infant sleep workshop

On Saturday we went to an infant sleep workshop held by a woman at an LDS Church in the area, here is her blog post about the event.  She has twins and was dying of sleep deprivation before she read a bunch of books on getting her babies to sleep.  There were a surprising number of couples with twins there.  I had no idea there were so many sets of twins in the area.  She talked a little bit about twins, but pretty much everything could be applied to any number of babies. 

There is a lot of controversy over scheduling your baby, but I personally thrive on schedules and can totally see how babies are happier when they get enough sleep since I can't function on less than 7 hours.  I'm not sure why some moms get so upset about other moms putting their kids on schedules or whatever else they decide to do since I've never heard of a baby dying or even being mal-nourished from such things.  These are just guides anyway.  Women have been birthing and caring for babies for hundreds of years, there are much worse things to get riled up about.

Anyway, she talked about sleeping in general, gave out this cool graph that shows how much sleep people should get throughout their lives, and talked about feeding your baby more during the day so s/he doesn't get hungry at night.  Everything she said made a lot of sense and it was great that my husband was there to hear so we can start off on the same foot.  It's hard when you have different ideas about how to do things, especially when it comes to rearing children.

During the workshop I decided that we'll always have the baby nap in his bed in our bedroom which has blackout curtains, we'll keep it nice and dark in there and he'll get used to sleeping whenever he's in there. We never really hang out in our bedroom anyway.  Then when he's done with his nap we can bring him out in the living room where there's a lot so light.  She recommended getting a red light because at night it doesn't wake you up like if you turn on a regular light and you can go back to sleep more easily.

She had some great hand outs she sent us via email.  I wish I could download them, but I'm not sure if she wants the information she came up with up on my blog, so I'll just take some of the quotes she had on there.

Here are some quotes on common sleep misconceptions. 

"Indeed, the single most common misconception is that babies will simply sleep when they are tired and if they are kept up longer, they will sleep better."  Marc Weissbluth, M.D., Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Twins 

"Hunger, in fact, seems to have little to do with how babies sleep. A much more likely candidate for influencing a baby's sleeping patterns is the hormone melatonin."  Marc Weissbluth, M.D., Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Twins 

Thoughts on forming a sleep-training team: 

"Having defined roles--understanding them and agreeing on them--is a big part of being a successful sleep-training team."

"CONSTANT, CLEAR communication is essential so that you'll be in agreement about what you're trying to achieve and how you'll try to achieve it.” Marc Weissbluth, M.D. 

Know the amount of sleep your child should be getting based on age and aim each day to get that amount. 

Age in Months / Total Sleep in hours:

• 0-1mo/15.5-16hrs
• 1-2mo/15hrs
• 2-3mo/14.5hrs
• 3-4mo/14.5hrs
• 4-6mo/15hrs
• 6-9mo/14.5-15hrs
• 9-12mo/14.5-15hrs
• 12-18mo/14hrs
• 18-24mo/14hrs
• 24-30mo/13-13.5hrs
• 30-36mo/12.5hrs

 She recommended the following books in case you're interested:

1. Harvey Karp's Happiest Baby on the Block on DVD
2. Gina Ford's The New Contented Little Baby Book.  If Gina Ford's "New" book is sold out or on back-order, the original book is nearly the same.  Gina Ford has a twins version of the book, but I thought the singleton's version was better if you are able to feed 2 babies at once
3. Marc Weissbluth's Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. Marc Weissbluth has a twins version of this book too

We are borrowing the Happiest Baby on the Block DVD from our library.  It's free and my husband isn't much of a reader.  I'm thinking about finally reading The Baby Whisperer which I bought for $.50 from the library a long time ago.  My friend just had a baby and she was also at the workshop and after implementing some of the recommendations her baby is sleeping through the night! 

My friend recommended The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems: Sleeping, Feeding, and Behavior--Beyond the Basics from Infancy Through Toddlerhood and this blog post which lays out the schedule in the Baby Whisperer. 

I like the idea that the baby is coming into your family and being part of a family s/he will need to acclimate to the other members of the family like they will acclimate to the baby.  When we sleep is a big part of that.  I know already that I'll need sleep to be a good mom.