Happy National Sleep Awareness Week! Oh, you don’t celebrate this holiday? Well, technically, neither do I.

I make it a point all year round to stress the importance healthy sleep habits for our families. I can bet that because you’re a parent who has come to this site, that you have learned (maybe the hard way) just how sleep deprivation takes a toll on your mind, body, and soul, and how your baby’s development flourishes when he’s getting enough rest. In a sleep-deprived state you aren’t as alert, probably more cranky, less energetic to play with your kids, and probably angry more often. You might even be depressed. It might even affect your marriage. You might even feel like you don’t like your baby some days. I hear all this and more, and I feel for each and every one of you!

The National Sleep Foundation is a big promoter of National Sleep Awareness Week and has released their “Sleep in America” poll results today. They studied four different ethnic groups and their sleep habits and attitudes towards sleep. Interestingly enough, in all four groups, only 4 in 10 said they get a good night sleep every night or almost every night. I suspect that if they studied parents, this number would be even lower! Another interesting result of the poll is that most adults believe their sleep issues will go away on their own over time. I would say this is true a lot of time about parents and their child’s sleep issues: that you believe (or hope) the issues will go away over time. Oh how I wish that was always the case! You can read more 2010 Sleep and Ethnicity Poll Results here.

National Sleep Awareness Week ends with a bang with Daylight Savings starting this weekend (if you are in the U.S.). We “Spring Forward” and lose one precious hour of our day. I know some of you might be jumping for joy when your 5 a.m. riser will now be waking past 6 a.m., but I also know some of you know that schedule changes always seem to set you and your family back. If you are worried about the time change or want to know what to expect from your baby or toddler this summer when it stays light later, please review your Spring Forward with Child Sleep Tips on WorkingMother.com, written by yours truly.

But, wait! There’s more!

I can’t let this week go by without giving you an opportunity to get more sleep for you and your family, so in honor of “Spring Forward” and National Sleep Awareness Week, I’m doing a quick and easy giveaway. Comment with a brief description of your sleep story by Sunday, March 14th at 11:59 p.m. below for a chance to win:

1. A one-week unlimited e-mail consultation package (Value $79)
2. A five-email consultation package (Value $49.95)
3. A copy of Mastering Naps & Schedules – (Value $24) (Giving away two!)
4. A copy of Help Your Child Sleep, a Step by Step Guide – (Value $27) (Giving away two!)
5. A 3-month membership to the Members Area, which includes access to all e-Books, case studies, tele-seminars, and much more! (Value $24) (Giving away two!)

I will be reading your story and trying to find the most apropos family for each prize, so I can really make a difference in your lives. Good luck and happy sleeping!

I am working on a series of helpful materials on common toddler sleep troubles and would like to know your #1 question when it comes to getting your toddler to sleep better. What is the biggest challenge when it comes to your toddler and his sleep? Please leave a comment below or e-mail asknicole (at) babysleepsite (dot) com.

What’s the #1 thing you want to know about your toddler’s sleep?

I remember when I brought my son home from the hospital, my mom came to help for a week and she told me a couple of times that I should let him sleep on his tummy and maybe that was going to be the only way he was going to sleep. As if!

I was a new and scared mom and EVERYTHING I read said to put baby on his back. There was no wavering in the things I read. Come on mom, the AAP constantly says “Tummy to Play, Back to Sleep” and that’s what I wanted to follow, too. After all, they know more than me, right?

Occasionally, I get a parent who says that they could only get their baby to sleep on her tummy, so that’s what they did. Is that parent wrong to have her baby sleep on her tummy? Should babies really be sleeping on their tummy and that’s why we all struggle so much with sleep these days?

Pam, of SIDS of Illinois said it very well:

“The great thing about being a parent is that you get to make the decisions. You weighed the information available to you then decided that for your child, belly sleeping worked best. That’s your right as a parent.”

and I couldn’t agree more.

