Maria Isabella Perez - Baby Sleep Training Book: What Works (And What Your Grandparents Forgot to Tell You)

Baby Sleep Training Book:

What Works (And What Your Grandparents Forgot to Tell You)

By:

Maria Isabella Perez

Introduction

C ONGRATULATIONS ON buying Baby Sleep Training and thank you for doing so.

Getting your baby down for a good nights sleep or even a much-needed nap can often be a lot harder than you might expect. Young babies just dont have the same internal clock older children and adults have to regulate sleep, and they cant yet tell us why they are having issues. This book will provide the answers and systematic instructions you can use to create your own sleep training method based on your baby.

Every baby is different and this book unlocks the secrets of effective sleep training, looking at several methods and written by a mom who had to struggle through sleep issues before. The tips and tricks in this book will improve the sleep of your infant as well as your own sleep.

There are plenty of books on this subject on the market, thanks again for choosing this one! Every effort was made to ensure it is full of as much useful information as possible, please enjoy!

Chapter 1: Essential Overview of Sleep

I n order for the baby sleep training methods and strategies presented in the next chapters of this book to be most effective it is important to give a closer look to sleep itself, and not only as it relates to infants, but also adult sleep. Ideally, the point of this book is to give both the infant and their parents a good nights sleep. This chapter will briefly explore the whys and hows of sleep before focusing on infants sleep including the importance sleep has for the infants development, both physically and mentally as well as providing an overview of the best sleeping environment for infants and important safety concerns regarding the sleep of infants.

I do have to apologize for the denseness of at least the first part of this chapter. It is difficult to present the basics of sleep simply so this section will not be as easy to read as the rest of the book. Understanding sleep, however, will likely lead to better sleep for both you and your baby so it is well worth the slog.

The Basics of Sleep

A dults generally spend a third of their day sleeping, though most people do not give it much thought unless they are plagued by sleep issues. On a basic scientific level, sleep is a recurring state where both the mind and body reduce their interactions with the surrounding world. A sleeping persons voluntary muscles, which are the muscles consciously control and are generally the ones used in movement, cease most movements. The brain waves of a sleeping person show a great deal less activity than when they are awake. This period of less activity allows the body and brain to restore the wear and tear that accumulated during the day.

Sleep tends to happen in cycles with five stages. The first stage of sleep is light sleep. The sleeper is closest to wakefulness in this stage but the activities of the voluntary muscles slow from wakefulness though they will have an occasional twitch. This is the stage of the sleep cycle where the sleeper is most likely to wake because of an external stimulus such as noise, light or even the need to pee. Thankfully, this is generally the shortest stage of the sleep cycle.

Sleep starts to deepen in the second stage. The sleepers breathing and heart rate both slow and their body temperature lower slightly as their bodys metabolism slows down. The breathing and heart rate remain slow in the third stage when deep sleep is entered. Here, the brain waves exhibit a greater percentage of delta waves. Delta waves associated with the stage 3 deep sleep known as slow-wave sleep. The fourth stage continues the slow-wave sleep and the sleepers voluntary muscles generally stop moving completely. In adults, these two stages are most common in the first couple of sleep cycles each night.

The final stage of sleep is known as rapid eye movement sleep or REM. REM sleep is when the sleeper dreams. Their brain activity increases with dreams while their heart rate and breathing both speed up. Muscles remain relaxed but exhibit more movement. Though the dreamers eyes generally remain closed, REM sleep gets its name from the rapid movements of the eyes during the dreams. For adults, REM sleep is more common in the sleep cycles that happen in the later part of their night of sleep.

Each sleep cycle lasts about 90 minutes for adults, while sleep cycles for infants are generally 50 to 60 minutes in length. This is often one of the issues new parents have with their infants sleep. If parents and infant fall asleep at the same time, the different length of the sleep cycle means that the infant will return to stage one about a half-hour earlier than their parents. If there are noises or light present at that time or if the infant is in some sort of discomfort, a dirty diaper, for example, they will wake and likely cry out, waking the parent from their deeper sleep which tends to be much more difficult than waking from REM or light sleep.

Another aspect of sleep that can be challenging for infants is the Circadian Rhythm. Almost all animals and plants, at least on the surface of the earth, have a set of metabolic responses in their bodies that are set to the position of the sun, sleep chiefly among them. Some animals are nocturnal and are active after the sun sets but inactive when it rises, while others are most active during dawn and dusk. These are called crepuscular. Most animals and plants, humans included, are diurnal or active primarily during the day. This is controlled by the Circadian rhythm.

About sleep in humans, the circadian rhythm is tied to the light/dark cycle of the sun. When the sun goes down, the hypothalamus sends a message to the brain to get ready to sleep. The brain then tells the body to start the production of melatonin, which helps to enable it to sleep. When the sun rises, the brain sends a signal to the body to decreases the production of melatonin, ceasing completely once the person has woken.