When I had my daughter last October, it was the first time I’d been around a baby in nearly two decades.

While I did a lot of research on pregnancy and childbirth my nine months of pregnancy, for some reason I was so caught up in the adventure of “having” a baby that I didn’t think about what it would be like to raise a baby. Just as I turned to pregnancy books before my little one was born, I turned to parenting books in the first few weeks after her birth.

Here is a short list of the titles I would recommend, buy for close friends and keep on my bookshelf for years to come.

1. What to Expect the First Year by Heidi Murkoff – Just like What to Expect When You’re Expecting, this conversational tome is comprehensive and well-organized. While the authors recommend and rely on pediatrician’s advice more often than my personal philosophies would prefer, the book literally covers every topic a new parent could need. I turn to the book each month to see how my daughter is doing regarding milestones, and frequently throughout the month for parenting tips and tricks. I plan to build the entire library of “What to Expect” titles in the coming years.
2. No-Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley– This practical book outlines a gentle, effective way to start your newborn on the path of sleeping through the night. Didn’t start early? The book also offers techniques to help infants over four months old to begin falling asleep on their own and sleeping through the night. Pantley is not against co-sleeping, but does offer tips for parents who want to break that cycle of having the baby in bed with them. The book also addresses the psychological factors behind night-time feedings, asking mothers to decide if they are ready, emotionally, for their baby to sleep through the night or if they’re still craving that late-night, quiet contact.

 

3. How to Raise a Healthy Child in Spite of your Doctor by Robert Mendelsohn – For those looking for an alternative medicine/natural health approach to child-rearing, this book provides practical advice and solutions. Mendelsohn asserts that there’s rarely a reason to involve your pediatrician and gives you the knowledge to diagnose and treat many common ailments. I’ll be referring to this book in many instances before I call my baby’s doctor.

 

4. Anything by Dr. Sears – The “Dr. Spock” of our generation, Dr. Sear’s volumes are comprehensive, informative and authoritative. He advocates attachment parenting, but also teaches balance in the family and a common sense approach to parenting. As the father of eight children, including noted author and pediatrician Dr. Robert Sears, his advice can be trusted.

 

5. The Nursery Collections – or any other comprehensive volume of children’s nursery rhymes and short stories. I know the first time I was faced with singing a classic like “The Wheels on the Bus” to my daughter, I completely blanked on the words. While my sister assured me the baby doesn’t care if I’m singing the right lyrics or even in tune, it bothered me! A collection of rhymes and songs will save your sanity and give you a constant arsenal of baby entertainment.

 

6. Dr. Seuss Books – For a limited time you can receive TWO FREE Dr Seuss books and a FREE TOTE BAG from Babies Online. You can find more baby freebies right here at Babies Online including free baby & parenting magazine offers and more!

Readers, what are your favorite parenting titles?

When our babies’ grandparents were raising us, they had Dr. Spock and their own intuition… and not much else besides the guidance of their own parents. Everything has changed since our parents’ days… a lot for the better, such as the “Back to Sleep” campaign to decrease the risk of SIDS and better safety standards for most baby products, including car seats.

But the different “schools” of parenting and widely varying philosophies tailored to help parents raise happy, successful, well-adjusted children can be overwhelming for any but the most self-assured parents.

In the past few months, I’ve explored many of them, most with the goal of getting my almost three-month old daughter to fall asleep by herself, without props, and also get her to sleep through the night consistently.

On paper, Gary Ezzo’s Babywise system seems very practical and effective. In a nutshell, you try to get your child on an “every four hour” feeding schedule early and try to keep a pattern to every day—Eat, Play, Sleep. The system advocates letting your child “cry it out” in 10 minute increments in order to facilitate the child falling asleep by herself without any props, such as a binky, nursing-to-sleep, or rocking.

I tried this for exactly three days. Not so much the crying it out part—I just don’t believe in that—but the Eat, Play, Sleep. My daughter naps longer and better if she nurses just before sleep. Our schedule quickly became Eat, Play, Eat, Sleep. And considering she is small for her age and still needs to eat every hour-and-a-half or so, this works for us.

As my daughter approaches three months, I decided it was time to try to get her to sleep more than four hours in a row at night. Right now, she sleeps 3 to 5 hours, wakes to nurse, and then is up every two hours as morning approaches. I’d love to convert this into two blocks of five hours, or even six hours straight.

Elizabeth Pantley’s No-Cry Sleep Solution sounded like a better plan than Babywise – something I could live with and, best of all, no crying! Like Babywise, this plan advises you to put the baby to bed when she’s almost, but not quite, asleep. If she cries, pick her up, rock her, nurse her—follow your normal ritual—and then try again.

This plan is working for us early in the day, for naps or bedtime, but at four in the morning, it’s still easier to nurse her to sleep. That’s when it hit me: Getting the baby to sleep through the night, if she doesn’t start sleeping through on her own, will require self-discipline and patience on my part. Just like the rest of parenting. And that’s something I won’t pick up from any book or parenting expert.

]]> http://blogs.babiesonline.com/baby/first-attempts-to-get-baby-to-sleep-through-the-night/feed/ 2 http://blogs.babiesonline.com/parenting/when-baby-stops-sleeping/ http://blogs.babiesonline.com/parenting/when-baby-stops-sleeping/#comments Sat, 04 Oct 2008 17:03:39 +0000 Alexandra Lutz http://blogs.babiesonline.com/?p=5754

A lesson I’ve learned the hard way, is that sometimes, once Baby sleeps through the night, he is not necessarily programmed to do so forever. His patterns may go through more changes as he continues to change and grow, especially during his first two years.

I have vague memories of our older boys, sleep habits, especially those first couple of exhausting months, but now that we’re starting over again with our latest edition, I am reminded (all too painfully) that sleep disturbances can reoccur as a baby develops.

