Sleep is an issue for any new parent. Not only are they not getting any, but where in the world is the baby supposed to sleep? Co-sleeping is either ideal or dangerous, depending on who you talk to. Putting the baby in a crib in their own room just adds distance between you and a crying baby in the middle of the night, meaning you have a much greater chance of crashing into doorways in your sleepless stupor.
The AAP has changed their recommendations over the last few years. Though they still don't support co-sleeping, citing the fact that half of all infant deaths catergorized as sudden and unexpected happen when babies share a sleeping surface with adults, they do recommend room sharing, where parents and baby share a room, but not a bed.
It seems like being a baby is a bit dangerous these days. On the heels of the Jardine crib recalls, The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has announced yet another one. This time, the recall is for about 1,200 2nd Nature Built to Grow Cribs. The cribs fail to meet federal standards for crib dimensions and when the mattress support is in the middle position, the space between the mattress and the crib could be too wide. No injuries have been reported, but this does pose an entrapment hazard to infants.
Made in Slovenia for Stanley Furniture Company Inc., of Stanleytown, Va., the cribs were sold in department and furniture stores nationwide from March 2006 through December 2007 for about $1,100 each.
The recall involves the full size 2nd Nature Built to Grow cribs, model number 353-14-220. Only those cribs with that model number and the following serial numbers are included in the recall:
Both model and serial numbers can be found on the crib's headboard.
If you have one of the recalled cribs, you should immediately stop using it in the middle mattress setting. Adjust it to the low or high setting and contact Stanley Furniture to determine if your crib is subject to this recall. If it is, Stanley will provide a free placement crib headboard. You can reach Stanley Furniture by calling (888) 839-6822 between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET Monday through Friday, or by visiting their Web site.
In the last week or so, my almost-5-month-old has abandoned his admirable new habit of sleeping 6+ hours at a time in favor of waking up every three hours to demand yet another feeding. It's not horribly disruptive since he essentially wakes up, rings his version of the dinner bell, powers down a bottle and falls immediately back to sleep, but my body has been experiencing something like a cringing depression at having to get back into the routine of staggering out of bed at 1 AM, 4 AM, etc.
It doesn't help matters that my husband snores peacefully throughout each awakening, then innocently asks in the morning whether or not Dylan woke up in the night. (Jeez, at least pretend like it screwed up your sleep too, you know? Otherwise I might be forced to help you SHARE in this wee-hour inconvenience, by, say, dumping a glass of cold water into your open slumbering snout.)
My gut feeling is that the baby's going through a little growth spurt and that we don't have a bigger sleep issue going on, mostly because of how he's waking up: he's not frantic or wanting comfort, he just seems hungry. I can sympathize, really -- if being a small growing baby is anything like being pregnant, I don't know how he makes it through the night without getting up and eating yet another toasted, buttered, and salted Thomas' "Everything" bagel.
(What? You didn't pork out on salt-and-butter bagels at 3 AM during YOUR pregnancies and wake up with poppy seeds stuck in your teeth? Freak.)
I'm hoping we get back to a more reasonable sleep schedule soon, because even though I suppose it's not all that tragic to have to deal with a couple quick feedings with a mostly cheery baby in the middle of the night, I'd rather up my chances of making it all the way through that dream involving George Clooney and the bathtub scene in Out of Sight, you know? (ALL THE WAY TO THE HAPPY ENDING IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN AND I THINK YOU DO.)
I don't plan to try Dylan on solid food for a few more weeks still, and I know there is supposedly no correlation between solid food and sleeping through the night. However, I'm curious as to whether or not your experience matches what the experts say. Did your baby sleep better once he/she was eating solids?
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has announced the recall of about 320,000 Jardine Cribs due to a strangulation hazard. The crib slats and spindles can break, creating a gap in which a baby's head could become entrapped. There have been 42 such incidents with four children suffering minor injuries.
The cribs were manufactured in China and Vietnam for Jardine Enterprises and sold at KidsWorld, Geoffrey Stores, Toys "R" Us, and Babies "R" Us stores nationwide, as well at babiesrus.com, from January 2002 through May 2008 for between $150 and $300. One model, the Mahogany Positano Lifetime Crib, sold for $450.
