One of the most common questions I receive from parents is “If I respond with comfort at every waking, won’t that keep teaching my child to call for me?”

Big question.

Intermittent reinforcement stems from behaviorism and conditioning theory. This is the idea that you change behavior by rewarding the one you want and punishing/ignoring the one you do not want (thus extinguishing the behavior entirely). The core of this approach is always to remain consistent in your response. Intermittent reinforcement means that you are occasionally rewarding the behavior you want to extinguish thereby not remaining consistent and in turn stalling progress.

A sleep example of this is, you nurse your child to sleep at all wakings. You are following a behavioral method (ex: controlled crying) and you are to no longer nurse to sleep. You are following this instruction until there is 1 waking that is over 1 hour long, you cave and nurse to sleep. This is what would be called intermittent reinforcement.

What this method rarely takes into consideration is the multi factorial nature of sleep, the exhaustion of the parent and child, the difficulty in such instruction and the innate need for a mother to soothe her upset child.

Though I understand the concept (I do have a 4 year double major psychology degree, and a 2 year diploma in Early Childhood Education), I do not follow it to the same degree in my sleep work. Since I know that self regulation of a child happens through co -regulation with a trusted caregiver, withholding comfort in its entirety is simply not in line with the way I practice.

So, what do I believe?

I do not believe that answering your child’s cries or providing comfort is going to stall progress. Therefore, one can argue, I do not see a place for the theory of “intermittent reinforcement” in my sleep practice - but I do (more on this later).  You can provide comfort and still reach your sleep goals.

What I do is work with the child’s behaviour to get to the goal. If a child is crying and needs comfort, then I expect the parents to provide the comfort. I work with other factors of sleep to create an environment that supports optimal sleep for the child while allowing space for the comforting and responsive parent.

So, the answer to the question is no, you will not stall progress by responding and comforting your child while working with me.

However:

I DO agree that consistency is key when doing any form of sleep work. We want to make the transition and learning period smooth for the child — not more frustrating then it needs to be.

Consistency and intermittent reinforcement are not necessarily the same thing (though some may argue it is, it is not).  Consistency is about regularity/predictability - staying true to one way of doing something for best results. Intermittent reinforcement is about rewarding a behavior when you should not be – leading to irregularity in response. Intermittent reinforcement leads to inconsistency.

How do the two of these fit in my work?

Well, if you nurse for comfort before every sleep, but baby is to fall asleep not nursing – that is a form of consistency. You are responding in a way that suits you and your baby with regularity. Intermittent reinforcement would be that sometimes you do let baby fall asleep while nursing, and sometimes you do not. This would confuse your baby as they would not know when they get to be nursed to sleep. In this example, we are not cutting out nursing to sleep in its entirety, rather respecting how strong that comfort is for the baby and working with it to a common goal. Will the baby get to a stage where they will not need to nurse for comfort at all? Perhaps – but that is when they are ready to do so. Not when an adult decides they are ready to do so. The concepts apply to my approach, but the degree that I use them to is different than a traditional sleep training method.

I do not want you to be afraid to comfort your own child.

I do not want you to have to ask someone if it is okay to comfort your own child. 

I want to provide you with solutions that fit your family and are responsive to your needs. I know the way I work can puzzle minds that are inundated with sleep training principles daily. I can tell you this, my clients find that this approach feels more natural, respects their baby and family unit, and is responsive to their needs.

In Wellness,

Tamara Jurkin