My very good friend Rosita Stone has written, sang and produced this amazing song for Mothers to their Child! Its beautiful...thought it was the perfect day to share. Help this video become viral by forwarding on to the amazing mothers in your life! Happy Mother's Day http://youtu.be/BqTE8a8JVvM Add Comment Hi Debbie, Our now two year old got himself out of his crib a few times so he is now in his big boy bed, but the transition has taken us back to his baby days. He is waking up a few times throughout the night and coming to his door (which we have gated to keep him in) and he is waking up early and crying at the door rather than preoccupying himself as he would in the crib. Tonight he has been standing at his door crying and screaming for 45 mins now. My husband and I are at odds and are wondering if you might be able to offer any ideas? Looking forward to hearing from you! Lindsay HI Lindsay Its very common for toddlers to regress when they come out of their cribs because of the extra freedom they now have to get out of bed and move around more freely. A great new tool is the Gro Clock. Its a tool that helps teach your child when is sleep time and when is wake time. Parents set the clock for an acceptable and reasonable wake up time and throughout the night the clock will show a picture of the moon or stars. When your target morning time has come, the clock changes over to Mr Sun. This is a fantastic way of teaching your child when is sleep and when is wake time. I would also consider using a reward system. Each time he does get into bed on his own, stays in bed and/or sleep through the night, he would get a sticker on his sticker board along with a small reward (can be something from the dollar store). Then once he gets 10 stickers he wins a big surprise. Most importantly, is being consistent. Don't be tempted to stay in his bed or bring him to your bed. We do now have a toddler trainer Emma on board. THat may be an option if you are looking for a more guided approach. Hope this helps Debbie Hi Debbie, I have been invited to a friends house sat and am not sure what to do because as you explained I could bring my play pen and put him to sleep in there at bed time but I still have to take him out and put him in the car. My question is this, since I need to take him, dress him and put him in the car and then transfer to bed couldn't I not put him in the play pen but rather at 7:30 get ready to go in the car, let him fall asleep in the car on the way home and transfer him once to bed, assuming he stays awake. If not and he wakes up then I need to wait half hour or so for him to go to sleep from waking up from the car. Or do I just not go at all if they can't host earlier? Thank you, Valeria Hi Valeria I always encourage families to go out with their babies. I wouldn't want any mother to feel isolated or tied to her baby's schedules and routines. If you are staying at your friends house past baby's' bed time, setup a playpen in a quiet room, use your white noise machine and follow the same routine or similar that you would at home. When its time to go home, have everything ready and packed to go. While you dress baby and put him in the car seat dad can quickly pack up your playpen. Once in the car baby will probably fall back asleep and you can just transfer him into his bed. If baby wakes up, follow your sessions until he goes back to sleep. Sometimes, offering him a few sips of water can also help. If you are leaving your friends how before or at bed time. Feed your baby and oput him in the car. Once you get hom you transfer him into his bed. If baby wakes up, follow your sessions until he goes back to sleep. Sometimes, offering him a few sips of water can also help. Do not keep him up or entertain him if he wakes, this is a wrong message. Bedtime is different then nap times. If you are coming home at a nap time and baby wakes up then I would keep him up for an hour before attempting a nap. Daytime is different. Hope this helps! Debbie Hi Debbie, Nathan is now almost 9 months and doing really well with sleeping through the night. However, he's developed a habit of pooping 20 mins into his morning nap and waking himself up. How should I handle this? Should I change him? Let him cry? I can tell he's still tired after only 20 mins of napping, but he refuses to go back to sleep. thanks, Dana HI Dana Unfortunately there really isn't too much we can do about his bowel movements. Sometimes fiddling with his feed times can help but most often it doesn't. You can try and do some leg presses with him about an hour before naps to see if you can encourage the poop to come out sooner. If he poops closer to the beginning of his nap you can keep him up for an additional 20 minutes to try and catch the poopy diaper before you put him down or the other option is to quickly and quietly change him in his bed with no talking and then quickly leave an go back into your wait sessions. Regardless, as he continues to grow, his bowel movements will change and he may stop pooping at the time that he is now. Debbie Dear Debbie, I am expecting twins in May and I am very fortunate to have my husband stay home for 2 weeks and my mother coming to visit. Do I really need a doula to help me? Casey Hi Casey, First of all...congratulations! As a mother of twins myself, I