Marc Weissbluth, a distinguished pediatrician and father of four, offers his groundbreaking program to ensure the best sleep for your child. In Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, he explains with authority and reassurance his step-by-step regime for instituting beneficial habits within the framework of your child's natural sleep cycles.
Whatever the age of your baby or child, they need plenty of sleep to help them be healthy and happy. Parents need their sleep too, so establishing a regular bedtime routine is really important. Young babies tend to sleep when they need it, and as they get older they should develop their own regular sleep pattern, but problems can occur if your baby won’t sleep. Here are 5 tips for healthy sleep habits and a happy child – and they are equally relevant for younger babies and toddlers too.
- In Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, he explains with authority and reassurance his step-by-step regime for instituting beneficial habits within the framework of your child’s natural sleep cycles. Rewritten and reorganized to deliver information even more efficiently, this.
- I came across the book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child in a passing comment on a forum board. Reading it was a complete revelation, turning the way we parent on it's head. Following the advice of the book Abel's sleep became our utmost priority.
1. Know when your child is tired
Often your baby or child won’t sleep simply because they have become overtired. Learn the signs that your child is beginning to tire – such as grumpiness, drowsiness or a lack of interest in people and toys. If your child regularly experiences difficulty getting to sleep try bringing bedtime forward as they may be too tired to settle.
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2. Introduce a bedtime routine
By introducing a routine when your baby is quite small you can help them develop healthy sleep habits and learn when it’s bedtime and what to expect. Start with activities such as a bath, change of clothes, feed and cuddle. Some people find baby massage is a useful thing to try at bedtime, as it relaxes your baby and helps them to settle. As your child gets older keep the routine but add extra activities, such as brushing their teeth, reading a story or singing a song. Wherever possible be consistent with the routine and the time your child goes to bed.
3. Create a relaxing environment
If you child or baby won’t sleep it could be because they are not comfortable. Keep the bedroom temperature cool (but not cold), close the curtains and turn off the lights – or use a dimmer switch or night light if your child doesn’t like the dark. In contrast, in the morning open the curtains to let plenty of light in, and keep the house warm and bright – this will help your baby learn the difference between night and day.
4. Make some noise!
Babies and children can sleep through noise, so don’t feel that your house needs to be silent at bedtime. Remember that your baby spent nine months in the womb hearing everything that was going on around them. You may even find that being able to hear the sounds of people moving around, the hoover or the TV can be reassuring as your child knows you are nearby if they need you. “Womb music”, lullabies or white noise can also help a baby to settle, while an older child may like to listen to nursery rhymes or a story before they sleep.
5. Be consistent – and realistic
There are as many different sleep methods as there are baby experts, be consistent and stick with it for at least a couple of weeks. Your baby needs to know what to expect from bedtime and if you chop and change their routine they are more likely to become unsettled, which will cause even greater issues with sleeping. Above all else, be realistic. All babies are different, so don’t measure your baby against another, and if something doesn’t seem to be working as well as you expected, don’t give up hope – your baby will settle into a good sleep pattern in their own time.
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Follow these tips and you’ll help your child develop healthy sleep habits and be a happy child!
You’ve heard babies sleep a lot right? Well, yes and no. Most of the time babies cry because they are hungry, tired or have a dirty diaper, which is pretty often. Other reasons could be gas, teething, sickness, they are too hot/cold or they just want attention. Babies do not know how to self soothe, so you’ll need to learn some tricks of the trade to calm them when they are fussy. The Happiest Baby on the Block by Dr. Karpis a great book that teaches you about the 5S method: swaddle, side or stomach, shush, swing and suck. Backuptrans android whatsapp to iphone transfer (x64 crack. Babies aren’t able to “cry it out” until 4 months old, so you’ll want to use the 5S method to soothe them until then.
In the first two months, we were convinced that our baby had a lot of gas because we had ruled out other reasons for fussiness. This was typically our conclusion late at night. The pharmacy sells gas drops over the counter, maybe it just made us feel better, but we used these quite a bit around 4-8 weeks.
Our pediatrician told us that babies aren’t usually fussy for more than 3 days as a result of teething (since that’s per tooth, it could be often). Once they start teething, it’s easy to blame all fussiness on teething. Babies start teething long before you see the little white suckers pop through. You’ll be able to see the white nubs on their gums as their teeth are starting to grow and they will become drool machines. We didn’t resort to baby Tylenol until our child was almost a year and woke up at 11pm screaming one night- you can talk to your pediatrician about using baby Tylenol to ease pain when they are cutting teeth. Definitely a good thing to have on hand for when the time comes. I always brought it on every trip just in case.
As far as sickness goes, a temperature of 100.4° or higher is considered a fever and you should call your doctor. Around 5 months our son got his first ear infection. He didn’t have any recognizable symptoms other than having had a runny nose for a few days and being fussy. Go with your gut, if their cold is not going away and you think something else could be wrong it could very well be an ear infection. Amoxicillin prescribed by the doctor can knock that out right away.
When your baby gets to 4 months old, you should be prepared to sleep train. Yes, you’ll need to train them how to self soothe now that they are old enough so they can fall asleep on their own. Don’t delay this step because it will make things much harder on you down the line. A good book that teaches you what to do is Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Marc Weissbluth . A friend gave me this when I had my baby and it has been a huge help! It was such a relief at 4 months because we started letting our baby cry it out for nap time which meant we were no longer pacifier slaves. He actually stopped using the pacifier for good at that point. It also helps to put the baby down in the crib when they are drowsy, but not sleeping so they can learn to fall asleep on their own. If you’re not a cry it out kind of person, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child Palfinger pk 15500 manual. talks about all kinds of methods, so you can choose which one you want to try. My theory was, I’m not going to not discipline my child just because he cries and the same holds true for sleep. It is in his best interest to sleep so I’m going to teach him even if he fights it.
It wasn’t until 6 months that we started letting him cry through middle of the night feedings. Our pediatrician said he could go 10 hours without eating, so we’d put him down at 7pm and then feed him when we got up at 5. He then went back down for a couple more hours.
As babies get a little older, having a routine before bed helps them calm down and know what to expect. You could feed, sing lullabies, read books, give a bath etc. I always sang Rock a Bye Baby before I’d lay our child down.
Our baby was in the rock and play next to our bed for the first 5 weeks and then slept swaddled in his crib. Unless you intend to cosleep, moving the baby into their own bed is something you don’t want to wait too long to do. At 3.5 months he was too strong for the swaddle, even the Velcro ones so we used the Magic Sleep Suit until 5 months when he rolled over in it. At that point, he slept on his own in the crib. When he was 8 months his morning and afternoon naps were consistently 1.5 hours each.
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That summarizes what we’ve learned so far on baby sleep, hope you find it helpful! We did not have a colicky baby, so unfortunately I can’t speak to that situation, but I’d imagine you’d use many of the same tactics above with a stronger dose of patience. Sometimes it seems like the baby will never sleep through the night, but good things come to those who wait. You are not alone in being tired and frustrated. Just think how much your child is growing and how important it is to teach them healthy sleep habits so they can wake up and be well rested to keep learning and growing!