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Softly Sleeping

Everyone needs sleep, but how much?

12/6/2012

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Newborn, Infant, Toddler and Preschooler Sleep duration.

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One of the links in the chain that encourages healthy sleep habits is knowing how much sleep your baby needs at a given age. Remember that these amounts are averages and are different for each of us, but they should not vary by more than an hour.

Month 1 or 0-4 weeks - Newborns sleep 16-18 hours out of 24. Half of that time is slept over 4 naps during the day and half at night.
With regards to feeding your baby - discuss this with you pediatrician and/or lactation consultant.
"According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, once the mother’s milk comes in, newborns may feed as often as every 1½
hours, and they shouldn't go more than three hours without eating,
for a total of eight to 12 feedings in 24 hours. Formula-fed babies will
eat less frequently, two to three ounces every three or four hours, for
a total of six to eight feedings a day." 
by Kim West LCSW-C, The Sleep Lady® from Good Night Sleep Tight.
 
Month 2 or 5-8 weeks - 15.5-17 hours out of 24. This will be spread over 3-4 naps during the day for a total of 6-7 hours. The remainder will be overnight. Most babies will need to wake up a couple of times to feed, but some will only wake up once for a feeding.

Month 3  or 9-12 weeks - 15 hours. During the day these babies will sleep about 5 hours over 3-4 naps and about 10 hours at night. Some babies begin to sleep through the night (6-8 hours only) without feeding by the end of the month, if this happens, enjoy! otherwise try to stay patient.

Months 4 and 5  - 14-15 hours. Some babies still require 4 naps, but most have dropped to 3 and will spend a total of 4-5 hours napping. The rest is night time sleep, you may see your 4 month old sleeping up to 8 hours at night, and your 5 month old up to 10 hours without needing to feed. If your baby still needs to be fed at night discuss this with your physician. Some babies are just hungry!

Month 6-8 - 10-12 hours sleeping through the night, and 2-3 naps for a total of 3.5 hours of napping. I will say again, that your child may still need to feed in the middle of the night, discuss this with your medical provider if you have concerns.

Months 9-12 -  Children at this age should receive about 11 hours of sleep at night and have 2 naps that last a total of 3 hours. Some of these children do need a short third nap in the mid-late afternoon. They should be awake by 4-430pm.


Months 12-18 - By 12 months children sleep about 11.25 hours through the night and will nap between 2.25 and 2.5 hours. Most 12 month old children will still be taking 2 naps and by 18 months most children will only need one nap.The morning nap will fall away and they will start their afternoon nap between 12:30 pm and 1:30 pm. Something to remember is that by this time the toddlers may need a longer transition to bedtime so consider adding some other gentle, calming activities to your bedtime routine.

Older children - 2 year olds will sleep about 11.25 hours at night and have a 2 hour nap in the early afternoon. Try not to let them sleep past 3:30pm.
                     - 3 year olds will sleep about 10.5 hours at night and will need to take a 1.5 hour nap, by the time they are 4.
                    - At 4 years old, naps are starting to disappear from the horizon. Continue to encourage quiet time in the late afternoon. This will help to eliminate early evening melt downs. This is when we need to move bed time earlier so that your preschooler is now getting 11.5 hours at night.
                     - 5 year olds will need about 11.25 hours of sleep at night and I highly recommend continuing that quiet time.

These times are ALL averages and should not be stressed over. Take a deep breath and listen to your child and yourself, sleep is important in our lives and once you have a routine in place you can be flexible . A well rested child will handle the occasional late night or early morning and even a missed nap.

Sleep well!

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The Gentle Sleep Coach Philosopy

8/15/2012

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Many parents ask “Are you a cry-it-out proponent or family bed advocate? Do I have to stop breastfeeding to sleep coach my child, do I have to choose between two camps: cosleeping/no crying or crib/cry-it-out?”


You do not have to pick a camp; this isn’t about right or wrong. It’s about what is working for you and your family.

It is true that the CIO method and the starker extinction methods can work well and a bit faster than gentler methods IF you as the parent can follow through consistently and for long enough.

The Gentle Sleep Coach philosophy was developed by Kim West LCSW-C, The Sleep Lady® because she found so many parents had difficulty following through with a sleep coaching program that they feared will damage their child emotionally or filled them with so much guilt they couldn’t follow through.

The GSC approach is a gentler alternative for families who emotionally or philosophically resist letting their babies cry it out: for families who tried “Ferber” (controlled crying) and it didn’t work, and for families who let their baby cry-it-out earlier but now find it doesn’t help. It is also for families who believe in co-sleeping but find that their children aren’t really sleeping all that well, even nestled snugly with their parents. Or for families who did co-sleep for a few months to a few years and now want the family bed to revert back to the marital one.

Can you guarantee “no crying” you might ask? No, no one really can. For example, if you as the parent have taught your child that the way to fall asleep is to be held to sleep for all naps, bedtime and wakings and you decide that you want to change this; your child will naturally protest or resist this change. After all, they don’t know why you have changed your approach. If your child is pre-verbal then they will cry. My goal is to have as little crying as possible. We encourage parents to be loving and responsive but to allow the child the room to learn this vital life skill of putting themselves to sleep. The parent responds and stays with their child and offers physical and verbal reassurance without putting the child to sleep. This supports the development of a secure attachment between parent and child.

