Sisterhood of Motherhood
The Baby Sense blog

For almost anyone with a toddler, at least one night a week is probably disrupted. You would think that 2 years down the line you could expect your old sleep habits to re-emmerge, but the sad truth is that life will never be the same again! Toddlers disturb their parents for a myriad of reasons but one of the common ones are nightmares. This happens because toddler’s imaginations are developing so they have bad dreams. In addition, they are pushing the boundaries and testing what the limits are around bedtime. If you want a comprehensive look at this suject, read my article this month in the Your Baby mag.

Here are three tips to deal with toddler nightmares:

1. Leave a nightlight or passage light on so that your toddler can get a reality check if she wakes due to bad dreams
2. Have a little spray bottle of water next to her bed and when your toddler sees a boogeyman, teach her to spray it away. Its a concrete solution that toddlers appreciate.
3. If your toddler wakes very distressed by a dream, allow her access to you at night, for example make a makeshift camping bed next to your bed for her to come and sleep on.

My cousin had a baby last week and she was asking if she should be concerned if her newborn wasn’t drinking regularly. It’s a common concern as so often newborns are too drowsy to feed well and sleep for very long stretched. If you are battling with a drowsy feeder, you need to watch for two things:

1. Jaundice can make babies very drowsy - If your baby has a dark complexion (more than you would expect) or is slightly yellow, ask your doctor to check her levels as she may need to be under lights for a day or two. High levels of billirubin do make babies very drowsy.
2. Feeding – you want your baby to have 6 – 8 wet nappies a day and to gain at least 100g a week (hopefully a little more than that). If this is the case, she is feeding enough.
3. I recommend you wake your baby four hourly if they are not waking this often, just during the day. This helps them establish day night separation. Leave her to sleep as long as she wants at night.

As I sit in bed, blogging, I can hear my little Em in the room next door. She has been so restless the last few nights, and snorring like a chimney. I am sick today and so off I went to the doctor and we both were checked. The doctor gasped as he looked at her throat - it was red and pusssy and she has a major upper respiratory tract infection. Poor baby. We often forget just how much health impacts on sleep. Here are the health: sleep basics-

1. A sick baby does not sleep well and cannot be expected to self sooth to sleep
2. Gummy ears or an ear infection causes pressure and discomfort that affects sleep
3. A blocked nose stops babies sucking to self sooth as they have to mouth-breath when ill
4. Worms can cause nightwakings due to the irritation of an itchy bottom
5. Medication can be counterproductive - for example some meds are alerting such as some asthma medications

So if your baby is typically a good sleeper and suddenly sleep is out the window - check out her health.

A night terror is very scarey for any parent. Your baby will wake screaming and when you go to her, she will still be fast asleep but crying in her sleep. It is horrible because you cannot comfort your baby. Night terrors generally happen when a baby or toddler goes to sleep overtired. She may have missed a day sleep or have gone to bed too late. So quite obviously the best way to prevent night terrors is to make sure your toddler has regular day sleeps and does not get overtired in the evening.

This has to be one of the best tips I can give and one that really works wonders. If your baby (over 10 months old) or toddler regularly resists going to sleep at bedtime, spend 15 mintues with them on the floor playing and connecting before bed. Somehow when our babies get too little of us (especially those of us who work) they resist separation at night. To counteract this, spend 15 min of COMPLETELY focussed time with your baby playing - not reading or walking or watching TV - playing with toys on the floor. Turn off the phone and really engage. Sound to simple? Try it!

The question is often asked - when do I move my toddler into a bed? The answer is - when they climb out of their cot or at 24 months old. If your toddler is safely contained in his cot do not move him to a bed too early. The reason is that toddlers need to boundaries to stay in bed. When the physical boundary of a cot is removed, you need to use verbal boundaries to keep your toddler from roaming the halls at bedtime. This can be a challenge. So leave your toddler in his cot for as long as possible.

Co Sleeping is an interesting one. There is no right or wrong and trust me, everyone has an opinion on where babies should sleep. In the early days, a coSleeper cot can work nicely so your baby sleeps right next to you with no barrier for ease of feeding. As babies get older, however many become restless if they are in your bed. If your baby becomes restless when cosleeping, it may be a signal that she needs to be in her own space.

Tip 2: 8 month olds often have a sleep ‘hiccup’ and start waking too often at night. One thing to rule out here is separation anxiety. At 8 months old, babies have not developed object permanence well and so they ‘call’ you back at night to make sure you are still there and still exist when they can’t see you. The best solution? A doodoo blanky - something your baby can attach to and reach for at night instead of waking you!

Each day I am asked about how to get a baby to sleep through the night. So I have decided to become a disciplined blogger and each day I will sit down and just drop one tip for the day on how to get your baby to sleep.

Tip 1: If your newborn is waking after 15-20 minutes swaddle her. We know that the little hypnogagnic startle wakes little ones. This startle occurs 15 min into a sleep cycle. So if you want to inhibit this startle and help your newborn sleep - swaddle her!