The recall involves 28 different model numbers in various styles and finishes. The entire list of recalled cribs and their model numbers can be found here. You can find the model number located on the inside bottom rail of the headboard or footboard of the crib.
If you have one of these cribs, you are advised to immediately stop using it and contact Jardine to receive a full credit toward the purchase of a new crib. For more information, you can reach Jardine by calling (800) 646-4106 between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. ET Monday through Friday and between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. ET Saturday. You can also visit their website.
Good news if you're a coffee junkie: that venti drip could possibly prolong your life, and it certainly won't kill you. A new study has found that coffee drinkers -- even those guzzling decaf -- had slightly lower death rates than their coffee-free peers.
The best news for sleep-deprived parents, though, is that drinking a LOT of coffee isn't any worse for you than drinking a little. The study found that women who consume two to three cups of coffee a day showed an 18 percent reduction in death from all causes, while drinking four to five cups was associated with a 26 percent reduction.
Apparently I am going to live forever (let's just say five cups is a bare minimum for me every day).
The health benefits of coffee include a reduction in inflammation, which may in turn reduce the risk of heart disease, and a lowering of blood sugar levels, which may stave off diabetes. And of course when you're all jacked up on the coffee, it's hard to sit still, so you may get some incidental exercise in there, too.
Okay, that last one wasn't from the study. But you know it's true.
According to researcher Esther Lopez-Garcia, Ph.D. of the University of Madrid, "We can't say from this one study that coffee extends your life, but it does appear that it doesn't increase the risk for death for people who are healthy." So the moral really seems to be this: if you're downing three (or more) cups of coffee every day in an attempt to compensate for sleepless nights and jam-packed days, you may not be compromising your health as badly as you might think.
In other words, the coffee may not make you live longer, but it probably won't kill you, which is good news for moms and dads everywhere.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has announced the recall of about 28,000 children's camouflage pajama sets due to excessive levels of lead in the screen print on the shirt.
The pajama sets were sold with long and short sleeved blue shirts with a red screen print that reads "Athletics 90" and a coordinating pant. They were available in boys' sizes XXS (2/3) to XL (14).
The pajama sets were made in Vietnam and sold exclusively at The Children's Place stores nationwide and through The Children's Place online store from December 2006 to January 2008 for between $15 and $17.
If your child has these pajamas, you are advised to immediately take them away and return them to any The Children's Place store for a full refund. For more information, contact The Children's Place at (877) 752-2387 between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. ET Monday through Friday, or visit their Web site. You may also email the company at customerservice@childrensplace.com.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has announced the recall of about 20,000 Simmons Kids Crib Mattresses. Some of the mattresses measure smaller than the 27 ¼ inch minimum width required to prevent gaps between to mattress and crib side rails. This poses an entrapment hazard to infants.
Simmons Kids and the CPSC have received a report of a 6-month old baby becoming wedged between the mattress and crib frame. Fortunately, the baby wasn't injured.
The recall involves open coil crib mattresses manufactured between July 1, 2006 and March 23, 2008 with a color label attached to the top or side of the mattress that has the following model names:
Pottery Barn Kids by Simmons Kids Lullaby
Simmons Kids Slumber Time Evening Star Luxury Firm
Simmons Kids Baby Mattress Series 400
Simmons Kids Baby Mattress 234 Coil Count
The mattresses also have a tag sewn into the edge which has the date of manufacture and in most cases will contain one of the following model numbers: H59044.15.0014, M59082.15.0002, M59027.15.0002 or M59065.15.0006.
The Pocketed Coils® and Simmons Kids or Simmons Juvenile Products crib mattresses manufactured before July 1, 2006 or after March 23, 2008 are not included in the recall.
These mattresses were sold at Pottery Barn Kids and nursery furniture retailers from July 2006 through May 2008 for between $100 and $150 each.
To determine if your mattress meets the 27 ¼ inch minimum width requirement, remove all bedding and place the mattress on the floor. Using a yard stick or tape measure, measure the width near the middle from the outside edge of the tape binding to the opposite side of the mattress. If yours measures less than 27 ¼ inch, you are advised to immediately stop using it and contact Simmons Kids to receive a free replacement mattress.
