Practical Positive Parenting Advice and Resources
Imagine what it would be like if you suddenly lost one or two of your front teeth. Smiling, talking, eating – everything would suddenly be affected. Knowing how to prevent injuries to your mouth and face is especially important if you participate in organized sports, or other recreational activities. Studies show that up to 39% of dental injuries result from playing sports. Of those injuries, 80% affect front teeth. This is why we are covering the topic of the sports mouth guard….
Buying a home is always a difficult process and there are a lot of things to consider. When you are buying a family home, you need to think about your needs as a family and what your priorities are in a house. You also need to consider the price and the amount of work that needs to be done on the property. If you are buying a new build property, you don’t need to worry too much about the condition, but things are more complicated if you are buying an older home.
Older properties are very popular because they have a lot of character and you can often get a better price on them, as long as you are willing to put some work in. But it’s important that you don’t take on too much work, which is why you need to be thorough when viewing houses. These are some of the most important things to look out for when viewing an older property.
For more on this topic, check out the full Moving Tips collection
In the past, a lot of houses were built using dangerous materials and it’s important that you check for things like asbestos or lead paint before you buy a house. If there is a lot of asbestos in the home and you think that it may have affected your health, you should seek the legal representation you deserve and make a compensation claim. When it comes to buying a house, you should always have a survey carried out to check for asbestos because it’s expensive to remove and you may not want to take that task on. If there is lead paint, that is easier to deal with but it’s important that you remove it safely.
Older properties often have problems with the electrics because the wiring is very old. When the houses were built, people didn’t have anywhere near as many electrical devices, so old wiring is not capable of powering multiple laptops, phone chargers, TVs and kitchen appliances. If you start plugging lots of things in, there is a big fire risk. A lot of older properties have already had their wiring updated recently, but it’s important that you check this before buying the house because it will be expensive to rewire the entire property.
Older properties are often prone to structural problems, and that’s not something that you can fix easily. If you buy a home that has foundation issues, you won’t be able to move in until it’s fixed, and that will be incredibly expensive and time consuming. When you are viewing a house, look out for cracks in the wall because this can be an indication of structural problems.
Roof damage is another expensive problem that you won’t be able to ignore. A few loose tiles is nothing to worry about but if there are big holes in the roof, water will leak in and the walls will be damp and moldy. It will cost a lot to replace the roof and you will also have to cover the cost of dealing with damp, so make sure that you check the condition of the roof before you buy.
You need to make sure that you check these things before you buy an older property, so you don’t end up buying a money pit!
For more on this topic, check out the full Moving Tips collection
When your own little family starts to grow, it’s clear that a lot of your time is spent caring for them. But as your own parents get older, you might find that you have to offer them support too. Helping your elderly parents means looking for reliable Senior Care. A way of ensuring that they not only have companionship but also help when they need it with washing, running errands, medication, etc. it’s vital to know where to look for such services. Even though you might be tempted to ask them to move into your family home, sometimes this simply isn’t possible.
Luckily, there are many reputable providers around the country that offer these types of services, meaning that you can select which one is most suitable. However, before doing this, it’s important that you identify the pros and cons of this decision, along with any alternatives.
To ensure you’re on the right path, here are some pros and cons to in-home care services so you’re always in the know…
For more on this topic, check out the full Senior Care collection
As aforementioned, a big reason why so many people opt for in-home care services is the flexibility in the services that they have to offer. Available on demand, they can select what services they need – no matter what condition their health is in.
By staying in their own home rather than moving into a facility, they will be able to continue to enjoy their home comforts. This also includes being able to keep their pets by their side throughout the process.
As they can remain within their community, they can continue to have family or friends to visit whenever they like. This advantage is welcomed by anyone who wants to stay connected with their community and remain in the house that they’ve lived in for many happy years.
As in-home care senior care services are registered with national regulators, you can have the peace of mind that your loved one is in safe hands. Receiving high-quality care at all times, they can have the attention they require.
