The No-cry Sleep Solution (52 page)

Use poster board or very heavy paper. Your book should be large—81⁄2Љ ϫ 11Љ or bigger. Tape the pages together with heavy tape, but don’t do so until you’ve created the entire book so you can easily replace any pages that you mess up.

Here I’ll describe making two different types of books. Make either one, or even both!

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Book One: My Sleep Book

Cut out many pictures of babies from magazines, advertisements, or the newspaper. Try to find pictures that pertain to sleep, such as a baby in a crib, or a baby getting a bath. Also cut out pictures of things that are part of your bedtime routine: picture books, a toothbrush, pajamas.

Use your pictures to create a book that demonstrates your exact bedtime routine, step by step. Write a story on the pages to go along with the pictures.

Read the book every night just before you begin your bedtime routine.

Book Two: The Personalized Growing-Up Book

Title your book
All About [insert Baby’s name]
. It will depict the story of your baby’s life, with the focus on sleeping (and feeding also if you use this idea to help wean Baby from the breast or bottle). You can also use this idea to wean Baby from the pacifier, or for that matter, to help Baby adjust to any major change in her life, such as introducing a new pregnancy, or dealing with divorce.

Gather pictures of your baby right from the time of birth. Start with a shot of her as a newborn, and progress through her life, finishing up with those pictures that feature actions and items in your bedtime routine. Pictures of Baby breastfeeding, drinking a bottle, using a pacifier, wearing pajamas, reading a book, lying in bed, and sleeping, are the most helpful. If possible, get a new roll of film and take photos of your baby during every step of your current bedtime routine—including several of him sleeping soundly.

In one of the sleeping photos, have Mommy or Daddy in the background smiling and looking at Baby.

Each page will show a picture of your baby and explain what is happening. The book’s ending will show your
goal
for your baby’s sleeping, breastfeeding, bottle-feeding, or pacifier use. In

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other words, the book will portray the results you are aiming for.

This book will be very customized to your family. The following are excerpts from the book I created for David eight years ago. (As a lovely bonus, you’ll have this book to cherish as your baby grows up. Excuse the tear stains as I write this portion.) (Newborn photo: David nursing) David is a brand-new

baby. His mommy and daddy love him very much. They are so happy he was born. David loves nursing and having

Mommy’s milk.

(Six-month photo: Angela giving him a bottle) David is getting bigger. He can crawl now. He loves to play with Angela and Vanessa. He still loves nursing and having Mommy’s milk, and now he likes his bottle, too, especially when Angela or Vanessa help him have his bottle.

(Eleven-month photo: David walking) David is growing so much! He is starting to walk and throw a ball. He can have some real food too, and his favorite drink is chocolate milk.

He still loves nursing and having Mommy’s milk, and he likes his bottle, too.

Continue on in the book through your baby’s life. Don’t make the book so long that your little one will lose interest, because the ending is, after all, the real goal of the book. You know your own baby and how long of a book she enjoys.

The last section of the book will be your bedtime and sleep (or weaning) goals, outlined very clearly and specifically. Here is our ending:

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(Second birthday photo) Happy birthday, David! You are a really big boy now. You can run and play and eat ice cream.

You can go down a slide. You can take the dog for a walk.

Big boys like David have a snack and then get in bed to go to sleep. They don’t need Mommy’s milk anymore—they

just need lots of Mommy cuddles! Mommy and David can

cuddle at bedtime, and then they both sleep all night long.

(Two-year-old photo: David sleeping) Mommy and David

cuddle in the morning when the sun comes up. Everybody can hug and cuddle David in the morning. Congratulations, David! You are a big boy now.

(Pictures of everyone in the family with David)

Read this book every night. (Your baby may like it so much that she wants to read it during the day, too—and that’s perfectly fine!) Talk about what you read. Help your little one do the things you talk about in the book.

After I made this book for David, we read and talked about it.

He loved it! After a few monthss of reading and talking, David was weaned. The process was simple and loving, and we both felt good about it.

Make a Bedtime Poster

This idea may help parents of babies who are more than

twenty months old.

Most toddlers thrive on predictability and routine. They like it when the same things happen in the same way every day. This can be somewhat frustrating for you when your schedule happens to conflict with your toddler’s regular naptime; you may be set on

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completing the day’s errands, but your baby is ready to sleep and letting you know it with his fussy, whiny behavior. You can use your baby’s desire for routine to your advantage when it comes to creating a healthy bedtime ritual.

We have already discussed the importance of a bedtime routine for all babies. Since your little one is older, you can involve him in the process. The most effective way to do this is to create a bedtime poster. Here’s how:

• Get a large piece of poster board.

• Gather colorful markers or crayons.

• Follow the photo- or picture-gathering instructions from the previous section on making a bedtime book.

• Use the pictures and markers to create a fun, colorful poster that clearly demonstrates the steps to bedtime.

• Hang the poster on your child’s bedroom door at his eye level.

• Have him help you follow the chart each night by asking him, “What’s next?”

• Praise him for following the steps (“Good job!”).

Here’s a sample bedtime chart:

Joey’s Bedtime Chart

1. Put on pajamas.

2. Have a snack.

3. Brush teeth.

4. Read three books.

5. Get drink of water.

6. Go potty.

7. Turn on Winnie-the-Pooh night-light.

8. Kisses, hugs, and back rub.

9. Joey goes to sleep.

10. Mommy and Daddy go to sleep.

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For many toddlers, the chart alone will provide the consistency and routine that will ease them into bed each night.

If you have a child who wakes during the night crying for you, you can add your own preferred way to handle the issue to your chart. For example:

• When Jenna wakes up, she goes to her sleeping place in Mommy and Daddy’s room—quiet as a mouse.

Or, here’s another example:

• When Lily wakes up during the night when it’s dark, she can go potty, get a drink of water, and hug her teddy bear.

When Lily wakes up and it is light outside, she can climb quietly into bed with Mommy and Daddy.

This is a good time for you to think about exactly what you expect of your toddler and committing it to paper. Then help your little one to follow the steps—even during the night,

“Remember your bedtime chart? This is what you need to do now.”

If you have a little yo-yo who likes to get up after your routine, asking for a drink of water, a hug, or whatever, you can add this step to your chart to help eliminate this exasperating process:

• Alexander will get two Get-Out-of-Bed-Free cards. He may come out for potty, water, kisses, or hugs two times. When Alexander’s tickets are gone, it is time to stay in bed and go to sleep.

These “cards” are simply pieces of paper that you create with your poster supplies. At the end of your routine, give your toddler the tickets. He has to give you a ticket each time he gets out of bed. Base the number of tickets on his current number of bed escapes, minus a few. That is, if he normally climbs out of bed five or six times, start with four tickets. After a week or so, change to