Posts Tagged ‘baby sleep’

Today’s article is a guest article from the BabySignLanguage.com website. I taught both my boys baby sign language and LOVED it! And, so did they. Who knew that my son would have wanted to do art every day after breakfast when he was one year old if he couldn’t tell me? It was a wonderful gift for both of us to reduce frustration and communicate more than I imagined I could with a one year old. I highly recommend teaching baby sign language to your little one.

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Baby Sign Language is a popular and effective communication tool for parents and babies, reducing frustration and helping with the bonding process. One surprising effect of baby signing is that it can also help your baby to sleep. Parents who sign with their babies often report that bedtimes are less stressful, and babies or toddlers actually tell them when they’re tired! So how exactly does baby sign language help?

 

Baby Signing As Part Of A Bedtime Routine

Many parents know the importance of a bedtime routine. A bath, followed by milk and cuddles, then a story, is the foundation of a good night’s sleep. Learning the signs for Bath and Milk are fun ways for baby to communicate with you at this important time of the day. When Mom signs that it’s bath time, your baby will understand what is to come, and feel more secure and confident. Babies love to know what’s happening – and their confidence increases every time they correctly predict what will happen next.

Baby Signing Reduces Frustration

Tiredness and frustration are a major cause of a baby not sleeping well. Baby sign language is proven to reduce frustration in babies and toddlers. As their understanding grows, their ability to communicate also grows, along with their confidence. A happy, contented baby goes to sleep more easily than an anxious, frustrated one.

The Tiredness Trick

When a baby is still young, she will need at least one nap a day, as well as around 11-12 hours sleep a night. Some babies are masters at hiding the fact that they are tired! Watching for and learning your baby’s drowsy signals will help you to know when it’s time for a nap or bed. As part of everyday signing, babies learn signs for Tired and Sleep. With repetition and regular practice, your baby will learn to recognize when she is tired. This prevents over-tiredness, a common cause of disrupted sleep.

Baby Sign Language at Bedtime and Practicing

It’s a good idea to practice the bedtime routine through play. Making the signs for Tired and Sleep, show your little one that Teddy is tired and wants to sleep now. Put him to bed and read him a story. Leave the room for a moment then go back in to wake him up. Repeating this play will teach your baby that Mommy or Daddy will always come back when sleeping time is over.

Bonding With Baby Sign Language

Signing with your baby creates, over time, a fantastically strong bond. Sleeping alone (nighttime separation) is not as stressful for babies who are securely attached. Signing gives lots of opportunities for positive attention throughout the day, reducing the need for babies and toddlers to ‘play up’ at nap times. Parents are more confident about understanding their baby, so aren’t as anxious if there is a little ‘tired’ crying when baby’s in bed.

Baby Signs To Help With Your Baby’s Sleep

To sign Tired, extend your fingers and hold them together. Start with your fingers touching your chest, with your elbows up. Drop your elbows down. It is as if you are so tired you cannot keep holding your arms up.

To sign Sleep, start with fingers extended and spread apart. Beginning with your hand over your face, move your fingers down to end with your hand below your chin and your fingers touching your thumb. To add to the sleepy effect, as you make the sign feel your face relax and your eyes get droopy.

The milk sign is a lot like milking a cow (or goat), but without the vertical motion – you are just squeezing the udder. You take both hands, make them into a fist, relax, and repeat. You will notice most babies have trouble moving all fingers together at uniform speeds, but any kind of repeated squeezing and relaxing of the hand is likely milk.

To sign Bath, make a fist out of your two hands, then move the fists vertically up and down your chest. The sign looks a lot like someone scrubbing themselves with both hands.

Be sure to check out the Baby Sign Language website for any questions you have in helping your baby with their daily routine through signing. This a free resource to all the mother’s and father’s out there who want to start signing with their baby.

A lot of times parents don’t understand how crying can ever lead to their baby sleeping. They think that they will certainly exhaust themselves and fall asleep that way, eventually, but what are they really learning? This article is very much NOT about cry it out. There is a LOT in between helping your baby back to sleep every two hours at night and letting them cry it out. This article is discussing how crying can lead to sleep and why crying might be a necessary step in your baby learning how to sleep, even if you are right next to your baby.

