Night Terrors – What are they?

Many people use the term night terrors to describe a lot of different behavior at night. Whether or not you believe in cry it out or its many variations, Ferber (where the term “ferberizing” comes from) is the director of The Center for Pediatric Sleep Disorders in Boston, MA and clears up that there are things called “confusional events” (or partial wakings) and something else called “sleep terrors”. I will describe each of them so you will be able to know the difference. As always, I try to limit too much sleep science talk because it’s really technical (and pretty boring if you are not obsessed with sleep as much as I am), but if you are interested in more I highly recommend reading Ferber’s book who does a thorough job in explaining everything.

You might remember beginning around 4 months old, when we first fall asleep, it’s a transition into the deepest sleep of the whole night. This process takes approximately 30 minutes from bedtime for babies as they go into deep sleep faster than adults. The first sleep cycle lasts about 60 to 90 minutes and your baby (and you) will wake briefly as she transitions into the second sleep cycle, which is also deep sleep. The first few hours of sleep of the night is (supposed to be) the deepest. It is during this transition between sleep cycles that you wake briefly. You might roll over or you might pull the cover up over you. It is usually brief and you go right back to sleep. This is NORMAL to wake briefly. Sometimes, however, this process is not so smooth and not so quick and explains why your baby sometimes wakes up crying. Or, do they?

Confusional events typically happen within the first two sleep cycles or between 1 and 4 hours after bedtime. What happens is part of your mind is trying to go back to sleep and part of your mind is trying to wake up and they are both trying to win. There is a wide spectrum as to how that might play out. Your baby might moan, mumble, fuss, or move around for a few minutes and go right back to sleep. That would be a mild confusional event. This is when most people are sleep talking. People think this is when someone is dreaming, but in reality, this is during a NON-dream state. This explains why my husband doesn’t remember what I’m talking about when I tell him something he said the night before.

If the event is a bit more intense, your toddler might sleep walk. She may walk up to you and seem to see right through you. Her eyes might be open, but she is still mostly asleep. Most kids won’t ever remember this happening. It could be a bit more pronounced such as a child jumping out of bed and moving around the room. She might seem upset or confused and may even say things like “No! Stop!” but not really appear too frightened. She might not recognize you and might push you away if you try to hug or touch her. It will likely be virtually impossible to either wake her or console her.

If your baby or toddler (or you) have a true night terror (or sleep terror), it will be more sudden than a confusional event that builds up gradually. Your child will do something like sit straight up in bed and let out a bloodcurdling scream. Her heart will beat fast and she might be very hot and sweaty. She will probably look very terrified and may be screaming things like “Stop!”, “No!”, “Help!” It usually lasts from 1 to 5 minutes and if she wakes at the end will probably not remember anything. It is rare, but some kids will jump out of bed and run around and “run away” from whatever appears to be chasing her. Again, this is very rare.

Night Terrors – Age they start and stop

Partial wakings and confusional events are normal and happen from birth. The “confusion” comes in when your body’s drive to sleep is met with your body’s drive to wake. An example is when you are asleep and you hear the baby crying. You get up, walk to her room and start to feed her before you are fully awake. You might not even remember how you got into the room. Part of your mind was awake and part of it was asleep. If you are confused, you might go in the bathroom instead of the baby’s room and then wonder what you’re doing up when you hear the baby crying and finally your brain starts to wake up. From birth, there will be times during sleep transitions that your baby’s drive to sleep is being challenged by the drive to wake up and your baby might cry or fuss between sleep cycles. This is why it’s important to not interrupt the process of going back to sleep, if you can help it. We want the drive to sleep to win. But, just as an alarm clock is meant to wake you up fully, we, parents, wake our babies up by getting them up too soon, sometimes.

True night or sleep terrors most often happen to adolescents and preadolescents (so 10 to 18 years old), though younger kids might have similar events and of course, everyone is unique. The good thing is that most likely if your baby or toddler appears to be having a night terror, most likely it is a confusional event in which he is not truly frightened. And, in either case, they typically don’t remember either.

Night Terrors – How long they last

Confusional events and night terrors last from a few minutes to up to 40 minutes and typically not longer than that. These are NOT dreams and explains why your child won’t even remember them in the morning. It also explains why you may not be able to comfort him if he is crying or screaming. Night terrors are usually a shorter 1 to 5 minutes.