Receiving personalized care within their home (sometimes 24/7) can be expensive. Not only will they have to pay for the service, but updating their home so that it’s more practical for them. This could involve fitting a stairlift, making the bath more accessible, etc.
Although they will be receiving personalized care, often when you opt for in-home care services through an agency your parent will have different members of staff caring for them. Because of this, your parent might find it harder to connect with each carer, resulting in them having resentment towards them.
As aforementioned, often the alternative to in-home care is residential care. With this option, there are many benefits. These benefits include ensuring that your parent is having round the clock care within a safe environment. And they can also socialize with others within the home.
However, this comes with a price. Even though the cost will depend on location, the level of care required and the standard of the home itself, the overall expense isn’t something that should be ignored. It’s therefore important to weigh up the costs, along with the other factors mentioned above before taking the leap and making the decision as to what option is better.
When doing this, of course, it’s important to talk to your parent and ask them how they feel about the decision, along with which one suits them better. You obviously don’t want to force them into either if they aren’t happy with it. So sit down and discuss it with them first.
For more on this topic, check out the full Senior Care collection
When you’re not in one place for long, it can be tricky to maintain a revenue stream. However, the internet has revolutionized how we work. With the latest tech, you can make money from any location, and even turn a profit when you’re constantly on the go. If you want to keep your income flowing regardless of your location, take a look at these innovative ways to make money on the go.
For more on this topic, check out the full Saving Money collection
A popular blog is a great way to make a passive income. While it does take time and strategy to build up your audience, it does allow you the freedom and control to create your vision. As you build up your followers, you can increase the value of your work. Whether you offer paid placements or ad space, brands will always be happy to pay if you’re able to increase their reach within a specific demographic.
This can be easier said then done, but it is not impossible! If you have some tech knowledge, you could teach yourself what you need to know and create an app. Of course, you don’t have to do the backend development yourself if you’re not confident in your skills. There are many companies out there that offer app creation services, so you can turn your ideas into secure and functional apps within a short time-frame.
Apps can also be a great way to make money on the go because they offer a range of revenue streams. You may want to charge people to download and use your app, for example. Or you can offer your app for free, but incorporate in-app purchases to keep revenue flowing in.
When users turn off two-factor authentication with these easy steps, https://setapp.com/how-to/turn-off-two-factor-authentication-for-apple-id, they can make seamless transactions without it having a negative impact on their experience. Finally, you could make money by featuring ad content on your app. This will generate more revenue and may even encourage users to pay for a premium, ad-free version of your app, which means you can really capitalize on your content.
Brands are always looking for people to take part in market research activities, so register with reputable sites and start earning today. You can test new products in return for giving companies your honest feedback, which means you can cut the cost of your outgoings and enjoy free swag instead.
Furthermore, many companies pay market research participants for their time. With online databases, video conferencing, and collaboration tools, a significant number of agencies are now collecting data online, rather than face-to-face. This means it’s the perfect way to make money while you’re on the go. With no restrictions or obligations, you can simply choose when you want to work and how much you want to make.
When you’re traveling and you want to make money, generating passive income will keep the cash coming in around the clock. It can take time to build up a passive revenue stream, but it’s always worthwhile. When you’re able to turn a profit while you’re sleeping, your potential for making money on the go really is limitless!
To go along with these suggestions, it is always important to look for new ways to save money at home and stretch your dollar. This will then allow you to reallocate your funds and budget to whatever new projects you would like to invest in. Good luck on your new creative endeavors!
For more on this topic, check out the full Saving Money collection
Sometimes it seems like babies and young children grow up in the blink of an eye. They leave behind one skill and gain another as fast as you can get out your camera. While they are growing, their sleep needs change too. Your three naps-per-day infant grows quickly into a one-nap toddler, and gradually shifts towards getting all of their sleep overnight. It can be hard to keep up with their sleep schedules when they are always changing, so we have put together a handy list of sample schedules for each age group. These are the same schedules you can find in your pediatrician’s office, courtesy of The Sleep Lady. Scroll down for sample sleep schedule broken down by age.