It gets confusing when you have the Dr. Sears site say something like “Remember that this is only a statistical correlation. It does not mean that if your baby sleeps on her tummy she’s going to die of SIDS. Current SIDS rates are around one in a thousand babies; meaning that there’s a 99.9 percent chance your child will remain a healthy little girl regardless of her sleep position.”

Add to this, the study at Arizona State University last Fall stating that “…researchers found that the number of babies who have developed flat-headedness has dramatically increased since 1992. The increase coincides with the American Academy of Pediatrics launch of a ‘Back to Sleep’ educational campaign that recommended parents place their infants on their backs to reduce the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.”

These two things almost make you feel a little more comfortable with tummy sleeping. I guess that’s typical, something comes out as good for you, then bad for you, and then good for you again.

For ME, it was the chance of regret that made me persevere in helping my son sleep on his back (or rather on his side, actually) even though there was a possibility he might sleep better on his tummy. We struggled SO much with sleep, but even if it was a rare occurrence, IF something happened to my son I would forever wonder whether it was the tummy sleeping. Forever, I might blame myself for ignoring the AAP’s recommendation. It was just too big of a risk and too heavy of a burden that I might have that I personally chose that tummy sleeping was NOT an option to solve my baby’s sleep problems. I saw the “back to sleep” issue as a temporary one, until he learned to roll over on his own.

In our case, it was 100% true. My son HATED to play on his tummy. He HATED tummy time. But, one day, he did flip onto his tummy and he did start to get used to tummy time and lo and behold, he flipped to his tummy to sleep and he slept sooo much better! Once he started rolling onto his tummy to sleep, I didn’t bother rolling him back. Even though he slept so much better, just like my mom said he would, I still don’t regret my decision one bit (and it’s not because I don’t want to admit my mom was right! ).

There are always so many what if’s and if you have heard of The Butterfly Effect, you know that any small change in my son’s history might give me a different boy than I have today (or maybe I wouldn’t have my boy ). Today, I have a son who is reading at the age of 4, counts to 100 (by 1’s, 10’s and working on 5’s), and knows that if he has 5 tens, he has 50, and all the other numbers to 100. He is doing so well, and though he is still that persistent child who is difficult to parent some days, he’s doing so awesome that I wouldn’t go back and change many things in our past. I do wish that I knew more back then that I know now, but it warms my heart so much to share it with all of you and, hopefully, save you the tears that both my son and I shed way back when.

I pass no judgment on parents who make different decisions than I did. I’m a worry wart and follow rules to the letter, sometimes. And, then there are times you need to make your own rules. We all need to make the rules that make sense for our family. You know your baby and your situation best and many times, your instincts will take you further than you think. However, it would be irresponsible of me not to stress the importance of putting your baby on his back to sleep. SIDS rates have dramatically decreased with the “Back to Sleep” campaign. So, please do take your time to review the AAP’s guide to safe sleep, so you can make your own informed choice.

How does/did your baby sleep on his back?

In the beginning, your newborn sleeps most of the time and you don’t have to worry too much about naps. Your newborn’s sleep schedule and patterns are highly unpredictable, usually, so it’s hard to tell if she will have 5 naps or 8 on any given day. You’ve just given birth (or partnered the birth), so as long as she sorts out the difference between day and night, you probably won’t stress too much about it, unless she isn’t “sleeping like a baby.”

Once the fog lifts, you most likely want more predictability in your day and so you start focusing on getting your baby on a schedule and getting your baby to nap better, especially if your baby won’t nap. Just when you succeed, things change again and you wonder where you went wrong. It’s a good idea to know just when your baby will start to transition to fewer naps, so you know just how long you can enjoy good sleep before he changes on you again.

Here are your guidelines to the number of baby naps by age:

From 1-4 months, the number of naps your baby takes will be variable, but will hover around 4-5 naps per day, depending on how long his naps are and how long he can stay up between naps. By 3 or 4 months old, she will lean towards just 4 naps, rather than 5.

From 5-8 months, most babies will have three naps per day (though my son had four until after 7 months) . They will start to resist the fourth nap, no matter how tired they are. There are a few babies who will only have two naps at a very young age, but those naps are usually long.