Imagine, you are learning to ride a bike. Your parents have put training wheels on your bike to stop you from falling. But, now it’s time for you to learn how to ride your bike on your own. Your parents tell you it’s time to take the training wheels off, but they’re still holding your shoulders as you pedal down the street. All of a sudden they ask you “Are you ready for me to let go?” and you say “I think so.” and they let go and you are off riding your bike all on your own. You look back and seeing your parent has let go of the bike, you freak out, and you fall down, scraping your knee.

It scared you to think that your parent was no longer holding on to you as you rode your bike. You fell down because you lost your focus and confidence. You are scared and you never want them to let go again. Maybe you’ll just never know how to ride a bike by yourself.

At this point, your parent has three choices: a) Put the training wheels back on, b) Keep holding on to your bike while you ride up and down the street, or c) Let go again and hope this time you learn to ride on your own. Having the age and wisdom, your parents know that you CAN ride a bike and all you need is practice and confidence. If they choose the third option, they can find a gentler way to teach you how to ride a bike. But, one thing remains the same: It is very difficult to learn to ride a bike without some falling and we parents want to cushion your fall as much as possible.

When it comes to helping your baby sleep, you might use “training wheels” in the form of a pacifier or rocking your baby to sleep or feeding your baby to sleep or some other sleep crutch, but one day you will realize that it’s your fault your baby won’t sleep and it’s time to take the training wheels off. You have decided that what your baby once NEEDED to sleep, now it’s simply a crutch, hindering him from actually learning how to sleep well on his own.

There are endless sleep training or coaching strategies (are you sleep training a tortoise or a hare?), but one thing that remains the same with all of them: it is difficult to convince your baby that she can sleep on her own without some crying just like it’s difficult to learn to ride a bike without falling. Does that mean you send your child outside to ride a bike on her own or let her cry it out all alone in her crib in her room? Not necessarily. Some people abruptly “let go” of the bike without telling their child “ripping off the band-aid” and others hold on for years and know that, eventually, she will learn to ride a bike. Everybody parents differently and you should have confidence in that your way is the right way for YOUR family.

Did you know there are many children and adults who don’t know how to ride a bike? Did you know that some adult sleep problems have been linked back to childhood? Did you know that sleep problems in children are now being linked to young adult drug and alcohol problems? I only just learned that because the study just came out this year. Here is a significant finding of that study:

“We found that ‘having trouble sleeping’ in early childhood, ages three to five, predicted a higher probability of ‘having trouble sleeping’ in adolescence, ages 11 to 17, which in turn predicted the presence of drug-related problems in young adulthood ages 18 to 21,” said Wong. “Overtiredness in early childhood predicted lower response inhibition — that is, having problems inhibiting impulses and behavior — in adolescence, which predicted higher numbers of illicit drugs used. Overtiredness in childhood also directly predicted the presence of binge drinking, blackouts, driving after drinking alcohol, and the number of lifetime alcohol problems in young adulthood.”

Now, I know that the parents who read this site won’t necessarily have children in this high-risk group because I know that you are working on your sleep issues. This article is mostly to encourage you to work on it sooner rather than later and to resist the temptation to avoid all tears at all costs.

Crying is part of the way babies communicate. She may have trouble finding that confidence that she CAN do this without you getting out of her way a little bit and “letting go”. Stay with her to encourage and support her through the transition, if you wish, but don’t keep “holding on” to avoid her disappointment and crying. We all need to fall down sometimes to learn how to get back up and it’s part of growing up. Only you can decide the “right” time for her to learn to sleep on her own. I promise you that most of the time the first few nights are the worst and things can get ten times better after that.

If you need help developing a personalized sleep plan for your unique situation, when you are ready, make sure you check out our baby sleep consulting services, where we work with you on a plan YOU can feel good about.

What is your view on crying and baby’s sleep?

It’s so easy to get stuck in a rut. It’s so easy to let fear of the unknown of what the next step will look like that keeps us doing what we do every day, even if it means sleeping in 2-hour fragments. After all, sometimes working on your baby’s sleep is like blindfolding yourself and walking down 50 stories of steps.

When big changes in our house happen, I can bank on my sons’ sleep being affected. I could probably go to Vegas and, if they’d give me odds, I could win some money, even. When my son was a baby, a routine change would set us back a week, MINIMUM.

