Imagine for a moment that a genie has appeared, and promised to instantly solve your child’s sleep problems… What would you wish for?

Share your answers in the “Comments” section below.

Looking for an easy-to-follow, step-by-step blueprint to get
your child sleeping through the night? Click here now!

Do you have any questions about your child’s sleep I can answer for you?
Post them in the ‘Comments’ section below!

And if you have some insight or advice for anyone who has already posted, PLEASE just click the ‘Reply’ link under that comment. It’s a great way for us all to help and support each other!

If you’d rather read than watch, here’s a transcript of this week’s video:

Hi, I’m Dana and it’s time for this week’s question. It comes from Linda, and she is wondering why does her baby wake up as soon as she lays her down in her crib.

I can remember feeling the same frustration when my first son was born. We would spend all this time rocking him around, and pacing up and down, and he would finally be asleep… as soon as I went to lay him in the crib, even if I went in slow motion and I did it in stages where I stopped and waited in between, I’ve tried every trick I could think of to fool him into thinking that he was still in my arms and get him into that crib.

If it worked, it hardly worked for any length of time and often it didn’t. It was like he knew as soon as his back touched the mattress, bing, his eyes would open, and we would have to start the whole process over.

That was very frustrating until I learned what I needed to know in order to encourage him to sleep well, and when I discovered the fact that when people sleep, on some level, you’re still aware of your environment, and when you think about it from an evolutionary perspective that makes a lot of sense, and we would have to know if we were in danger, if there was a predator nearby.

We do need to be aware on some level about what’s going on in our environment. I think as mothers, we become even more tuned into what’s going on in our environment when we sleep, sort of one ear is always listening.

If a baby falls asleep in your arms and then somehow you manage to get your baby to the crib, usually it doesn’t last very long because as soon as they come to a lighter part of their cycle, they are going to realize, “Hey, wait a second, where am I? Why aren’t you holding me anymore? Why aren’t I in the place I was in when I fell asleep?”

I think when you think about it from that angle, it would almost be alarming too, you fell asleep on the couch and somehow you woke up in your bed, you would be alarmed by the fact that something has changed and wonder what’s happened.

A lot of babies, if you watch them and they wake up, they wake up like in a startled response, they usually throw their arms out, sit up if they can, stand up if they can, and they are instantly upset because it’s a frightening experience.

That’s why it’s happening. She’s not trying to trick you or make your life more difficult. It really is just the body’s way of handling the change in the environment.

The good news in all of that, is if you start to teach your baby how to fall asleep in the same spot, then you’re going to have a baby that starts to sleep really well for both naps and bedtime.

Make that your goal number one, teaching your baby how to fall asleep. If it’s the crib, great. How to teach that baby to fall asleep in her crib, so that when she wakes up partway through the cycle, or at the end of one, she is not alarmed, she has the skills she needs, she’ll go back to sleep.

That will save you a lot of frustration in the long run because you won’t have to do all this rocking and all the tricks and moves in slow motion, and memorize which floorboards squeaks and all that. You can just know that you can put your baby in the crib, she’ll fall asleep all on her own and start becoming such a wonderful sleeper.

Thanks for your question, and sleep well!

Looking for an easy-to-follow, step-by-step blueprint to get
your child sleeping through the night? Click here now!

Do you have any questions about your child’s sleep I can answer for you?
Post them in the ‘Comments’ section below!

And if you have some insight or advice for anyone who has already posted, PLEASE just click the ‘Reply’ link under that comment. It’s a great way for us all to help and support each other!

If you’d rather read than watch, here’s a transcript of this week’s video:

Hi, I’m Dana and today, I want to talk a little bit about one of my pet peeves and that is crib toys. I think I can imagine a bunch of executives sitting around a board room wondering “Hmm, where can we stick more toys? Where can we convince parents they need more toys? I know, the crib. That’s a great place for toys!”

I’ve gone into clients houses and there is one of those aquariums attached to the cribs and there’s a very colorful mobile hanging above that makes all kinds of noises. They’ve got a light show that simulates ocean waves and there’s 20 different stuffies in there. Really, what bothers me about that is that if you are having sleep challenges as an adult, the number one rule is to make your bed a place where you go to really only sleep. You don’t read in bed anymore. You don’t watch TV in bed. You don’t work in your bed. You start sending your brain and body the message that your bed is for sleep.

That is what happens there. That’s where you’re going and I think the same is true for babies. The only time I ever put my children in the crib was when I wanted them to sleep. The message is you are here now. It is time to sleep. It is not time to play with your aquarium. It is not time to get over stimulated by your mobile. It’s not time to chew on six different toys or teething rings. It’s sleep time. Minimize what goes on in that environment.

