The Value of a Bedtime Routine
Consistency and routines create a feeling of security and reliability in your child’s life. It’s a very big world and children learn so much every day that they can easily become overwhelmed with the enormity of it all. When certain important key points are always the same, these things create anchors of security. Young children look for these anchors and thrive on their consistency. They enjoy routines and easily adapt to them, and even look for them.
We can take advantage of this natural desire that children have for routine by actually creating a very specific before bed routine that naturally and easily ends with sleep.
Read MoreWhat You Need to Know About Sleep Setbacks
Solving your child’s sleep issues is an on-going process during the early years. Very often, when things start to go well, and you are just beginning to enjoy improvements in your child’s sleep, suddenly, you’re going backwards! What’s happening with these sleep setbacks?
Read MoreCo-Sleeping: Making it Safe
If you decide to have your child sleep with you, either for naps or at nighttime, and you’ve found how to make co-sleeping work with your family, it’s important to follow these safety guidelines to protect your baby. People have a lot of opinions and “what worked for me” stories — but do your homework and make safe choices.
Read MoreHelping Mom & Dad Get Better Sleep, Too!
Everyone talks about ways of establishing better sleep habits for your children, but oftentimes as parents we neglect our own sleep. As you learn important things about children’s sleep, hopefully you come to realize that better rest can benefit you as well.
After working so diligently and patiently on your child’s sleep problems, you may want to take some time to improve your own sleep as well.
Read MoreTraveling Time Zones with Kids: Avoid Jet Lag
Traveling with a child can be a challenge because of the disruption to the daily routine, the excitement of activity, plus anxiety over meeting new people and adjusting to new surroundings. When you add a leap across time zones you complicate matters even more, since your child’s biological clock (which tells them when to feel awake and when to feel tired) is forced out of sync with the clock on the wall and the day’s activities.
Read MoreWhy Short Cat Naps Are Not Good Enough
If your child’s naps are shorter than an hour and a half in length, you may have wondered if these brief naps provide enough rest for your little one. You might suspect that these catnaps aren’t meeting your child’s sleep needs – and you would be right. The science of sleep explains why a short nap takes the edge off but doesn’t offer the same physical and mental nourishment that a longer nap provides.
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