your chair. Stay there until she goes back to sleep. Do this for each waking until 6:00 a.m. (the earliest) when you can both start your day.
Cai age 16 months
If your child has a particularly rough night, don’t stop the sleep training. But you may need to let her nap more for a day so she doesn’t get impossibly overtired and make the next night even more of a challenge. Provide the extra nap-time within the sample timelines outlined in Chapter 2. Let’s say that your 8-month-old has been up since 5:00 a.m. On a normal day, she would start her nap at around 9:00 a.m., but on this day, she’ll be too tired to stay awake until 9:00. Don’t force it, let her nap at 8:00 a.m. at the earliest—but don’t throw her schedule completely out of whack by letting her nap at 6:30 a.m. If she takes a third little nap in late afternoon, that’s fine. Or if she naps a half-hour longer than usual, that’s fine too. Similarly, if your preschooler normally naps from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m., it’s okay to let her sleep until 4:00 p.m. if she needs it after a hard night or a too early morning—but don’t let her snooze all the way until dinner or nap before noon.
Another way of handling a temporary sleep deficit is to put your child to bed a little earlier than usual for a few nights. In short, watch her, trust yourself, and make some commonsense adjustments, but keep them within the basic framework of an age-appropriate schedule.
NIGHTS ONE THROUGH THREE REMINDERS
• Make sure your child gets good naps on the day of your first night of the Shuffle. Look at the nap averages for your child’s age in Chapter 2.
• Create your nap time, bedtime, and nighttime sleep plan on pages 59-62.
• Keep a sleep log.
• Plan an early enough bedtime. Watch her sleepy cues and the clock. Do the math backward. For example, a typical 2-year-old needs 11 hours of sleep at night. If her average wake-up time is 7:00 a.m. then she should be asleep by 8:00 p.m.
• Focus on what your plan is for the first night . Discuss it with the other parent so you are a united front. Split the night up, take turns every other night, or decide who is going to get up for which awakenings.
• Nurse or bottle-feed with the light on. You don’t want to give the message that “the way we go to sleep at night is to suckle to sleep or get very drowsy in the dark.”
• Drowsy but awake: That means more awake than drowsy. If you help your child get into a very drowsy state at bedtime, you’ll make it harder for her to go back to sleep when she wakes during the night.
• Your child should be aware that she’s being put down, which means she may cry, so be prepared.
• Your first chair position is by the crib .
• Be careful not to create a new sleep crutch. For example, don’t substitute rocking your baby to sleep with patting her back to sleep. Hint: You know you’re patting too much if your baby starts crying when you stop touching her.
• There is no limit on how long you sit by your child’s bed. Stay as long as it takes, knowing that you don’t want to train her to cry. You also don’t want to sneak out too soon. When you do that your child (especially if she’s over a year old) will become hypervigilant about your leaving and will be up multiple times checking on you.
• Remember, you can pick your child up! You’ll know within one to two nights whether it helps.
• Pick up to calm and not to put to sleep.
• Each time your child wakes up, go over to her cribside: Assess what she needs, encourage her to lie down, reassure her, and sit in your chair.
• Treat each night awakening the same (if you’re not feeding during the night).
• Don’t give up until after 6:00 a.m. Then do dramatic wake-up: Leave the room, count to 10, and come back in as if nothing happened!
• Start nap coaching on day two.
Nights Four through Six
Move the chair about halfway to the door . (If the room is very small, or
Cai age 16 months
If your child has a particularly rough night, don’t stop the sleep training. But you may need to let her nap more for a day so she doesn’t get impossibly overtired and make the next night even more of a challenge. Provide the extra nap-time within the sample timelines outlined in Chapter 2. Let’s say that your 8-month-old has been up since 5:00 a.m. On a normal day, she would start her nap at around 9:00 a.m., but on this day, she’ll be too tired to stay awake until 9:00. Don’t force it, let her nap at 8:00 a.m. at the earliest—but don’t throw her schedule completely out of whack by letting her nap at 6:30 a.m. If she takes a third little nap in late afternoon, that’s fine. Or if she naps a half-hour longer than usual, that’s fine too. Similarly, if your preschooler normally naps from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m., it’s okay to let her sleep until 4:00 p.m. if she needs it after a hard night or a too early morning—but don’t let her snooze all the way until dinner or nap before noon.
Another way of handling a temporary sleep deficit is to put your child to bed a little earlier than usual for a few nights. In short, watch her, trust yourself, and make some commonsense adjustments, but keep them within the basic framework of an age-appropriate schedule.
NIGHTS ONE THROUGH THREE REMINDERS
• Make sure your child gets good naps on the day of your first night of the Shuffle. Look at the nap averages for your child’s age in Chapter 2.
• Create your nap time, bedtime, and nighttime sleep plan on pages 59-62.
• Keep a sleep log.
• Plan an early enough bedtime. Watch her sleepy cues and the clock. Do the math backward. For example, a typical 2-year-old needs 11 hours of sleep at night. If her average wake-up time is 7:00 a.m. then she should be asleep by 8:00 p.m.
• Focus on what your plan is for the first night . Discuss it with the other parent so you are a united front. Split the night up, take turns every other night, or decide who is going to get up for which awakenings.
• Nurse or bottle-feed with the light on. You don’t want to give the message that “the way we go to sleep at night is to suckle to sleep or get very drowsy in the dark.”
• Drowsy but awake: That means more awake than drowsy. If you help your child get into a very drowsy state at bedtime, you’ll make it harder for her to go back to sleep when she wakes during the night.
• Your child should be aware that she’s being put down, which means she may cry, so be prepared.
• Your first chair position is by the crib .
• Be careful not to create a new sleep crutch. For example, don’t substitute rocking your baby to sleep with patting her back to sleep. Hint: You know you’re patting too much if your baby starts crying when you stop touching her.
• There is no limit on how long you sit by your child’s bed. Stay as long as it takes, knowing that you don’t want to train her to cry. You also don’t want to sneak out too soon. When you do that your child (especially if she’s over a year old) will become hypervigilant about your leaving and will be up multiple times checking on you.
• Remember, you can pick your child up! You’ll know within one to two nights whether it helps.
• Pick up to calm and not to put to sleep.
• Each time your child wakes up, go over to her cribside: Assess what she needs, encourage her to lie down, reassure her, and sit in your chair.
• Treat each night awakening the same (if you’re not feeding during the night).
• Don’t give up until after 6:00 a.m. Then do dramatic wake-up: Leave the room, count to 10, and come back in as if nothing happened!
• Start nap coaching on day two.
Nights Four through Six
Move the chair about halfway to the door . (If the room is very small, or
Similar Books
