This talk of ‘sleeping through the night’ must end, it is factually inaccurate. This myth and misinformation pathologises normal infant sleep and turns it into something problematic that needs fixing. The fact is, the baby achieves nothing from being taught to be quiet while they transition between sleep cycles, the benefit here is solely for the parents.
Category Archives: Babies
My Top Toy Recommendations
Most toys inhibit imagination and have a very limited range of play, no wonder that so many parents say “he only plays for a minute or two”. A ‘good’ toy needs to involve an element of control in terms of how a child chooses to play with it, ie: there needs to be more than just one action/motion/use. Ideally it will be gender neutral too.
The Manipulation Myth
Believing that babies and young children can and do manipulate us predisposes to parent as two teams. Us against them. It predisposes us to punish and ignore, rather than connect and understand.
The Cry it Out Debate – Is it Safe, or Not?
So what do we know about the effect and efficacy of cry based sleep training based on current scientific evidence? The answer is ‘not a lot’.
The Real Reasons Why You Cannot Teach Babies to Self Soothe to Sleep
The mainstay of almost all baby sleep training is the idea of teaching ‘self soothing’ or ‘self settling’. This approach believes that if babies are put down ‘drowsy but awake’ and parents do not rush in to feed or rock when they wake, that the baby will learn to settle back to sleep without parental input.
How to Stop Cosleeping and Bedsharing….
One of the questions I’m most commonly asked is “when do children grow out of the need to sleep with somebody?”, or in other words – when do children naturally outgrow bedsharing?
Aiming for 70/30: When ‘Good Enough Parenting’ is Enough
All parents make mistakes, all parents have days that they are not proud of. All parents make sacrifices and compromises. No parent is perfect. It is these mistakes that are the most important in terms of our growth as parents. Each time we don’t quite do our best we can learn and we can teach our children how to handle disappointm
What is Gentle Parenting – an Excerpt from The Gentle Parenting Book
Let’s get this out there right now. Gentle parenting isn’t permissive parenting. For those who are new to gentle parenting, perhaps practitioners of more mainstream methods, the most common criticism is relating to supposed permissiveness. They are wrong. Boundaries, limits and discipline play a crucial role in gentle parenting. If you do not discipline your child how can you be truly respectful of them?
When (and How) Should you Drop a Nap?
It may surprise you that actually nobody knows how long babies and toddlers should nap for and how many naps they should have per day. If you have followed recommendations from a book or chart it’s important you know that the figures they contain are completely most likely based on nothing more than personal opinion and random guesswork.
VLOG: Is Feeding Your Baby to Sleep a Bad Habit?
It seems that ‘sleep trainers’ everywhere are fixed upon scaring parents away from feeding to sleep and feeding in the night. It’s commonly considered a poor sleep association, a bad habit or problematic. In this video I discuss this issue and tell you the truth!
Sarah Ockwell-Smith 