This week a big change in our life is happening. The boys had a nanny and now it’s time to move onto school. It is a big transition, especially for my youngest. It was not a decision taken lightly and I knew there would be adjustments…for all of us. We will miss her dearly and hope she finds another family quickly. God bless her that she’s helping us transition the boys slowly, so we can ease them in. If anyone needs a nanny, I’d gladly refer her.

On top of this big change, *I* need a change. I sit at my computer no less than 10-12 hours a day. I don’t get enough exercise and my once ultra-healthy diet has turned into semi-healthy, sometimes. I don’t weigh too much more than pre-kids, but it’s what’s IN my body I don’t like. I need exercise, but where to find the time?

So, I made this nifty, nerdy calendar using Google Calendar that makes it easy for me to see a whole week at-a-glance and color-code it into family, work, “me” time, exercise, cleaning, etc. Yes, it’s a little crazy, but I’m visual and needed to “see” where I could fit in the time. My husband laughed at me, but hey, I need to do what I need to do, right? Know what time I found to exercise? 5:30-6 a.m. on Tuesday and Thursday plus a class I’m taking with my friend on Sundays 2-3 p.m.

Last night, both boys woke up in the middle of the night, one with a nightmare (which isn’t too uncommon even on a normal day) and one, twice, just because. I KNEW it would come this week. After all, I logged my sons’ sleep for months. I know them. And if you think getting up with one is hard, it is. Getting up with two is downright brutal! But, being the great mom that I am, I cuddled each of them knowing a) that this is a phase, a big transition going to school (yesterday was their first day) and b) I have learned well how to avoid making this into a long-term habit (since I’ve been through these things so many times now): Be loving and encouraging, but draw the line somewhere. Oh, and try not to co-sleep, unless I want to do it every night.

When my alarm went off at 5:25 a.m., I hit snooze. Then, I opened my eyes. I got up. I tried to talk myself OUT of exercising. I put on my exercise clothes and told myself “Just do 10 minutes.”

I walk down the stairs and I hear chirping. Are those the baby birds we’ve been watching for the last couple of weeks outside our bathroom window? Today was the first day I heard them chirp (they just opened their eyes a day or two ago). I peek out and I see the mommy bird feeding them worms and the whole family looked so happy. It melted my heart. If mommy bird can fly around at the crack of dawn to find worms for her babies, then I can exercise! And, just like that I did 20 minutes on the treadmill, thought of this article and typed it up, all before 6:30 a.m.

So, this message is for you to go out and find YOUR motivation today to tackle your baby’s sleep (or make any change in your life you’ve been putting off). It might not be the 12 hours a night you’re looking for, but start with 10 minutes. You might surprise yourself and get the 12 hours anyway.

What’s YOUR motivation to tackle on your baby’s sleep?

Spring is here and Mother’s Day is quickly approaching. Mother’s day for me has never really been about presents or taking the day off from kids and family. For me, it’s always been a day for me to reflect, appreciate and be extremely grateful for the opportunity to be a Mom. There’s nothing I’d rather be doing than spending the day playing and relishing time with my family. And now that Spring is here, Moms everywhere are gearing up for Springtime activities with kids, maybe some gardening (my sons and I just planted flowers for the porch 2 weeks ago), spring cleaning and taking in the sights of flowers blooming. What Moms may be missing out on though is more sleep, better sleep, or just some plain old splurging on herself. We want to help change that so we’ve put together this Mother’s Day Giveaway! Join us in this celebration of Moms everywhere for all that we do and for the heaps of unconditional time and love we give to our children and families.

Mother’s love is peace. It need not be acquired, it need not be deserved. ~Erich Fromm

So, for this Mother’s Day Giveaway, come celebrate with us and enter to win some fantastic prizes. Directions for how to enter follow the prize list.

Grand Prize- $100 Gift Certificate to Target OR Amazon

We considered what the grand prize for our Mother’s Day Giveaway should be. A spa gift package? A gift card out for dinner? In the end though, we thought that rather than pick something out for mom, we’d let mom pick out something for herself. So, take the money and run! Splurge on just you for your special day. Choose your gift card from Target or Amazon.

