Sleep, Baby!

Helping Parents Solve Their Children's Sleep Problems

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(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97hj4Vf2obg)

essentiallyhealthychild.com

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How To Do The Bedtime Fading Method

The so-called 'cry it out' techniques for sleep training are getting a lot of attention. Meanwhile, there is another method that gets very little press, but which is highly effective. It's called 'bedtime fading'.

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(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsCanNpOGGM)

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Bright Light Therapy for Insomnia

Bright Light Therapy for Insomnia

[Don’t confuse bright light therapy with “Bright Lights, Big City”]

Bright light therapy for sleep problems?

It doesn’t sound logical: how can bright light help you sleep? Doesn’t light keep you awake?

Well yes, light doeskeep you awake. That is precisely why light is a useful tool to help correct certain sleep problems in which the…

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ADHD Sleep Disturbance, or Something Else?

Kids with ADHD sleep less well than other kids. Why is this?

Before we address this question, there are some preliminary questions to ask:

Is it true that kids with ADHD sleep less? Yes, the evidence suggests this is true.

Is ADHD a real disorder? Some experts claim there is no such thing as ADHD. They argue that the sleep problems we see are caused by whatever is happening that we are calling…

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Musical Head Banging?

I thought I knew what musical head banging was.  I was wrong.

In 1995 I won a musical head banging contest at my niece’s bat mitzvah. As I recall the DJ played “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana. I did what any student of 70’s hair band culture would have done. I planted my feet firmly in place, raised my right arm, saying “I Love You” in American Sign Language (cuz rock n’ roll is all about…

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Sleep and Happiness in South Korea

Sleep and Happiness in South Korea

Is there any relationship between sleep and happiness?

It is known that depressed people often sleep too much. Other depressed people have a hard time sleeping. We also know that, on the whole, happy sleep better. Or maybe it is that people who sleep better are happier. We’ll return to this question later. For now, we report the results of a study out of South Koreathat asked over 72,000…

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How Many Hours of Sleep Should a 17-year Old Get?

How Many Hours of Sleep Should a 17-year Old Get?

Case Study: A mother of a 17-year old high-school senior contacted me . She was concerned that the young man wasn’t getting enough sleep. He played a sport every season, and got decent grades. He had friends and did not demonstrate any evidence of behavior or mood changes. The problem was that he appeared to sleep until the afternoon every Saturday. How many hours of sleep should a 17-year old…

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Infant Wearables: Good or Bad Idea?

Infant Wearables: Good or Bad Idea?

In the age of the Fitbit, it is only a matter of time before devices designed for babies appear on the market. There are a whole bunch available now. There is a pacifier that doubles as a thermometer. You can buy a device to prevent heat stroke in your baby. There is even a GPS tracking devices for babies. The particular segment of the infant wearables market that concerns us here are the devices…

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Teen Car Accidents: School Start Time Matters

Teen Car Accidents: School Start Time Matters

The two age groups most at risk for getting into car accidentsare teenagers and the elderly. The reasons for the high accident rate in each group are obviously different. Elderly people’s faculties tend not to be as sharp as they once were. Reaction time slows. Eyesight and hearing decline. The causes of ten car accidents are completely different. Besides lack of experience, there is risk-taking…

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(via Extinction: Why Cry It Out is Extinct)

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Extinction: Why Cry It Out is Extinct

I have argued beforethat no modern sleep expert recommends pure “cry-it-out” (CIO) sleep training. Here I want to explain in more depth where CIO stands currently. In order to simplify the discussion, I’ll call it by its more technical name, extinction. Some versions of this method are widely recommended today. One kind, unmodified extinction, has all but disappeared, or become extinct. That’s a…

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Scheduled Awakenings: The Forgotten Sleep Method

Scheduled Awakenings: The Forgotten Sleep Method

Long before there was a “no-cry” solution to baby sleep training, there was a thing called “Scheduled Awakenings”.

What? You’ve never heard of scheduled awakenings? There’s a reason for that. It’s really really hard to do. Too bad, though: it appears to work.

Scheduled Awakenings: The Original No-Cry Method

In 1980, Rita J. McGarr was completing her Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree at…

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Bedtime Fading: Best Sleep Training Method?

Bedtime Fading: Best Sleep Training Method?

The so-called “cry it out” techniques for sleep training are getting a lot of attention. Meanwhile, there is another technique that gets very little press, but which is highly effective. It’s called “bedtime fading”.

What is Bedtime Fading?

Bedtime fading is a method for teaching a child to fall asleep that is based on a simple principle: a child who is not tired will not go to sleep.

Babies and…

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Cry It Out is OK, Say Researchers

Cry It Out is OK, Say Researchers

So it turns out that Cry It Out is ok, after all!

I believe that no major sleep expert actually recommends “cry-it-out”. Nevertheless, the term has become attached to a method formally called “graduated extinction“. The method is made most famous by Dr. Richard Ferber in his 1986 classic “Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems”.

Graduated extinction was criticized by proponents of “Attachment Parenting

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School Start Time: City Boys Matter!

School Start Time: City Boys Matter!

Is a later school start time better for teenagers?

“Yes, of course”, you say! But how do you know that?

What if I told you that the correct answer is  “It depends”?

Does School Start Time Matter?

To answer this question, investigators at the National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH) sent surveys to high school students, aged 13-17, all over the US. Almost 10,000 kids participated.

NIMH…

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Why Does My Teen Sleep So Much?

Why Does My Teen Sleep So Much?

Why does Jackie sleep so much?

As Jackie’s mother was asking the question, I was already suspecting that Jackie actually didn’t sleep enough!

They Sleep So Much, and Yet So Little!

Does she really sleep so much?

Jackie (not her real name) is a pretty typical high-school sophomore. She’s a good student. She plays three sports. When I met her she was running track in the fall. The problem, Jackie…

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