I like Elizabeth Pantley’s ‘No-cry sleep solution‘, from which I’ve only read excerpts. Once our baby slept all night long, I happily tucked Pantley’s book away on the book shelf, next to our other parenting books. Now I find myself staring at this book through bleary eyes, again.

I spoke with the pediatrician last week, out of desperation and frustration. I wanted to be sure I wasn’t missing some hidden cause for baby’s night-time waking. Her concerns were pretty much the same as mine. This is a basic checklist when trouble-shooting about baby’s sleep troubles:

• Is he hungry/has he had enough to eat during the previous day/evening?
• Is he experiencing pain or discomfort due to teething?
• Is he experiencing pain due to reflux, a common ailment in young babies, which is similar to heartburn in adults?
• Is he breathing easily or are his nose stuffy, causing interruptions in his sleep?

At bedtime, does he fall asleep while nursing, bottle-feeding or sucking his pacifier (and therefore, need one of these in order to fall back asleep when he awakens at night)?

• Is his sleep environment comfortable: not too hot, not too cold, not too dry?

Most of these problems can be easily tended to. If Baby is hungry, you may need to work harder at filling his belly during the day. Our pediatrician suggested feeding our little guy cereal at four months old, then slowly introducing other solids and working up to three meals a day fairly quickly. Sometimes our Baby is interested and sometimes he ‘poo-poos’ his meals by turning his head away and fussing. Figure out which foods are your baby’s favorites; our little man prefers oatmeal, sweet potatoes and apple sauce at this stage.

Reflux should be diagnosed by a doctor, and yes, our baby has suffered from it. He used to arch his back and cry when he was eating. The doctor prescribed Prilosec, twice a day. My hunch is that he has outgrown this but we are continuing to give him at least his evening dose, until he evens out and sleeps again.

If Baby sounds stuffy, use saline drops and a bulb syringe several times a day to help clear his little nose. A cool mist humidifier is a good idea.

(Signs and remedies for teething can be found in an earlier post I wrote, as well as in a recent post by a fellow blogger.)

Our baby’s problem right now is the toughest one to solve: We made the mistake of giving him a bottle in the middle of the night a few weeks ago. Now he’s back in the habit of ‘nibbling’ in order to fall back asleep. He seems to be getting up every three hours for a nibble (he used to sleep 7-10 hours, through the night).

We will weigh our options and try to re-train him to sleep. I prefer gentler methods, such as Pantley’s, but out of desperation, am tempted to let him ‘cry it out’ just a little bit. Mommies and daddies need to function for the rest of the family. We have to go to work to earn a living, run errands, cook, clean, help with homework, sit through (and sometimes coach, as in the case of my husband) soccer and baseball games. We need our sleep in order to accomplish all of this. Our baby is old enough to start ‘crying it out’. I’m just not sure if I’m tough enough to let him.

Extended breastfeeding has many benefits for mom and child, and today it seems more moms and babies are nursing into toddlerhood. But eventually there will come a time when nursing mom, or nursing toddler, are ready to wean from the boob.

If your toddler decides it’s time, well it’s time. But what if mom decides it’s time?

Do you need to wean your toddler because you are pregnant? Perhaps you are weaning because you are trying to conceive another baby. Do you need to wean your toddler because you are returning to work? Or have you been prescribed a medication not approved for breastfeeding mothers?

Gentle weaning from the breast is easiest on mom and toddler. If you want to wean with as few tears as possible, try some of these methods to help wean your toddler from breastfeeding.

• Don’t offer. Only nurse when your toddler really wants to. Try a gentle distraction – if your toddler can be distracted easily, then they don’t really need to nurse. If your toddler really does want to nurse, you’ll know!

• Make sure your toddler is drinking well from a bottle or cup. Is she drinking plenty of milk or formula? If not, spend a few days or weeks getting her milk intake up. Here’s some tips to get your toddler to drink more milk. Also, have plenty of snacks about to encourage snacking on food, not mom.

• Analyze when your toddler nurses. When does your toddler nurse? In what situations does he ask to nurse? For instance, If you have always nursed in when you sit in a particular chair, avoid sitting in that chair if possible.

• A change of fashion. If I wore a v-necked top, my son could yank it down and help himself. Wearing a higher necked top lessened the attraction. Switch out your familiar nursing tops, get some of your pre-pregnancy clothes out. Or even treat yourself to a new shirt. Out of sight, out of mind!

• Be busy. Get out of the house, and do something fun. Toddlers forget about nursing when they are having a blast at the playground, or a playdate at a friend’s house.

• Start gradually shortening nursing sessions, or only nurse on one side per session. Nurse where you can see a clock to keep an eye on how long you nurse, and reduce the time gradually. When you nurse less, there is less demand on your milk supply. Your body will respond by producing less, and your toddler may naturally get less interested in nursing with less milk avaliable.

• Eliminate middle of the day nursing sessions first. Keep “special” nursing sessions like the first, and last of the day, and nursing to sleep, as the last ones to go.

• Night weaning is often the hardest thing to do. Toddlers are usually most attached to nursing at nighttime and are very reluctant to stop. But it can be done! Elizabeth Pantley’s books, The No Cry Sleep Solution, and The No Cry Sleep Solution for Toddlers and Preschoolers, both have lots of wonderful advice for gently night weaning a toddler.

And always remember to replace the nursing sessions with plenty of love, cuddles, and attention. It may be rough at times but toddlers will forget all about it frighteningly quickly. The toddler who nursed 10 times a day will soon not care less.

Remember it’s you she loves, not the boob. Many moms say that once they have weaned, they feel closer to their toddler because they know that their child really loves them, and not just for nursing.