You can reach Simmons Kids by calling (800) 810-8611 between 8:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET, Monday through Thursday, and between 8:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. ET, on Friday or by visiting the firm's Web site.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has announced the recall of about 550 Bassettbaby Wendy Bellissimo Hidden Hills Collection Cribs. The space between the spindles on some cribs fail to meet federal standards and can pose an entrapment hazard to babies.
The recalled cribs are full-sized with a Navajo Pine finish and model number 5446-0521 printed on the bottom rail of the headboard. They were made in China and sold exclusively at Babies "R" Us stores nationwide from November 2007 through February 2008 for about $500 each.
If you have one of the recalled cribs, you should stop using it immediately and contact Bassettbaby to schedule an in-home inspection of the crib. Recalled cribs will be replaced. The firm has contacted consumers directly.
You can contact Bassettbaby at (866) 618-5446 between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. ET Monday through Sunday.
I heard the umbilical cord would get wrapped around the baby's neck. I heard it would suffocate the baby. I heard it would suffocate me. I heard not to ever, ever, ever sleep on my back. Coincidentally, I forgot to ever ask my OBGYN about whether or not it was ok to lie on my back while I was pregnant, and, honestly, I felt a little silly bringing up such a thing when there were other, seemingly more serious questions to spend our time discussing.
So, can you, or can't you? As we all know, the information we uncover on the Intranet can be flighty. According to the American Pregnancy Association, sleeping on your back during pregnancy is a no no. And not just for the reasons you might suspect. Their article on the subject actually focuses on getting a good night's sleep, recommending certain types of sleeping positions to ease back pain, curtail the dreaded heartburn (you never had heartburn while pregnant? Curses!).
Sleeping on your back can cause problems with breathing, digestion, back ache and hemorrhoids (yikes!) as well as causing potential harm to your baby by decreasing circulation to both of you. Your abdomen rather smushes your intestines. aorta and vena cava. If you wake up on your stomach, as I am prone to doing, just turn back to your left side, the sleeping position recommended for pregnant women.
When you have a baby you are automatically inducted into the cult of people-who-will-sleep-anywhere-at-all. Welcome. It's a lovely place, really. Especially if you're Daddy, and you're on night duty. Or maybe you're not on night duty, and you're in the way and snoring.
Before having a baby, I had no idea how frequently spouses spent their nights on the guest bedroom pull-out, on the couch downstairs, or in their child's princess bed.
It's the Murphy's law of parenting the young child. Where you end up, and how you end up there, might be different, but the fact remains the same: you will end up sleeping somewhere else not once, but many times, in the span of your child's young life.
In our household, co-sleeping was something we were into when our son was small, so when we realized our three-year old was still waking up in the middle of the night (night terrors) seeking consolation, we bought a king-sized bed and told him to come crawl into our bed in the middle of the night, instead of trekking to his room, where one of us would invariably end up sleeping.
But co-sleeping, like anything else in the realm of parenting, is something that some parents are totally for, and others are totally against. And many of my friends who say they are totally against co-sleeping because of what it might do to their marital relationship, end up booting their husbands out of bed. So that hubby can get better sleep. So that there is more room in bed. So that no one will have to listen to hubs snoring. So that maybe, just maybe he'll forget all about sex. Or whatever.
Tomorrow night, my mother-in-law is visiting. Lucky her, she gets the bottom (full-sized) bunk, being that it's the only guest bed we currently have in the house. I plan on sticking my three-year-old in with us, but gave my five-year-old the option of sleeping on the top bunk or camping out in our room.
"Oh, I'll sleep in my own bed. It's where all my babies are."
Do you know how long I've waited to hear those words? FIVE YEARS. Still, shortly after I got done jumping for joy, I felt sad. My chronic co-sleeper didn't want to sleep with me anymore. Isn't motherhood weird?
I've recently seen some version of the study linking weight loss to the amount of sleep moms get in at least five different places, and it kind of makes me want to cry a little. If I'm getting six hours of sleep, I call it a good night.
