This was my method to get Ari to sleep through the night -- without me killing him! -- to a T. :)

A six-year Australian study about to be presented to the World Health Congress of Internal Medicine just concluded that letting a baby over six months of age cry himself to sleep may yield benefits to both mother and child. From the Sunday Telegraph:

It is the most long-term and the first "real life" research of its kind, monitoring the sleep and wellbeing of 225 Australian babies from infancy to school-age....

"We totally understand that hearing your baby crying is difficult for any parent, but it's great to know if they persevere, they are not doing their child any harm."

Controlled crying reduced babies' sleeping problems by 30 per cent within four months, the study found, and cut depression rates in mothers by 40 per cent by the time children turned two.

"It's quite phenomenal," Ms Price said. "We know that early sleep problems double the risk of post-natal depression in mothers, which can affect bonding with the child."

By the age of two, 85 per cent of parents said using controlled crying had improved their relationship with their child.

The remaining 15 per cent reported no change, but none thought it had done any harm.

There were two caveats to the study. Nowhere in the story was "controlled crying" defined. But the babies were, typically, nine and 10 months of age. Now that I think of it, Ari, too, was 9 months of age when I resorted to this technique -- three months after my pediatrician told me it was safe to do so. I was super-sleep deprived, alone and definitely weepy from the baby blues, but was reluctant to let him cry until then.

But seriously, it only took a night of 50 minutes of crying and he slept through the night afterwards. And our relationship is great today.

Eli was always a much better sleeper, and I don't remember trying anything this traumatic. (I won't lie, it was still hard on me with Ari, but I was just so, so bone-weary tired.)

The other caveat in the story, which I whole-heartedly agree with, is that this sleep solution like any other sleep remedy is not a "one-size-fits-all" type of thing. Parents need to respond to the individual needs of their children.

I will say, though, that my husband and I discovered the best remedy for "musical beds": bunk beds! For the first two years of Eli's life, we played musical beds, which meant that every night we were all sleeping together in a different bed. Because the kids demanded that an adult stay with them, one night Markos would sleep with Ari and I would sleep with Eli while other nights we all slept in our king-sized bed. It wasn't the best sleep arrangements for the adults -- I am such a light sleeper and cannot sleep with my kids kicking me -- so DH recently had the best idea to get the kids to sleep in their own beds. He bought them bunk beds. The kids love them so much that Eli told us that now that she is going to be una niña grande -- a big 3-year-old -- she wanted a "bed with a ladder." DH and I agree we do not want little Eli on the top bunk -- but glad she likes it.

What do you think of this study? How do you get some needed zzz's in your house?