Silent Nights
How to Develop a Peaceful Sleeping Routine

By Pat Spungin
December 2007
Pearson - Prentice Hall
Distributed By Trans-Atlantic Publications
ISBN: 9780273714798
220 pages, 6 3/4" x 9 1/2"
$33.50 Paper Original

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The idea of your child sleeping peacefully through the night is wonderful. But unfortunately it can be a dream rather than reality. For some parents, getting their child to go to bed at all can be stressful, tiring and infuriating, while the prospect of them sleeping through the night may seem impossible.

Into childhood the patterns and routines set when our children are babies can come back to haunt parents. As children refuse to sleep in their own beds, are unwilling to go to bed at a reasonable hour or wake continuously, stress levels can build and it appears impossible to find a satisfactory way forward. Continuous disturbed nights can have a far reaching and disruptive effect on the whole family. Parents become irritable and unable to concentrate during the day, social lives become nin-existent and work goes out the window..

Failure to establish a good sleeping routine can also render parents depressed, and feeling that their apparent lack of parenting skills are failing their child, but there are things that can be done to help solve sleep problems and establish a better sleeping pattern which is more conducive to happy family life.

Fortunately, there are well-tested routes that we can each take to help our child and ourselves enjoy peaceful nights. Here in this practical and easy-to-access book that deals only with sleep issues, you’ll find useful and pertinent advice and information on all aspects of sleep, sleep routines and how to avoid and handle broken nights. Find out what is ‘normal’ for your child at their age to help you keep your particular problems in perspective. Discover how to avoid some common traps that can, often unwittingly, establish worrying or unhealthy sleeping habits. Find out what works, what doesn’t and how you can introduce expert techniques to overcome this most basic of parenting issues and establish new routines that will be rewarding for both you and your child.

Silent Nights is certain to become a lifeline for many thousands of parents.

 

Contents

Introduction

• What should I expect of babies’ sleeping habits through to those of older children
• What is Stress free parenting?

Chapter 1: Why is a consistent sleeping routine important?

• What happens to our bodies and minds while we sleep?
• Why is this important?
• How does a lack of sleep affect children and adults?
• What are the benefits that a parent will find with a consistent sleeping routine?
• What is normal for different ages?
• What are you own sleeping routines? Do you need to take an alternative approach for your children?

Chapter 2: How to establish a strong bedtime routine

• What are the basics of establishing a bedtime routine:
  • For example,
  • Time
  • Wind down
  • Bath
  • Story
• Approach of the parent
• Why is it important?
• Dos and don’ts of bedrooms – eg do not have a TV in the bedroom

Chapter 3: What to do if your child resists going to bed?

• Importance of bedtime routine
• Make it a special time that is looked forward to for time with parent
• Gradual Withdrawal techniques
• How to manage if your child keeps getting up, eg. Rapid return
• Traps to avoid: eg
  • props such as milk bottle or a dummy,
  • negotiating
  • attention
• Incentives
• How to make bedtimes start earlier

Chapter 4: What to do if your child keeps getting up in the night?

• Return to bed, rapid return
• What to do if they want to sleep in your bed
• What to do if they want a drink
• What to do if they lose their dummy
• What to do if they wet the bed, and how to help them avoid it
• What to do if they shout or cry and perhaps wake their siblings

Chapter 5: How to handle your child’s anxieties at night

• How to help a young child’s anxieties
  • What kinds of fears do young children have?
  • Routes to resolve them
• How to help an older child’s anxieties
  • What tends to trigger anxieties
  • Family break-up
  • Bullying
  • Fears of the future
  • Exams
  • Change

Chapter 6: What to do if you have an early riser?

• What are the basic things you can do?
  • Eg black-out curtains
  • For a young child, check if they are having too many naps
  • For an older child, perhaps they can rise but must play quietly

Chapter 7: How to have silent nights forever

• Summary of best practice to maintain for your family

Resources

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