AAP and NSF recently came out with new sleep average recommendations, however they group night and day sleep together. As a result we have separated naps and night sleep, and shared the averages in these articles. Please know that there is always at least one hour wiggle room on these averages. Watch your clock AND your child to determine where you child falls within the average.
This article is written by Kim West, The Sleep Lady
For more on this topic, check out the full Sleep collection
At around 6 months, babies need an average of eleven hours of uninterrupted nighttime sleep, and three and a half hours of daytime naps spread over two to three naps. From six through eight months, babies become more mobile. They roll over, sit up, maybe even stand holding on to something. Many scoot or crawl, and the first teeth come in. Most babies sleep through the night fairly regularly, but if yours doesn’t, it is still quite easy to get them on a good 6 month sleep schedule.
For more on this topic, check out the full Sleep collection
Nine to twelve-month-old babies are reaching developmental milestones at an amazing rate. These babies are more mobile, crawling and pulling themselves up in their cribs, and can pop up each time you put them down at bedtime. Some walk by their first birthday—a major developmental milestone that can temporarily disrupt sleep. Increased activity can tire them out, so you have to pay very close attention to their sleep window, when they are most ready and able to fall asleep. Some can even fight sleep, and hide their sleep cues making it easy to miss that ideal sleep window.
At this age toddlers need an average of eleven and a quarter hours of uninterrupted sleep at night and two and a quarter to two and a half hours during the day. Children at the younger end of this age bracket take two naps, in the morning and afternoon, but by eighteen months most consolidate to one midday or afternoon nap. The thirteen to eighteen month old schedule has to work in that nap transition while also considering the complicated development that can cause sleep problems.
How much sleep do toddlers need? That is a question that has many answers, and it depends on the age of the toddler. An eighteen month old on average sleeps eleven and a quarter hours at night and two and a quarter hours during one midday or afternoon nap. At age two, sleep requirements drop to eleven hours at night and two during the day. Over the next year that will drop to ten and a half hours at night and one and a half during the day.
Between ages two and three, average sleep needs drop to about ten and a half hours a night, plus an hour-and-a-half afternoon nap. Four year olds need eleven and a half hours at night, and most no longer nap daily, although they do need about forty-five minutes of quiet time each afternoon and possibly an occasional nap. Five-year-olds sleep about eleven hours a night, and afternoon quiet time is still beneficial.
For more on this topic, check out the full Sleep collection
Featured Contributor: Kim West, LCSW-C The Sleep Lady
Kim is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker who has been a practicing child and family therapist for more than 24 years. She is now the world’s foremost expert on child behavioral sleep and on a mission to help 1,000,000 families find sleep by 2020. With trained Gentle Sleep Coaches® (19 countries worldwide), free articles and guides, e-courses, and the bestselling book Good Night, Sleep Tight — tens of thousands of families from all over the world have found sleep again with The Sleep Lady’s gentle, proven sleep methods.
Just a caveat before we start: If you started sleep training at 4 months and it worked well without a lot of stress, this article isn’t for you. For some families, with predictable, mellow babies or family needs that require big chunks of sleep right now, sleep coaching at 4-months may be a good option.
However, some parents may feel pressured by sleep advice books who say to start sleep training at 4 months, or even now [1] (some say even earlier [2]) or experts who warn that if you don’t do it now, it will be much harder — maybe even impossible — later[3]. Other parents may have tried to follow the advice from books and found that there was a lot more crying and not much progress on lengthening sleep.
This article is written by Macall Gordon for The Sleep Lady
For more on this topic, check out the full Sleep collection
There are reasons why sleep training at 4 months can be difficult. Or, in some cases, unwise at this age. Further, the push to start sleep training early is actually not borne out by existing research on sleep. While it’s true that if you do nothing at all, research shows that sleep problems will persist [4], there is no research that clearly demonstrates the need to start this early or whether it’s problematic to wait until 6-months.