To recap, confusional events generally occur in the beginning of the night as your baby or toddler is coming out of deep sleep and transitioning into the next sleep cycle. He might roll over, moan, mumble, move around a bit, fuss / cry a bit and typically go right back to sleep. If he is having a more intense event, he might stand up in his crib, get out of bed and come into your room. A night terror, typically starting around 10 years old, will be much more intense beginning suddenly and ending within a few minutes. Later in the series, I’ll explain how to minimize the occurrences and how you should handle night terrors.

Stay tuned for part 2 where I will explain what nightmares are, when they occur at night, what age they start and when they stop in babies and toddlers. If you haven’t already, you might want to get free updates in your e-mail inbox or via your favorite feed reader, so you won’t miss a part!

Does your baby or toddler have confusional events or night terrors? Tell us about it!

Thank you to everyone who entered the Father’s Day giveaway! As always, I love giving back to the Pick Nick’s Brain readers! We’ll have another giveaway in the Fall and next week we get back to the topic of sleep, but until then, below are the winners to the contest, whom have all been contacted via e-mail:

Nature’s Paradise Organics: Baby Organic Gift Basket

Nature’s Paradise Organics provides safe & effective organic skin care products which are all USDA Certified Organic. Their products are chemical free, vegan approved and sustainable.
The folks over at Nature’s Paradise were kind enough to offer to giveaway one Baby Organic Kit which includes Conditioning Shampoo & Body Wash, Lotion, Diaper Cream, Baby Powder, Baby Coconut Oil and Hand Sanitizer. All Certified USDA Organic. This Gift set comes packaged in a eco-friendly, recyclable box with a clear top and a natural bow tie. Available and in Coconut or Unscented. You can find more organic skin care products on Nature’s Paradise website. Remember, Nature’s Paradise Organics is offering 15% off any order for Pick Nick’s Brain’s readers. Just enter the coupon code: picknicksbrain at checkout.

Winner: Terri who entered a comment

PuddleFoot Organic Tees for Tots

These adorable baby t-shirts are so soft and stretchy with that worn in feel that it will be all you can do not to eat baby up when wearing one of these. Made from 100% organic Supima cotton, these t-shirts are American made and dyed and printed with earthy friendly dyes and inks. You can feel good about your baby wearing a PuddleFoot tee knowing that no harmful toxins or pesticides are in contact with baby’s sensitive skin. Puddlefoot has been so kind to give one of Puddlefoot’s Squash Infant T-shirt for our Father’s Day giveaway. This t-shirt is an ultra-soft organic baby rib cotton t-shirt in Sage Blue with the cutest Summer Squash pictured on the front.

Winner: Ange who became a Facebook fan of Pick Nick’s Brain and Baby Dipper

The Baby Dipper Bowl and Spoon

The Baby Dipper spoon and bowl combo is the genius invention by a mother of two sets of twins which makes it no surprise at all that this set makes feeding baby easy and is perfect to assist toddlers with self-feeding. Barbara Schantz invented the Baby Dipper Bowl as a triangular-shaped bowl which enables parents to feed with one hand while keeping the other hand free. The Baby Dipper features a non-slip base which keeps it in place as either you or your toddler scoops food out of it. The contoured interior of this bowl also helps to guide food onto the spoon and the transparent sides allow for easy viewing of the food. And of course, as a mother who is concerned with all the toxins and chemical that our kids are exposed to these days, you can feel good knowing the Baby Dipper is lead-free and phthalate-free and also shatter proof.

Barbara graciously agreed to provide a Baby Dipper bowl and spoon set to one lucky winner of our Father’s Day giveaway. You can find more information on the Baby Dipper at www.babydipper.com.

Winner: Sandy who left a comment

L’il Monkeys Personalized Fleece Blankets

These cute and cuddly waffle fleece baby blankets are personalized with hand cut letters by owner and creator Andi, who is a mom of twin girls. Along with the name of your precious l’il monkey on this blanket, these blankets are made from the softest, anti-pill waffle fleece with different colored and textured ribbons around the edges make them a perfect for covering baby while in the stroller or for tummy time.

Andi was extremely kind to offer one of her personalized L’il Monkeys blankets to one lucky winner. The winner will be able to contact Andi directly for assistance in creating a blanket as unique as your little one.

Please visit them at www.lilmonkeys.ca for more adorable pictures of L’il Monkey’s blankets!

