Through this blog, I will regularly provide new information on baby sleep training and sleep advice to help your child enjoy healthy sleep.
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Blog 123
| March 20, 2023
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Bedtime: A Review
To better understand the importance of sleep timing (when your child falls asleep), appreciate the fact that there is a genetically controlled and automatic circadian sleep rhythm (Blog Post 112). This 24-hour rhythm of brain output is for sleep and wakefulness; it develops in infancy, and changes as the child develops. Parents cannot change this rhythm.
Read on my website the first several segments of ‘What a Parent Can Do’ (starting with Blog Post 6) to understand and implement the simple steps needed to prevent sleep problems in your child.
A healthy child needs a healthy brain. A healthy brain needs healthy sleep. Emotional health, mental health, and cognition are strengthened with healthy sleep. But what exactly is cognition?
Starting school later, for middle-schools and high-schools, is associated with very small increases in night sleep duration for students, ranging from only 2 to about 30 minutes. However, over time, these few minutes of extra sleep produce dramatic improvements in mood, grades and more.
In my 1995 nap study, at 9 months of age, the percentages of children who are taking a single nap every day was 3.5%, taking two naps a day was 91.3%, and taking three naps a day was 5.2%. The highest percentage of children taking two naps a day, 91.3%, occurs at 9 months of age. At nine months of age, what happens when you decide to skip a morning nap for errands or other activities?
"The sleep patterns of our daughter definitely changed and/or shaped our marriage relationships. Since the beginning, my husband and I decided to share full and shared responsibilities for taking care of our daughter, and especially during nighttime. Me, as a researcher in sleep and mental health, I was quite concerned that the lack of sleep that I would be experiencing especially during the first months, would also affect my mental health; therefore, my husband and I took care of these potential impact on our mental health since the beginning and agreed that by sharing the rough nights, this would help to keep stronger and more rested.
Sometimes I have recommended to teenagers who are short on sleep that they take a five-day “sleep spa” treatment. No, that doesn’t mean having their parents book them into an expensive resort! It simply means dedicating five days to going to sleep earlier than usual.
Antonio was born two weeks early and without difficulty. I remember thinking several hours after his birth that he was going to be a very easy boy, since my pregnancy and delivery were both routine and relatively easy. Three days after we brought him home, however, I realized that my expectations might have been a little off.