The biggest culprit is The 4-Month Regression — a massive jump in both physical growth and brain development that can result in feeding disruptions or bursts, more fussy behavior, and more disrupted sleep. In fact, sleep will be a little more disrupted around all of the big developmental milestones that happen into the second year. For many babies, sleep isn’t always something that stays fixed. It can be full of ups and downs as little ones mature across those first two years.
[Read: Baby’s 1st Milestones]
Feeding at this age can also still be quite unpredictable and varies a lot between individual babies. Frequent feeding at this age can be normal, or a sign of an underlying physiological issue like silent reflux or an organic feeding difficulty [5]. Further, babies’ tummies at this age are small. There are limits to how long they can go without a feed. There are limits for moms, too. In fact, some research showed that feed spacing was related to a higher rate of lactation problems and stopping breastfeeding [6]. At this age, milk is a potent sleep-inducer. Attempting to lengthen the feeding interval past what the baby can tolerate can result in a lot more crying. Ruling out feeding or reflux issues with a healthcare provider or lactation consultant can give parents good guidelines for how to manage bedtime and nighttime feeds and awakenings.
[Read: Fed is Best]
Parents we see often say, “My baby doesn’t have reflux because they’re not spitting up.” If your baby cries a lot, doesn’t tolerate lying on their back, arches during feeding, or doesn’t seem to sleep well anywhere, you may want to investigate whether your baby has reflux that doesn’t result in spitting up. A baby in pain will not be able to sleep well and may need a lot of parental help with soothing if they’re not feeling well.
[Read: Answers for All of Your Common Newborn Concerns]
Parents are frequently told that if you leave the baby to cry, they will learn to stop signaling for help and will instead, self-soothe and return to sleep. “Self-soothing” is not a skill that infants are simply born with. Their ability to calm themselves down when they are distressed develops gradually over the first two or three years.
Between 4- and 6-months, the brain undergoes a massive burst of synapse growth as important skills and abilities are established [7]. Self-soothing is not merely a matter of stopping crying and going to sleep, but involves a complex system of skills including reorienting, distraction, soothing, and finally, sleep, and requires help from specific parts of the brain that may not be “online” at this stage.
Four-month-olds only have a few tools in their “self-soothing” toolbox. These very basic abilities help them tolerate only very small amounts of distress before they need help calming down [8]. At this stage, they may be able to turn their head to view their hands or turn away from what’s bothering them, but they don’t have the skills — or the brain structures — necessary to calm down from more intense distress. This may be why you find that trying to do sleep training at 4-months results in more crying and less sleep training success.
The skills that babies need to manage sleep and crying are more firmly in place after the 6-month mark and they will continue to expand across the first few years.
There is no research that clearly demonstrates the need to start sleep training early, or whether it’s problematic to wait until 6-months.
There is virtually no research on sleep training that involves crying at 4-months. The vast majority of research on infant sleep training has been focused on toddlers and preschoolers [9]. Even staunch cry-it-out researchers do not study infants under 6-months [10].
Existing research on behavioral approaches to improve sleep in younger infants, typically focuses on prevention of sleep problems which may include helping parents understand cues and appropriate sleep hygiene, and only very limited practice slowing down their response to bedtime or nighttime fussing — as little as 1-2 minutes [11]. To date, only one study has used very limited crying with a group of 4-month-olds [12]. In this study, infants still woke during the night at the end of the intervention.
[Read: Promoting Healthy Sleep]
Jumping to sleep training without looking at development, feeding, temperament, etc. may set parents up for negative experiences. Toughing it out with a lot of crying when the baby may be developmentally unready or has a feeding issue can result in a lot of parental guilt and anxiety [13]. Parents may wonder why the approach isn’t working like the book said it would. It doesn’t help that a lot of advice can make it sound like continued night-waking is parents’ fault. Parents may end up feeling that the intervention isn’t working because they aren’t doing it right. Instead, it may just be too soon to begin. It’s okay to stop and try again after 6-months.
