Getting Sleep

There's nothing like waking up after the perfect amount of sleep that your body needs and having the energy to sail through your day. There's also nothing like having your child wake up well-rested and happy, taking great naps (if they're at an age to need naps) and not fall prey to early evening fussiness.

While neither my daughter Samantha nor I have great sleep every night, the vast majority of the time we do. It didn't start out that way. I think the biggest help in giving Sam (and therefore me) the gift of good sleep at each stage in her life has been the book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Dr. Mark Weissbluth.

When I was a first-time mom with a newborn, I had no idea what was good for my daughter's sleep. All I knew was that she slept on and off during the day and it took us seemingly forever to get her to fall asleep at night. The process of getting her to fall asleep was a long session of rocking, swaddling and shushing that wore us both out. I was getting severely sleep-deprived, and started looking for resources to help. A good friend recommended Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child (HSHHC) and I was thrilled to see there was a 'how to use this book' section at the beginning that pointed a half-awake mommy in the right direction.

HSHHC guided me in putting my good intentions for my child's well-being into practice, and has been my main resource for sleep training. One key concept to internalize, though, for this and any other child sleep book is to remember that you and your child are not a book; you're real people for whom not everything may be the best fit. You know your child, so carefully determine where there are places that would be more beneficial to deviate from 'the program.' In my case, my wise pediatrician offered some other suggestions that were key in molding my sleep training process even more specifically to my daughter Samantha's very alert and determined personality.

Like Dr. Weissbluth suggests, I started paying attention to Samantha's 'drowsy signals' and started soothing her to sleep at appropriate times where she'd be most likely to fall asleep easily. At three months old, I put her down in her crib drowsy but awake for about ten minutes or so. If she didn't fall asleep or was really upset, I picked her up and soothed her all the way to sleep. By the time she was 5 months old, Samantha would fall asleep in her crib on her own the vast majority of the time. She usually played or cooed for a little while then drifted off to her naps or bedtime.

While some children start sleeping through the night on their own, Samantha did not. At 8 months old, she was still waking up once or twice a night to nurse, sleeping for 6 hours in a row maximum. (for the sake of this story, 'sleeping through the night' will mean sleeping at least 10 hours in a row) After careful consideration, my husband and I decided to try the method Dr. Weissbluth describes as 'extinction,' the one that has some of the least amount of crying overall. When Samantha woke up in the middle of the night, we let her cry, and she finally put herself back to sleep. It was so hard to listen to her in there, but the next night she just fussed for a short time before going back to sleep. The third night, she slept through the night. She wakes up happy most every morning, and bedtimes are not a battle.

At first I thought that putting my child down for bed later would equal her sleeping later, but as HSHHC mentions, this really is not the case. Earlier bedtimes usually equal more sleep, and that proved itself in our experience. In protecting Samantha's early bedtime of 7:15PM, I've run into a lot of people who ask why we don't take her out to more evening activities, commenting that keeping her up will just make her sleep later. We've tried that, and all we get is a crabby, tired child the next day. In talking with other parents, I've found more and more of them have the same experience as we've had, and understand why we protect Samantha's early bedtime for the vast majority of nights. We make sure that we're home for her to take a good nap unless it's a really, really special occasion.

Sometimes Samantha wakes up really early, and when that happens for several mornings in a row, we've found the suggestions from HSHHC very helpful....not going in to get Sam before 6AM, and trying a slightly earlier bedtime for the next few nights. It takes patience to help get her sleeping in longer, but it's worth it.

This book addresses all sorts of sleep problems and solutions and gives research-backed advice for each stage of a child's life from birth through high school age. I've got a lot more info about the book, including a list of contents, reviews, soothing tips and links to purchase the book on my website about helping your baby have great naps and nighttime sleep.

Here's to great sleep. I'm going to grab a quick snooze while Samantha's napping. zzzzzz