If your baby is sleep trained, has been sleeping independently and is on a schedule, please don't fear illness while your baby becoming needy. Once you are on track again, go back to your schedule and routine, your baby will remember what was before illness. Hang in there it will pass! Be Well! Sleep Well!

The principle is that you put your newborn to sleep at 8-9pm and before you go to bed at 10-11pm you feed your baby while she is sleeping hoping that she will now stretch her sleep a couple more hours so you can get some sleep yourself. But does it work? Randomly it does. If you have tried it, you know what I am talking about. You feed your baby at 10pm hoping that she will now sleep until 12am, but then she wakes up at 11pm as she would normally do so without the dream feed. Why not? If your dream feed worked for you, you should know when to give it up, because by the age of 6 months, it becomes a habit that you have to change. Babies start to stretch their sleep at night by lengthening the first stretch after bedtime. Slowly they start to sleep longer, waking up after 3, 4, 5, 6, hours and so night feeds start to reduce until they disappear completely. When you wake up your baby for a dream feed, you unintentionally disrupt this natural progression into full night sleep. But then she wakes up at 11pm as she would normally do without the dream feed. It may also happen that you dream feed your baby when she is in deep sleep, a very important stage in her sleep cycle. This means she has to pull herself out of that stage and surface a bit to be able to suck and swallow. Again, unknowingly you may be breaking her deep sleep cycle and so disrupting its development. Be Well! Sleep Well!

Wait 10 minutes before responding to your baby. What if he goes back to sleep? Some babies have partial arousal when linking sleep cycles and if you give them a little more time, they may figure it out by themselves and go back to sleep. Be Well! Sleep Well!

It’s a difficult time to be a parent. There is a tremendous amount of guilt and pressure to be the best parent. It’s hard to know what the “right” answer is … Making changes to anyone’s habits will always be met with protest. Be Well! Sleep Well!

Once nighttime rolls around, the sun goes down, and our eyes stop taking in light, the brain responds by releasing those stores of melatonin that it built up during the day. That signals our muscles to relax, tells the brain to ease back on the thinking, and allows us to drift peacefully off to sleep, hopefully for a long, restful night. Come morning, the blue light from the sun starts to permeate the thin skin of our closed eyelids, signaling the brain that it’s time to get back into gear.So now our brain is going to help us get out of bed and get on with our tasks for the day, and it’s going to do that, in part, by telling our adrenal glands to pump out some cortisol. This becomes an intricate dance between light and dark, Cortisol and Melatonin, awake and asleep, works like magic when not interrupted by artificial light. Light bulbs, TVs, LEDs, computer monitors, iPads, smartphones, flood our eyes with blue light, making it harder to get to sleep. Since we can’t reasonably get rid of all of the sources of blue light around us, the best thing to do for our little ones’ sleep is turn off those really intense sources, a couple of hours before they go to bed, and make sure their sleeping area is as dark as we can get it. Be Well! Sleep Well!

These are some suggestions to give mom some time to herself and to get things done: First, if your baby has been sleeping well during the day for about two weeks, you can feel pretty confident about switching things up a little bit every once in a while. How often is once in a while? Well, I’d say 4 out of five days is consistent enough so as not to become chaotic, but pliable enough to let you get some things done. Second, if you have to skip a nap, or need to have one take place in the car or the stroller, I suggest you prioritize the first nap of the day. That’s usually the one where baby will get the deepest sleep, so keep the car nap for later on in the day. If you do end up needing to let baby nap in the car, do what you can to make sure she gets a full nap. If she falls asleep five minutes into a ten-minute drive, you might consider just driving around for a bit until she’s had a decent nap. Barring that, you could try and bring her in and leaving her in her car seat, but this may not always work. Above all, don’t be afraid to ask for some help if you can get it. Ideally, baby should be in their crib for their naps, so if you can pass her over to a parent or a friend for a few hours, you should absolutely take advantage of it. Be Well! Sleep Well!

The ‘No Cry’ is a sleep solution by Elizabeth Pantely first published in 2002, a concept that brought about contradictions with the American Association of Pediatrics recommendations on safe sleep for infants. This solution is very slow to implement, because of the very nature of the program, no cry. I also find it unfair for your baby, since he has to stay in a continued mode of learning, which may exhaust him and confuse him. I am not in favor of the “Cry it Out” solution either, I find it heartbreaking and unnecessary because at times the baby may need the attention of his parents in case he got stuck in his crib or soiled himself, and more. Going to sleep is a journey for each one of us, if I were to ask you to sleep on the other side of your bed and keep the lights on, you will most probably not like it and protest. Well, when you change your baby’s routine to sleep, he will protest too. The older he is the stronger the protest. He does that by crying, it is his way of communicating that he doesn’t like the change. We all know that change is difficult. But when you are consistent and persistent, staying with him in his room while continually asserting him that he should sleep (some rules may apply), he will get it sooner than you expect. You will start to see some progress by the third night. Your baby will sleep through the night before the end of second week of training. Remember, that every baby is different and special and has his own pace to learn the skill. Although I feel with you and I really understand your concern, I really do, but a little bit of controlled cry never hurt a baby! Also remember this is not a punishment it is a learning Be Well! Sleep Well!

Skipping naps and a late bedtime will push your baby into overtiredness. Naps are very important and skipping them will not help your baby to sleep longer at night. When a baby is overtired or undertired, they cry a lot and sleep less. Using the correct and age approriate wake windows will lead your baby to easier naps and night sleep. Be Well! Sleep Well!

Bedtime Routine is something that you start at a very early stage. It’s a good habit to get into and it is an excellent cue to the body and the mind that this is time to settle down and get ready for sleep. Routine should be around 20-30 minutes and not more. Babies generally sleep a long stretch after a bath, wouldn’t you rather have that sleep stretch be in the evening? As the weeks pass, he will starts to extend that stretch of sleep more and more until it reaches reasonable morning hours. How great is that? Be Well! Sleep Well!

Overtiredness stimulates Cortisol production which inhibits sleep and makes the baby more alert and irritable. Be Well! Sleep Well!