Good Nite Lite

The Good Nite Lite is the perfect nightlight for helping toddlers get into a healthy sleep pattern. This nightlight features a nighttime moon light that is set at bedtime to give off a soft blue glow that provides enough light to soothe your child but is not too bright as to inhibit sleeping. Parents can then set the light for a specific wake-up time and the sun lights up letting your baby or toddler learn and understand that until the sun lights up, it is still sleep time. The Good Nite Lite is a great visual cue for young children to begin moving from waking up too early and interfering with getting a full night’s rest. You can find more information and ordering this product at www.goodnitelite.com. A Good Nite Lite will go to one lucky winner.

Little Keeper Sleeper

This product has been referred to as the “sanity saving sleeper!”  It’s really called the Little Keeper Sleeper & it’s designed to prevent unwanted removal of sleepers & diapers.  Too many parents go into their kids rooms in the morning to find their kids undressed and/or the crib & walls have been decorated – and not with beautiful paint! This sleeper is unlike any other with 3 key features to keep the little Houdinis in these jammies.

The winner of the Little Keeper Sleeper will get to select the style and size of their choice. Check them out at www.littlekeepersleeper.com to see product photos and read incredible testimonials from parents of toddlers & those with special needs.

Beautiful Creatures CD- Music from South Africa

Beautiful Creatures was formed in South Africa by Alan Glass, Ed Jordan and Paul Choritz who felt there was a need for “Parent Friendly” children’s music.

In a fast paced world where parents and children have limited quality time, Beautiful Creature’s mission is to bring families together offering a uniquely South African brand with an educational and positive message. We were able to listen to this CD and loved it! These songs are catchy with great drum beats that quickly get everyone moving and singing along.  This album would be great for an afternoon dance off or for long car drives.

Beautiful Creatures will be giving away 10 copies of this album to our readers. Take a look at their website for more information about their music and to listen to samples.

Tot Yoga

Looking for something fun and healthy to do with your baby or toddler?  Tot Yoga DVDs focus on yoga for children 10 months old to 3 years old.  The DVD includes three distinct sections. The first two sections help parents learn to utilize playtime, increase exercise and reduce stress to help encourage wind down for peaceful napping. The gentle stretches and poses also help parents to warm up for a more complete yoga work out after their child has laid down. The first section of the DVD is designed to help parents learn the natural movements of their child for stretches and poses. The second section focuses on the parent helping engage the child in relaxing movements and is followed by the third section which is a more vigorous yoga for the parent. You can find out more about Tot Yoga on their website and watch sample videos.

One winner will receive a copy of Tot Yoga.

Babble Soft Baby Insights Day Tracker™
Ditch the notebook, pitch the scraps and scribbles, and reclaim control over your time. The Baby Insights Day Tracker™ gives you one central place to store information about your baby’s care. These tools provide everything you need to give your life that perfect level of structure whether you are needing to schedule your day or are a mom returning to work and need to coordinate with the nanny or caregiver. The new solids and mom’s food tracker helps track down food sensitivities in breast milk or new foods given to your baby.

Baby Insights gives you instant round-the-clock web and mobile access to your baby’s daily schedule log, so no matter where you are, you can quickly update and review: breastfeeding or bottle feeding sessions, the time and amount of feeding, sleep time and durations, solid feeding, mom’s food, diaper changes, medication dosages and developmental milestones. (Also works as a great baby shower gift!)

Two lucky winners will get a FREE three-month subscription to Babble Soft to track baby’s sleep, feedings, pumping, medication doses, etc. You can find more information about Babble Soft at www.babblesoft.com.

And, last, but obviously not least:

The Baby Sleep Site^TM

After sleep coach and owner, Nicole Johnson, overcame her son’s sleeping issues in a way that complemented her own parenting style, and after such a happy success, she knew it was her mission to help other tired parents “find their child’s sleep.” Your baby’s sleep shouldn’t be stressful and The Baby Sleep Site strives to provide a strong, non-judgmental, support network to help you and your family sleep better. Our website has helped countless families through free online articles, step-by-step e-Books, and private and personalized sleep consulting services.

Two (2) people will win the 2 e-mail sleep consultation package to help with your sleep struggles. You’d be surprised how far you can get in just two e-mails! If you already have an account, your account will be credited.

Deadline to enter is Sunday, May 9, 2010, 8:59 p.m. EDT.

Here is how you can enter:

(*Please note that all shipped prizes are available to US residents only.)

