Teaching Your Baby to Sleep

Ok, so your baby is old enough to be sleeping through the night, and isn't?  She may accomplish that milestone on her own, soon.  Or she may need a little help from you to learn how to put herself back to sleep when she wakes up at night, as we all do in the normal rhythm of his sleep cycles.

I suggest that you begin by reading the section on Infants and Sleep, for a general framing of the issue, including my bias toward keeping infants near you during sleep.  If you're considering Ferbering, you might want to read my biased view  on that.  Finally, I recommend that you check out Toddlers and Sleep for step by step recommendations on teaching a little one to sleep on her own.   

After all that reading, you'll have a decision to make.  Do you embark on some kind of sleep training with your baby?  Your strategy will depend on the age of your baby, and of course also on how desperate you are for some sleep. 

You'll be interested to know that most babies, even most toddlers, either do not fall asleep without being held, or do not sleep all night in their own bed.  It simply isn't a "normal" thing for small humans to do, biologically speaking.

You can, however, train babies to fall asleep themselves without leaving them to cry.  This is not an overnight process -- it can take months -- but it does work.  If you'd like to consider this, I highly recommend Elizabeth Pantley's No Cry Sleep Solutionas you think about how to approach it. 

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Photo: Soulfull

LINKS:

Your Growing Baby: 6 to 12 months
How did that breath-taking newborn become such an adorable bundle of energy and fun? Next on the agenda: sitting up, crawling, and walking, all in short order.  Your growing baby's developmental tasks, your priorities, and a simple Parents' Gameplan, all set up to make your life easier when you've got only three minutes to read before he wakes up.

Feeding Your Baby
Four questions to answer before you start solid food.

Attachment Parenting: Your Insurance Policy
Attachment Parenting isn't only for newborns.  In fact, even adults exhibit attachment seeking behavior when they're ill.  If you haven't already read up on how attachment parenting your baby can make your life easier, click here.

Cherishing Your Baby
We begin, immediately, to orient ourselves to our special humans, we greet them with adoration, and with the expectation that we ourselves will be cherished. Humans are born ready to love, and to be loved.

Building a Great Relationship with Your Child
It's never too early to start consciously building a good relationship with your little one.

Babies: Ask Dr. Laura- Advice Letters & Answers
Letters relating to parenting an baby, from ASK DR. LAURA, with her trademark answers: warm, smart, and always supportive.  If you don't find your question, click here to ask it.

Blog Entries About Babies
Dr. Laura Markham's blog entries relating to babies, from increasing your  oxytocin levels to babies watching TV.