Winner: Michele P. who had multiple entries by entering a comment, became a Facebook fan of Pick Nick’s Brain, Puddlefoot and Baby Dipper, and tweeted about the giveaway numerous times.

Photo Baby-NightLights

Baby-NightLights.com offers parents a chance to turn your child’s personal snapshot into a custom photo night light. These adorable lights are a new and fun ways to add light and life to baby’s room. It takes three steps on Baby-NightLights.com and it’s easy to do. Upload your photo, crop it and approve it. In about a week you’ll receive your child’s picture mounted into a museum style night light frame. Creating a custom photo Baby Night Light is the perfect gift for any occasion.

Nightlights can be helpful tools as part of your baby’s or toddler’s nighttime environment. Nightlights provide low-level light which can help with babies who might be anxious of being in the dark and may work to soothe them back to sleep if they wake at night. Nightlights also enable parents to check on baby at night without turning on brighter hallway or other nearby lights.

Steve graciously agreed to provide a photo baby night-light as part of our giveaway. Log onto www.baby-nightlights.com for more information.

Winner: Pamela who entered a comment

Babble Soft

No matter what you’ve heard, it’s not a year’s supply of diapers or a baby wipe warmer that will make the biggest difference in your baby’s life – the most important tools of parenthood are actually organization and coordination. Unfortunately, these things don’t always come naturally. That’s why Babble Soft provides easy-to-use software applications with organization and coordination in mind. It doesn’t matter whether you are a stay-at-home parent scheduling your day or if you are returning to work and need to coordinate with a nanny or other caregiver – their tools provide everything you need to give your life that perfect level of structure.

Babble Soft online software allows you to track feedings, pumping, diapers, and medication combined with an online baby album for baby’s first year. For parents on the go, Baby Insights mobile grants you access to the same information you get at home no matter where you are on your iPhone, Blackberry and other mobiles.

Three lucky winners received a FREE three-month subscription to Babble Soft to track your baby’s sleep, feedings, pumping, medication doses, etc. You can find more information about Babble Soft at www.babblesoft.com.

Winners:

Elizabeth, who also had multiple entries becoming a fan on our Facebook pages and writing up a blog post on her blog.

And, last, but obviously not least :

Pick Nick’s Brain

After sleep coach and owner, Nicole Johnson, overcame her son’s sleeping issues in a way that complemented her own parenting style, and after such a happy success, she knew it was her mission to help other tired parents “find their child’s sleep.” Your baby’s sleep shouldn’t be stressful and Pick Nick’s Brain strives to provide a strong, non-judgmental, support network to help you and your family sleep better. Our website has helped countless families through free online articles, step-by-step e-Books, and private and personalized sleep consulting services.

Three (3) people received one FREE e-mail sleep consultation to help with your sleep struggles. You’d be surprised how far you can get in just one e-mail! If you already have an account, your account was credited.

Winners:

Rikka, who followed all of the sponsors on Twitter, tweeted about the giveaway, and became of fan of the Pick Nick’s Brain Facebook page

Congratulations to all the winners!!

For those who don’t know, AllTop is a website that collects the headlines of the best sites on the web and categorizes them to make it easy for us readers to find information we seek. It is different than a search engine because it’s more designed to answer the question “What’s happening?”. You might want to know what’s happening in parenting or babies, or you might also want to know what’s happening on Mom blogs or Dad blogs. You can find almost any category you want, even New York City Street Food Vendors or even Bacon!!

Make sure you check the other sites out. I’d love for you to share the blogs that interest you! I am excited that this blog is considered one of the AllTop.

During this series, we have reviewed 9 temperament traits that make up all of our personalities and seen how they might affect the way you help your baby or toddler sleep better. I’ve grouped some of the temperaments together to give you some ideas on helping your baby or toddler sleep better.

Adaptable, Regular, and Positive First Reaction

If your baby or toddler is adaptable, she is probably a little more easy-going than other babies. If she skips a nap, she might not get cranky and will take it in stride. Her regularity makes it easy to plan play dates around her nap schedule and potty training might be really easy if she pees and poops at the same time every day. It might even be easier to master elimination communication, where you can gradually reduce the number of diapers you use for your baby by learning their rhythms and signs before they “go”. If your baby or toddler also typically has a positive first reaction to a new person, food, event or change to routine, she will likely not skip a beat to many changes in her sleep routine at once.

