advice from parents whose babies sleep well......

[Pickle]

I have two very different babies in terms of personality, but they are both good sleepers. Like others on this thread we have a daytime routine which includes an afternoon nap of around 2 hours from 1 - 3pm. Both of my children have this nap, at 3 and 20 months respectively.

Our bedtime routine is very strong, and also along similar lines to others we have a wind-down from dinnertime onwards. The kids go to bed at 7pm, after a bath, story and milk (for the younger one). Both have always been put down awake in their cots from an early age and are great at self settling.

Our routine has come into it's own in the last few days, as we arrived in NZ on Saturday. Despite day suddenly being night they have happily gone to bed at their normal time and were basically over their jetlag after a couple of nights. We're finding they are going into a very deep sleep in the afternoon, which is to be expected as their bodies think it's night, but are being strict about the length of this nap and it's working well.

I am a strong believer in the sleep breeds sleep theory, and have always found that if my kids don't sleep well in the day their nighttime sleep is disrupted. No idea why this works, but it really does seem to be true in many cases.

Hope you're all well... am thinking about you all as I lie in the sunshine ;-)

[Fuschia]

I read a laegw study about features of early parenthood and later sleep patterns. The main correlation was with fsmilies where babies were not picked up every time they stirred but were left to cry a little to see if they would resettle ...and were usually sleeping in their own room from earlier than is recommended.

The report stated that it wasn't possible to say what was cause and effect ... placid temperament/easy sleeper and slightly arms length parenting, or vice versa

[helena handbasket]

What does that mean though, "not picked up ....... left to cry a little"? Has anyone actually researched how much time it takes to permanently alter a child's sleep patterns? Some mothers can bolt awake in an instant, others take a bit to orient themselves. In my case I recall my son screaming his little heart out and pulling my hair while waiting for food in the night...... but I couldn't have done it any faster. Did THAT negatively affect him as well? And I'm a bit wary of "studies" that make these links when there are so many variables that can't be controlled for.

I did one of my university degrees in Developmental Psychology, and while I'm certainly no expert and it hasn't exactly given me much of a parenting advantage (darn!), I do know that the research is endless but CONCLUSIVE research is hard to pin down. For every study that claims "x" there is another that claims "y". So, while it is nice to pad our personal instincts and philosophies with these studies, remember that some new mother out there is reading this information as absolute truth and punishing herself for not getting it right. For the first six months of my son's life I was an emotional mess........ nothing went as planned, I was probably suffering from PND, and somehow all the attachment parenting people came out of the woodwork to remind me of the consequences of the "decisions" that I honestly didn't have much control over. Unfortunately this resulted in months of incredible self-loathing, and it took me a long time to get the clarity to look at it all and realize that it would take a lot more than bottle feeding or not co-sleeping to damage my son. And I will always resent those generalizations....... so dangerous.

Since it is obviously not possible to keep large labs of babies for research, a lot of it is anecdotal based on information from the mother, who of course giving the best information she can but not entirely good science. The other measure is observation, which is tricky as well since it is impossible to adjust for mood, hunger, a bad night, and all those other things that make a baby different from day to day. It is impossible to control for the million variables from baby to baby.

Anyway not sure my point here but I think what I'm trying to say is that I obviously believe in the value of research and I'm the first person to read and think about new research, it MUST be taken with a pinch of salt.

[Fuschia]

helena handbasket Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> What does that mean though, "not picked up .......

> left to cry a little"? Has anyone actually

> researched how much time it takes to permanently

> alter a child's sleep patterns? Some mothers can

> bolt awake in an instant, others take a bit to

> orient themselves. In my case I recall my son

> screaming his little heart out and pulling my hair

> while waiting for food in the night...... but I

> couldn't have done it any faster. Did THAT

> negatively affect him as well? And I'm a bit wary

> of "studies" that make these links when there are

> so many variables that can't be controlled for.

>

> I did one of my university degrees in

> Developmental Psychology, and while I'm certainly

> no expert and it hasn't exactly given me much of a

> parenting advantage (darn!), I do know that the

> research is endless but CONCLUSIVE research is

> hard to pin down. For every study that claims "x"

> there is another that claims "y". So, while it is

> nice to pad our personal instincts and

> philosophies with these studies, remember that

> some new mother out there is reading this

> information as absolute truth and punishing

> herself for not getting it right. For the first

> six months of my son's life I was an emotional

> mess........ nothing went as planned, I was

> probably suffering from PND, and somehow all the

> attachment parenting people came out of the

> woodwork to remind me of the consequences of the

> "decisions" that I honestly didn't have much

> control over. Unfortunately this resulted in

> months of incredible self-loathing, and it took me

> a long time to get the clarity to look at it all

> and realize that it would take a lot more than

> bottle feeding or not co-sleeping to damage my

> son. And I will always resent those

> generalizations....... so dangerous.