1. Leave a comment below. – 1 entry

2. Stumble this post. – 1 entry (Leave a comment that you stumbled)

3. Follow one of our sponsors on Twitter and tweet about it. For example: Just followed @littlekeeper for @babysleepsite Spring Fever Mother’s Day Giveaway #babysleep. (Be sure to include the tag #babysleep in your tweet so we can track it!)

The following sponsors are on Twitter (and you can receive one (1) entry per sponsor followed):

BabySleepSite, BabbleSoft, LittleKeeper, GoodNiteLite, BeautiCreatures, Tot Yoga

4. Tweet about this giveaway with a link back to this post and the tag #babysleep. The tag will allow us to track and locate your tweet entry. – 1 entry (You can enter as many times as you wish! Tweet daily!)

Sample Tweet: “I just entered the Spring Fever Mother’s Day Giveaway by The Baby Sleep Site™! http://bit.ly/atTr9V“

5. Subscribe to this blog, the Babble Soft blog or the Beautiful Creatures blog. One (1) entry for each blog subscription. Please post in the comments which blogs you subscribed to.

Baby Sleep Site Blog via RSS or via E-Mail, Babble Soft Blog via RSS or via E-Mail, Beautiful Creatures Blog

6. Connect with any of the sponsors on Facebook and get one entry per Fan Page you join. Please post in the comments which Facebook Fan Pages you belong to.

The Baby Sleep Site Facebook Fan Page

Beautiful Creatures Facebook Fan Page

GoodNiteLite Facebook Fan Page

Tot Yoga Facebook Fan Page

Little Keeper Sleeper on Facebook

7. Blog about this giveaway on your blog. Include a link to this post in your blog post. Please include a link to your blog post in the comments. Blog posts must be posted publicly and not on membership sites to be entered. – 10 entries

Good luck to everyone and thank you for celebrating MOMS everywhere!

It is 11:42 p.m. as I start to write this. I’ve been working some pretty late nights, lately (some of you know this because you have received some late e-mail from me in the Sleep Helpdesk), and over the weekend I started thinking about this article. I started thinking about how my late nights and 7-day work weeks (weekends limited) might be affecting my abilities to be a good great mom. Am I doing my kids a disservice pushing so hard? The mere fact I consciously thought about it actually made me persevere and be a better mom this past weekend than I probably have over the few weeks prior.

I am one of the lucky few that can function on less sleep than most, but still, it does affect me. Most of the time, I start out great on a Monday (Sunday is my day to sleep in, so that might be why. Ha!), but then here I am up late and by Friday, I’m exhausted again. It’s all worth it because although this is tiring, I can’t tell you how rewarding it is to help others with sleep after the rough road I had with my son (and NOTHING has been harder than waking every 1-2 hours with him way back when). I LOVE helping all of you and wouldn’t change it for the world. Not to mention, that I’m also working on Babble Soft and helping parents transition easier to parenthood.

We all know why sleep is important for your baby, let’s look at how being tired makes me (and maybe you) a worse parent:

Fun, patience, and Energy

Besides the obvious, that sleep deprivation makes us CRANKY, being tired simply makes me less fun of a mom, sometimes. Even when I’m not cranky (I can fight through it much of the time, with a smile on my face), I’m definitely not as fun and I definitely don’t have as much energy. When my son wants me to play tackle or basketball, I just don’t feel like it all the time.

I might lack the energy to cook a really good dinner and opt for take-out. I sometimes don’t have the energy to talk in Toddlerease and use timeout when I might have avoided the meltdown had I had the patience to work through the issue (not to mention that sensitive kids will pick up on your energy level, too). My patience level drops, sometimes. It takes a lot of energy to parent my spirited son!

When my son wants to play cars for the second hour, I have to admit, there has been at least one time I started falling asleep on the floor! This past weekend, I did make sure I played cars over an hour nurturing their imagination (without falling asleep), played hokey pokey with lots of energy, and refrained from turning on the TV to give myself a break (Dora or Diego are shows that let me take a little nap on the couch, sometimes, and at least the kids are “learning Spanish”, right? ).

Focus and Concentration

My absolute favorite part of the day is cuddling with my sons in bed before they go to sleep. My older son LOVES to snuggle (Daddy won’t do) and we chit chat about our day and talk about what our favorite part of the day was (I like to end the day thinking about the positive). It is a wonderful time of night.

