Good Night, Sleep Tight Workbook (11 page)

Read Good Night, Sleep Tight Workbook Online

Authors: Kim West

Tags: #Family & Relationships, #Life Stages, #Infants & Toddlers, #Parenting, #General

OUR NAP PLAN AT HOME:
 
OUR DAYCARE PROVIDER HAS AGREED TO THE FOLLOWING:
 
We’re ready to go! We have blocked out three weeks of our schedule and are dedicating ourselves to improving our child’s sleep habits! There is sleep for all at the end of the tunnel!
 
CHAPTER EIGHT
 
Implementing Your Plan: Step-by-Step Shuffle Outline for a Baby or a Child in a Crib
 
Nights One through Three
 
Once bath, stories, bottle/nursing, and songs are over, sit in a chair right
next to your baby’s crib
. If she cries or fusses, you can stroke or pat her. It’s also important that
you
control physical contact: Rather than let your child hold your finger, you should pat her. Take care not to touch her constantly, though (tempting as it will be!). You don’t want to swap one negative association, like rocking, for another, like your constant caress or the sound of your voice. Another reason to keep touch to a minimum: On day four you’ll be moving your chair away from the side of the crib and frequent contact won’t be possible.
 
Try not to pick her up—but if she’s extremely upset go ahead and do it, over the crib if possible. Hold her until she’s calm but keep the cuddle brief. Put her down again while she’s still awake. You can sing during the get-ready-for-bed stage, but once it’s time for sleep, you’re better off making soothing “sh-sh” sounds. You might want to try closing your eyes. It will be easier not to talk to her, and it also conveys the message that it’s time to sleep. Don’t stimulate her—bore her. Stay there until she falls asleep.
 
When your child wakes up at night during the Shuffle (as she will in the beginning), return to the chair next to her crib and sooth her. You can initially go over to her cribside and quickly calm and caress her and encourage her to lie down (if she’s sitting up or standing), before you settle back down in your chair. Stay there until she goes back to sleep. Do this for each waking until 6:00 a.m. (the earliest) when you can both start your day.
 
Cai age 16 months
 
If your child has a particularly rough night, don’t stop the sleep training. But you may need to let her nap more for a day so she doesn’t get impossibly overtired and make the next night even more of a challenge. Provide the extra nap-time within the sample timelines outlined in Chapter 2. Let’s say that your 8-month-old has been up since 5:00 a.m. On a normal day, she would start her nap at around 9:00 a.m., but on this day, she’ll be too tired to stay awake until 9:00. Don’t force it, let her nap at 8:00 a.m. at the earliest—but don’t throw her schedule completely out of whack by letting her nap at 6:30 a.m. If she takes a third little nap in late afternoon, that’s fine. Or if she naps a half-hour longer than usual, that’s fine too. Similarly, if your preschooler normally naps from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m., it’s okay to let her sleep until 4:00 p.m. if she needs it after a hard night or a too early morning—but don’t let her snooze all the way until dinner or nap before noon.
 
Another way of handling a temporary sleep deficit is to put your child to bed a little earlier than usual for a few nights. In short, watch her, trust yourself, and make some commonsense adjustments, but keep them within the basic framework of an age-appropriate schedule.
 