can understand first hand how difficult it is to have 2 babies at the same time. It is great that you are going to have your husbands and mothers help when the babies come home. After all, this is what postpartum support is about. Making sure that mom and dad have someone supporting, helping and guiding them. With twins it makes it a bit more difficult because there are 2 babies. Sometimes, they can be completely off schedule from each other and sometimes you may have both babies cranky and upset at the same time so to have 2 pairs of hands at the beginning is crucial. You may also find that although the 3 of you are doing great in the day time, that overnights seem to be a challenge. This would be agreat way to let the doula help. While grandma and dad get some sleep, your night doula can help you nurse so that it cuts the time that you are awake in half or if you are offering a bottle, the doula will gladly feed and soothe babie swhile you get some rest yourself. The doula will also teach you all the tricks and tips you need to learn with twins such as handling both babies at the same time, nursing at the same time and even how to soothe them when they are both fussy. So to answer your question, it is very different for every family. The main concern is that you have the support. Some families feel that grandma and dad supporting may be enough where other families feel that they may quickly get exhausted and need the extra support. The goal of the doula is to work herself out of a job so she wants to come in on a short term basis, get your family established with a great routine and teach you tools that will help you care for your babies with more confidence. I hope this helped. Debbie Hi Tracy, At some point you will notice some changes in your babys sleep patterns. A few things may happen: They may stuggle to fall asleep at nap or bed time, they make wake up early from their nap or morning time or they just may sleep more restlessly. The transition from 3 naps to 2 naps usually happens somewhere between 8 and 12 months. The transition from 2 naps to 1 naps may happen between 12-18 months. If you start to notice that your baby consistantly struggles with falling asleep or making it through their nap or bedtime and they are within this age range, they probably need to be on the next schedule. This is not something that will just happen once. It is something that will happen every day or most days for a week. If you feel that your baby does definatley need to reduce the amount of naps, the best way to do this is to start by reducing the length of the nap you are eliminating. Reduce it by half an hour each day so that it is completely gone by the 3rd or 4th day. Good luck! Debbie Hi Debbie, I have a question: - How do you decide that your baby is ready to make a change from 3 naps to 2 naps or 2 naps to 1 nap? I know that skipping one of the naps once doesn’t seem like enough . . . Do most babies start to do this more and more often leading up to the time that they are ready? - Once you have decided that they are ready, do you just move straight to the new schedule or is there some type on transition schedule to ease them into it? Thanks for your time, Tracy Hi LIsa, Its always best to try and stay as close to the routine as possible. However, sometimes that is not possible. If you know that baby won't have a proper opportunity to nap, you can always let him sleep a bit longer the previous sleep. For example, if you know he may miss his afternoon nap, offer his morning nap a bit later and let him sleep a bit longer. If regardless of what you have tried, he still missed some of his sleep for the day, offer him a small catnap or put him to bed a tiny bit earlier and as soon as you can get him back on track with his routine and schedule. Debbie Hi Debbie, The nap and bedtime scheduling with our baby is going great. My main issue is that sometimes we'll have a bunch of social outings to go to at once, which really disrupt our baby's routine. Last week, for example, we had 3 family functions to attend all close together. Most weeks are "normal" and Luca's routine stays very consistent with no interruptions. But how should we deal when these types of interruptions happen, as they inevitably will? (Especially when they happen all at once!!) Our baby usually needs a good solid week to return to napping like normal, after these types of things happen, and I'm wondering if there is any way to lessen the pain! On the days that we do have events, we try to travel during his afternoon nap, but this doesn't help things as he never sleeps in the car during that time. He stays awake, and then by the time we reach our destination, he's still awake, and then we're at the event and he's getting stimulated by family members and new environment, and despite our best efforts, he doesn't sleep until we are in the car on the way home. This makes for one over-stimulated, exhausted, cranky baby. Would it make sense to let his morning nap go longer on those days? I always stick to the schedule as much as I can, but would it be ok to stray a bit more to make sure that he does get enough sleep? What's better to do- try to not mess too much with the schedule, even though that means way less sleep, OR alter the schedule even more on those days in order to get