A baby with these temperament traits will likely respond well to a nudge from mom and dad when it comes to solving her sleep problems or breaking sleep associations. It will likely be a lot easier than you think to break some habits and get on a good routine and sleep schedule with your baby and all you need is a little confidence, time, and patience. All you have to do is take the first step and try.

Sensitive, Perceptive, and Adaptable

If your baby is sensitive, he will be more apt to wake up from noises, care more about being hot or cold, and be in tune with your own emotions or stress. Your baby might also notice a lot more around him and things might keep him awake by catching his attention if he is perceptive.

When it comes to sleep, combining sensitivity and perceptive-ness, your baby might be a little more “high maintenance” than our adaptable and regular counter parts above, but if he is also adaptable, he might be able to change his sleeping habits fairly easily. You may just need to go through extra steps helping him sleep through noise, be comfortable (especially during things like teething), and make sure his room is dark enough that it will not distract him too much from the task at hand (sleeping). Some of his other temperament traits will be a factor in terms of how easy or difficult it will be to break problematic sleep associations.

Intense, Persistent, and Energetic

Probably one of the most difficult temperament traits is the intense child. She does not whimper or fuss, she wails and SCREAMS! When she’s happy, she’s HAPPY but when she’s not WATCH OUT! She will let you know loudly how she feels about something. Combine this trait with her persistence and you can have fairly long and loud temper tantrums when she doesn’t get that cookie or toy in the store.

When it comes to sleep, the intense and persistent baby or toddler will probably be much more challenging to help learn to sleep. Disclaimer: I could be partial to saying that because my eldest son, who inspired this site, is both intense and persistent, of course. He also has a lot of energy. This combination of temperament traits are most likely a part of the babies you hear “cry all night” if the parents let them. My son did not, so I know there are more intense and more persistent babies out there. Cry it out is not the only option for these babies, either. It highly depends on your baby and your own temperament, too.

 
These are arbitrary temperament trait combinations I put together and obviously this list is not exhaustive (doing the math because I’m a nerd, it’s 512 combinations if we assumed a trait is on or off, which obviously is not true so chew on that for awhile and just think how long that article would be!). Although you believe your baby will be the hardest there is, the chances are actually small and you might really be surprised how small a nudge you might have to give your baby to encourage her to sleep on her own. I talk to MANY parents who are pleasantly surprised how much “easier” it was than they originally thought it would be.

Taking the first step, making a “sleep coaching” plan, to help your child sleep is the hardest part, especially when the “easy” answers haven’t worked for you in the past when that neighbor says “I just put her down awake and she went to sleep”. Not so easy for all of us. Some parents are also so judgmental about the method some parents choose to help their child sleep, but unless you have “that” temperament kid, you really don’t know what that other person might be going through and since all babies are a unique combination of these traits, you won’t ever have someone else be able to walk in your shoes or vice versa. Don’t be so quick to say what you think you’d do in the same situation. Even if you have a tough sleeper, how YOU react to sleep deprivation will be different.

While many feel the only choice is sleep deprivation or cry it out, there is A LOT in between, depending on your baby’s temperament. Don’t let sleep deprivation be the choice you make. You owe it to yourself and your baby or toddler to get the rest you both need to function at your optimum!

So, tell me, is your child easy-going, spunky, or spirited? What about you? Take my quiz and find out!

Baby Temperament Quiz

Share your results down below

Explore each of the 9 temperament traits, Intensity, Persistence, Sensitivity, Perceptiveness, Adaptability, Regularity, Energy, First Reaction, and Mood, focusing on how they play a role in your baby’s sleep.

After I posted my summer of sleep information a couple of weeks ago, I received several e-mail messages about this summer’s travels by a few readers. The destinations sounded sooo nice! One reader was off to beautiful Greece (not sure this is where they are staying, but I liked the picture) while another was traveling to Jordan. My family and I will be going to St. Maarten (woohoo! for frequent flier miles). We’ve never been and we are looking forward to it quite anxiously. I have not had more than 2 days off in a row since my baby was born 16 months ago, including Christmas! Unfortunately, I made a critical error telling my preschooler about it too soon as 6 more weeks to him is like 2 more years. Let me give you a taste:

“When are we going on vacation?”
“Can we go on vacation today?”
“It’s making me grumpy we can’t go on vacation!”
“Can we get a face mask for me to swim with on vacation?”