HOWEVER, one of the main things my son loves about this time is that I tell him bedtime stories (that I make up). This, by far, is very important to him and some nights I am soooo tired. One night (I think it was 6 months ago) I kept falling asleep in the middle of the story! I pause, say “ummm”, can’t think of what comes next. He keeps saying “Tell the story, mommy!” and I stutter and take 20 minutes to tell a 10 minute story and I feel horrible. Of course, there have been nights I start dozing in bed with him, too, after I’ve said “Okay time to sleep.” and put an end to the chit-chat (because if I don’t, he won’t stop ). It is very hard for me to focus when I’m too tired (don’t worry, I will edit this article one more time in the morning before I publish it).

Safety

Luckily, I work at home and don’t need to drive too much, but I do know of parents who run stop signs (with baby in the car) or need to pull over by the side of the road because they just can’t go on (if you need to choose one, choose the latter, and know your limits). I’ve had my husband come in and tell the boys not to do something that I was dazed and allowing them to do right in front of my eyes. I just hadn’t considered the “down side” of jumping off that big pile of pillows or whatever. Some days, I’m definitely happy to have another set of eyes helping me watch over the boys when I just can’t seem to snap out of it.

Teaching

My boys are smart and I’m very happy about that (I won’t bore you but one was reading at 4 and the other could count by 2 and knew his colors, too). I attribute some of this to the fact that I’ve kept them getting enough sleep, even when I don’t. But, I know that I can do more, at times. Sometimes it’s my focus and concentration that doesn’t think about how I might add to a conversation about caterpillars and their transformation to butterflies, for example. Other times, I might not have the energy to do artwork because I know then I’ll need to clean it up and I’m being lazy. Whatever the reason, I don’t feel like I’m as good a teacher when I’m too tired.

All of us will have a different definition of what a “great parent” is, but I think we can all agree that being tired doesn’t always bring out the greatness. I had a mom e-mail me once that both her kids outgrew their sleep problems around two and she said that, to her, it is just a “season of sleep deprivation” that will go away, eventually. She implied there wasn’t much of a reason to “work” on it, if it will end on its own, anyway (even if it’s years later). My challenge to her is that yes, SOME will have kids that outgrow these issues, but tell that to the parents with a five year old in their bed. Yes, eventually, perhaps even that five year old will outgrow it. But, whether it’s 3 months, 12 months, 2 years, 5 years or 8 years, how many missed opportunities will you have to be a great mom or dad? Sometimes I look so forward to bedtime and I kick myself because I know they won’t be this little forever. One day they will be too busy with their friends to bother with mom (sniff sniff). I want to cherish it. Don’t you?

How does being tired make YOU a worse parent?

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 fact their baby won’t sleep and 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. The bottom line is their baby won’t sleep and they feel it’s their fault.

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 won’t sleep 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, only now your baby won’t sleep without it and you might be running in every two hours to replace it. 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. You wonder why your baby won’t sleep through the night, 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. If your baby won’t sleep longer than one or two hours, you might have trouble functioning in the daytime.

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. Some days it feels like your baby won’t nap and won’t sleep through the night.

When your baby was 9 months old, you wondered if your baby still needed night feedings or not because your baby won’t sleep all night like your friend’s babies.

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 baby won’t sleep no matter what you do. 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)?

Happy Thanksgiving!!! (at least to the U.S. readers)

This week is a good time to find the silver lining and say what we are all thankful for, sleep-wise. I’ll start:

• I am thankful that my once challenging son, who inspired this site and is now 4 years old, can now be walked up to bed, put on his PJ’s, brush his teeth, cuddle in bed for a few minutes and he falls right to sleep. No fuss. No muss. (most of the time) Gone are the days where it took me an hour to put him to bed. Hooray!
• I am thankful that I can put my 21 month down for a nap by proclaiming it is “nap time” and he walks up the stairs, I put him in the crib, say night night and walk out.
• I am thankful that, most nights, my 21 month old wakes briefly, sits up in bed, and lays back down without needing anything.
• I am thankful that I can now check on my son before bed, since he sleeps with the door open and can stare down at him for a few seconds watching him sleep peacefully. I couldn’t do that when he was a baby because he’d wake up when I opened the door, yet he couldn’t sleep through noise, so I couldn’t keep the door open, either. I look forward to when my younger son’s door is open, too.
• I am thankful that I didn’t have to break a pacifier habit or thumb-sucking habit for either boy and, most of the time, they can find their own blankies (occasionally I’m woken up by my older son because he can’t find it and it’s buried in covers or on the floor).
• I am thankful that we figured out that if our sons don’t have a snack before bed that they sometimes wake up earlier in the morning or in the night.
• Mostly, I’m thankful to have two wonderful boys who are the light of my life.
• I am thankful that the fact that my boys are imperfect sleepers has given me this unique opportunity to meet so many parents out there and allow me to help them with their troubled sleepers. It is truly one of the most rewarding things in life I’ve ever done, so far.
• I am thankful that I can do my Black Friday Shopping online this week, so I can sleep a little more on Friday, one of my (very) few days off.

