1. Whenever possible be sensitive to your infants need for sleep. If baby is sleepy, let her sleep. Watch your baby more than your watch.
   
   
2. Discern between a sad cry (abandoning) and a protest cry (letting her learn to fall asleep unassisted). If you determine that baby is sleepy, yet doesn’t want to lay down, perhaps you should let her cry it out. Start with, five, ten or twenty minutes. You should be able to judge this fairly accurately by noting your baby’s behavior, the time of day and how long she’s been up.
   
   
3. As much as possible let baby have motionless sleep in her bed at home. Naps on the go rarely leave baby feeling refreshed. Naps taken while in motion causes the brain to sleep in “light mode” making the nap less productive. 
   
   
4. Try to be consistet in the method you use to soothe baby to sleep, whether it be rocking, bathing, nursing, bottle or massaging.
   
   
5. Background noises such as a fan or AC unit can help drown out noises and let baby get uninterrupted sleep. Our baby’s room is next to the A/C unit, so during nap time I turn the unit on “fan” for this effect.
   
   
6. If you are trying to eliminate night wakings in an older infant, spend as much time as needed with baby at night, but make contact minimal with no singing or talking. Make it understood that night-time is meant for sleeping not visiting.
   
   
7. Getting up too early can be caused by staying up too late. Ususally an earlier bedtime prolongs night sleep and prevents early wake-ups. Sleep begets sleep.
   
   

Young Children

1. Younger children who have given up naps may need to sleep longer at night, but it is better to get that extra sleep before midnight by having an earlier bedtime rather than sleeping later in the mornings.
   
   

Older Children

1. Do not use bed for anything except sleep. Do not do homework, read or watch T.V. in your bed.
   
   
2. Always go to bed BEFORE you are overtired.
   
   
3. Do not do stimulating activities an hour before bed, such as computer games, television, rowdy play. Relax and get the body & mind ready for sleep.
4. To prevent interfering with our normal sleep/wake cycle and our body’s production of melatonin have as little light as possible at night. Block out street lights, turn off night lights in their room, and don’t allow them to sleep with the T.V. on.
   
   
5. Too much sugar and caffeine can prevent children from falling asleep and staying asleep. If you can’t cut it out completely try avoiding it several hours before bedtime.

Some of these helpful hints can be used by children of all ages, but I chose to split them up into the most relative age categories. For more on this subject I recommend the book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Marc Weissbluth, M.D.

I bought this book when we found out we were having twins and it has served me well over the last 7 years for all of our children. This book is a step by step program for a good nights sleep from infancy up to the teenage years.

I’ll leave you with this parting thought:

Junk food is bad for the body. Junk sleep is bad for the brain.

This post linked to

the 3 Moms 13 Thursday
Kid Friendly Friday