From 9-15 or 18 months, on average, your baby will nap two times a day. Although many people believe most babies transition to one nap at 12 months, the average age is actually 15 to 18 months.

From 18 months to 4 years, toddlers will nap once a day. The age to transition away from all naps varies a lot, from 2 to 5+ years old.

You may want to view and bookmark our sample baby sleep and feeding schedules by age. And, if you’re looking for ways to get your baby or toddler into a healthy sleeping routine during the day, I encourage you to explore Mastering Naps and Schedules, a comprehensive guide to napping routines, nap transitions, and all the other important “how-tos” of good baby sleep. With over 40 sample sleep schedules and planning worksheets, Mastering Naps and Schedules is a hands-on tool ideal for any parenting style. Or, join our Members Area packed with exclusive content and resources: e-Books, assessments, detailed case studies, expert advice, discounts, peer support, and more! It actually costs less to join than buying products separately! For those looking for a more customized solution for your unique situation with support along the way, please consider one-on-one baby and toddler sleep consultations.

Happy napping!

A common theme when I read the first e-mail in a one-on-one consultation or when I first talk on the phone with a new client is that the parent feels somehow responsible for the sleep trouble they’re in. Either they were first time parents and didn’t know what they were or weren’t “supposed” to do or they knew they weren’t supposed to do it, but didn’t know what else to do.

This is also a common theme in many of the sleep books out there, too. Many of them make you feel guilty for nursing your baby all the way to sleep or using a pacifier or co-sleeping or not co-sleeping. If you don’t do it their way, you are not a good parent or you have failed your baby.

I’m here to say that it IS your fault your baby won’t sleep. Here’s why:

When your baby was 3 days old, your baby wouldn’t fall asleep any way but breastfeeding or with the bottle. You fed him to sleep every nap and night after that until you thought he’d outgrow it.

When your baby was a few weeks old, you decided to try a pacifier and that worked quite well, too. You started to wonder whether you should be feeding baby on a schedule or feeding her on demand.

When your baby was a couple of months old, sleep was fine, so you felt like super mom (or dad). Or, sleep wasn’t great, but you made do. Some of your friends might have started claiming their babies were sleeping through the night and you wondered when yours would too.

When your baby turned 4 months old, for many, sleep started to go downhill and you didn’t have the foggiest reason why. If you were lucky, you were starting to wonder what it would be like to sleep for more than 6 or 8 hours in a row again. If you were unlucky, 3 hours straight sounded pretty good.

When your baby was 6 months old, you might have started dreaming about what it would be like to be able to plan activities in the day. You might have dreamt about a baby’s schedule that was almost the same every day or you enjoyed going with the flow, throwing a strict schedule to the wind. You might have started to wonder if your baby’s naps would start to lengthen like other babies you heard about.

When your baby was 9 months old, you wondered if your baby still needed night feedings or not.

When your baby is now a toddler and hasn’t outgrown the sleep challenges you thought she would, you start to wonder if it is your fault. You realize you’ve helped some habits to remain habits, but haven’t been able to break them, no matter how many things you’ve tried and now that it’s been so long, is it really fair to just let her cry it out?

You see, all of these things are your fault. You became a loving mom who decided to breastfeed to sleep when your baby wouldn’t sleep any other way. You were a loving dad when you rocked your baby to sleep every night when she cried bloody murder any time you stopped. You replaced that pacifier ten times per night, so your baby could get the 12 hours of sleep you heard he needed every night. You sacrificed your sleep to help your baby get hers. That doesn’t make you a bad parent, that makes you a loving parent!

