Raising Kids who Thrive, Lecture 3 -- Sleep

This was a great post on sleep. We haven't had much trouble in our house, but I think that's because we followed a lot of this advice to begin with.












I liked the "science tip" that suggested relying on "meta-analysis" that looks at myriad studied to draw conclusions. So often we see a headline that says a new study says X, only to have a contradictory study come out the following week. With a meta-analysis, you're looking at a variety of studies to draw conclusions.


Here's the lecture summary:

Tip 1: Establish and maintain a consistent bedtime routine at 4 or 5 months old.

Tip 2: Roughly follow the guidelines for sleep at different ages. Watch for signs of too much or too little sleep.

Tip 3: Avoid screens prior to bedtime.

Prior to the invention of the light bulb, there was pressure to sleep, or be inactive,  when it was dark. Now we have more choice about when to sleep. We've found that sleep is necessary, with signs similar to  intoxication with sleep deprivation.

Our bodies and minds do certain "housekeeping" processes during sleep. Kids grow during sleep. Weight gain is often associated with too little sleep.

Breast milk can provide tryptophan which can help regulate sleep. Swaddling helps avoid startle events.  Loud white noise can mimic the sounds from the womb.

Provide lots of sensory and behavioral cues during the bedtime ritual.

Bright lights, particularly blue light, negatively affect the ability to go to sleep.

(Science tip: if an study is based on a meta-analysis, it typically is based on a collection of many studies.)

Recommended book: Ferber Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems. Helps the baby get more ability to self soothe.


Karp, The Happiest Baby on the Block.  The video of the same name helped us immensely when we had to work on getting our LO to sleep.

Sleep is important throughout life. Keeping a sleep diary may be helpful to see if there are any troubles regarding sleep. 

Sleep descriptions (what kids typically get):
1 month - 16 hours total
2-12 months - 14 hours
1 year to 3 years -  12 hours
age 4 to 10 -  10 hours
over 12 - 8-9 hours
best tip is to know what your child's habits are.