as much sleep as possible, when we have the opportunity! Let me know what would be the best thing to do! Thanks! Lisa Hi Debbie, Hope all is well. Emanuel is teething and im assuming thats reason he is waking up again at nights. What do i do in this situation? do i still let him cry knowing that he might be in pain? Please advise Thank you Angelique~ HI Angelique If baby is teething, you can offer some paid relief at night. You can choose traditional medication such as tylenol and advil or you can use more homepathic meds like Camilla from Boiron. During the day, let him chew on lots of teething toys. A great solution is a wet facecloth, tossed in the freezer. Let him chew on this and this will help grind down the gums faster and relieve some paid. In terms of sleep training, its best to still push through as teething can happen until he is 2 years old and longer. Hi Emmie, Yes, any change in diet could change your baby's output consistancy and frequency. Some babys react by pooping more often and some react by pooping less often. Either way, as long as your baby is pooping that is great. If your baby hasn't pooped for over 5 days or your babys poop becomes very hard (sometimes balls stuck together), it is important you see your doctor. If your baby shows any distress or pain when they are passing a bowl movement also see your doctor. If your baby has had very liquidy poops, also see your doctor. These are signs of dehydration or bacteria and often need to be treated. However, if your babys poops are slightly firmer or looser, their is usually no cause for worry. Adding a little extra water in your babys diet will help. This is a great opportunity to offer water in a sippy cup with the solid meals to help wash down food and teach your baby drinking from a cup. In any case, follow your instincts. If you feel there is a problem or a concern, play it safe...visit your doctor. Hi Debbie, We started solids about 1.5 months ago and all is going well. Recently, possibly aligning with the introduction of meat, my babies poo has changed. Firmer (ie formed but still mushy like play-do), but only a little bit at a time, every few hours! This is making for many more poopy diaper changes. We do give a little water. Is this normal? Thanks, Emmie Hello Momma C, As you know, babies sleep habits can change quite drastically over the first few months. However, they should be progressing into the right direction as time goes by. It is very hard to determine "normal" sleep habits for a 6 week old because their are so many variables such as bottle vs breast, quantity of feeds, etc. However, the sleep and feed habits we try to aim for are eating every 2.5-3 hrs and sleeping right after for approximately 2 hrs. Then baby should be awake for about 1 hr which will include her feed time. Some babies can handle a longer wake period and some can not so you will have to see how hard it is for your baby to stay awake that hour and adjust accordingly. Feeds should usually take place at 7am, 10am, 1pm, 4pm, 7pm and 10pm with 1 feed overnight. As she gets older, that 1 feed overnight should push later and later into the morning until is disappears. When she wakes in her nap time its important to understand that she is not waking because she is done sleeping. She is most likely waking out of a sleep cycle. You can shush, pat and jiggle her back to sleep. This will help her learn how to self soothe rather then her just being rocked or fed back to sleep. It may take some time at the beginning but she will learn how to self soothe quite quickly. During our consultations, we take into consideration her feeds, sleep and wake intervals, breastfeeding issues, scheduling, self soothing tricks, room atmosphere and so much more. It is a very customized approach. However, the biggest tips I can offer without a consultation is the use of swaddling and a white noise machine for every nap and overnight. Use these throughout the entire nap and overnight. This will help greatly. Hope this helps for now. Hi Debbie, I was referred to you by a friend who has used your services and was pleased with the results. My daughter is 5 1/2 weeks old and does not seem to want to sleep much during the day. This started about a week or so ago. She used to sleep most of the day when we brought her home - pretty standard for newborns and now she will usually fall asleep after feeding (which is every 2.5 to 3 hrs) but rarely stays sleeping for very long. She stirs after 10 or 20 minutes and I'll have to soothe her back to sleep a number of times (pat her, rock her, give her a pacifier, etc.). This basically means she never really has a solid nap all day. On the 'plus' side, when it comes to night time, she tends to be so tired after cat-napping all day that she will usually sleep for 4-5 hours. Nice for mommy as I can get a few hours rest but I was hoping you could shed some light of what would be the norm for a month old daytime sleeping. I know around 6 weeks, babies can go through a growth spurt which would change their feeding/sleeping pattern. Not sure if this might be the reason for this change. Any advice would be helpful. | This is a great place to ask your questions. Anything from prenatal to preschool. From feeding to sleeping...ask away!
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