The principles found in Preparation for Parenting and On Becoming Babywise have been educating parents for two decades on the importance of nighttime sleep and how to obtain it with infants. A TIME.com article highlights researchers from Harvard and other institutions who have recently published articles in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine addressing the importance of nighttime sleep in children.

The researchers quoted in this article recommend allowing a child to “cry it out” and suggest that parents avoid co-sleeping from the start. The over all focus of this article speaks more to the longer term affects of nighttime sleep. The Time article highlights some problems in older children associated with inadequate nighttime sleep like night terrors, anxiety, depression, and obesity. In response to some of these problems Dr. Elsie Taveras from Harvard says, “There’s room for prevention even in the first month of life.”

The overall theme of the research referenced in the TIME article should be very familiar for those who have read Preparation for Parenting and/or Babywise. In my first reading of Preparation for Parenting I breezed right past the Healthy Sleep Patterns section of chapter three. It was easy as a young parent to get caught up in the immediate benefits of healthy nighttime sleep experienced though PDF (Parent-directed Feeding). Right under my nose was research referenced by Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo in Preparation for Parenting linking poor nighttime sleep with emotional, behavioral and learning problems. It is comforting to know that there are longer term benefits to the sleep skills that we have taught our children at a young age.

Near the conclusion of the TIME article you’ll find the following quote:

“The most important message is that there’s a lot we can do to prevent problems from starting — in sleep,” says Taveras. “Parents and pediatricians should keep in mind that children have to develop the capacity to regulate their own sleep early in life and self-soothe themselves during the night.”

This quote should offer some encouragement if you are still “working on” those healthy sleep habits with your little one.

Anne Marie Ezzo forwarded an email to Hank and me back in November with an opening sentence that read, “Of all people who can relate to what the Daily’s are going through, thought about the two of you.” Gary and Anne Marie had been praying for us and with us regarding our son Caden who had faced medical battles for over three years at that point. The email that Anne Marie sent was an update sent to some of the Growing Kids community concerning the status of little Titus Daily. Becky had given birth to Titus only a couple of weeks earlier. Titus was the fifth boy to join the Daily family. Titus was in the NICU at Medical City in Dallas and facing some very challenging medical issues. While there have been some similarities in what our families have experienced from a medical perspective, Paul’s email updates have provided some great spiritual insights and encouragement that can be applied to just about any family.

The Daily family has graciously allowed us to share their insights and lessons learned through the many medical issues they have faced with Titus over the past five months. We believe that these wonderful insights will bless you as you strive to raise your children to glorify God.

“It is wonderful having Titus home from the hospital, but also tiring. In the course of the day, Titus is fed every 3 hours (10-30 minutes), he has a nebulizer treatment 4 times today (15 minutes) followed by CPT (15 minutes - continuous percussive therapy - where we pound his back with this suction cup thing), another breathing treatment twice a day, eye drops 4 times a day, cleaning his jaw pins/g-tube 4 times a day, and general therapy on motion/movement throughout the day. We have reduced his feedings at night from 2 feedings to one - which is a huge blessing to only have one of us get up once a night. Becky slept all night last night for the first time in weeks. Titus is still on oxygen (at very low settings). We are becoming quite adept at carrying him around the house with this oxygen hose trailing behind and taking him to the doctor/church with portable tanks. Since Titus is on oxygen, he is also on a pulseoximeter - which monitors his heart rate and oxygen saturation levels. But, if Titus is kicking his foot (where the monitor is attached) or squirming, the meter doesn’t read, and the alarms go off. Imagine this happening about 20-30 times a day - generally at night! The doctor also suspects that Titus may have allergies which is causing the excess congestion. We have a suction machine to help with that several times a day if we feel it is affecting his breathing. On top of the daily routine, Titus generally has 2-3 doctor’s appointments during the week, which also means the schedule needs to be adjusted to fit within the time frame and drive to the doctor.