NIGHTS ONE THROUGH THREE REMINDERS
 
• Make sure your child gets good naps on the day of your first night of the Shuffle. Look at the nap averages for your child’s age in Chapter 2.
• Create your nap time, bedtime, and nighttime sleep plan on pages 59-62.
• Keep a sleep log.
• Plan an early enough bedtime. Watch her sleepy cues and the clock. Do the math backward. For example, a typical 2-year-old needs 11 hours of sleep at night. If her average wake-up time is 7:00 a.m. then she should be
asleep
by 8:00 p.m.
• Focus on what your plan is for the
first night
. Discuss it with the other parent so you are a united front. Split the night up, take turns every other night, or decide who is going to get up for which awakenings.
• Nurse or bottle-feed with the light on. You
don’t
want to give the message that “the way we go to sleep at night is to suckle to sleep or get very drowsy in the dark.”
• Drowsy but awake: That means more awake than drowsy. If you help your child get into a
very
drowsy state at bedtime, you’ll make it harder for her to go back to sleep when she wakes during the night.
• Your child should be aware that she’s being put down, which means she may cry, so be prepared.
• Your first chair position is
by the crib
.
• Be careful not to create a new sleep crutch. For example, don’t substitute rocking your baby to sleep with patting her back to sleep. Hint: You know you’re patting too much if your baby starts crying when you stop touching her.
• There is no limit on how long you sit by your child’s bed. Stay as long as it takes, knowing that you don’t want to train her to cry. You also don’t want to sneak out too soon. When you do that your child (especially if she’s over a year old) will become hypervigilant about your leaving and will be up multiple times checking on you.
• Remember, you
can
pick your child up! You’ll know within one to two nights whether it helps.
• Pick up to calm and
not to put to sleep.
• Each time your child wakes up, go over to her cribside: Assess what she needs, encourage her to lie down, reassure her, and sit in your chair.
• Treat each night awakening the same (if you’re not feeding during the night).
• Don’t give up until after 6:00 a.m. Then do dramatic wake-up: Leave the room, count to 10, and come back in as if nothing happened!
• Start nap coaching on day two.
Nights Four through Six
 
Move the chair about halfway to the door
. (If the room is very small, or the crib is close to the door, you should skip to the next chair position and
sit by the door in her room
.) Continue the soothing sounds, but stay in the chair as much as you can. Get up to pat or stroke your baby a little if necessary, or make the same soothing sounds as you have the past three nights. Try not to pick her up unless she’s hysterical. Stay in the chair halfway to the door until she falls asleep.
 
When your child wakes up during the night, return to the chair position you were in at bedtime that night and sooth her. You can go over to her cribside initially and quickly calm, caress, and encourage her to lie down (if she’s standing or sitting) before you return to your chair by the door. Continue the soothing sounds but stay in the chair as much as you can. Get up to pat or stroke her a little if necessary. Try not to pick her up unless she’s hysterical, and if you do pick her up, follow the technique I described for the first three nights. Stay in your chair by the door until she’s asleep again.
 
NIGHTS FOUR THROUGH SIX REMINDERS
 
• There are still night awakenings, but you will have to move your
chair halfway to the door
on the fourth night.
• Keep a sleep log.
• Put your child into the crib drowsy but awake.
• You may get out of your chair and go to the crib to comfort your child if she becomes hysterical.
• Be careful about an older child’s efforts to get you to come to her—like throwing things out of her crib. Set a limit, such as “Lie down, sweetie, and Mommy will get you your binky. But you must lie down.” You may also have to limit how many times you will return it. Follow through on whatever you say.
• It’s common to see a regression the first night you move your chair farther away.
• Children get ritualized easily. Make changes every three days. Dragging it out makes it harder, not easier, for your baby. Give it more than three days and she’ll expect you to stay exactly where you are—and get mad or upset when you try to double that distance.
Night four may be the hardest of these three nights. Stay the course!
 
Nights Seven through Nine
 
Move the
chair to the doorway or the doorjamb inside her room
. You should be dimly lit but still in her view. Continue the same soothing techniques from your chair, remembering to intervene as little as possible. Don’t worry if she cries a little bit; keep quietly reassuring her. She’ll know you’re there, and she’ll fall asleep.
 
When your child wakes up during the night, return to the chair position you were in at bedtime that night and sooth her. You can go over to the cribside initially and quickly calm and caress her, and then encourage her to lie down (if she’s standing or sitting) before you return to your chair by the door. Continue the soothing sounds but stay in the chair as much as you can. Get up to pat or stroke her a little, if necessary. Try not to pick her up unless she’s hysterical, and if you do pick her up, follow the technique I described for the first three nights. Stay in your chair by the door until she falls back to sleep.

Other books

Missing Mom by Joyce Carol Oates
The Glory Girls by June Gadsby
Ostrich Boys by Keith Gray
Young Man With a Horn by Dorothy Baker
Playing With Pleasure by Erika Wilde
Kronos by Jeremy Robinson