Sleeping Through the Night

This book was the only book on infant and toddler sleep that wasn't checked out of the library.  That made me feel a little better.  Apparently I am not alone in my quest for my baby to sleep all night, or alone in the desire to sleep all night.  Or at least for more than three hours at a time.

I've been down this road before.  I swore I would never make the same mistakes twice.  But then I did.  Because the mistakes are easier at the time, and because I was trying to figure out how to get two kids to nap and go to bed, and because I was flying solo a lot of the time.

In my quest about a year and a half ago, I read many sleep books and articles on the internet.  I read Ferber and Sears; I read the No-Cry Sleep Solution and the Baby Whisperer; I read Healthy Sleep Habits, Healthy Child, which was my favorite and the approach that ultimately worked for my son.

For those of you who've never had to pry your bleary eyes open for the third time in a night at 4:00 am, I doubt you've given much thought to how to get a baby to sleep.  I know I never did.  I love to sleep!  It's one of my favorite things.  Little did I realize how complicated it really can be.

Most sleep books talk about the basic structure of sleep, how it works, etc.  So I skipped right on through those chapters.  In essence, every human wakes up multiple times in the night.  And every human figures out ways to fall back asleep, often without even realizing they awoke (or they have insomnia).  Babies begin to associate "conditions" with sleep at an early age.

Parents unwittingly (or in my case, knowingly) cause negative sleep conditions by providing "sleep props" that help the baby sleep and consequently must be there when the baby awakes naturally several times a night.  If a baby gets a bottle, or breastfed, or rocked or sung to (you get the idea) to fall asleep, then they expect that at night.  Wouldn't you be a little disturbed if you awoke and your favorite pillow and blanket had been removed in the night and placed in the hallway?

Experts disagree about how best to respond to night-wakings.  Some advocate straight crying-it-out and others promote a gentler approach.  Still others say do whatever it takes to get your baby to sleep as it's your responsibility as a parent.  And as a parent, there can be a lot of guilt and angst involved when sleep-training occurs.

This book provides the most moderate, middle-of-the-road approach I've read yet.  Basically, you do the sleep-training only when you are putting the child to bed in the evening.  After you've established a set bedtime and a bedtime routine (something all experts agree is crucial) then you lay the baby down awake in the crib and leave.  Most babies will cry, some will scream.  The parent should continue to check in and stay no more than a minute, then leave again, continuing this until the baby falls asleep.  On average, the first night babies cry 40 minutes, the second night 60+minutes and the third night 20 minutes.  After that most babies will simply fall asleep, maybe with a little crying.

But what is different (and so encouraging if it works) about this book is that the author advocates continuing to do whatever you normally do in the middle of the night to get the baby to sleep.  She says within two weeks of sleep training at bedtime, most babies will learn to console themselves to sleep and will begin sleeping through the night. 

When we did sleep-training with our son, we did cry-it-out in the middle of the night.  It was awful...he screamed for more than an hour (from midnight to one thirty) the first night.  Personally, I'd rather go through the crying earlier in the evening when I'm not desperate for sleep.  And I also now have a two-year-old that I don't want to awaken from his sister's crying for long periods in the middle of the night.

We've got a trip coming up so now isn't a good time to start, but the book provided several ideas for changing things that I can do now without implementing the full-on training.  I feel like this book and this author finally gave me a solution I can live with.  Highly recommended.

Child of Mine

Chicken nuggets and french fries, sugar cereal, goldfish crackers, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, macaroni and cheese...what do all of these foods have in common? They're beloved by toddlers and preschoolers and a guilt source of many parents. How do you get your young child to eat anything else? Especially something (gasp) green?

I recently finished Child of Mine:Feeding with Love and Good Sense by Ellyn Satter. A friend had recommended this book, saying that this approach to feeding worked really well with her kids and she wished she had read it sooner. Those kind of recommendations almost always result in good knowledge gained.

The book is for parents, child care workers, grandparents, and anyone else who regularly feeds children. Satter's underlying principle is:

The parent is responsible for what, when, where.
The child is responsible for how much and whether.

The first part of the book goes over her main priniciple in depth and her philosophy on feeding. Basically, it is the job of the adult to provide a variety of nutritious foods, regular meals and snacks, a pleasant atmosphere with the family eating together and a relationship of love and trust. It's the child's job to eat. According to her theory, over several days to weeks, a child's body and need to grow will drive them to eat the foods that will provide the nutrients that they need. And if you follow this philosophy, eventually your child will eat well and eat the things you eat.

After the philosophical underpinnings are laid out, she goes chapter by chapter developmentally including chapters on: breastfeeding, formula feeding, first foods (6-12 months), toddlers (1-3 years) and preschoolers (3-5 years). I found this a useful format and most of her advice seemed right on with other feeding advice I've heard. But instead of making a parent feel panicky with the need to check off each part of the food pyramid, she offers real-world suggestions in an empathetic yet firm voice.

I found this book extremely helpful. I know I'm going to do things differently with my second child (who doesn't?). I wasn't very good about continuing to provide opportunities for my first child to eat things he didn't like at first. It seemed like a lot of work (and a waste of money) to make food that I ended up scraping into the garbage can. So his preferred food list is pretty small and typical of young kids. He does love fruit but won't touch vegetables. The good thing is he'll tolerate anything on his plate and even tries new things occasionally.


I decided, though, that I want to raise children who are less picky than I was. And I agree with Satter that unless the child is given opportunities to eat lots of different kinds of food then they'll probably not want to try new foods. I love her idea of the family table. I like that she doesn't advocate pushing kids to try new foods (mostly because it removes confrontation and tantrums from dinnertime). However, she advocates that you let kids eat as much of whatever food that they want (keeping in mind that as the adult you've given them the food). I feel like it's important to set some limits.


Her advice has steeled my resolve to be more structured about meals and snacks and not allowing grazing in between set feeding times. It's also encouraged me to be more well-rounded in what I prepare for myself (I don't really like a lot of vegetables either). It's also given me more backbone to say no to short-order cooking.


All in all, this book was helpful to me as a parent and such a good resource that I'm considering buying my own copy to keep on hand and lend out to friends.