We will work with you to create an individualized, step-by-step sleep plan that will factor in your parenting philosophy, your child’s age, health and temperament, mother’s well-being and the related family dynamics. And most importantly We will support and coach you through the process from beginning to end- for night sleep and naps!

If you have any questions about the Gentle Sleep philosophy, please don’t hesitate to ask.We can be reached by email at Belinda@softlysleeping.com, Helen@Softlysleeping.com - or by telephone; Helen can be reached in South Africa at: +27 83 607 6935  and Belinda can be reached in the USA at: (607) 218-2185 

Belinda and Helen

Answers to a few other commonly asked questions:

-Breastfeeding is best and it is never necessary to end breastfeeding in order to successfully sleep coach your child

-You can continue to room share while sleep coaching.

-I work with parents of children ages 6 months to 6 years old. Babies under 6months I will consult with parents on how to set up healthy sleep habits from the start and if appropriate how to gently shape their sleep.

The art of putting yourself to sleep is a priceless gift you can give to your child and your entire family.

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Sleep Hygiene

7/6/2012

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The importance of good sleep hygiene and sleep environment were brought home to me this week. We are out of our apartment and have moved into our fabulous new home. Boxes and chaos surround us, but we have managed to create one oasis of calm and tranquility in our daughter's bedroom. There was just one problem - she was back to taking over an hour to fall asleep.

Whenever we travel the first thing I do is try to organize her sleeping space hoping that this will encourage peaceful sleep for her and thus, in the end, for us.  I try to work on the following principles:

  • Darkened  Room Most children need a dark room to sleep in (melatonin starts being produced as it gets dark). Consider a dim night light to ensure that it is not completely black if your child is afraid of the dark.
  • Relaxing Sleep Environment. The crib or bed should be calming and soothing, avoid mobiles and large colorful stuffed toys as these can be very stimulating.
  • If there is too much noise in the area consider using a white noise machine, fan or nature sounds.
  • The temperature should be comfortable - neither too hot nor too cold. (The American Academy of Pediatrics used to provide specific temperature guidelines, but now just warns parents of infants to avoid allowing their children to get too warm as this is a risk for SIDS, see this article). Can you sleep when it is too hot?
  • Lovey. Once your child has reached 6 months old you can introduce a lovey/blankey to her.

We moved to the country so there is not much extraneous noise and no siblings running around. We have heating and cooling for moderating the temperature, our problem, is light. Bella's room here is large and full of light, we all love it - except at bed time. It is the middle of summer here and the sun shines directly into her bedroom until about 9pm. The current shades are lovely but not effective at blocking light. Who wants to fall asleep with all that light? Not me and certainly not Baby Bel!

As soon as we realized there was a problem: "Mommy it's too bright, I can't sleep." on day 3 of being in the house., the realization hit that we needed something temporary; in a hurry.  We had used Redi Shade black out shades for up to a year in one of our apartments (they do have other options but these are the most cost effective, temporary AND available from one of those national hardware chains).  I ran out and got them and we now have success! 1 week of falling asleep within 20 minutes. Long may this continue!

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Updates

6/18/2012

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I can not believe that we have not updated our blog since February! So much has happened in the last 4 months. To summarize: My husband and I with our 2 year old daughter have moved across America from Washington State to New York State. We have stayed in 3 different hotels for a grand total of 3 weeks, moved into an apartment while waiting to close on our house and - in one week - we are planning on moving into that house. 

Whew, busy, busy, busy. I have also been working hard on smoothing out our daughter's difficulties with sleep. With all of the commotion from the past few months she had difficulties staying in bed or her crib to fall asleep. We tried technique after technique all of which seemed to fail.  With two sleep coaches in the family there were many suggestions.  We finally found that timed visits did the trick; this was my last hope, I sincerely thought that if I checked in on Baby Bel after saying goodnight she would be too disturbed to settle down and sleep. Boy was I wrong, she settled down like a dream! It still takes her a while to  fall asleep, but I have a feeling that she is anticipating our anxiety and is not looking forward to the next (and hopefully final) move. 

We will see what the next month brings and how she reacts to the move. 

The moral of this story is that like everything else in life there is always more than one way to solve a problem. If your choice does not work after a reasonable attempt, decide what isn't working and try again. Listen to your instincts, to the people you have chosen to guide you and be persistent and consistent.
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Welcome!

2/29/2012

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Hello Ladies,
We want to thank you so much for visiting our site and blog. We ask that if you find the information helpful or interesting (hopefully both) make a comment, sign up for the RSS feed and visit us on Facebook at : http://www.facebook.com/softlysleeping . While you are there go ahead and like us.