My advice today is to embrace the fact that it IS your fault! You are a loving parent. You did what you had to do to transition to parenthood or to tend to your older children when your newest baby wouldn’t sleep. This is NOT a bad thing. We all do what it takes when we can barely see straight, trying to figure out how to even be a new mom or dad. We don’t want our babies to cry (or scream as some of us would have it) and we do what we can to make sure we have babies who will become well-adjusted young adults one day. We are afraid we will make a million mistakes (and we will), but there is no way to predict whether you will have a baby who will miraculously sleep all night at 8 weeks or will be rocked to sleep for 5 minutes every single night and sleep 12 hours straight. Did I know I’d end up rocking my son for 2-3 hours every night at bedtime and repeat it every 2 hours later (or nurse him to sleep)? Nope. I did what I felt was right and I don’t regret it for a second.

Nothing is a problem until it is a problem and only THEN do you need to decide to make a change. Only YOU know when that time is and when you have a problem. No one else in your life knows what you are going through every day, but you and your baby. You will know when it’s time.

So, from now on, when you start an e-mail to me or start a phone conversation, instead of saying something like you’ve failed as a mom or that you made a lot of mistakes, say something like this:

“Damn right I rocked and held my baby to sleep every night and I enjoyed the cuddle time! But, now it’s time to make a change.”

How is it your fault your baby won’t sleep (or wouldn’t sleep)?

So, we’ve made it through the holidays in one piece. Phew! Sleep seems to be back on track in our house, given we had some late bedtimes and off-schedules surrounding Christmas. If you are still struggling with the holiday upheaval, make sure you review your post-holiday sleep recovery tips, and if you’re a member, be sure to listen to the tele-seminar recording from 12/29. One member e-mailed me this about it:

“LOVED the Recovering from the Holidays and Nap Transitions taping. I missed it yesterday b/c it was the last of the in-laws… and so I was very grateful to hear this today! Perfect taping!”
-Lily

New Year’s is a time to reflect on the last year and how you want the next year to be. Multitudes will make new year’s resolutions and only a small percentage will achieve the goals they set for the new year.

A look back at 2009

This past year has been a big year. In December 2008, this website (formerly picknicksbrain.com) had around 15,000 visitors. This past December 2009, the website enjoyed over 36,000 visitors who viewed over 71,000 pages! I’ve gone from having just a few clients to ten times the number. I get many e-mail messages that thank me for the site and helping their child sleep, even if I’ve never talked to them directly. We’ve added a Members Area, a new book, and a Facebook fan page. I also hired an assistant to help me manage it all and help me get our name out there. It is beyond phenomenal how wonderful it has felt to help you and your families get more sleep and I can’t even put it into words.

This year I also learned just how determined I am to help new parents in many different ways. I became the majority owner of Babble Soft and took over operations from my business partner, Aruni, who is a serial entrepreneur. She is so great and it’s so hard to believe we only met in person for the first time last week!

On a personal level, I celebrated my five-year wedding anniversary, my 4-year old started pre-school and my almost 2-year old started talking in sentences a few weeks ago.

Fortunately, it has been a very good year for me and my family. I am able to fulfill my passion to help other parents with their sleep struggles like I’ve been through myself and be home a lot with my kids (with help) so I can avoid missing too much of these early years.

It has not all been positive, unfortunately. My father and brother had a falling out, my two older brothers were really sick earlier this year (and both had strokes), and just over the holidays I struggled to help my family understand my son’s spirited temperament and strong-willed personality. I’m sure some of you might relate.

It was difficult to explain how my older son is slow to adapt and how his first reaction is often no (unless you can make him think it was his idea ). It’s hard when someone wants to interact with him, yet his first reaction is no. It can hurt feelings and the fact he is slow-to-adapt makes him prefer familiar (mommy and daddy) over someone new (like a visitor who sees him infrequently even if the visitor is someone like grandma or grandpa). He has grown up a lot and matured SO much in the summer before he turned 4, but if you don’t know him very well, you really don’t know how far he’s really come and I only expect great things from him as he gets older (though I still worry what his persistence will be like when he’s a teenager). His younger brother, who I’m sure looks to his big brother to guide him, is much easier-going but is VERY stranger-averse. He takes a long time to warm-up to new people. Though we sometimes wish they would warm up faster, we are not sad that they won’t let just anyone cuddle with them. I know maturity will make a big difference, so we’ll just have to be patient.

