The Happy Sleeper: the science-backed guide to helping your baby get a good night’s sleep ― newborn to school age

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Using these methods, parents can guide their children in learning how to soothe themselves to sleep putting kids (and the whole family) on track to a full nights sleep. We don’t let babies this age cry for more than one minute without a response from you, so that you can maintain a strong, nurtured bond. And if you read and adopt our fundamental concepts, your family will have a solid sleep foundation for years to come. What if your child does get enough sleep overall, but it happens in a way that isn't working for the family'for example, your baby needs to be rocked and bounced for 30 minutes, or your toddler's bedtime is a dragged-out affair of requests for extra water, bonus potty trips, and 'just one more story. Compassionate, courageous, and creative, The Happy Sleeper is a book for every parent of a young child to savor in its magnificent exploration of effective strategies for helping children get to bed smoothly and sleep well through the night.

It does require baby to cry however, if you put your baby down following his/her wake window there isn’t much crying at all. freedom in that I'm not spending 60 minutes bouncing and rocking, and competence that WE DID IT and the plan is working .

Most do what works today, but don't notice when it's no longer needed tomorrow, and then push harder when it becomes a hindrance the day after that. Julie is dedicated to helping parents avoid feeling torn between choosing good sleep OR secure attachment. But I also felt trapped - I knew that if we stopped we'd just go back to not sleeping and I couldn't handle that either. So now that we know the urgency of good sleep and elements you need to get it, let's look at the Happy Sleeper approach to getting there!

All of this helps to set the stage for optimal sleep and prepare you and baby for the next step, the Sleep Wave, at 4. We'd run through the routine, put her down, start a timer because she'd immediately cry, and then pour ourselves a drink and then take turns going in for the 5 minute checks. In psychological terms, 'attachment' involves being there to support your little one, while also encouraging her to learn, develop, and move toward independence (you can read more about attachment here). He woke up several times during the night, but instead of spending hours feeding/rocking him back to sleep we followed this method and he settled down within 15-20 mins each time, without us picking him up once. Insufficient sleep is like having a big piece of your life's foundation missing; it's like walking around while your body starves for food or water.

What most parents appreciate about the online classes is the ability to actually hear us describe and teach the methods. In our approach, your baby will definitely have big feelings and protest the new way of falling asleep, but will never wonder or worry about where you are. She had a few more cries on finding herself asleep sitting up, then eventually just laid herself down and went to sleep! In fact, studies also suggest that treating sleep problems may be enough to eliminate hyperactivity and attention issues for some children. If your child seems fine with less than the recommended amount of sleep, you might be surprised that she does even better with 30 to 60 minutes more.

This seems to have worked (fingers crossed) and we haven't had any throwing incidents for a few nights. Around 9 months, separation anxiety hit and she cried a lot so we had quickly fallen back into a habit of nursing to sleep. Even more, without proper sleep, our immune system does not function well, and so we can become vulnerable to infectious diseases. When you change a pattern to improve your baby or child's sleep, there is usually protesting involved'you're doing things differently and reshaping a well-entrenched habit!

Also worth noting - this method doesn't require that you night wean, if you want to keep your night feedings which was important to me since she'd struggled with weight gain). We had a very traumatic birth ending in an emergency c section under anesthesia and I thought I would be furthering both our birth trauma by separating at night. This was slightly bearable on the nights when she actually slept decently with us, but on many, many nights she would be awake from 1am - 4am babbling non-stop and trying to play with us. Recent studies have revealed, too, that during sleep our brains in effect clean themselves up'removing unhelpful by-products of the day's neural activity'so that we can function well when we're awake. It's not an overstatement to say that the positive sleep foundation you establish for your young child will be the one he has throughout his life.