And, along the way, there are 2 other boys that need to be home schooled and two 3-year olds that need structure and routine (and long naps in the afternoon). The reality of the routine can be overwhelming - and on certain days it is. The regimen that we follow cannot be deviated from and it’s become an incredible lesson in discipline and obedience. Becky and I were discussing that it’s easy to follow a routine if you know where it’s headed, but it’s difficult to consistently day-after-day follow the same routine and not know what the end result will be or see immediate results.

As I was contemplating our routine, I thought about Noah. It took Noah 120 years to build the ark - and he had no idea what the end result was really going to be. And yet, the Bible does not tell us much about that 120 year span. But for 120 years, Noah cut down trees, made lumber, prepared a foundation, built a boat, created barrels and barrels of pitch to coat the ark with . . . He did all the tiny tasks - day in and day out - to complete the plan exactly as God told him too. Along the way, he had 3 sons, raised those boys, watched them get married, maintained his marriage and livelihood and relationship with God, and still built the ark. I wonder - did Noah get tired of cutting down trees and picking out the splinters from his hands? Did he ever question why he was doing it? Did he ever get rid of the smell of pitch/tar? Did he ever take a day off? Did he ever question God’s plan? It will be interesting, one day in Heaven, to sit down with Noah and ask him those questions. But what I do know is what the Bible tells me “Noah did everything just as God commanded him.” Noah must have been faithful with all the little tasks given him to be provided with such a large task. So, we carry on with the little tasks. They may be tiring and we may not know the results for weeks/months or even years to come, but I am reminded - Noah never stopped building that ark until it was complete.”

Paul & Becky Daily
Aidan, Noah, Tucker, Cade, & Titus

My husband and I really enjoy playing games of strategy. One of our favorites is Settlers of Catan, with the expansions. The board is set up randomly each time so each time you play, it is a different game involving different strategies. You build settlements, cities, and roads among other things to earn points. One night after we finished playing the game with some friends, my husband made an interesting observation. He said when you first start the game, you look at the board and come up with a game plan. You decide where you want to build and which commodities you are going to strive to acquire. As the game progresses, however, other people usually do things like build in your path that interfere with your original plan. If you remain stubborn and stick to your original plan, you are sure to lose. In converse, if you change your strategy to accommodate the new game conditions, you have a good chance of winning the game.

Last week, I was reflecting on my 11 month old daughter’s current schedule. It has changed a bit in the last few weeks (as it often does throughout the first year). I was thinking about her current evening eating schedule and realized I needed to change my strategy with her.

My daughter has always been a big sleeper. She held on to her third nap for a long time. For her, this nap hasn’t even been the short 45-60 minute nap many babies have. It has been a full 1.5 hour nap, only ending because I woke her up. Nothing to complain about. When she was about 9 months old, I decided to start to work with her on dropping the nap. With my daughter, she does better with a “weaning” from naps than a “dropping” of naps. I first gradually shortened the naps down to the 45-60 minutes. My daughter also doesn’t display sleep cues; I have always had to just put her down when it is time to sleep without help from cues. I started keeping her up rather than putting her down unless she was fussy. For her, fussiness is a late sleep cue (for my son, fussiness was his nap cue, for my daughter, it means she is very overly tired). The days she got fussy, the nap was then knocked down to 30 minutes. She slowly started eliminating the evening nap. Some days she needed it, some days she didn’t. At first, days she didn’t nap, we needed to put her down for the night a little earlier than normal. To make a long story a little shorter, she didn’t fully drop the nap until she was 11 months old.

Shortly after the nap was dropped, she got very sick (as did my son and I). We all lost a lot of weight. My daughter has always been a smaller girl. A small girl got even smaller—down to 18.1 pounds as an 11 month old. Once she finally got better and got her appetite back, it came back with a vengeance as I hoped it would. She pretty much ate for a couple of hours straight in the evening (eating finger foods while I cooked dinner, eating finger foods and sharing with me while we ate dinner, then nursing and eating her dinner). This went on for a couple of weeks. I am happy to say she gained her weight back and then some.