We will continue to keep you updated and research topics that may be just what you need when you need it.  If you have a topic you want us to research, drop us a line, chances are if you want to know about it so do lots of other Moms and Dads.
Looking forward to hearing from you! 
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Night Time Potty Training

2/15/2012

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This question arose with two of my clients, after doing some research I decided to write a brief synopsis for them and now share it with you.Physiologically children cannot control their bladder all night long until the bladder is sufficiently grown and mature. This is a major milestone is children’s lives. The maturity of the bladder is genetic, you can’t train it, and, being individuals, each child develops and masters bladder control in their own time and at different ages.  Day time potty training comes first at around 2 ½ years old. Between 3 and 4 years old, children will begin to be dry all night long, with girls sometimes mastering the process before boys.

 What to do: 

Don’t make an issue of it, toilet training comes when the child is developmentally and physically ready, they will then move to the next step.  Remember too that bed-wetting generally runs in families, if one or both parents wet their beds, generally their children will as well. (1). There is also evidence that the child will stop bed wetting at around same time the parent stopped bed-wetting. So be patient.

Continue nappies/diapers at night until your child is dry in the morning for several weeks, then move into training pants or pyjamas.

Use a plastic sheet under the bed sheets, accidents can and do happen right up to 10 years old. There is also a hormonal link, children who tend to wet the bed have less anti diuretic hormone which would normally decrease the amount of urine produced at night. (1).

Stop liquid intake about an hour before bed time.

Take the cue from your child, if they mention wet nappies/diapers or a wet bed, this is the time to gently guide them.

Recognizing the feeling of a full bladder and calling you or going to the potty will follow.

Part of the bed time routine should be going to the potty before bed.

When you go to bed, take your child to the potty again. 

Use pull on nappies/diapers. If your child wakes up with a full bladder wanting to go to the potty, they are easier to take off in the middle of the night.

Don’t make a big deal about it if the bed is wet in the morning. This is probably as frustrating for your child as it is for you! 

Some children are not completely dry at night until they are 4 or 5 years old. 

Footnotes:
 (1) http://www.rch.org.au/kidsinfo/factsheets.cfm?doc_id=3716 
information sources:
http://www.brollysheets.co.uk/Help++Advice/Night+time+potty+training.html
http://www.babycentre.co.uk/toddler/pottytraining/?intcmp=tnav_toddler_pottytrain


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Light at the end of the tunnel

2/9/2012

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When you are in the middle of a sleep crisis (be it mountain or molehill) with your child, it is sometimes hard to see a way out. 

Take me for instance, I am trained in how to help people, both as an OT and as a sleep coach. However when it is your child and you are trying to see your way through, everything can become clouded and there is no light at the end of the tunnel. 

Recently Baby Bel has learned how to climb in and out of her crib (very cautiously and safely) but unless we wanted to buy a crib tent she was going to climb in and out multiple times on a daily basis.  We decided to hold off on the crib tent as she is nearly 2.5 which is the age we recommend - sometime between 2.5 and 3 years- to make the switch from a crib to a bed. With lots of encouragement and reminders, she was able to stay in her crib at night - no climbing out at all until her wake up light came on - Success!
The next step was to change her crib into a toddler bed and work from there. THe first week was great, we had no problems and were congratulating ourselves and patting ourselves on the back when it happened: Baby Bel now gets out of the crib multiple times before eventually falling asleep. (this can take up to an hour ). Not a very auspicious start to a new phase.

I was growing more and more frustrated until I spoke to my mom and she made a simple suggestion: why not go back to the "shuffle". A lightbulb went off in my head. Of course she is feeling insecure and needing to check up on us. As this continued and I became more frustrated it became more of a game for her. Time to tackle this differently.

The moral is that sometimes we need an outside perspective to guide us through troubled times. Either a friend or family member who understands where you are coming from or a sleep consultant who can guide you through the maze and hold up a light at the end of your tunnel.  In my case it was both- Thanks mom!
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Sleep Consultations

1/23/2012

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How do you feel about sleep coaching/sleep training?
There is a lot of controversy out there, whether to try cry it out, use the Ferber technique, use a gentler approach or do nothing. There are positive points to all of these approaches, and sometimes you can't do 'nothing'. Sometimes you are so sleep deprived that you have to do something!  The thing to remember is that the right approach is very personal to every family and even every child.  What is right for one family may not be right for your family. What is right for one child may not even be the correct approach for another child in the same family.

Find out what the options are and choose what makes sense to you. Remember that there is more than one way to teach a child to fall asleep on their own, the same way that there is more than one way to raise a child or eat spaghetti. 

Once you have chosen an approach, make a plan and STICK TO IT. Be consistent and work on it every day for 2 weeks. You can do it! and the results will be so worth it. 

Remember that there is help out there if you need it. Some children require extra help. If you are exhausted and don't know what to do and nothing seems to be working find someone to help you! Ask questions and you will find the answer. You do not have to suffer alone. Find a consultant in your area or online. We want to help you get sleep for the whole family.

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    Author

    Helen is
    a Paediatric Sleep Consultant and
    Gentle Seep Coach, she coached Belinda as a young toddler without any assistance.
    Belinda now loves to sleep and has been an occupational therapist for 16 years. She is also a Pediatric Sleep consultant and Gentle Sleep Coach.

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