Goals for 2010

Professionally, I hope, with the new name of the website, many more babies will find their sleep. I plan to keep writing new material that will be new and different for parents to help their babies find their sleep and, you never know, I might even start on that published book I’ve been thinking about. I also plan for the Helpdesk to remain busy the rest of the year (it’s surely starting out that way!). I plan to enhance the Babble Soft suite of baby care software and help even more parents gain insight into their baby’s rhythms and help manage their baby’s schedule.

Personally, I hope my Dad and brother mend their rift and my two older brothers stay healthy now that they are on the mend and on blood pressure medication. I hope my husband has a fabulous 40th birthday and my boys, who will turn 2 and 5, stay so very cute and the light of my life.

Sleep-wise, I hope my 4 year old will stop having as frequent nightmares as there is nothing that breaks your heart more than a pre-schooler who says “I hope I don’t have a nightmare tonight” and you can’t do much about it. He’s at the age where fear is normal and they are learning about mortality. Other than that, his sleep is in pretty good shape, now, thankfully (though it’s never perfect)! For my almost 2-year old, I just hope he does not need to transition to no-napping like his brother did at 2 1/2. Otherwise, he is napping well and sleeping well most nights (again, not perfect every single night especially with 2-year molars coming in). I do plan to determine whether chocolate really is a sensitivity for him or if it’s purely coincidence that nights he has had chocolate during the day, he wakes at night. We will also transition him to a toddler bed in the next 6 months and start potty training (have you calculated how many diapers a baby uses, yet? Scary stuff!).

I believe the key to successful new year’s resolutions to keep them realistic, so I’ll finish this by saying my new year’s resolutions are to exercise more often, help more parents with sleep problems, and go to bed earlier myself (I am writing this after midnight so I’m not off to a great start here! LOL). I hope, if you’re still struggling with your child’s sleep, that you make one of your resolutions is to help them sleep better. I promise you, it’s realistic!

What are your new year’s resolutions (sleep or otherwise)?

I hope you are having a wonderful holiday season and those of you who celebrated Eid’ul-Adha, Fiesta of Our Lady of Guadalupe, St. Lucia Day, Hanukkah, Christmas, and Boxing Day I hope you had a great holiday! And, I wish all of you a Happy New Year (any interesting resolutions out there this year?), Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Omisoka, and Happy anything else you might celebrate that I haven’t listed! I love learning about different cultures, so please do comment below with your choice of holiday (even if it’s not in December!).

We celebrate Christmas and had a great holiday, but it was also EXHAUSTING! And, the kids got off schedule and routine making naps start to disappear and night-wakings increase. Today, at 1 p.m. EST, I’ll discuss ways to get back on track after the holidays and transitioning to fewer naps, in general, for all The Baby Sleep Site™ members during my quarterly tele-seminar (recorded for later listening).

To help some of you even more during the holidays, I decided to give the gift of sleep this year by giving away some of our sleep products and here are the winners:

•   Two copies of my e-Book, Help Your Child Sleep, a Step-by-Step Guide, to help a tired family with their nighttime troubles.
(Value: $28.50)

Winners e-Book Help Your Child Sleep: Allyson and Mariah

•   Two copies of my e-Book, Mastering Naps & Schedules, to help a tired family with their baby’s nap struggles or to help establish a routine.
(Value: $24.95)

Winners e-Book Master Naps & Schedules:Wendi and Becki

•   Two 3-month memberships to my exclusive Members Area, where you gain access to all our e-Books, case studies, weekly expert advice by yours truly, and much MUCH more!
(Value: $18)

Winners of 3 month memberships to exclusive Members Area: Tania and Gabriela

AND

•   Two two-email personalized consultation packages, where I customize a sleep plan for your specific situation. I promise we can get a lot done in just two e-mail! Read other parent stories. (You can also feel free to save these to use later, too)
(Value: $24.95)

Winners of two customized email consultations:Martine and Teralita

AND

•   Your choice of a $57.20 Target or Amazon gift card (so the total prizes equal $250 just because I’m a little anal and silly like that. Go ahead and check my math. I used Excel! )
(Value: $57.20)

Winner $57.20 Target or Amazon Gift Card: Melissa

I truly LOVE helping people with their sleep struggles, so I hope the winners find some relief with their prizes.

