Sleep

I love teaching Infant Massage. It's such a wonderful way to introduce new parents to the concept of mindfulness, being fully present with your baby and learning their uniqueness. Many parents don't realize until they are learning the strokes, that their infants (some as young as 4-6 weeks) have been communicating their personalities and preferences from the moment of birth!   We teach parents to ask for permission before they start the massage by rubbing their hands together to warm up the oil, show the baby their hands and say "May I massage your legs and feet?" Some parents chuckle, thinking this is a little silly, that a baby can't possibly understand, but after massaging their babies for only a few days, they start to observe their baby's cues...do they look them in the eyes with interest? Give them a smile? Maybe show excitement by kicking their feet? Or do they turn away, yawn, or even pout or cry? This early respectful interchange is wiring our baby's brain for the capacity for

The No-Cry Sleep Solution Gentle Ways to Help Your Baby Sleep Through the Night By Elizabeth Pantley For those many parents who first tested Elizabeth Pantley’s “No-Cry Sleep Solution,” thank you for your combined patience and persistence proving the efficacy of this system with your own babies. I imagine some parents first picked up this book in a hazy state of mind-altering sleep deprivation, read the title through half-shut eyes, and muttered, ‘My baby? Sleep through the night? Are you kidding?’ The No-Cry Sleep Solution: Gentle Ways to Help Your Baby Sleep Through the Night delivers: there is a ten-step plan you can follow, borne of “dissecting truth from fallacy.”  There are insights into the mutual agony for parents and child with the cry-it-out method. You will know you are not alone on this journey as you read parent testimonials and their email updates on their progress, such as, “It was one

Recently, there has become a clear distinction between co-sleeping and what experts now refer to as bed-sharing. In order to decide what is best for your family, it is important to know the difference. According to Attachment Parenting International (API), the definitions are as follows: “Co-sleeping refers to sleeping in ‘close proximity,’ which means the child is on a separate sleep surface in the same room as the parents.” “Bed-sharing, also called the ‘family bed,’ describes a sleep arrangement where the family members sleep on the same surface.” While new parents may feel pressured to have their baby “sleep through the night,” this scenario describes a myth. Frequent waking occurs for myriad reasons, and throughout most of the phases of a baby’s growth and development into childhood. Most parents find it less disruptive to sleep in close proximity to the baby, to accommodate for nighttime feeding and other needs with minimal interruption. In fact, babies often

“Most of the present world cultures practice forms of cosleeping and there are very few cultures in the world for which it would ever even be thought acceptable or desirable to have babies sleep alone.”  Dr. James J. McKenna’s book, Sleeping with Your Baby: A Parent’s Guide to Cosleeping brings light to the facts behind outdated cultural opinions and practices that have interfered with the most natural and supportive ways of parenting and co-sleeping. With passion for his subject, Dr. McKenna includes guidance on how to support babies getting optimal sleep, nourishment during the night, and how best to respond to little ones who are crying. Letting babies “cry it out” is not the way, according to decades of research and eons of experience throughout human evolution. Our nature is to snuggle, as our biology confirms. Snuggle, don’t struggle. “All mammals cosleep in one form or another.” “The