Tresillian - The Tresillian Sleep Book: Expert advice on how to help your baby to sleep--from Australias most trusted parent support organisation

Contents

First published in Australia in 2018

by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited

ABN 36 009 913 517

harpercollins.com.au

Copyright Tresillian 2018

The right of Tresillian to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.

This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

HarperCollinsPublishers

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ISBN: 978 0 7333 3914 1 (paperback)

ISBN: 978 1 4607 0945 0 (ebook : epub)

A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia

Cover design by Michelle Mackintosh

Cover image by amana images/ Getty Images

Internal images by shutterstock.com

Established in 1918, Tresillian is Australias largest early parenting organisation providing family-focused care for thousands of families each year. With services rapidly expanding to reach more metropolitan and regional areas, Tresillian helps parents gain confidence in their roles as mums and dads and provides evidence-based education and support around breastfeeding, infant sleep, settling and nutrition to maximise each familys wellbeing.

Need advice? Contact Tresillians Parent Helpline on 1300 272 736 or go online for advice at tresillian.org.au

FRAN CHAVASSE is a registered general nurse, registered midwife and is a child and family health nurse. Frans specialty is infant mental health and she has as a Master of Mental Health (Infancy). Fran is currently doing a PhD; her research examines the nurse and mothers adult attachment and how it affects their working alliance.

Fran has worked in child and family health nursing for more than 35 years. Her primary expertise is in the first 5 years of life, and she has also worked with children through primary school and into adolescence. She has worked in a wide range of child and family health services, including extended health home visiting, mother and baby residential units, clinical nurse consultancy and nursing management. As senior nurse educator for Tresillian, Fran regularly provides a range of infant mental health workshops for child and family health nurses, allied health professionals and childcare workers.

Deborah Stockton is a registered general nurse, registered midwife and child and family health nurse. Debbies focus has been the provision of care and support for families in the early years of their childs life, working across a range of child and family health services in metropolitan and rural locations including community nursing, mother and baby residential units, telephone helpline, clinical nurse consultancy, nursing management, education and research. She is currently undertaking PhD research which aims to enhance access to services for families in rural communities. Debbie works at Tresillian as the Operational Nurse Manager Regional Services.

Nicola Brown is a registered nurse with extensive experience in childrens nursing in health care services, staff development and the higher education sector. She has contributed to professional texts and journal publications on acute and chronic illness in childhood and adolescence and families, and professional development for nurses. Nicolas areas of research interest include parents management of their childs illnesses and promoting health for their children. She is currently a PhD candidate, undertaking a study to explore family-based interventions to promote a smoke-free home. Nicola works at Tresillian as Nurse Manager of the Professional Practice and Innovation Centre.

I would like to thank the people who have provided me with support, encouragement and contributions for this book.

I am very grateful to Debbie Stockton, Tresillian Operational Nurse Manager Regional Services, for reading, editing crazy sentences, providing comments and changes to content and suggesting improvements for each chapter of the book as it was written. Debbie has been with me all the way and her help has been invaluable.

I would like to thank Nikki Brown, Nurse Manager Professional Practice and Innovation Centre, for her final editing, adding her paediatric expertise and providing me with the time and support to write the book.

I would also like to thank Caitlin Wright, who interviewed all the mothers and wrote up their stories for the book.

I also received wonderful support from Ann Paton, Tresillians Public Affairs and Marketing Manager, who managed the production of the book and guided me through the process.

Thank you to both Troy Trgetaric, Tresillian Director of Corporate Services, and Robert Mills, CEO of Tresillian, who gave me the opportunity to write this book and made sure I had the time and space to do it. I have really enjoyed it.

Finally, I need to acknowledge the contributions of my colleague Denise Findlay at NCAST Programs at the University of Washington, Seattle, USA. NCAST Programs have made a great addition to my comprehension of the language of infants and they are used extensively at Tresillian Family Care Centres. Parts of this book have been informed by the education gained by my Instructor-level training in the NCAST ParentChild Interaction Feeding and Teaching Scales, and some of the terminology and information about non-verbal cues contained in Chapter 6 are gratefully sourced from NCAST Programs.

Fran Chavasse

First things first, lets look at what sleep is and how it works.

Does your baby just know how to sleep when shes born? Does she sleep like you or is there something different about the way your baby sleeps? And who made up that phrase sleeping like a baby and what does it mean?

Probably, as far as youre concerned, sleeping like a baby is one of the most ridiculous things anyone has ever said. Whatever that phrase originally meant doesnt really matter, because this book is going to explain to you what sleeping like a baby really means.

Your babys sleep is part of her physical development, just like learning to walk and talk. Sleep is linked to many important parts of her development, such as early brain maturation, learning and memory, social and emotional development and physical health. The maturing of your babys sleeping and waking cycles is one of her most important developmental tasks.

You might be reading this and saying, Yeah, yeah just get to the part where you tell me how to teach my baby to sleep all night. That information is included in these pages, but before reading any further, here are two important questions to ask yourself:

1. Could someone teach you to sleep longer than you need to?

2. Could someone teach you to sleep when you dont need to?

Whatever your sleep-deprived brain just whispered then about being able to sleep forever or that persistent thought that you would have no problem being taught to go to sleep anytime, those two questions dont have simple answers. No one can make you sleep longer than what your brain tells your body it needs to sleep, and no one can make you sleep when your brain isnt ready to sleep.