Winners were chosen randomly (using random.org) and e-mailed last week, but you must claim your prize by tonight (12/29), otherwise we will be choosing new winners.

For those of you who didn’t win, but still want to get help with your baby’s sleep, we’re having an After Christmas / New Year’s Sale!

For the next 72 hours, you can get:

• 12% Off Personalized Consultation Packages – Create an account in the Helpdesk and use Coupon Code PRE2010

• 24% Off Mastering Naps & Schedules, including 40 sample schedules to help your baby get on a solid routine and/or schedule.

• 36% Off Help Your Child Sleep, a Step-by-Step Guide, for those persistent nighttime sleep problems.

Move fast because this sale begins today, 12/29/2009, at 10 a.m. EST and ends at 10 a.m. EST on 1/1/2010!

Happy New Year and be safe this holiday season!

What are your New Year’s resolutions this year?

The holidays are tricky for your baby’s sleep. Grandma and grandpa want to spend time with the little fella, since they don’t get to see him that much. Or, you have two parties to go to on the same day, babysitters galore, or you have a lot of family members over making it really loud during nap time. Some people even like to get babysitters just to go Christmas shopping, especially those of you with more than one kid or twins or triplets, or more! After all, keeping your eye on two kids running around makes it THAT much harder to actually look for gifts to buy for people (believe me, I know!). That’s one reason I do most of my shopping online, these days. You might think that I often link to Amazon because I’m an affiliate (I get a very small percentage of sales at no cost to you), but I actually LOVE Amazon! I’m an Amazon Prime member and my holiday shopping alone more than pays for it, not to mention all the birthdays, sleep books I want to read, etc. throughout the year.

If you travel during the holidays, this can make many parents anxious and I tend to get a lot of questions about it around this time of the year. Don’t fret. There are things you can do to make the transition easier including making “away” as much like “home” as possible, being consistent in your routines, and getting back to normal as much as possible when you get back. If you have holiday visitors, try including grandma or grandpa in the routines by letting them read the bedtime stories. For more tips on your baby’s sleep, please visit MomCentral this year where I go into your baby’s sleep and the holidays in more detail.

To help some of you even more during the holidays, I’ve decided to give the gift of sleep this year by giving away the following:

•   Two copies of my e-Book, Help Your Child Sleep, a Step-by-Step Guide, to help a tired family with their nighttime troubles.
(Value: $28.50)

•   Two copies of my e-Book, Mastering Naps & Schedules, to help a tired family with their baby’s nap struggles or to help establish a routine.
(Value: $24.95)

•   Two 3-month memberships to my exclusive Members Area, where you gain access to all our e-Books, case studies, weekly expert advice by yours truly, and much MUCH more!
(Value: $18)

AND

•   Two two-email personalized consultation packages, where I customize a sleep plan for your specific situation. I promise we can get a lot done in just two e-mail! Read other parent stories. (You can also feel free to save these to use later, too)
(Value: $24.95)

AND

•   Your choice of a $57.20 Target or Amazon gift card (so the total prizes equal $250 just because I’m a little anal and silly like that. Go ahead and check my math. I used Excel! )
(Value: $57.20)

Why am I giving away so much? It’s the holidays, we should all be generous and I LOVE helping people with their sleep struggles, that’s why!

How can you win one of these lovely prizes? Just leave a comment below and I’ll randomly choose winners (using random.org).

Make sure you enter below NOW, forward to all your friends and family, post it on Facebook, and tweet on Twitter! Share! Share! Share! The baby on his dad’s shoulder at the top is reason enough alone to share. Soooo adorable!

