Posts tagged under Sleep. Show all posts.
Sometimes we set our expectations too high, too low or we have none at all when it comes to our baby’s sleep. It is healthy to have realistic and positive expectations for achieving good sleep habits in the home. Here are some ‘peace-of-mind tidbits’ to help you relax—mentally and physically.
Expect motherhood to guide you to solutions and perpetually transform your expectations. The more well-rested and relaxed you are, the easier it will be to adjust to the constantly changing world of motherhood.
There is nothing more exhausting about motherhood (the early years) than having a baby who will not sleep and then spending those half-conscious waking moments trying to find a sane solution to the sleeplessness.
Let’s forget the books, the Google-ing, other mother declarations (or maybe your mother’s two cents worth) for now. Instead, let’s focus on the here and now on what is right in front of you.
Sometimes all you need is a fresh perspective—attune yourself more closely to your baby’s experiences to turn on that ‘night light’. Here’s my mommy brief on some of baby’s key senses. There are actually 11, but here are the top five:
Good to know: Babies will hone their senses between four to seven months of age. Tune in next week for more on sleep and your baby.
At some point, whether you’re ready or not, your toddler is going to declare an end to nap time. Here is some advice on weathering that transition stage.
From Two Naps to One
Most toddlers make the transition from two naps to one nap by the time they are 18 months old. This can be a tough time for you and your toddler. A toddler may not need that second nap every day, but if he goes too many days in a row with just one nap, he can become overtired and edgy (or fall asleep in the middle of dinner). At that point, anything even remotely resembling a routine goes out the window.
If you’ve eliminated the morning nap, try moving the afternoon nap ahead a little so that it occurs earlier in the afternoon. You may want to serve lunch a little earlier than you did when he was having a morning nap to ensure that your toddler will be in a reasonably cooperative mood when it’s time to eat. If he’s too tired, lunch could turn into a battle and your toddler may not want to eat at all. That could interfere with his afternoon nap. (If he hasn’t eaten anything for a couple of hours, he’ll wake up shortly after he’s fallen asleep because hunger will trump his need for some shut-eye.)
From One Nap to None
To figure out if your toddler is ready to give up that final nap, consider the following:
Your answers to these questions will help you to figure out whether your toddler is ready to ditch that final nap or whether he’d benefit from a bit of daytime shut-eye (or at least some daytime quiet time) for just a little while longer. Good luck!
If I had the baby-world equivalent of a crystal ball, I’d be able to provide you with a definitive answer to the first part of this question. You could mark that red-letter day on your calendar! Because I don’t have such a gadget, the best I can do is provide you with some baby sleep statistics:
As for encouraging healthy sleep habits, there are plenty of steps you can take as your baby’s sleep patterns begin to mature. Here’s a quick overview. (You’ll find more detailed information in my book Sleep Solutions for Your Baby, Toddler, and Preschooler: The Ultimate No-Worry Approach for Each Age and Stage.)
When your baby is a newborn, you’re basically in sleep survival mode, so you don’t want to make life any more stressful for yourself than it already is. Your basic goal during this stage is to help your baby start to learn the difference between night and day. Emphasize differences in noise levels and brightness. In the morning, open the curtains to let in as much natural light as possible. Go about your day so that your baby gets exposed to the sounds of your daytime activity. In the evening, keep the light and sound levels low so that your baby learns that it’s time to start winding down for sleep. In the middle of the night, keep the light levels low and speak in quiet tones while you’re feeding your baby. You want your baby to learn that it’s still time for sleep.
When your baby gets older (around 3 to 4 months of age), she becomes more capable of understanding cause and effect relationships. This is the perfect time to introduce pre-bedtime routines. As you go through each stage of the routine, your baby will begin to anticipate what comes next (bath, pajamas and a diaper, feeding, song and a cuddle, bedtime). Some babies are stimulated by bath-time and end up being wide awake after their bath. If this is the case with your baby, you might want to schedule bath-time earlier in the day.
