Parents reports include sleep advice and sleep training stories from other parents who have had success with either extinction or graduated extinction.
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Healthy Sleep in Young Children Has Carryover Benefits in Adolescence
Benefits from early healthy sleep habits persist in preteens and teenagers, who continue, pretty much on their own, to get healthy sleep.
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.
My son, now 4 months old, had colic. He lacked the ability to fall and stay asleep. He would startle at the slightest noise and required darkness in which to sleep.
Night waking may be associated with breastfeeding at night, a bedtime that is too late, or the failure of a child to learn self-soothing. Night waking is also a feature of babies with extreme fussiness/colic.
Don’t be a slave to a rigid bedtime hour or nap schedule. Once or twice a month, lighten up and enjoy holidays, family gatherings, or other special events. The well-rested child can easily tolerate infrequent missed naps or late bedtimes. But the sleep debt accumulated from the special event needs to be repaid! After the special event or illness, your child might be short on sleep and the strategy is a reset: A super-early bedtime for one night only and overnight, you might have to ignore protest crying. After a long holiday, especially if you cross multiple time zones, prepare yourself for one nasty re-entry night when you return home to fill up the now empty sleep tank.
When naps are going well, the bedtime might be a little later, but when naps are not going well, the bedtime needs to be a littler earlier. These reports include paying attention to early bedtimes.
Early bedtimes are based on drowsy signs (Blog Posts 7-9) because a late bedtime causes an increase in neurological arousal (a second wind) that interferes with falling asleep and staying asleep. Even a few minutes earlier might make a big difference (Blog Post 6). Better night sleep will cause better naps and as a result, and eventually, your child will be able to stay up later. A temporary, super-early bedtime might be needed to get things going. The wake-up time might be only a few minutes earlier or surprise, she might sleep in later! Sometimes, a slightly earlier bedtime alone, while responding to all crying, is an effective sleep solution for a parent that does not want to let her child cry.
Graduated Extinction and Extinction are safe and fast methods to help your child learn how to fall asleep at bedtime and return to sleep in the middle of the night unassisted (Blog Posts 24-27). Both methods work best when the bedtime is early, based on drowsy signs (Blog Posts 7-9) because a late bedtime causes an increase in neurological arousal (a second wind) that interferes with falling asleep. The younger the child is when you start, the better the outcome. Better night sleep will cause better naps and as a result, and eventually, your child will be able to stay up later. A temporary, super-early bedtime might be needed to get things going. When you establish an early bedtime, the wake-up time might be only a few minutes earlier or surprise, she might sleep in later!
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.
