Warner - Rock-a-bye baby: 200 Ways to Help Baby (and You!) Sleep Better

Rock-a-Bye Baby

200 WAYS TO HELP BABY (AND YOU!) SLEEP BETTER

By Penny Warner

With a Foreword by Louis Borgenicht, M.D.

Illustrations by Ashley Alexander

To Bradley

A joy when awake, a cherub when asleep.

To Luke

Whos just beginning to wake up.

Changes in child care occur with ever-increasing speed these days. As a pediatrician, Ive tracked the trends in medical journals and among my colleagues and patients for more than thirty years. The constant renewal is a clear mirror for our cultural need to always get the newest, best, and most accurate informationwhich is a tough pace to jog at when youre having your first child.

In stark contrast to this frenzy stands parental intuition, a constant and powerful force in child-rearing that, in the face of information overload, needs constant reinforcement. Dr. Spocks paean to parents to Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do, still resonates prominently today. In fact, its never been truer. No wonder his 1946 book, Baby and Child Care, has long been considered the bible of child care and remains a best-seller more than sixty years later.

But not all child-care advice is as evergreen. More than eighty years ago, L. Emmett Holt, M.D., published The Care and Feeding of Children: A Catechism for the Use of Mothers and Childrens Nurses. It was designed to make simple and very concrete sense of parental concerns. The book contains questions and answers (both concocted by Holt), usually leaving little room for variance.

On the matter of sleep, he commented:

Q: Should a child sleep in the same bed as his mother or nurse?

A: Never, if this can be possibly avoided.

Q: Is rocking necessary?

A: By no means. It is a habit easily acquired, but hard to break, and a very useless and injurious one.

Holts catechism seems formulaic in a world in which flexibility is de rigueur. Then, and perhaps even more now, rigidity causes a world of worry for parents. Because there is no one way to give your child a safe and healthy upbringing; accepting this notion may make parenting in the twenty-first century easier.

With so many experts opining different truths, attitudes toward and anxiety about infant sleeping begin even before a baby is born. Actual and apocryphal tales of somnolent terror color the perspective of virtually every new parent. To ease the worry, pediatricians now often speak with prospective parents well before the child is bornheres that need for the best information again. When I meet with an expectant couple, I emphasize two things that seem to be helpful: the confusion of the first two weeks post-pregnancy, and parental guilt. Both themes are designed to help parents deal comfortably with their new roles.

My talk goes something like this: The first two weeks of life with your new baby will be unlike any others in your life. Your relationship with each other changes as you try to understand your baby and figure out how to care for her. Despite what you may have been told by friends and relatives and what you may have read, you actually know a lot more about taking care of your child than you think you do. This will be a process of trusting yourself, most likely with the assistance of a few judicious questions for your pediatrician.

During those first two weeks and for the years following, remember that once you decided to become parents, you bought into guilt. Ive noticed that parents feel they can maintain control over their childrens lives by dredging up their guilt as an explanation for the adversity their children encounter. For example, a parent may believe that his childs cold is due to neglectfor example, not having dressed his child warmly enough. But I promise you, not everything is your fault. Having some perspective on the convoluted paths of parental guilt may make it less daunting.

All this aside, there is no one simple answer to sleep issues. This book offers more than 200 answers, some of which will ultimately apply to your family if you believe in yourself and your own ability to understand your child.

Remember: your relationship with your child, whether awake or asleep, is an ever-changing process, and your intuition is your most helpful asset.

Louis Borgenicht, M.D.

Nothing brings a smile to a mother or fathers face faster than the cherubic look of their sleeping baby. And nothing brings on the tears like an overtired, not-so-cherubic child who cant, or wont, go to sleep.

I should know. I spent the first couple of years of my babies lives in a twilight daze brought on by lack of sleeptheirs and mine. Even with a couple of academic degrees in child development, I didnt have a clue how to get my little angels off to snoozeville; that elusive secret simply wasnt covered in the clinical textbooks I had studied.

It wasnt until I began teaching parenting classes that I learned the sleep secrets held only by the real experts: experienced parents. I started collecting the tips they shared, knowing there were a lot of droopy-eyed parents out there searching for help. When it came time to write this book, I had more than 200 parent-approved suggestions! How could I not share these wonderful tips with other night-zombie parents when I had them at my fingertips?

Whether youre expecting your first child (congratulations!) or enjoying the birth of your second, third, or tenth (goodness!), sleep can feel like a big challenge, for both you and your child. But it doesnt have to be. With these tried-and-true (and even a little wacky) tips, sleep can be all its supposed to be: hours upon hours of restful bliss. Sound like a dream? Rock-a-Bye Baby makes it a reality.

Youll find in this book everything from parents and grandparents time-tested wisdom to recommendations from credentialed pediatricians and child-development specialists. Theres certainly no shortage of advice. The trick is to make your way through it all, try many different pointers, and find the few that suit your and your babys lifestyle and routine. Because, trust me, everyone has an opinion about what works best! Its the rare parent who doesnt get an earful of sleep tips from well-meaning family and friends, not to mention the glut of parenting magazines, blogs, and online support groups. Here youll find all the tips youll need from a variety of sources, conveniently gathered in one place so youre never stuck searching for an answer in moments of exhaustion.

Sure, the sleep issue can be overwhelming, but theres no reason to despair. Trust your instincts about which of these suggestions are best for you and your baby. Because while doctors are certainly trustworthy sourcestheyre experts for a reason, and their advice is worth a tryperhaps no one has more expertise than parents, who have earned their MOM. or DAD. degree as late-night sleep consultants. Theyve walked a mile in your slippers and tend to have the most helpful, practical advice.