Give your baby a chance to start falling asleep on her own at naptime and before bedtime. When she makes noises in the night, wait a moment to see if she’s actually awake. (Sometimes babies make noises and then fall back to sleep—unless we rush in, pick them up, and wake them up!) A baby can’t learn how to sleep through the night until she learns how to fall asleep on her own and how to fall back asleep on her own. Every baby masters these skills at a different time and you can’t force her to learn these skills before she is ready. All you can do is provide her with opportunities. If she’s not ready, wait a few weeks and try again. A few weeks can make a huge difference in terms of infant development.
If your baby is struggling with sleep, talk to your doctor. Your doctor can conduct a physical examination to rule out any physical causes, such as ear infections or gastroesophageal refux that can result in middle-of-the-night misery for babies and their parents.
All the best to you and your baby.
So it’s time to move your sweet pea from her baby crib to her new toddler bed and you’re freaking out about how to manage the change. Let me reassure you that children are actually quite robust and resilient. In fact, it’s these little life struggles that help build up their ‘psychological muscle’ as they discover for themselves that they can cope and manage in the ever-expanding world.
When to move? My general child guidance rule is to continually foster his or her progress towards autonomy and mastery. The sooner they can go from bottle to cup, high chair to booster and likewise, crib to bed—the better.
If you have a new baby on the way, it’s recommended you take down the crib and have it out of sight for a time before moving it into the baby’s nursery (and perhaps changing up the bumper pads). If you can’t pull that off, no worries. Trust your older child to make the adjustment and learn to share, because there’s a lot more of that coming!
Ask your child to join you shopping so they can help pick their new bedding for the new bed. Often they’re so excited to sleep in the Spider-Man/princess sheets, they don’t mind passing down their old crib to the new baby.
How do you know when it’s time? If your tot is a real monkey and starts scaling the sides, you should make the move. Don’t risk a tumble over the top rail—simply keep the railing down so the crib becomes a day bed. Teach them to crawl in and out of it safely on their own.
Ah yes, now they’re not contained anymore. No need to panic. Install a baby gate at their bedroom doorway. This serves to enlarge the area they are contained in from their crib to their whole room. Make sure you’ve child-proofed the room before this step, however.
With the gate in place, you can tuck them in, say your good nights and if they crawl out of the crib and stand at their doorway calling for you, so be it. Treat it the same as if they were in their crib. They may fall asleep on the floor instead of their crib, but that will only be for a few nights while they discover this new limit. Once asleep, you can move them back to their bed or cover them with a blanket.
My daughter Lucy transitioned by keeping her crib mattress and sheets but dropped on the floor, futon style. For both my girls, there was a time when they had their new bed set up and old crib (side down) still in their room. I simply let them pick where they wanted to sleep. They both chose to start with naps in the bed (with a side attachment to stop them from rolling off onto the floor) but both preferred their cribs at night for awhile.
When the crib finally has to come down, talk about it together, mark it on the calendar a week in advance so they know the big day is coming, and make a fun event of disassembling it together.
Bedtime and sleeping are such normal, yet loaded activities. It’s tricky because you can’t actually make your child sleep. It’s a skill they need to learn and often, the more we try to teach, the more push-back we get. Some routines and tips can make a big difference.
Some Don’ts
Some Dos
Are your kids still crawling into bed with you? How do you encourage them to sleep on their own?
This is an emotional issue for parents. When tired, we either get in a midnight power struggle and/or eventually give in. Deciding what you want for your family should happen in the cold light of day, not in the middle of the night. If having the kids in your bed works for you, then don’t change it, but know that you are establishing a habit. You are clearly stating your expectations through your actions. If and when you decide that your kids need to sleep on their own, don’t let fear stand in your way.
Sleep is a gift that lasts a lifetime. You can’t make your kids sleep (which is the reason this is such an issue in the first place) BUT, children are capable of learning to keep their head on the pillow, lie quietly and wait for sleep to come. The big issue is when parents interfere with the child’s capability to put themselves back to sleep; our actions are teaching them that they can’t do it.
So how do you give the gift of sleep? The end result is the same but how you get there is up to you.
Set up a plan that is right for your family:
Whatever the plan, you need to know it first and be consistent with the follow up, especially if you involve your kids as well. Let them know the script (what you’ll say when they’re in your room, what strategies they will use when they’re waiting for sleep).
And have a good night’s sleep.