(Note: One person / e-mail address can’t win two prizes. If I randomly choose the same person, I’ll choose another winner, to be fair. You can enter up to once a day, though (Max 9 entries).)

How do you know if your baby is sleepy or exhausted? Some babies are easier to read than others and some babies get crankier than others without enough sleep. It highly depends on your baby’s temperament. So, what are the signs to look for?

A baby is sleepy if she is:
•   Yawning
•   Less active
•   Staring off in space (or has glassy eyes)

A baby is exhausted if he is:
•   Rubbing his eyes
•   Fussy or cranky
•   Overly hyper (strange, but true)
•   Looking like he has bags under his eyes
•   Falling asleep mid-activity

Just in case there is any doubt, I thought I’d show this video which is either very funny illustrating what I would call a “sleep fighter” like my son is/was or sad that this baby is not in his crib happily sleeping. I’ll let you decide. He’s a cutie either way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew7GL2QXvp4

In general, if your baby is THIS sleepy, you are waiting WAY too late to put him down to sleep. Of course, even when you do usually put your baby down for sleep before this point, even the biggest sleep fighter can surprise you. My son has fallen asleep in his highchair once or twice, too, which shocked me to say the least. Here is another video of a baby who fell asleep in his highchair. Do you consider this cry it out?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dx-u5E-nTtk

Ideally, you want to put your baby down to sleep when she is sleepy, but not after she’s over-tired or exhausted. Overtired babies will fight sleep more, wake more frequently, and possibly wake too early in the morning. Of course, you can wait until your baby is exhausted and falls asleep where she lays like the babies above, but of course that is unreliable, not promoting healthy sleep habits, and could make problems worse. Hopefully, reading this site will help your baby sleep through the night and your baby nap better, so you don’t have to wait until she crashes in a high chair, on the sofa, or in the stroller.

Note: These are mostly just humorous videos I thought were both cute and funny at the same time, yet important to remind us to promote healthy sleep habits in our children. I, in no way, pass judgment on these parents because no one knows whether this was the first time or the hundredth time the kids have fallen asleep this way and I know one mom whose ONE video of her son singing an (adult) song that circulated the internet had a lot of negative comments that were really unfair to her. I don’t want those moms feeling that I’m saying that in any way. Thank you for sharing your cuties with us!

Where’s the funniest place your baby has fallen asleep?

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving holiday! I want to take a moment to thank you for participating in our recent survey about the site’s name, Pick Nick’s Brain. As you can tell, we’ve moved to a new home! We are now The Baby Sleep Site™ located at http://www.babysleepsite.com.

We’re very excited about this change. We know that not everyone will agree with the change, but the survey results were loud and clear that a change would probably enable us to reach many more tired parents, which is the sole purpose of the site. It wasn’t just to be found better in search engines, but also to avoid confusion about what the site is all about. We also hope it’s easier for you to pass along to friends and family, without us getting lost in the crowd.

We’ve added a splash of color to the site and we hope you love it as much as we do! Please take some time to peruse the site and give us any feedback for a chance to win a $25 Target Gift Card just by commenting below, just in time for holiday shopping.

The winner of the $25 Target Gift Card for participating in the survey has been contacted, however, you have not replied to my email. If your email address starts with hello*, please check your e-mail, including your bulk e-mail folder. If I do not hear from you by this Friday, I will choose a new winner, so everyone check your in-boxes. Stay tuned for more opportunities to win gift cards around the holidays!

The move has gone very smoothly and any bookmarks or favorites you have will redirect to the same location on babysleepsite.com. We have also added a new page with the links to all of the sample schedules (also found on the main menu under “Articles” above). There is one complication in the move and that’s if you are a member, please make sure you update your bookmark or favorite to be the new location: http://members.babysleepsite.com because the redirect takes you around and around.

As always, I want to thank you for your continued participation in The Baby Sleep Site™ community (formerly Pick Nick’s Brain)! Please be patient as we find and fix all references to Pick Nick’s Brain, but we appreciate any alerts to problems ASAP.