Repeat every day. Okay, I’m exaggerating, but it’s enough that I know I told him WAAAY too soon! LOL Bear with me, I *am* getting to the sleep part of this post as 99% of my articles on this site are about sleep. Thankfully, I do write about things other than sleep on Babble Soft’s blog. Last week I even wrote about Baby Album Books! I think I’ll work on the boys’ baby album books this summer, in fact.

In regards to sleep and for our family trip, I’m trying to figure out if we should rent a crib at the hotel, (which is tempting considering how much gear we need to bring with us for two kids now!), take our Pack ‘n Play (though we are doing a “We’re not having anymore babies garage sale” this Saturday to help pay for our trip and I’d love to sell it), borrow my friend’s Pack N Play or buy something like this Toddler Travel Bed that folds up much smaller. I definitely don’t think my youngest son is ready for a “I can get out whenever I want” bed and my husband thinks that last one looks too much like a dog carrier, so we’ll likely opt for calling the hotel or asking my friend. I’m hoping the proceeds from the garage sale will help pay for the entertainment part of our trip.

Finally, I wanted to share my travel sleep tips with all of you as you embark on your own summer adventures. Of course, I already wrote my travel sleep tips last year, so here are the links to my flashback posts (so I can get back to the Temperament Quiz and Sleep Helpdesk questions):

11 Holiday Sleep Tips
Traveling with Your Baby or Toddler

One other thing about the summer is that it’s normal for bedtimes to get slightly later for some babies just for the summer as it is much brighter later. Once again, light is what stimulates our eyes and tells us when it’s time to sleep or be awake. So, if you have a sleeper that is rid of sleep associations and suddenly starts fighting bedtime, you might need to bump bedtime a bit later, temporarily. It will bounce back when Fall or Winter hit…usually.

Now, please tell me so I can give you some quick tips:

Where are YOU going this summer and what your main travel concerns when it comes to your baby or toddler’s sleep?

Nature’s Paradise Organics:  Baby Organic Gift Basket

Nature’s Paradise Organics provides safe & effective organic skin care products which are all USDA Certified Organic. Their products are chemical free, vegan approved and sustainable.
The folks over at Nature’s Paradise have been kind enough  to offer to giveaway one Baby Organic Kit which includes Conditioning Shampoo & Body Wash,  Lotion,  Diaper Cream,  Baby Powder,  Baby Coconut Oil and  Hand Sanitizer . Great starter kit or gift for Mom’s who care about the quality of skin care for their baby’s delicate skin. All Certified USDA Organic.  This Gift set comes packaged in a eco-friendly, recyclable box with a clear top and a natural bow tie.  Available and in Coconut or Unscented. You can find more organic skin care products on Nature’s Paradise website and Nature’s Paradise Organics is offering 15% off any order for Pick Nick’s Brain’s readers. Just enter the coupon code: picknicksbrain at checkout.

PuddleFoot Organic Tees for Tots

These adorable baby t-shirts are so soft and stretchy with that worn in feel that it will be all you can do not to eat baby up when wearing one of these. Made from 100% organic Supima cotton, these t-shirts are American made and dyed and printed with earthy friendly dyes and inks. You can feel good about your baby wearing a PuddleFoot tee knowing that no harmful toxins or pesticides are in contact with baby’s sensitive skin.  Owner and artist Suzi MacDougall was inspired by the arrival of her sons to combine her love of drawing and appreciation for nature and animals to create the heart-warming characters which grace PuddleFoot t-shirts.

We encourage you to take a peek at PuddleFoot’s other absolutely huggable t-shirt designs at www.puddlefoot.com.

Suzi has been so kind to offer one of Puddlefoot’s Squash Infant T-shirts for our Father’s Day giveaway. This t-shirt is an ultra-soft organic baby rib cotton t-shirt in Sage Blue with the cutest Summer Squash pictured on the front. What a great way to get baby to love his vegetables!

The Baby Dipper Bowl and Spoon

The Baby Dipper spoon and bowl combo is the genius invention by a mother of two sets of twins which makes it no surprise at all that this set makes feeding baby easy and is perfect to assist toddlers with self-feeding. Barbara Schantz invented the Baby Dipper Bowl as a triangular-shaped bowl which enables parent’s to feed with one hand while keeping the other hand free.  How many times have you tried to scoop out food for baby only to have the bowl be pushed and slide away from you? The Baby Dipper features a non-slip base which keeps it in place as either you or your toddler scoops food out of it. The contoured interior of this bowl also helps to guide food onto the spoon and the transparent sides allow for easy viewing of the food. And of course, as a mother who is concerned with all the toxins and chemical that our kids are exposed to these days, you can feel good knowing the Baby Dipper is lead-free and phthalate-free and also shatter proof.

