In this post, I'll talk about baby sleep pillows. When should you give a pillow to your baby? When can you give a pillow to your baby? What kind of pillow do you give your baby? What type of pillows can help with co-sleeping? What type of pillows can help with nursing? When can you give your baby a pillow to sleep on? The NICHHD recommends that you avoid pillows for babies under one year of age. They recommend never to place baby on a pillow to sleep or add pillows to the
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Getting Your Baby to Nap
Last week I posted my newborn sleep tips. Today I'll talk about getting your baby to nap. I am specifically talking about babies older than newborns (i.e. 3+ months old). A nap is considered to be restorative if the baby is not moving (i.e. such as in a swing or car or stroller) and the nap is one hour or more. I specifically want to mention this because it widely varies what people believe to be a "normal" or "good" nap. Some think babies should sleep 3 hours each time and others seem to
Sleep Quick Tip – Logging Sleep
Today's quick tip is to keep a log of your baby's sleep for one or two weeks. Log wake times, nap times, nap lengths, and bedtime. Add up the total time baby actually slept (if you are unsure, as long as baby is quiet, count as sleeping). The amount of sleep a child gets in 24 hours stays relatively constant and they will shift sleep from day to night and vice versa (within reason). Once you have your log, you can take the average amount of sleep in 24 hours and use that as a guide when
Sleep Training (From No Cry to Cry) Series – Part 1 – Bedtime Routines
Today I will start a series of posts outlining the variety of sleep training methods that I recommend. I will post them in order (as I interpret them) from no (or very little) crying to the most (potential) crying. There are many variations of these methods, so I am only going to highlight the main gist of each method. Every parent can add tweaks here and there to accommodate their unique style and situation. At the end of the series, I will tell my story of my first son and, eventually, my
Baby Sleep Needs by Age
I am working on a sleep training series where I will outline the various methods, from no-cry to cry, but I don't think it makes sense to write that until I have written out how much sleep we can expect our babies and toddlers to get. If our expectations are too high, we could be trying to sleep our children too often (yes I'm using "sleep" as a verb!) and it will become frustrating for everyone. If our expectations are too low, we might not sleep our children often enough, they may become
Sleep Disorders Linked to Children’s Behavior Problems
Science Daily recently reported in this article that certain sleep disorders are linked to behavior issues in kids. The study showed that children with sleep disordered breathing such as snoring or sleep apnea and who were also overweight, did not sleep enough, or had another sleep problem such as insomnia, were more likely to have behavior issues. More than half of the participants with sleep disordered breathing who were studied were either overweight or at risk for being overweight (see
Sleep Associations – Is Rocking Your Baby Harmful?
Is it a bad idea to rock your baby? It depends. It is never a bad idea to cuddle your baby and give him/her lots of love and affection! It's only when rocking your baby becomes something you can't keep up with that it is a problem. Let's take a step back and let me explain what a sleep association is. What is your sleep association? How do you fall asleep? What kind of routine do you do before you go to sleep each night? Do you watch TV? Talk to your partner? Do you read a book? Do you sleep