She is currently back to a normal appetite and normal meal schedule. My realization about her schedule has come in the form of her eating schedule in the evening. When she was taking the evening nap, her afternoon schedule looked like this:

3:30—nurse

3:45—independent play

4:30—eat finger foods while I made dinner

5:00—free play

5:30—nap

7:00—wake her up and nurse her followed by her dinner

I came to realize I was keeping that snack at the same time, then having her sit and eat dinner with the family at 5:30 instead of taking a nap. During her weight gain marathon, she needed to eat that often. However it hit me that she no longer needs that schedule. She now doesn’t eat finger foods while I make dinner. She waits for that until we are all eating dinner.

I tell you all of that to illustrate that you need to change your strategies with your children on a pretty regular basis. You start with a plan, but then life changes circumstances and your fellow family members might do things that block your path for accomplishing your goal in the way you originally planned.

This is really just another way to focus on why vs. how as discussed in the chapter titled “The Land of Good Reason” in On Becoming Toddlerwise and beyond (incidentally, I love this chapter and think it is very beneficial for parents with newborns on up to read it, understand it, and apply it). Your goals pretty much stay the same (though they are subject to evaluation and change as time goes by). To continue with my game analogy, your goal (the why) is to win the game. The most obvious way to win (the how) is to build settlements and cities, but there are other ways to win. Often times your path gets blocked by other players, making it much more difficult to build. Or perhaps you simply don’t have to resources to build what you need to. If you insist on winning by building settlements and cities, you are likely to lose. But if you change your strategy and build what you can and focus on other, less-obvious methods to win, you have greater chance of doing so.

Your goal is what is important, not your methods to do so. Yes, you keep your methods within the parameters of your moral goals (you want to win but you don’t want to cheat to do so). But there are a lot ways to accomplish the same goal. Don’t put your blinders on and stubbornly insist that your method is the best way to accomplish your goal. Focus on your goal and not your methods, and all of your parenting goals should be easier to accomplish. There are many different strategies available to reach your goals. Each situation is different. Each child is different. You need to be flexible and be ready to change your strategy as situations and people differ. It is impossible to take a “stock” method and apply it to every child.

As Anne Marie Ezzo once shared with me, “The other thing to keep in mind for all - is the proverbial ‘bell curve’ there will always be those on either end of that curve and of course it would be impossible to deal with all of that in one book and is why a blog site like yours is helpful.” Learn the principles and theories (the “why”) of the Babywise series so you can confidently decide what is best for your children. Don’t get caught up in the specific examples in the books. They are there to illustrate principles to you, not to cover every possible scenario that may arise in your child’s life. Understanding the theory will help you to focus on your ultimate goal rather than your methods to achieve that goal. Remember to periodically step back and evaluate your current schedule, goals, and methods of implementation. Make changes where necessary and move forward. Happy parenting!

http://babywisemom.blogspot.com/

Question:

My husband and I picked up a copy of Babywise when our son was 2 months old and he was soon sleeping all night long and napping great! Thank you so much. But now we’ve run into a little problem. He’ll be 7 months old in a week and for the last couple of weeks, he’s been waking up in the middle of the night again and his naps have been all over the place. What happened?!

Answer:

At 6 months things really start to change. For instance most 6 month olds are having longer wake times, the process of giving them solid food has begun, and as a result they are able to handle a greater time span between meals.

What you are experiencing is one of the most common issues that occur at this age. Baby will suddenly begin to wake in the middle of the night, and/or begin to wake early from one or both of the first two naps of the day. So how can you discern the cause?

If he had been sleeping and napping great up until now, then it’s unlikely this is a sleep training issue. Usually it would take some big disruption to his normal routine to cause him to backtrack on this skill he has learned so well, (like a trip away from home for a week or more or an extended illness) in that case it often only takes a few days of returning to your regular routine for them to once again sleep well at night and nap time.

So assuming there hasn’t been any big disruption the following can help discern possible causes:

1. Six months is the average age for babies to drop or reduce the 3^rd cat-nap. If he’s still taking a full 1 1/2 to 2 hour third nap, try waking him after 20-30 minutes into that naptime. If he’s already been taking a short 3rd nap, consider dropping that nap altogether and be ready to move bedtime up a bit. Expect that you may need to stick with this new routine for a few days before you see it helping his overall napping.

