11/10/2016
You said whaaaaat?! - We all know about the 5 S’s…but what if that doesn’t work?Dr. Harvey Karp is famous for his insights of the 5 S’s explained in his book The Happiest Baby on the Block. Many parents use or have used this method to soothe their baby in those difficult first weeks or even months. The 5 S’s have become so ingrained In the baby sleep world that it’s fair to say it will be around for a while.
The 5 S’s if you don’t know are Swaddle, Side or stomach position, Shush, Swing and Suck. I agree that they do work as long as there is not an underlying health, feeding or sleeping problem. Let’s give parents a bit of credit here. When you hear your baby crying your motherly instinct kicks in, you immediately pick your baby up and attempt to soothe him or her by shushing, patting and rocking? I believe following your motherly instinct should really be the focus of solving most baby sleep problems. Mothers loose this ability when they follow rules. For example, when the 5 S’s are not working they lose their confidence and creative problem solving skills. Start questioning themselves, it must be something I am doing wrong? Am I not swaddling tight enough? So let’s break this down: Where can the 5 S’s fall short?Swaddle:Swaddling is important in the first 3 months to prevent the moro or startle reflex. However, there is no evidence that swaddling reduces unsettled behaviour in babies and we need to be careful not to swaddle to tightly as this can increase the risk for hip dysplasia. Side or Stomach Position:Side or stomach position aids digestion so can beneficial when there are tummy troubles. When a baby is not receiving enough cream from the breast the milk travels through the intestine so quickly it causes your baby to feel bloated with explosive stools, excessive wind and crying. Creamy milk helps babies turn on the ‘rest and digest’ part of the nervous system so that they become relaxed and settle to sleep easily. Putting your baby to sleep on its side or tummy is not recommended by health professionals nor the World Health Organisation as it is associated with Sudden Unexpected Death of and Infant (SUDI). Not worth the risk! Shush:Shushing is more commonly achieved by playing white noise. Large doses of white noise can be an unhealthy sensory stimulation for your baby: especially if played too loudly it can damage your babies hearing. Healthy sensory stimulation includes a lot of physical contact with loved ones. Swing:Swinging or rocking won’t work if the barriers to sleep have not been removed such as if your baby is generally still hungry or if it is not tired enough (you will be rocking for a long time!) Suck:Some babies love to suck and as long as feeding had been established and mothers are feeding on demand then dummies are fine. If you are ignoring cues that your baby is hungry then this can lead to unintended outcomes such as inadequate milk supply and weight loss. If the 5 S‘s are not working for you and your baby contact The Baby Sleep Practitioners for advice.
30/9/2016
You said whaaaaat?! - Spacing breast or bottle feeds will help your baby sleep better: aim for 3-4 hourly.This is our first of the series responding to advice that has pointed you in the wrong directionAnswer:
Many highly influential 'baby sleep advisers' promote spacing breast or bottle feeds in the hope that doing this will reduce the risk of things like chapped nipples, allow more sleep for mother and baby and aide baby's digestion and appetite. Unfortunately this is not true. Spaced feeds can make life harder for many women, putting us at risk of developing mastitis and breast abbesses. It can also suppress our milk supply - which leads to a hungry baby that cries even more. Not to mention the stress that it can cause baby when their hunger cues are being ignored - a baby experiences a delay in getting nourishment as a life or death situation. So as you can imagine consistently withholding milk when your baby is genuinely hungry can cause a lot of stress for both baby and you and will not help your baby sleep for longer periods over night. But as with all aspects of baby care - this is not black and white. In the early days it can be difficult to know if your babies frequent feeding is normal or if it is a sign of an underlying feeding problem. Bear in mind that it is normal in the new born period for babies to feed twelve times a day or so and want to feed within an hour or less of the last feed. If your baby has a pattern of consistently returning to the breast within an hour or less - during the day and night - your baby is doing what is refereed to as 'marathon feeding'. This is a reason for your baby to be reviewed by a health professional who has the skills to assess your baby's feeding. A baby with poor milk transfer can still have good urine and stool output as mother and baby battle bravely on together. If your baby is showing any of the following signs it is important to get a feeding assessment.
It can be helpful at this stage to make sure that when your baby starts to show cues that they require something to try offering them other comforts such as a change in scenery (they may just be bored), a cuddle and a chat, check their nappy etc, as it could be this your baby requires, not a feed. Gently experiment if you are not sure what baby is trying to communicate to you and over time you will develop good two way communication and interpreting their individual cues and patterns of behavior will get much easier.