There are many gradual ways to work on sleep. It’s important to choose something that’s developmentally appropriate and works with your own values and goals.
The parenting road is long. There is no scientific reason to rush to start sleep training. Research suggests there are lots of good reasons to wait until they’re closer to six-months.
[Read: How to Get Through Your First Year of Motherhood]
Try to nurse/feed in a quiet, darkened room so that your baby can focus on feeding, and not all the interesting things that he/she can now see so much more clearly because of development in the visual portion of the brain. A check-in with a lactation consultant if your baby is very fussy can be a good idea to help with any underlying feeding issues.
Babies under 6-months can only stay awake about 90-minutes at a time. Good daytime naps will help encourage good nighttime sleep. Holding or feeding to sleep or using motion (swing, carrier, etc.) is okay for now. It won’t be a lasting “bad habit.” You can fade out of all of these ways to get your baby to sleep and transition to a firm surface once your baby has passed through the 4-month sleep regression and is closer to 6-months.
You can practice putting your baby down to sleep before they’re totally out and see if you can soothe them the rest of the way. If it doesn’t work well, don’t worry about it and just try again another time. Just practicing this skill will help once you start coaching in earnest.
Try a gradual approach and carefully monitor how much and how intensely your baby cries. There are gradual options for this age. Consider contacting a Gentle Sleep Coach to give you support and help problem-solve your options.
Once your baby is older than 6-months and if they’re still waking more than you’d like, you can make changes knowing that your little one is more ready and able to learn to manage their sleep.
For more on this topic, check out the full Sleep collection
Macall Gordon has a B.S. in Human Biology from Stanford University and a Master’s degree in Applied Psychology from Antioch University Seattle. Her graduate training included infant observation, attachment, emotional regulation, child development, and family systems. She has also conducted and presented research examining the research underpinning existing infant sleep interventions at child development and infant mental health conferences around the world. Her other research has examined current sleep advice and its impact on parenting experiences with managing their baby’s sleep. Macall is an Adjunct Faculty at Antioch University, Seattle, teaching research in the graduate program in Applied Psychology, Counseling & Family Therapy. She is also a WA State Certified Counselor (#CL60604117) approved by Washington State to work with parents and families.
Featured Contributor: Kim West, LCSW-C The Sleep Lady
Kim is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker who has been a practicing child and family therapist for more than 24 years. She is now the world’s foremost expert on child behavioral sleep and on a mission to help 1,000,000 families find sleep by 2020. With trained Gentle Sleep Coaches® (19 countries worldwide), free articles and guides, e-courses, and the bestselling book Good Night, Sleep Tight — tens of thousands of families from all over the world have found sleep again with The Sleep Lady’s gentle, proven sleep methods.
When you prepare for your baby, you make sure everything is in order, right down to your baby’s sleeping arrangements. You make sure that all the feeding supplies are sanitized and ready for use. That the dog is groomed and ready to meet his new sibling. You even make sure that you have washed her clothes, set up the changing table, and that you packed your hospital bag. (Take advantage of this free hospital bag checklist.) But what can you expect the newborn sleep schedule to actually be like?
As new (or new again) parents, we try to prepare for everything. But what we really and truly cannot prepare for, is the utter exhaustion of having a baby who is up all night!…
The cities in which we live in have a huge impact on our health and our ability to lead a healthy life. Sure, we’re all responsible for our own lifestyles and approaches to taking care of ourselves to a certain extent. But the way cities are designed and planned also have an impact on how easy it is for us to do certain things like being active and looking after ourselves. Here are some examples of how cities can make healthy living easier for us all.
For more on this topic, check out the full Staying Healthy collection
Having places where you can go to exercise is vital. That’s even more important if you don’t have a private garden of your own. In order to get your approach to healthy living right, you need to have a place where you can exercise, whether that’s running, doing yoga, or simply walking. Green spaces in cities make that possible, and make healthy living easier.