A more detailed explanation for dropping the cat nap can be found in Babywise II: Nap & Sleep time Activities; questions about pre-toddler sleep.

It’s also common for babies at this age to be less enthusiastic about eating when they first wake from their naps, especially if you’ve started solids, which is fine. It is around six months that the length of time between waking and eating increases. Often baby will be awake for 30 to 60 minutes before a mealtime, followed by additional wake time of another 30 to 60 minutes before going down for his nap. All this will occur over the next several months so that eventually the routine will be more 4 to 4 ½ hours apart. For those who are continuing on with breastfeeding, a 5th nursing sometime during the day or evening is usually needed to maintain a good milk supply.

2. The second half of babies first year also brings lots of exciting developments. He will begin learning to get himself into a sitting position, crawl, or pull-up; a whole new world has opened up to him. As a result he may be more interested in trying these new skills than he is in sleeping. Again, this is perfectly normal, and usually once the novelty wears off, he’ll be back to his old routine.

3. A third factor to consider is the fact that sometimes the only symptom you may see of an illness is a disruption from his normal routine, so be on the look out for other more subtle clues, like fever or a drop in appetite. I had one who behaved this way any time he had an ear infection. He never pulled on his ears or anything else. He’d just not nap as well and he’d become clingier during wake time. Teething can also disrupt a routine a bit. Look for swollen and/or tender gums. Baby may chew on his fist or toys more than usual. Some find that a topical jell provides temporary relief and is usually not enough to help with naps and night time sleep. Always check with your doctor for other, longer lasting, options. With teething a baby may have more drooling than usual. For those babies who tend to swallow their drool, it is possible to notice a greater incidence of diaper rash than usual. Another indicator is a possible drop in appetite, so again, watch carefully, as some of these symptoms are the same as other illnesses and it can be easy to miss something else. If ever in doubt, it’s worth a quick trip to the doctor to make sure all is well.

I always recommend to keep a log while you are problem solving, and even while you are simply starting something new. It is much easier to analyze the situation when you have the data to look at and compare.

When I say keep a log, I mean a detailed log. Details. I like to make a spreadsheet and print it out, but the same can be done just by writing it out on a piece of paper. Do what works for you.

So what kind of details are we talking about? Let’s say you are working on sleep training.

• I would start by writing down the time baby woke up and ate.
• I would keep track of playtime activities and total waketime length (including time it took to eat).
• I would track the sleep cues you went by. Was it yawning? Was it eye rubbing? Fussiness? This can help you see which cue to go by.
• I would then write down the time baby was put down for a nap. Perhaps include what the naptime routine was if it varies.
• Next, I would describe the crying before the nap. How long was it? How intense was it? Describe it honestly.
• You will then start over when baby next wakes up, and this time, write down how long the previous nap was.

After several days of this, you can look at a sheet of paper and analyze what is going on. Are there times of day baby seems to need to be put down sooner? Are there certain waketime activities that are over-stimulating the baby? What is working? What isn’t working?

This idea can be applied to any change or difficulty going on in baby’s life. Does your breastfed baby get really gassy sometimes? Keeping track of what you eat and when he has gas problems can help you pin down the problem foods for baby. Tracking the introduction of solids on paper can help you more easily watch for food allergies. It is good to keep a log for those early months when you are establishing routine and milk supply. How many wet and dirty diapers are normal (this is a question my pediatrician always asks me)? How many feedings a day? Some people can remember these things in their heads, others benefit from keeping track of things somewhere, somehow.

Don’t underestimate the benefit of the log while you are problem solving. I look at the situation in the light of a study. I need to collect my data and analyze it. I need to be able to see all of the details so I don’t miss something important. I need to think it through. As your baby gets older and you become more accustomed to problem solving (something you will do throughout your life as a parent-every age group has their things they do that require some thought and action by parents), you might not need to keep such details. There are sites online that help you track for a fee if you want/need the help.

One note, while I recommend this, I also caution to not let yourself get obsessed over it. Some people can drive themselves crazy with the log. Be as detailed as you can, but know yourself and your own limitations. We all want to be happy and calm! Happy problem solving!

My Blog: http://babywisemom.blogspot.com/