister and then escaped from there. There are many things that are said about her and the majority of them are, in fact, true. But none of them come in the way of her effectiveness and her straightforward methods.
Some of the parents who have taken her services as sleep trainers share their experiences. For instance, Hart was hired by Sal Bett, the mother to Raphael, an eight-week-old boy some years back. Bett literally did not take Hart seriously when Hart told her that from now on Raphael would wake up only two times – one at sharp 11 P.M. and the other at 2:15 A.M. and then would continue to sleep till 7 A.M. And Raphael actually follows that sleep-wake cycle that night.
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Similarly, another pair of husband and wife took Hart’s services as a sleep trainer for their four-month-old twin boys, John and Arthur. The husband and wife already had two daughters aged seven and four and were literally struggling with the diminishing sleep of their twin boys. Both husband and wife hardly slept for an hour or two during the night. Both of them slept in different rooms, with one by each, trying to put them to sleep but were able to do so until dawn.
That’s when Hart entered their life. Her standard service involves a talk session where you as parents listen to her. She looks at the way you put your baby to sleep and lets you know where you are going wrong with the whole thing. She doesn’t waste a moment and prefers to handle the babies the moment she enters your place. This is to get familiar with the babies and let the babies know that there’s someone there for them. Hart keeps her word of producing results within 48 hours and is of the opinion that babies should sleep and eat by the clock.
Additionally, they should spend less time sleeping during the day so that they can sleep uninterruptedly during the night hours. According to her, babies should start having a sound sleep until the next morning by the age of three months.
Now, traditional sleep training basically involves a mechanism that works. The mechanism is that auspicious time when the baby sleeps on his own, independently. But how one achieves this or the mechanics one adopts depends on both the temperament of the child and the patience and tolerance levels of parents. And mechanics is what sleep trainers serve you with. They help you reach that auspicious moment through their techniques.
The mechanics typically used by traditional sleep trainers include letting the child cry for a few minutes before he sleeps on his own. Child specialists in the nineteenth century started suggesting strict night routines for children. They asked parents to make children sleep in separate rooms. And if they cried out of habit or temper, simply let them cry out.
In the twentieth century, influenced by Pavlovian conditioning, Behaviorist and founder of behaviorism John B Watson gave it the term ‘Extinction’. This involves giving your child a pat on the head, wishing him a quiet good night, putting off the lights of the room, and simply closing the door. Let the child cry if he does so. The concept of Extinction states that if a habit is not encouraged or reinforced, it gets extinguished.
The Reinforcement Theory by B.F. Skinner – B.F. Skinner Biography
B.F. Skinner was the behaviorist and the American psychologist who gave the reinforcement theory or the concept of operant conditioning. For this reason, Skinner is also known as the father of operant conditioning.
Skinner’s reinforcement theory states that behavior would be repeated if it is reinforced. However, it would not be repeated if it is punished. Skinner, who is the father of operant conditioning, gave one of the important principles of Extinction.
The extinction principle states that the child is not rewarded if he exhibits undesirable behavior. This is to stop him from exhibiting such behavior in the future. And this is the principle that is applied by sleep trainers. However, there are many psychologists who criticize sleep training for the mechanics it makes use of. They consider the methodology used by sleep trainers as unethical.