Green spaces also tend to include plenty of trees. And this is obviously important from an air quality point of view. Trees help to purify the air and soak up CO2, which you don’t want in the air you’re breathing. That’s why cities that have more trees planted, are also healthier cities for people to live in. It really is as simple as that.
Another thing that will improve air quality and reduce pollution and CO2 levels are policies that limit or reduce car traffic. Cities that are dominated by cars are not only bad from an air quality point of view either. They’re also more dangerous for people walking and cycling in the city as well. The fact of the matter is that cities with fewer cars are healthier and safer for residents.
That takes us to our next point about pedestrian facilities. There are many pedestrian injury-related legal cases each year and these usually involve cars. When pedestrians don’t have adequate safe streets that are protected from car traffic, people get hurt. But more and more cities are now taking streets back from cars and pedestrianizing them for the good of residents. It’s a move that makes a real difference and enables people to work more than they otherwise would.
As well as walking more, cycling more also helps us to stay healthier. When we have the option to safely cycle on bike lanes that are segregated from road traffic, it gives us another option. It means we’re able to get around in an active way, which is great for our health. And it’s also a very clean and green way of getting around, which can’t be a bad thing.
The kinds of policies we’ve discussed here today all make make healthy living easier within a city. Maybe next time you’re thinking of relocating, you should take these things into account when choosing a place to live. After all, we all want to live somewhere that enables us to be the healthiest version of ourselves.
For more on this topic, check out the full Staying Healthy collection
For many families, bedtime is a stressful time of day when it really should be about togetherness and relaxation! Instead of letting the frustration continue, it is great to create a simple bedtime routine chart by stepping back and figure out a plan to improve this process. The steps below will allow you to brainstorm a simple bedtime routine that will work great for your family and allow everyone to enjoy the end of the day (instead of dreading it).
Keep in mind that this is your chance to start from scratch and create the perfect bedtime routine. If what you’re doing isn’t working very well, then scrap it and start fresh! Keep it simple and lay out the few steps that will help your children wind down from a busy day and calmly drift off to sleep.
When you go about creating a simple bedtime routine chart, you will want to consider a few important things… keep reading below!
For more on this topic, check out the full Sleep collection
If the bedtime routine is too long or too involved, then it will be very hard to stay consistent. Start by figuring out the bare minimum for the evening – what are those non-negotiables? Going to the bathroom and brushing their teeth?
Sometimes we need that reminder of what needs to happen on the most basic level, and then we can build from there. As you add to your nightly routine, try to keep it to a checklist of just a few items. You can always add in extra things if you have time for it on any given night, but the goal is to have a basic routine that you (and your kids) have turned into such a habit that you don’t even have to think about it anymore.
Your children’s ages and capabilities are a big factor in planning out your bedtime routine. What steps can they manage on their own, and what will they need help with? Would a visual chart help them go through steps on their own? Can they brush their teeth all at the same time, or does that distract them or cause bickering? Do they always need a snack and/or water before bed?
The secret to smooth bedtimes is getting the timing right, which is definitely easier said than done. Take a minute to crunch the numbers and figure out an optimal bedtime for your kiddos by considering the following info:
Once you have all of that info, you’ll be able to be realistic about your time so that the evenings don’t feel so rushed and frustrating. The goal is also to have your kids wake up refreshed and happy after getting a good night’s sleep so hopefully a good nighttime routine will also lead to better mornings!
And when it comes down to it, what will you actually end up doing? You could create a perfect-sounding plan, but if no one is able to follow through with it, it won’t work. You want this bedtime routine to simply become habit for the whole family so be realistic about your expectations and then encourage consistency!
Once you come up with a good, simple bedtime routine then you can turn it into something visual! You can get as creative as you want, or you can keep it really simple.
Kids tend to do much better with following directions when they have something visual to go off of, and it might surprise you just how much responsibility they take when given the opportunity. Be sure to consider your kids’ ages/abilities when creating the visual checklist: Use visual icons on your bedtime routine chart for little ones to be able to follow along, use small words for beginner readers, or simply write it all out for more advanced readers.
