Sick season is among us. In recent studies, Aric Prather, associate professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, found we are four times as likely to get sick if we are not getting sufficient sleep (adults sleeping six hours or less a night). Prather adds “These results lend support to the idea that sleep is critical to health. People need to make sleep a priority, not just something you do after everything else gets done.” Other than sleeping, the

With the holidays approaching, many new parents who have recently gotten their babies sleeping on a schedule are worried that they might regress a little over the holidays. And I can assure you, those fears could not be more well-founded. Between the travel, the excitement, the constant attention and then travel all over again, the holidays are the single easiest way to throw all of your hard work out with the wrapping paper and Thanksgiving leftovers. But I’m happy to tell y

Is your toddler or preschooler not sleeping well after the new baby has arrived?

I sure wish we would do awake with Daylight Savings as it really does not only affect children’s sleep patterns, but adults, too. Statistically, the Monday after daylight savings, there is an 8% increase in traffic accidents. It really does effect people of all ages and can increase our sleep debt, especially in children, who are more structured with what time they go to bed every night and what time they wake up every morning. The best way to handle the one-hour time change

Tell me if this scenario sounds familiar… Your baby wakes up in the morning after a good night’s sleep. You feed her, change her diaper, play with her, take her for a little walk outside in the stroller, then rock her to sleep and put her gently into her crib for her morning nap. And then, 30 minutes later, she wakes up fussy and irritable and, despite your pleading, rocking, pacifier, bottle, she refuses to go back to sleep. So after twenty minutes of trying to put her back

Is your baby a light sleeper? Does she wake up every time you so much as walk past her door? Does she go from fast asleep to wide awake the second you put her into her crib? This is one of the most common complaints I get from parents. They say that their babies are just so easy to wake, and when they do, they’re exceedingly difficult to get back to sleep. So first of all, let me dispel a little myth. All babies are light sleepers, and all babies are heavy sleepers. So, for t

One of the oldest tricks in the book when it comes to getting babies to sleep through the night is the old “cereal in the bottle” routine. It’s been used by parents for generations, and I can understand why it’s so popular. As adults, we know that sleeping on an empty stomach is challenging, to say the least. We also know that staying awake when you’ve just eaten a big, hearty meal is next to impossible. So the notion that a little cereal in baby’s bottle should take longe

Before many families have their first child, they are so excited about the idea of co-sleeping. You may have had a vision of your partner and you sleeping nicely with your little baby snuggled oh-so-peacefully between you. Those few dreamy moments in the morning when you looked at each other over the little miracle you had created. Reality was somewhat less romantic because apparently babies like to move around a little when they sleep. And they can make a lot of noise. And

In this video, I discuss some reasons your baby or child is waking up too early in the morning and possible solutions.

Of course, they usually wish that after baby’s grown out of the toddler stage, because along with that creativity and new found intelligence, we usually see a lot of boundary-testing, which can be a frustrating experience. When I have my initial consultations with the parents of a toddler, there’s usually some kind of amusing story surrounding bedtime. They’ll tell me, sometimes a little sheepishly, about how their little one gets three or four stories a night, sometimes five

I can clearly remember, like most mothers I’m sure, the very moment I gave birth to my first child. I was absolutely buried in feelings of love and gratitude. And then, about ten to fifteen seconds later, I was equally buried in advice, suggestions, and information. This was all thrown at me with the best intentions, but it was overwhelming nonetheless. I can’t imagine the number of times I heard the words, “You should,” “You’ll want to,” and “You’ve got to.” If there’s no su

That right there might be the single most common question new parents ask. Is it a developmental milestone? A regression? Are they getting too much sleep during the day, or not enough? Maybe they’re just hungry. Maybe they’re too hot, or too cold. Well, the truth is that it could be any of those things, and it could be a combination of several of them. What that means, and what you’re probably already aware of, is that baby’s sleep is tremendously complicated. Their bodies an