4/9/2016
Fathers' day blogFathers can have a really positive impact on the the development of healthy infant sleep, but most infant sleep research is focused on the mother's behaviour. The small amount of research that has looked at fathers in their assessment attests to this and agrees that more research is required - finally researchers are starting to look more in to the important role fathers can play with infants sleep!
We all know that fathers input in childcare has a very positive influence on their brain, social and emotional development, but did you know that this starts in infancy? One of the great things about fathers is how differently they interact with their children in comparison to mothers and this variation in interactions between mother and baby and father and baby is very healthy. Fathers interactions are often more physical and stimulating which can have direct effects on the child's development, but there are also more indirect effects fathers can have - like influencing mother and child interactions by supporting mothers decision making or parenting behaviours. So how have 'the researchers' found fathers parenting to be different to mothers around infant sleep? Most of us would agree that fathers interact differently with babies at night. They tend to have shorter and less interactive interventions when baby wakes and are more likely to have a limit setting approach with baby sleep problems. Researchers have also found that fathers often find it easier to do less active soothing at night - as opposed to mothers who tend to do more active soothing like feeding or cuddling. Does this all sound like a father you know? It does to me, and these parenting 'traits' that many fathers have can be very helpful in some situations where parents are facing challenges around their infants sleep. There are many ways you can get your child's father more involved in their care during the infancy period. My husband does the bath and bedtime routine for our boys when he gets home, often getting in the shower with them for some play time too - they love it, and it's great use of the short time they get together in the day. Especially with younger infants, getting Dad doing more hands on will help baby to become more familiar with him doing baths, bedtime, soothing and settling. If you are having challenges with your child's night-time sleep you can try things like splitting the night in to 2 shifts so mum does half and dad does the other, having alternating nights when one of you does the 'getting up', mum does the feed and dad settles baby back to sleep, or dad does the re-settling when you know that baby is unlikely to be hungry. So lets not under estimate all the fathers out there and how much of a positive impact they can have and do have on us, our babies and all of the families sleep. Happy fathers day! After recently watching the Why Am I series one on TVNZ on demand I thought to myself: "Does my 4 year old have self control? If I offered him a marshmallow but said he could have 2 if he waited 15 minutes would he be able to wait?" The answer is a big 'NO' - of course not! But then again who can resist marshmallows? Maybe he is like his mother who recently scoffed a whole box of cream doughnuts; hey, I did run nearly 3km the following day to offset it so please, no judgement and if I am practising mindfulness there is no such thing as guilt. It’s in the past and I'm now in the presently in the moment of writing about my 4 year old. My 4 year old has amazing self control and according to the study this means he will do well in life; that makes me a proud mummy. I am still mulling over what personality type he fits into though. Confident? Well adjusted? Reserved? Definitely not the last one, I can’t think of a pre-school boy that is reserved. I am sure he does not have problems with socialising, in fact lucky for me quite the opposite. I used to find it quite concerning when I dropped him at day care from and 2 years of age there was not a single tear! I used to worry about this because I was worried he lacked attachment with me. More recently though when I dropped him off I was told ‘you can go now mummy.’ One of the teachers overheard him say this and said to me "that must hurt" to which I replied "no not really". Now I know that is just his personality type and nothing specifically to do with me. Maybe I should ask her if she has watched Why Am I because this is a good sign and then she also might be able to pick out all the kids at kindy who are potentially on a pathway to becoming a potential criminal - a scary thought. So by a process of elimination (and I'm not one to fit people into boxes) I'm going for a little bit confident and mostly well adjusted. I am excited this means he will be an entrepreneur… but seriously, this is just an exciting thought as to how he may turn out rather than having specific expectations on my part. Although this is interesting research we must remember to approach it with critical thinking, there are no doubt many arguments one could come up with against these findings. As a mother, I view the world through my sons eyes. I can only do the best I with what I know and I try not to feel guilty when I do stuff up. I do not need to shelter my children from my bad days or from the ‘potential criminals’ out there. This is the real world and my son is high on life, oblivious to the others around him. So I kind of feel I am the kind of mother I want to be despite what others think. I listen to my instincts and follow my values. The only expectation I have for my children for them to live a happy life and the foundation for this is the values we choose to follow. One of of these values is how we as a family tackle challenges: together we will always find a way through. If my son grows up with similar values then I feel I will have succeeded on this level. Another value I have is ‘everything’ in moderation which obviously I don’t always stick to, especially when it comes to marshmallows. If you need help in this area, here are some options: |
AuthorAmy and Elspeth CategoriesAll Bassinet Bottle Feeding Colic Cry It Out Discrimination Dr. Harvey Karp Fatherhood Goat Milk Infant Formula Mindfulness Pregnancy Routines Self Settle Sleep Regression Spacing Feeds Structure You Said Whaaaaat! Archives
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