I like the suggestions given here, apart from the monster spray! I think this feeds into the notion that monsters exist, confirming the fear as a valid one. What would happen if you forgot to spray one night?! I simply repeat (sometimes several times) that there is no such thing as monsters.
How do I handle bedtime battles? My child will do anything to avoid going to bed: screaming, crying, whining, asking for another drink, wanting more hugs, and so on. It can be exhausting.
You’ve zeroed in on the heart of the issue by identifying the root cause of this oh-so-common (and oh-so-frustrating) problem: your child will do pretty much anything to avoid going to bed. It doesn’t matter which strategy (or strategies) she turns to on any given night. She’s got a single goal in mind—stopping the dreaded bedtime clock.
This may work brilliantly for her, but it isn’t working at all for you. By the time bedtime rolls around, you’re desperate for a break. You’re patience reserves are running on empty (or close to it). So how do you minimize the bedtime hijinks so that you can salvage part of your evening for yourself? Here are a few tips.
Remember, any of these methods will take a few tries before completely fixing the issue, so keep your calm and may you all get a good night’s sleep.
Wow!! Nice dude. By reading this article i am very pleased and wanted to give you thanks:) you did a good job here.
Great tips. I think it also helps to set expectations - my daughter’s know the how many hugs and kisses (and nose kisses) they each get before it’s time for us to turn off the lights. So far this has prevented them from asking for ‘just one more’. Fingers crossed it will keep working!
I have never felt so exhausted in my life.
Ah, yes. There’s exhaustion—and then there’s the extreme exhaustion of early parenthood. And being tired is only the half of it. You’re forgetful, emotional, irritable, and you feel like a zombie. And your ability to figure out ways to problem-solve your way out of this sleep deprivation labyrinth are, well, non-existent.
That’s why you need other people to help problem-solve this one for you—parents who’ve been there, not-slept-through-that, and lived to tell. Here are five quick tips from veterans of the sleep deprivation trenches.
Embrace the mantra of all wise mamas: this too shall pass. And it will. It’s just hard to remember that right now.
I am a Biofeedback Practitioner and from the 7 years of working with families I have found that the problem of not sleeping is worse. I believe the reason for this has to do with Electro magnetic Radiation that comes from the wired and wi-fi technologies that are in our homes. i have been offering a line of products that will offer intervention and are patented and proven to work.
Thanks very much for the very wise feedback.
Mama in the City: I agree. Knowing that sleep deprivation is normal does make it easier to cope with. (If you think it’s a problem, then you feel pressured to try to find a solution, and that just makes life more stressful for you and your baby.)
Cruising: So true! You’re inspiring me to want to take a nap right now. (And my youngest is 13.)
Few things are scarier than being woken in the middle of the night by the blood-curdling scream of a child in distress. In our groggy state, we wonder if they are being subjected to an exorcism while a jolt of adrenaline sends us flying down the hall to their bedsides.
More likely, they’re having a bad dream or a night terror. But which? The quickest way to differentiate between the two is notice who is the one that is scared (I kid you not):
Check out the differences between these two nighttime dramas so you’ll understand the difference and respond appropriately.
Nightmares – We all know what a nightmare is, right? A bad dream where you’re being chased by a rabid dog, or you’re lost in a strange school and can’t find your classroom can be SCARY! You wake up in the middle of the night (between 2 am and 6 am), recalling the dream and still feel frightened by the thoughts. Nightmares happen during REM sleep, the so-called ‘dream phase’ of sleep.
What to Do? Your child will be awake and upset, so you can comfort them and help them realize it was just their imagination, that dreams are not real and that they are safe now. Dreaming is a way of ordering the experiences and memories of the day. They serve as a practice ground to experiment with how we might handle life’s problems—they are rehearsed responses in our sleep.
Night Terrors – While every child will have nightmares, only some children will experience the sleep disorder called ‘night terrors’. Research is not conclusive about why children get night terrors, but it seems to be a sleep disruption related to an increase in brain activity during non-REM or deep sleep. Non-REM is the part of the sleep cycle that happens in the first 90 minutes of falling asleep. If you’re running to your child before you’ve even tucked into bed yourself, its probably a night terror. Your child will be FRANTIC, have his or her eyes open but you can see they are in zombie-state and non-responsive to you. They are actually still asleep (like sleep walking) and while they are wildly agitated and seemingly scared to death, they will not recollect this experience when they wake. It’s just unbearable for parents to watch.