Make it as boring as you can so that sleep will come sooner and more easily for your baby. The only thing that I ever recommend be in the crib is one soft ‘Lovey’ let’s call it, safe enough. It’s not big enough it’s going to land on her face. It’s cozy enough that she can cuddle it if she wants to. Most children will incorporate a Lovey of some kind into their strategies. My son, he had a giraffe and he held it and he played with the tag on the giraffe’s leg and that was his strategy for getting to sleep. He wore that tag right down to… There was only one string left and eventually, that was gone too.

A Lovey is OK. I encourage a Lovey buy otherwise, nothing else. Take all the other stuff out of there. There is loads of time in your baby’s day to play. Play is important but not when it’s time for sleep. Even throughout the day, if you need to put your baby down somewhere while you take a shower or answer the phone, a play pen is an OK second option or a baby chair or an ExcerSaucer. There’s load of places.

There’s no shortage of places to put a baby down for any length of time while you do something. Don’t use the crib. That should just be for sleep. If you are having any of your own struggles, you might put that into practice for yourself as well. You just make your bed a lovely place to go when you are tired and when you are ready to sleep. Thanks and sleep well.

Looking for an easy-to-follow, step-by-step blueprint to get
your child sleeping through the night? Click here now!

Do you have any questions about your child’s sleep I can answer for you?
Post them in the ‘Comments’ section below!

And if you have some insight or advice for anyone who has already posted, PLEASE just click the ‘Reply’ link under that comment. It’s a great way for us all to help and support each other!

If you’d rather read than watch, here’s a transcript of this week’s video:

Hi, I’m Dana Obleman. I was doing a Google search the other day about TVs in children’s bedroom and was horrified by the results. I saw one study that suggested half of American school age children have televisions in their bedroom, and one fifth of infants to the age of two have a TV in their bedroom.

Well, anyone who knows me… I have a little joke that says a TV in the bedroom ruins a marriage. Because I think what we tend to do is climb into bed, turn on the TV, stop talking, stop communicating, and watch TV until way too late, and then fall asleep. If I don’t have one in my own bedroom, I certainly would never allow one in my children’s bedroom. They don’t have one. We have one TV in this house. We all manage to share it just fine.

The problem with watching TV at bedtime is that children stay up too late. You might not even know that your child is in there watching TV. Now they’re losing out on crucial and important nighttime sleep. Again, if you know me, you know that I’m a huge advocate of children getting enough nighttime sleep. It is a high number. Right up to adolescence, children need 10 to 12 hours of nighttime sleep. That means they need to be in bed at a decent hour, especially if they need to get up early enough to make it to school.

By having a TV in the room, I think a lot of children are sneaking by watching TV later than they should. The studies are suggesting that that can lead to childhood obesity. There’s even a link to starting cigarette smoking. I think we’re just being saturated by this media, this need to always be tuned in or wired into some sort of stimulant. Again, as an adult, just look around and see how many people are on sleeping pills, and how many people you know that have sleep issues, and how many people have terrible bad habits around their sleep hygiene. Watching TV is definitely number one. People watch way too much TV when they should be sleeping.

When we are children, that is when our sleep is perfect and glorious. We go to bed and we sleep solid. We go through our cycles beautifully. We wake up energized. Then sleep starts to sort of decline as we get older. and the older we get, the worse we tend to sleep. When it’s perfect, let’s let it be perfect. Let’s let children have their childhood sleep be as wonderful as it possibly can.

If you are using a television to get your child to fall asleep, then have a good look at what might else be going on. Maybe your child just doesn’t have the right bedtime routine set up so that their body has a chance to follow with the idea of going to sleep for the night. Most people need about a half an hour of routine to wind down and get themselves in that place they need to be for sleep to come. Maybe it just requires a little bit of tweaking on a parent’s end to get a routine in place. You can do storytime, have a bath, even play a quiet board game together.

But what I’m concerned about also, especially for younger children, is that by watching television, it’s very stimulating. Even if your kid is just zoned out staring at the TV and you think it’s somehow calming, it’s not. It’s not calming at all, it’s very stimulating. When you’re trying to wind your child down, you may just be winding him up. Our rule in house is no TV after dinner. I suggest that that be a rule for everyone, that we give children a chance to wind down to enjoy the evening, and then go to sleep peacefully without any kind of prop.

That’s my little TV rant for the day. Thanks for watching, and sleep well.

Looking for an easy-to-follow, step-by-step blueprint to get
your child sleeping through the night? Click here now!

Do you have any questions about your child’s sleep I can answer for you?
Post them in the ‘Comments’ section below!

And, if you have some insight or advice for anyone who has already posted, PLEASE just click the ‘Reply’ link under that comment. It’s a great way for us all to help and support each other!