Baby and Toddler Sleep Guide

Description

Sleep is one of the most asked about and controversial of all baby care topics. With over 30 years of experience, Sister Lilian tackles this issue with science and sense, helping you to understand your baby’s sleep patterns and establish a baby-friendly sleep routine. 

This guide includes a step-by-step recipe for a good night’s sleep and offers Sister Lilian’s sensitive but effective solutions to almost every possible sleep struggle, from birth up until the toddler years.

If you’re crying out for a voice of reason amidst the torrent of impractical and ineffective sleep advice, or if you simply want to understand your newborn’s sleep patterns, then this guide is for you.

Table of Contents

Section One – Understanding Your Baby’s Sleep

Chapter 1: The basics of baby sleep
How sleep works
The significance of sleep ‘incompatibility’
Why babies need sleep

Chapter 2: Sleep surveys and research
Learning from communities that don’t have sleep problems

Chapter 3: Your baby’s slumber landscape

Chapter 4: Newborn and small baby sleep
What you need to know about sleep alignment
Swapping day and night
Small babies need to feed more often at night
When Baby doesn’t sleep much during the day

Chapter 5: Who sleeps like a baby?
The lesson of the ‘good sleeper’ story

Chapter 6: Profiling a ‘serial non-sleeper’
The moral of the serial non-sleeper story

Chapter 7: Defining sleep problems
An identity parade of all possible types of sleep problems

Section Two – Myth Busting and Paradigm Shifts

Chapter 8: Looking sleep in the eye
Sleep nonsense
Six sleep myths

Chapter 9: Developing a ‘sleep routine’
Routine for babies from birth to six months
Routine for babies from six to twelve months
Can there be such a thing as a sleep recipe?
Sister Lilian’s Sleep Recipe

Chapter 10: Investing in happy nights

Chapter 11: Co-sleeping – the ultimate sleep strategy
The benefits of sleeping together are numerous
Co-sleeping sense
When co-sleeping continues for a long time

Section Three – Solving Sleep Problems

Chapter 12: How to handle frequent waking at night
What is ‘sleeping through’?
At what age will Baby sleep through?
Why sleeping through is not the golden norm
And the solution is…

Chapter 13: What to do when Baby wakes up, and stays awake

Chapter 14: How to deal with sleep and bedtime resistance

Chapter 15: How to improve restless, fidgety sleep

Chapter 16: What to do when Baby must suckle to fall asleep

Chapter 17: What to do if Baby needs rocking or movement to fall asleep

Chapter 18: What to do if Baby is thirsty at night

Chapter 19: Dealing with nightmares, terrors, sleep walking and talking
Nightmares
Night terrors
Four ways to help avoid nightmares and night terrors
Sleep walking and sleep talking

Chapter 20: Age-related quick tip sleep guide

Section Four – Sleep Odds, Ends and Extras

Chapter 21: Sleep safety
Cot safety
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome
Baby’s sleep position

Chapter 22: Natural remedies for better sleep
Homeopathic remedies
Herbal remedies
Massage oils

Chapter 23: Breast milk is a wonderful sleep aid

Chapter 24: When parents disagree about sleep management
First Aid for ‘suicide hour’

Chapter 25: How colour choice affects Baby’s sleep

Chapter 26: A bit of this, and a bit of that
Dropping day naps
Food and sleep
Blocked nose and sleep