What to Do? Similar to strategies for sleep walking, it’s best to not wake your child. Instead, steady yourself, talk calmly if you must talk and assure them verbally that they are safe. Don’t touch them, but keep them safe by removing anything they may flay against, step on or would cause harm. Put up a gate and lock doors if they are prone to moving about. You can mention these episodes to your pediatrician, but they will likely advice you wait it out until they outgrow it in the adolescent years. Until then, keep bedtime routines consistent.
Night terrors are awful for the parents. My eldest daughter (now 10) has had them since she was 3 years old and has just outgrown them this past year. Being overtired or going to bed without emptying the bladder first seem to make it more likely that one will happen. We resorted to lightly waking her after she had slept for 20-30 min. to disrupt that first sleep cycle which would (most times) prevent the night terror from happening.
There is very little in the literature about this, but it seems to be linked to anxiety and mood disorders later in life.
Your new baby has arrived. You’re thrilled, but exhausted. Friends and family members are offering to pitch in, but you’re too tired to figure out how to take advantage of their offers of extra assistance. What should you do?
Explain your situation to a friend who has been there. A mom with slightly older kids will know exactly what types of help you could need right now and will have mastered the organizational tricks necessary to allow you to tap into all that volunteer energy.
Provide this friend with the names and contact information for anyone who has offered to help—and give her a rough idea of each person’s skills and interests. If your friend (aka volunteer coordinator) knows that your cousin loves to cook and has offered to drop off dinner for your family one evening, she can take your cousin upon on this offer and let you know when this delicious homemade dinner will be arriving on your doorstep (so you can sit back and relax that evening).
And if your friends and family members haven’t been quite as forthcoming with offers to help as you might have hoped, your friend can make contact with a few key people, at your request, asking if they might be willing to help out with particular tasks.
When other people drop by to help with laundry or other light housekeeping tasks, let them help. Don’t feel like you should be pitching in. They are there to ease the workload for you during the early weeks of parenthood. Caring a baby is plenty of work. So accept the gift graciously by planting yourself on the couch and saying, “Thank you.”
Ask for help in identifying the key mom and baby resources in your town: where and when the local moms’ group meets; what number you should call if you have any breastfeeding questions; and what online and real-world communities have sprung up in your area. Even if you did your own research back when you were still pregnant, you’ll likely find that your friends will turn up a few additional resources that you weren’t able to uncover on your own—and that will make life better for you and your baby. That’s the magic of the mom-to-mom grapevine!
For parents and children alike, the transition from crib to bed is a big milestone. Your days of tucking your wee one to sleep and knowing they will stay in bed are gone. For them, this new-found independence can lead to troubles with settling and sleeping.
Tracey Ruiz (aka the Sleep Doula) has seven tips to help make the transition easier for everyone.
Comments
Alyson.
Big fan of your book - Breaking the Good Mom Myth….in fact I’ve recommended to several moms I know.
I wanted to bring up a few points in regards to your article “From Crib to Bed”.
You mentioned bumper pads in your article. I work as a birth and postpartum doula and advise against the use of these. Many health agencies and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) awareness groups are now recommending that parents skip the crib bumper, saying the need for crib bumpers has passed and that using these products may actually put children at greater risk for suffocation or SIDS.
I would also like to bring up the idea of co-sleeping as an option for families. Studies show that sleep training (in the case of the new baby) leads to higher stress and lower seratonin levels in a baby. Recent research shows that baby’s are safest when sleeping within arms reach of their mother as to respond to each others sensory signals and cues. Below, I’ve inlcuded a link that provides further information on the benefits of co-sleeping.
I hope your readers will find this information useful. I look forward to reading more of your books and articles in the future.
Kindly,
Marlo
Interesting, except that most cribs don’t have a drop-down gate anymore as this is not CSA approved anymore. Looks like most of us will just have to deal with lots of “ups and downs” with the big girl/boy bed right off the bat.