Hopefully all of these ideas help to spark inspiration for you and your family, but if you still feel a little stuck here is a sample bedtime routine checklist that you are welcome to use!
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You have followed all the steps, and maybe done the Shuffle for a week here and there. You have a baby who sleeps well. Then it happens. The dreaded baby sleep regression. Common at many ages and for many reasons, baby sleep regression is the single most popular baby sleep topic at Sleeplady.com. We have put together a handy list of articles with great advice. If you’re struggling with a sudden setback, scroll through for an article that is age-appropriate now. If things are going well, bookmark this page for later — there’s bound to be a moment in the future where you need a little extra help getting back your restful nights.
This article is written by Kim West
For more on this topic, check out the full Sleep collection
We’ve all been there. Baby has been peacefully sleeping through the night, and, consequently, so is everyone else. Hooray! And then, out of the blue, your sweet baby is up at all hours, wanting to be soothed, fed, and crying. What happened? Many refer to these short episodes as a Baby Sleep Regression. Leading expert Dr. T. Berry Brazleton provides the explanation that these night wakings are the result of normal childhood development.
If you’re asking yourself this question, chances are that you’ve been short on sleep, and so has your very cranky, sleep-fighting baby. Baby sleep regressions are difficult for all of us, but thankfully most children (not all, but most) don’t experience every sleep regression. If they did, no one would sleep during the first two years!
You’ve got the schedule down. Baby is FINALLY sleeping more… and then, WHAM! Suddenly she’s not. Welcome to what is commonly referred to as the 4 month sleep regression. Some may refer to this phase as increased wakefulness, but it all amounts to the same thing — you and baby have newly found your groove, and now baby just isn’t acting like herself.
I’m not going to claim that all babies experience a sleep regression (or two), but most do. And if there is one sleep regression period that seems to be abundantly common, it’s when babies learn to crawl and/or pull themselves to a standing position. This is a huge step in their gross motor development, and opens an entirely unexplored world. Of course they don’t want to sleep, and therefore, parents experience some very common baby sleep problems.
You were sleeping peacefully…and then you hear your toddler. He’s not just rustling around resettling. He’s screaming mad. Literally. As you drag yourself out of bed, you wonder to yourself what’s wrong? What could be causing your toddler sleep problems? Could this be two-year molars? An ear infection? Is he gassy from eating too much broccoli at dinner? Is his newfound walking (or running!) causing this?
The answer: It could truly be any of the above. But it could also be yet another sleep regression.
Many parents breathe a sigh of relief once their child hits the toddler years. But then you’re dealing with molars, budding independence, and (for some) potty training. Logically, we think that development keeps moving forward, but when it comes to two-year-olds, you’ll notice that there’s a bit of backsliding as they learn new skills and grow up a bit, which includes the potential for another sleep regression.
Whether you have an infant who has suddenly gone back to waking every two hours, or a toddler who is frequently up at night, sleep is on the horizon. Once you hit the six-month mark, consistent gentle coaching can help you get on a schedule that works for the whole family.
If you have already mastered The Shuffle, you can return to a shortened version to get back on track. If you haven’t done any sleep coaching, and would now like to address your child’s sleep, consider using The Shuffle after the regression. You can find help at The Sleep Lady through books, our courses, or a Certified Gentle Sleep coach online or near you..
For more on this topic, check out the full Sleep collection
Featured Contributor: Kim West, LCSW-C The Sleep Lady
Kim is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker who has been a practicing child and family therapist for more than 24 years. She is now the world’s foremost expert on child behavioral sleep and on a mission to help 1,000,000 families find sleep by 2020. With trained Gentle Sleep Coaches® (19 countries worldwide), free articles and guides, e-courses, and the bestselling book Good Night, Sleep Tight — tens of thousands of families from all over the world have found sleep again with The Sleep Lady’s gentle, proven sleep methods.