It doesn’t hurt to get some things off our chest, too, so we don’t bottle them up inside. I am NOT so thankful for:

• I am not so thankful that sleep is still not perfect for my eldest son (who inspired this site).
• I am not so thankful that my son is so sensitive that our imaginative play or something that seems “ok” to see on TV causes nightmares for three nights in a row this weekend (hoping for a good night tonight).
• I am not so thankful that if we think our younger son has eaten enough, but he hasn’t, that he will sometimes take longer to fall asleep or wake in the night (this is finally getting less common as he gets older).
• I am not so thankful that with two boys who aren’t the perfect sleepers that sometimes it still feels like I will never just sleep well every day again and that I’m commonly waiting for that wake-up call, even on “good nights”.
• I am not so thankful that one day my boys will be older and not need mommy anymore and I will probably be sad because now they don’t need me anymore and I will wonder why I worried so much about their sleep, yet I would love not to worry about it and it is so ironic that one day they will be teenagers that I will have to drag out of bed and I’m not so thankful that it all makes me sound so crazy.

What are YOU thankful or not-so-thankful this year, sleep-wise (or not)?

Happy Thanksgiving! Have a very joyous and safe holiday. And, sStay tuned for a BIG announcement in the next week or two!

November is March of Dimes Prematurity Awareness Month! Many babies (roughly 1,400 per day!) are born premature in the U.S. alone and unfortunately, the numbers are increasing rather than decreasing. Please take a moment to learn more about prematurity and what you can do in pregnancy to reduce your risks by reading When Babies Are Born Premature on the Babble Soft website this week. You can also read about premature development and your baby’s sleep here on this site. Please also consider forwarding the information to friends and family as you can save a life of two sharing the knowledge! Thank you for doing your part in this very important matter.

Awhile ago, Shauna commented on one of my posts about the moon affecting her baby’s sleep and I thought that would make for an interesting article to research. This past Sunday, June 7, 2009, was a full moon and lo and behold both my sons woke up at night. Did I ever tell you how one kid waking up is bad, but both, especially at different times, is downright brutal!? (bowing down to those of you with multiples right now!)

My youngest around 12:20 started crying and I went in, cuddled him for a couple of minutes and put him back down with his crib music on and left. No more peeps out of him. Around 3 something, my preschooler came running into my room saying he had a bad dream someone was chasing him (Reminder: I will be doing a series on nightmares and night terrors this summer). After I gave him a few minutes and took him back to bed, he called out for me later to turn his fan on. Interestingly enough, I had also turned on my youngest’s ceiling fan a few hours earlier, too. I thought they were both hot (I was too), however, I remembered I wanted to do an article about the moon’s effect on our sleep, if there was any, so I looked it up and what do you know? It was a full moon that night.

So, does the moon affect our baby’s sleep?

Mostly what I found was that the moon affecting human behavior and sleep, in general, is not proven and generally accepted as untrue among scientists. In theory, it sounds like it could be likely the moon affects us as it does have an effect on the oceans / tides and the human body is made up of 65% water. However, the amount of water in the oceans is so much greater than our “small” human bodies and the water in the ocean is considered “unbounded”, that it has been said that a mosquito on our arm would have more of an effect than the moon. It’s been said that the term “lunatic” comes from our history that at one time we did believe the moon was to blame for strange behavior, but this has remained unproven by numerous scientific studies. I might have to track my sons’ sleep for the next month and see what happens during the next full moon on July 7th. For now, I’ll stick to reading Goodnight Moon to my boys.

So, tell me, for my own informal research…

Did your baby wake up during the full moon?