>

> Since it is obviously not possible to keep large

> labs of babies for research, a lot of it is

> anecdotal based on information from the mother,

> who of course giving the best information she can

> but not entirely good science. The other measure

> is observation, which is tricky as well since it

> is impossible to adjust for mood, hunger, a bad

> night, and all those other things that make a baby

> different from day to day. It is impossible to

> control for the million variables from baby to

> baby.

>

> Anyway not sure my point here but I think what I'm

> trying to say is that I obviously believe in the

> value of research and I'm the first person to read

> and think about new research, it MUST be taken

> with a pinch of salt.

I am not sure I kept the link (on an old PC) but it was a large study and very interesting, they tried things like having bf bbaies sleep beside a tshirt that smelled of the mum... it was fairly convincing, but not really the road I'd go down, so it must have been quite good evidence for it to stick in my mind despite me not really agreeing, if you get what I mean.. I will see if I can find it

[Fuschia]

Here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1201415/

It was a long time ago i read it, hope i have remembered it right

[Sanne Panne]

Same as many posts above... luck plays a big role (we were very unlucky at first and very lucky now so there's hope!). We have a strong bedtime routine (long bath, sleepsuit on, milk, 10-20 minutes of play (now that she's a toddler), bed) and we disassociated milk and sleep as early as we felt comfortable doing (at about 7 months, she's now 19 months). We did a bit of crying it out at 6 months (for 4 days, with success within 12, then 10, then 5 minutes and then complete success - it was very stressful but 12 minutes were doable for us). Am not sure if the crying has anything to do with her being such a great sleeper now though, it's such a long time ago and I never let her cry anymore since there's always something up when she does cry now. At that time it seemed necessary as we were exhausted and our daughter was cranky during waking hours due to lack of sleep - she was a terrible sleeper from 3 to 6 months of age. I'm not saying the gentler methods don't work, just that we weren't able to apply them successfully in over 3 months of trying.

Anyway, I think the main ingredients for us are a strong bedtime routine, no feeding to sleep (especially nighttime breastfeeding after a certain age) and a lot of luck. When they're toddlers the bedtime routine doesn't even have to mean that everything needs to be dark and quiet after bath time, all you need is for it to be roughly the same every day - our daughter goes back to her toy box after bath time and runs around a bit more in our busy living room... but after about 15 minutes she'll pick up her monkey and say "bed" and we'll take her to bed without the slightest fuss.

[Smiler]

This thread makes me green with envy and want to weep! Parenting must be such a different experience without sleep deprivation.

The question of whether sleeping well (or not) is a matter of luck / the child's personality or what the parents do is something that I have thought about a lot in 22 months of sleepless angst! (All OK now though, touch wood, lovely peaceful nights).

Would love to believe that it is all just down to luck, but do suspect that there are helpful / unhelpful things that parents do. But could only do my best, try those things that I was comfortable with and not those that didn't seem right for us. If we ever have another bad sleeper there are things I would do differently and would also try not to beat myself up as much.

[lard]

Smiler Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> This thread makes me green with envy and want to

> weep! Parenting must be such a different

> experience without sleep deprivation.

>

> The question of whether sleeping well (or not) is

> a matter of luck / the child's personality or what

> the parents do is something that I have thought

> about a lot in 22 months of sleepless angst! (All

> OK now though, touch wood, lovely peaceful

> nights).

>

> Would love to believe that it is all just down to

> luck, but do suspect that there are helpful /

> unhelpful things that parents do. But could only

> do my best, try those things that I was

> comfortable with and not those that didn't seem

> right for us. If we ever have another bad sleeper

> there are things I would do differently and would

> also try not to beat myself up as much.

Think that about sums it all up, especially the last paragraph.

[missd]

Our little one has always slept well - from about 2 months old has been sleeping through (at first with a dream feed at 11pm) which we dropped at about 5 months.

The single most important thing I'd say is always put them to sleep while they are awake, so they learn how to fall asleep. So snoozy yes ,after a nice bath and bottle, book etc. But awake. Don't feed them to sleep otherwise they wake up in the night and think they need to feed again to fall asleep.

It worked really well for us