Sleep

Are you a mom who has trouble getting enough sleep? You're not alone! In this guest article, Dr. Lisa Brent offers some facts about insomnia and what you can do to combat it and get the rest you need and deserve.

“Sleep when the baby sleeps” is advice many mothers receive when they bring a new baby home. This is a really great idea, but it is not always so easy to do. For many women, sleep does not come easily, even when they are completely exhausted by the daily (and nightly) demands of motherhood.

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Traveling with an infant or toddler can be a unique challenge, especially when getting them to sleep. Marin parent coach, infant/toddler sleep researcher, and family therapist Angelique Millette has complied the following list of handy tips for traveling with children.

Angelique works throughout the Bay Area and across the country supporting families and helping them meet life's challenges. You can learn more about her and her services at www.angeliquemillette.com.

It's the summer time and many parents have been calling with questions about traveling with their young ones. I've put together a list of tips and suggestions, many of them tried-and-true, by parents:

Marin Mommies presents another guest article by Marin parent coach, infant/toddler sleep researcher, and family therapist Angelique Millette. She works throughout the Bay Area and across the country supporting families and helping them meet life's challenges. You can learn more about her and her services at www.angeliquemillette.com.

So your baby has colic or reflux. Or your baby fights sleep, is fussy, and high-needs. You are not alone! Research shows that early on, up to 25 to 35% of babies may have a more difficult time with sleeping. Possible reasons include digestive issues like reflux, when babies food may come back up just as they are going down to sleep or as they are sleeping. Also, temperament has been shown to play a role in how babies settle to sleep. Difficult-to-soothe or high-needs babies may need a lot more parent help to go from active play or alert time to sleep time. These babies may be very curious and alert and may simply need more "wind down" time in order to fall asleep. And for some babies, they may have more difficulty regulating sleep. These can be colic babies or colic/reflux babies but also some premature babies and babies who may have had medical interventions or procedures at/around birth or early postpartum. For these babies, sleep may present a real challenge. Because sleep cycles and patterns develop over time and with parents help, these babies are going to need a lot more help and time to regulate settling to sleep and sleep patterns.

Join The Parents Center, Heller's for Children, and the Novato Mother's Club for a free infant/toddler sleep and breastfeeding panel on Wednesday, October 28 from 7–9 pm and features a panel discussion with infant/child sleep consultant (and frequent Marin Mommies contributor) Angelique Millette and lactation consultant Margie King. A brief lecture will be followed by question and answer session. Best of all, this event is free to the public. RSVP to georgia@theparentscenter.com

The Parents Center is located inside the Heller's store at 514 Fourth Street (on the east side of 101) in San Rafael. Located in Heller's loft area (in space donated by Heller's), the Parents Center is a comfortable, welcoming place that offers support and education for new and expectant parents. Moms are invited to come in, feed and weigh baby, have a cup of tea and relax. There's even a special rocker for breastfeeding moms with an optional privacy screen. There is a library of books and dvds for loan, and classes, workshops, and programs are also offered. For more information, visit www.theparentscenter.com.

Marin Mommies presents another great guest article by Marin parent coach, infant/toddler sleep researcher, and family therapist Angelique Millette. She works throughout the Bay Area and across the country supporting families and helping them meet life's challenges. You can learn more about her and her services at www.angeliquemillette.com.

With the time change approaching, I have received many e-mails and phone calls from parents asking how they can help their babies and toddlers transition to the new time without upsetting their child’s sleep. Starting Sunday November 2, clocks will be set back one hour—“fall back”—and we can count on darkness at approximately 5 pm and morning light at around 6 am.

You can help your baby/toddler by starting to adjust their internal clocks/circadian rhythms ahead of the time change on Sunday. Starting Tuesday night, begin to put baby down 10 minutes later for bed. You can do this by comforting, singing or book reading, and/or starting the bedtime ritual/routine 10 minutes later. Do this for the rest of the week, so when the time change does happen, your baby will have slowly adjusted to the new time.

Marin Mommies presents another great guest article by Marin parent coach, infant/toddler sleep researcher, and family therapist Angelique Millette. She works throughout the Bay Area and across the country supporting families and helping them meet life's challenges. You can learn more about her and her services at www.angeliquemillette.com.

As I started writing this article, I received five phone calls, all from co-sleeping mothers who were beside themselves with fatigue and exhaustion. They were tearful as they told me how utterly and totally exhausted they were, and yet, each told me she felt conflicted about moving her child out of the family bed. This reminded me that a good article about transitioning one’s baby or toddler out of the family bed, must speak to the myriad emotions that both parents and children might feel as they make this change.

Marin Mommies presents another great guest article by Marin parent coach, infant/toddler sleep researcher, and family therapist Angelique Millette. She works throughout the Bay Area and across the country supporting families and helping them meet life's challenges. You can learn more about her and her services at www.angeliquemillette.com.

As a child sleep consultant and parent coach, I receive calls from concerned parents who are not sure how best to help their bedwetting children.  Nocturnal enuresis is the medical term for bedwetting, and it is common in children. About fifteen percent of five-year-olds are wet at night, and by age 12, only three percent of kids still wet the bed (mostly boys).

Even so, bedwetting can be very embarrassing for kids, and parents may feel conflicted about how best to proceed. This article will focus on bedwetting as it occurs as a normal part of increasing independence and mastery in children, types of bedwetting, and how best to help your young one to succeed with nighttime bladder mastery. 

Marin Mommies is presents another great guest article, this time by Marin parent coach, infant/toddler sleep researcher, and family therapist Angelique Millette. She works throughout the Bay Area and across the country supporting families and helping them meet life's challenges. You can learn more about her and her services at www.angeliquemillette.com.

Working as a sleep consultant, parent coach, and infant-toddler-child therapist intern, I am always struck by how often I hear questions—that cross cultural and demographic lines—related to infant/toddler sleep issues and how infants and young children are affected by sleep challenges. Many parents report they are confused by conflicting suggestions and opinions in the various sleep books. A meta-analysis looking at 40 different books not only found conflicting information on how to treat sleep problems, including contradictory recommendations about co-sleeping and acceptable crying methods, but also that many books (approximately half of those in the study) had a first author with no professional credentials at all. What, then, is a sleep-deprived parent to do? read more »