Barbara has graciously agreed to provide a Baby Dipper bowl and spoon set to one lucky winner of our Father’s Day giveaway. You can find more information on the Baby Dipper at www.babydipper.com.

L’il Monkeys Personalized Fleece Blankets

These cute and cuddly waffle fleece baby blankets are personalized with hand cut letters by owner and creator Andi, who is a mom of twin girls. Along with the name of your precious l’il monkey on this blanket, these blankets are made from the softest, anti-pill waffle fleece with different colored and textured ribbons around the edges make them a perfect for covering baby while in the stroller or for tummy time.

Andi has been extremely kind to offer one of her personalized L’il Monkeys blankets to one lucky winner. The winner will be able to contact Andi directly for assistance in creating a blanket as unique as your little one.

Please visit them at www.lilmonkeys.ca for more adorable pictures of L’il Monkey’s blankets!

Photo Baby-NightLights

Baby-NightLights.com offers parents a chance to turn your child’s personal snapshot into a custom photo night light. These adorable lights are a new and fun ways to add light and life to baby’s room. It takes three steps on Baby-NightLights.com and it’s easy to do. Upload your photo, crop it and approve it. In about a week you’ll receive your child’s picture mounted into a museum style night light frame. Creating a custom photo Baby Night Light is the perfect gift for any occasion.

Nightlights can be helpful tools as part of your baby’s or toddler’s nighttime environment. Nightlights provide low-level light which can help with babies who might be anxious of being in the dark and may work to soothe them back to sleep if they wake at night. Nightlights also enable parents to check on baby at night without turning on brighter hallway or other nearby lights.

Steve has graciously agreed to provide a photo baby night-light as part of our giveaway. Log onto www.baby-nightlights.com for more information.

Babble Soft

No matter what you’ve heard, it’s not a year’s supply of diapers or a baby wipe warmer that will make the biggest difference in your baby’s life – the most important tools of parenthood are actually organization and coordination. Unfortunately, these things don’t always come naturally. That’s why Babble Soft provides easy-to-use software applications with organization and coordination in mind. It doesn’t matter whether you are a stay-at-home parent scheduling your day or if you are returning to work and need to coordinate with a nanny or other caregiver – their tools provide everything you need to give your life that perfect level of structure.

Babble Soft online software allows you to track feedings, pumping, diapers, and medication combined with an online baby album for baby’s first year. For parents on the go, Baby Insights mobile grants you access to the same information you get at home no matter where you are on your iPhone, Blackberry and other mobiles.

Two lucky winners will get a FREE three-month subscription to Babble Soft to track your baby’s sleep, feedings, pumping, medication doses, etc. You can find more information about Babble Soft at www.babblesoft.com.

And, last, but obviously not least :

Pick Nick’s Brain

After sleep coach and owner, Nicole Johnson, overcame her son’s sleeping issues in a way that complemented her own parenting style, and after such a happy success, she knew it was her mission to help other tired parents “find their child’s sleep.” Your baby’s sleep shouldn’t be stressful and Pick Nick’s Brain strives to provide a strong, non-judgmental, support network to help you and your family sleep better. Our website has helped countless families through free online articles, step-by-step e-Books, and private and personalized sleep consulting services.

Three (3) people will get one FREE e-mail sleep consultation to help with your sleep struggles. You’d be surprised how far you can get in just one e-mail! If you already have an account, your account will be credited.

Deadline to enter is Sunday, June 21st, 11:59 PM EDT.

Here is how you can enter:

1. Leave a comment- 1 entry

2. Tweet about this giveaway with a link back to this post and the tag #picknicksbrain. The tag will allow us to track and locate your tweet entry. – 1 entry

3. Follow one of our sponsors on Twitter and tweet about it. For example: Just followed @BabyDipper for @PickNicksBrain Father’s Day Giveaway #picknicksbrain. (Be sure to include the tag #picknicksbrain in your tweet so we can track it!)

The following sponsors are on Twitter (and you can receive one (1) entry per sponsor followed):

Pick Nick’s Brain, L’il Monkeys,  BabyDipper,  BabyNightLights

4. Subscribe to this blog or the Baby Dipper blog. One (1) entry for each blog subscription. Please post in the comments which blogs you subscribed to.

