No Rest for My Daycare Kid…A Mother’s (and Sleep Consultant’s) Rant

There are parents who are passionate about lots of things. I run into parents who are really sticklers about no television for their kids. Others who are passionate about breast feeding and many who care deeply about foods/pesticides/organic/non GMOs for their children. All of these parents are crusaders – mothers and fathers who are fighting for what they believe is best for their children and other children as well.  And I respect them greatly even if our opinions differ. Well – my “issue” is sleep.  (No surprise, as I am a sleep consultant.) And I feel very passionately about it – so passionate that I feel angry.
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6 Travel Hacks for Sound Sleep with Kids

We all want a change of scenery now and then, especially during the summer months. But if you have a baby or young child, you may wonder if that beachfront vacation is going to be worth it when your kid can’t sleep!

Changes to routine and environment can derail even the best sleepers. Here are a few of our favorite hacks for keeping your kids sleeping well when you travel. Continue reading…

Understanding Common Sleep Training Methods

Your baby isn’t born knowing how to sleep through the night. Sleeping through the night is an acquired skill, one we need to teach our children, once they are old enough (4-6 months or more). What exactly is sleep teaching? Our recent blog outlines the basics. The most important factor in sleep teaching is consistency. There are many methods you could use, but the key is to find the one that you can use consistently. Continue reading…

Kindergarten Sleepover

My daughter’s school has a cute tradition. At the end of the school year, all the kindergarteners have a sleepover at the school with just the teachers (no parents!). This is the first time for many of them to be sleeping away from their own beds and their parents. Our teachers are very brave (or very crazy!).

The kids really look forward to it all year. But as a parent, I was a little worried. Some parents worried about leaving their kids for the first time, or getting the dreaded midnight call to come pick up their home-sick child, but I was worried about my daughter not getting enough sleep. Would she stay up all night chitchatting with friends? Would the environment be too stimulating for sleep? Would being out of her routine mess everything up? Continue reading…

Stop Watching Your Video Monitor Like It’s Your Favorite TV show!

One of our first blog posts was one Melissa wrote about turning off your monitor.  It was a helpful article about the importance of allowing you, as parents, to get a sound night’s sleep without being disrupted by the small and frequent noises our babies make when they shift between sleep cycles! I remember when our youngest (now 8-months-old) was about 4 months – I had moved her into her own room and was still using the baby monitor. I was being woken up frequently throughout the night – not only when she needed to be fed and cried but also when she was “fussing.” I was not getting any uninterrupted sleep and doctors say that undisrupted sleep is just as important, if not more so, then length of sleep. So, although my daughter was sleeping for a total of around 13 hours, I was really only getting about three hours at a time and I was exhausted. Continue reading…

What is Sleep Training?

When I mention sleep training to parents, their first reaction is typically to cringe. We’ve all heard the stories: days of enduring hours-upon-hours of screaming followed by perfect sleep, or the ones about the parents who still haven’t gotten a decent night’s sleep after more than a year, and even the tales of those seemingly mythical children who have no sleep troubles at all and just start sleeping through the night without fuss at a few months old. “What will our fate be?” new parents wonder. “And if we aren’t the lucky parents of a ‘unicorn’ and have to actively do something about sleep, how awful will it be?  Should we even bother or can we adjust to life without sleep?” Continue reading…

Merlin Really is Magic

I know I’ve said it before, but I am so amazed by how much has changed in the 5 years since my first daughter was born. I’ve already written about a number of new products that I love and I’m thrilled to write about yet another amazing discovery. In a recent blog, I wrote about the challenges of transitioning out of a swaddle blanket. Our babies really slept noticeably better when they are swaddled, so the thought of having them OUT of the swaddle and just in a sleep sack made me extremely nervous. It seemed cruel to have my daughters go straight from feeling like they were back in the womb to the openness of the world! Continue reading…

Unwrapping the Challenges of the Swaddle

We believe strongly that babies sleep much better when they are swaddled. Melissa and I read the book by Dr. Karp called Happiest Baby on the Block (and watched the amazing DVD) and found that Dr. Karp’s advice for soothing newborns was very helpful and holds true for all the babies with whom we have worked.

Babies feel calmer when they are in an environment that mimics the womb – dark, cool, noisy, and confined!  Babies have a very strong startle reflex (the Morrow Reflex) and when they are swaddled, this reflex is dampened. When they are not, they wake frequently and are, well, startled! We believe that these wakings are unnecessary. Swaddling is the solution. Continue reading…

You Have the Baby…Now, Where’s the Intimacy?

For nine months you and your partner have been focused on one thing…the pending arrival of your future child. Whether one of you is carrying the child or not, there is nothing that can compare to the all-encompassing stress and excitement of that wait. Will the baby be healthy? Will she have everything she needs when we bring her home? Did we get the right kind of stroller? (And will we be able to open and close it when we’ve got a screaming baby in our arms?) And then she arrives, and she’s healthy and beautiful and the stroller works fine and you and your partner feel like your world is complete. And then… Continue reading…

Even Big Kids Need Healthy Sleep

My daughter, Zoe, is in kindergarten – such a big girl now! Recently, her teacher pulled me aside and said that a significant number of kids come to school tired. By the time our kids are school-age, I thought we’d be through with sleep troubles. Haven’t we been practicing and teaching good sleep hygiene all this time? Shouldn’t our kindergarteners be able to tell us when they are tired and need more sleep? No! They don’t. Whether it’s more time on the playground, or a dinner with the family, or the rest of that movie with their older siblings, they don’t want to miss anything. So it’s our job as parents to make sure they are getting enough sleep. The kindergarten teachers at Zoe’s school asked me to share a few sleep tips for kids this age, so here they are! Continue reading…