Pick Nick’s Brain Blog via RSS or via E-Mail, Baby Dipper Blog

5. Become a Facebook Fan of any of the sponsors and get one entry per Fan Page you join. Please post in the comments which Facebook Fan Pages you belong to.

Pick Nick’s Brain Facebook Fan Page

Baby Dipper Facebook Fan Page

PuddleFoot Organic Baby T-shirts Facebook Fan Page

L’il Monkeys Facebook Group

6. Blog about the giveaway and submit a link to the blog post in the comments – 10 entries

Good luck, everyone!!

My youngest around 12:20 started crying and I went in, cuddled him for a couple of minutes and put him back down with his crib music on and left. No more peeps out of him. Around 3 something, my preschooler came running into my room saying he had a bad dream someone was chasing him (Reminder: I will be doing a series on nightmares and night terrors this summer). After I gave him a few minutes and took him back to bed, he called out for me later to turn his fan on. Interestingly enough, I had also turned on my youngest’s ceiling fan a few hours earlier, too. I thought they were both hot (I was too), however, I remembered I wanted to do an article about the moon’s effect on our sleep, if there was any, so I looked it up and what do you know? It was a full moon that night.

So, does the moon affect our baby’s sleep?

Mostly what I found was that the moon affecting human behavior and sleep, in general, is not proven and generally accepted as untrue among scientists. In theory, it sounds like it could be likely the moon affects us as it does have an effect on the oceans / tides and the human body is made up of 65% water. However, the amount of water in the oceans is so much greater than our “small” human bodies and the water in the ocean is considered “unbounded”, that it has been said that a mosquito on our arm would have more of an effect than the moon. It’s been said that the term “lunatic” comes from our history that at one time we did believe the moon was to blame for strange behavior, but this has remained unproven by numerous scientific studies. I might have to track my sons’ sleep for the next month and see what happens during the next full moon on July 7th. For now, I’ll stick to reading Goodnight Moon to my boys.

So, tell me, for my own informal research…

Did your baby wake up during the full moon?

Baby Temperament – Mood

Your child’s mood is generally how happy and smiley she is versus the child who is more serious in nature or will be more analytical and tell you how to improve something rather than how great it was. According to Raising Your Spirited Child, a specific pattern of brain activity is responsible for your child’s disposition. If your child rarely shows a happy or joyous side of herself, you may want to go to the doctor to test for depression, but overall, she may just be more serious, but this does not necessarily mean she’s unhappy, even as a baby.

My sons are generally very happy boys, which makes me very happy, but my eldest son, who once again inspired this site, has his moods. Almost every day he has cranky moments that can be difficult to deal with. It is particularly difficult when he hasn’t gotten enough sleep and his behavior goes out the window. He has more tantrums and small things upset him more easily than when he’s in a good mood and well-rested. This is very common among many toddlers and pre-schoolers, so thankfully, I don’t think this is an area in which he is extreme.

Sleep and Mood

How might your baby or toddler’s mood affect her sleep? As I mentioned above, mood can be affected by your baby not getting enough sleep, but his mood can also affect how you approach getting sleep for your baby or toddler. If your baby or toddler is more serious or analytical in nature, you might approach bedtime and nap routines a different way. I can tell my son is analytical, just like me, even though he is still young. I give him lots of choices and allow him to choose what we do, when. This lets him have some control that he (and most toddlers) crave, but also, I notice that as he’s gotten older, he is very logical. If this, then that. He will negotiate a lot and I tend to joke he will be a lawyer one day.

Alternatively, if your child is very happy most of the time and isn’t serious in nature, this can make for a very long bedtime routine, especially adding “toddler slow poke time” in. During some occasions when my son is being very silly and I’m trying to get both boys in bed, it can be frustrating when I want him to be serious! If he was like that every night, I could see how that might drive me bonkers. It’s fun when we are both in the right moods, but in the end, it’s my job to get him to bed on time to avoid the whole over-tired mess that can come into our lives. It’s hard having to be the responsible one, sometimes. Add to the fact that by his bedtime these days I’m just beat! His energy never ceases to surprise me!

Lastly, mood has crept into our night-wakings. There was a time, when he was around 2 or 2 1/2, when he’d wake up in the middle of the night and be very cranky, yelling and screaming! There is nothing worse than screaming in the middle of the night, especially when you’re getting up feeding a baby. Obviously, by now, he hasn’t eaten in the middle of the night in a really long time, but we finally figured out that he was hungry! He must have been going through the growth spurt. The same way a 4 month old might be able to roll over during the day, but not at night half asleep, or a 10 month old who can replace a pacifier but won’t in the middle of the night, for some reason my son never said “I’m hungry.” It seems so simple, but he just didn’t do it. For about a week, we left him graham crackers and water in his room, just in case. It was a phase, like almost everything else in the first few years of their lives.

Once again, there are good and bad things about all of these temperament traits. A serious, critical or analytical child can point out things that you might not notice if you aren’t the same type of person. These children are those that might be able to help you make a chore plan for the family or point out why you shouldn’t buy that used car you have your eye on.

Stay tuned in the next couple of weeks for the quiz to see where your child lies on the spirited-ness spectrum!

What is your child’s mood most of the time?

Explore each of the 9 temperament traits, Intensity, Persistence, Sensitivity, Perceptiveness, Adaptability, Regularity, Energy, First Reaction, and Mood, focusing on how they play a role in your baby’s sleep and in the final part, take an assessment quiz to help figure out you and your baby or toddler’s temperament and see how it might be similar or different.

I thought this would be a good time to tell you what’s coming up on the Pick Nick’s Brain website this summer. I have a lot planned. Here are just a few things to look forward to and plan for:

* Next week, I’ll be finishing up the last temperament trait in my Baby Temperament & Sleep Series. Within the following two weeks, I’ll provide you with a quiz to determine your baby or toddler’s temperament.

* I will be starting a Breastfeeding & Sleep Series sometime this summer that will go over all of the unique challenges nursing moms might go through when it comes to their baby’s sleep.

* I will also be working on a Nightmares and Night Terrors series, too.

All of these will be FREE right here on my blog.

* Another thing you should be aware of is I will be on a much-needed vacation July 25th through August 3rd, with minimal e-mail access (if any at all). I’ll send a reminder to my helpdesk clients as it gets closer as you parents are those who will miss me most.

* Come see me on Facebook on my new fan page! I just uploaded some pictures of my family. I thought it would be nice for you to see my happy family even after our sleep deprivation challenges.

* Lastly, I will be having another giveaway on the site for Father’s Day. Last time we had parents win gift cards on Amazon, a free e-mail consultation, and a free subscription to Babble Soft. I’m gathering the prizes for the Father’s Day giveaway now, so watch for entry information. They are so easy to enter, it’s silly not to at least enter!

Thank you for your continued participation in the Pick Nick’s Brain community! I hope you are finding all the resources you need. Be sure to send e-mail to asknicole [at] picknicksbrain [dot] com with any article ideas if there is anything you have been looking for and haven’t been able to find.

So, what are YOU doing this summer?

P.S. Just a quick reminder that today is the last day to get a copy of my new e-Book, Mastering Naps & Schedules for 25% off, which includes 2 e-mail consultations, 40+ sample schedules, planning worksheets and a 100% guarantee. Click on this private link that will expire at 11:59 p.m. tonight EST.

“I found the book so helpful that I haven’t been able to come up with a question for my two free consultations! My baby is 7 months old and she is a decent sleeper but still isn’t sleeping through the night – I have two older children who were both sleeping through by now. The info on the amount of sleep needed, sleep associations, and the sample schedules were really helpful. As she grows and different issues come up with schedules and transitions I will come back to this book as a resource. ” -Melanie

In Mastering Naps and Schedules, our newest e-book, we’ve captured the unique qualities of every type of sleeping method and tailored them to create a series of napping schedules that fit easily into your family and your lifestyle. No matter how you get your child to bed at night, you’ll be able to find an additional solution for the daytime issues that plague you the most: nap transitions, shifting schedules, dealing with issues of crying, and even planning out how to get the most out of your baby’s daytime sleep. It also has an incredible 40+ sample schedules to choose from for babies as young as 4 months old to the toddler years!

Mastering Naps and Schedules is a comprehensive baby and toddler napping guide that will affect the way you approach your day – and your night. No matter where you and your little one are on the path to great rest, you’ll find these tools as easy to implement and maintain as all our other great products.

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We’re excited to get your child into a consistent schedule for happy, healthy sleeping! For more information, click on this super secret link. This offer goes away in just THREE DAYS on May 28th at 11:59 PM EST!!