I mean, really, when was the last time you got eight hours of solid, uninterrupted sleep? Maybe it's just me, but I can't seem to make that happen, even on a good night when my 3 year old goes down like a dream (which is never) and my to-do list isn't two miles long (also never.)
I have three jobs: my full time day job, writing here, and full time parenting. In other words, when some people's day ends after the kiddo is finally in bed and the laundry is going, mine is just starting. Apparently this isn't good for my overall physique, or my mental health, but I can't even begin to fathom how to do things differently so that I could sneak in another hour of sleep here or there.
Even when I go to bed early, or perhaps more accurately, especially when I go to bed early I can't fall asleep. Instead I lie in bed, my brain going at a million miles an hour, worrying that I'll forget to do something, or strategizing about how I'll get it all done.
And I can't take any comfort in a recent poll by the National Sleep foundation, that found that half the nation reports having frequent insomnia, because it seems that the drug companies who market sleep medications are behind it.
But I am curious--misery loves company after all-- how much sleep do you get every night, really?
Sleep deprivation is a normal part of early parenthood. But for David and Shannon Lamb, sleep issues have taken on a whole new meaning. Their three-year-old son, Rhett, hasn't slept at all -- not a night, not a nap -- since he was born.
Rhett has a rare condition called chiari malformation, which his doctors believe is the cause of his sleeplessness. Patients with chiari malformation have a skull that is abnormally formed and puts pressure on the brain, causing it to protrude through the bottom of the skull. People with chiari malformation may have muscle weakness, vision problems, or coordination issues. Symptoms can range from nonexistent to severe.
Did we really need an expensive study to tell us that children with televisions in their bedroom will:
1. Watch more T.V. 2. Have more sleep-related problems 3. Be fatter 4. Score lower on standardized tests
The only thing I found surprising in this study is that parents actually allow their children to have televisions in their bedrooms.
One study cited in the Times article examined the television, computer, and video game habits of 400 Northern California children -- and fully 70% of those kids had televisions in their bedroom. The Journal of Pediatrics conducted another study cited in this article. This study reported that "preschool children with bedroom TVs were more likely to be overweight". Preschoolers?
Does the most educated generation of parents the world has ever known have absolutely no common sense? Do they not notice their kids' weight, test scores or sleep habits? Are parents so disengaged from their own children that they just don't care what or how much their children watch so long as they're not bothered?
I truly have no answers because I simply cannot relate. I would never consider putting a television in any of my kids rooms and I make it my business to know exactly what they are watching. Maybe we need more studies to figure out the parents.
During my custody trial, one of the things I was questioned and criticized about was a bedtime ritual I had with my son that I had written about on my blog. I tried to explain my beliefs about encouraging creativity, stimulating a child's imagination, and finding ways to make them feel safe, even if it includes an imaginary story. However, it seemed to fall on deaf ears because it sounded too much like "magic" or "witchcraft."
Like many children, my son was afraid of the dark, fearful of things in his room or going to sleep and something "getting him" while he slept. I asked for advice, read books and tried to find ways to make him feel secure, but nothing worked. Since I tend to live inside my head a lot and make up stories, I drew from that and created a story for him. I told him that every night before bed, your finger turns into a magic wand. Little light fairies light up the wand and give it power. If you take that magic wand and draw a circle around yourself, it creates a force field that protects you while you sleep. My son, ever the realist, asked me what happens if he wakes up during the night and needs to leave the force field quickly. "How will I get out, Mom?" he asked me.
I explained to him that the force field was to keep people out, not to prevent him from leaving. He was able to leave the force field any time he chose, but once he created the circle, no one would be able to get inside. He was a very curious child, and asked so many questions that I ended up writing a whole story about the force field, the circle, and all the fairies that fly around the circle all night, protecting him while he slept. I created a song to go with the circle, and we would sing it together every night while holding hands with our index fingers extended, drawing the circular force field:
We make this circle round and round From the sky to the ground. Little fairies bring your light And protect us through the night.
We sang that song every night for years. After my custody trial, my son was not allowed to sing the song or talk about the circle at his dad's house. There seemed to be some worry that I was teaching my son evil things. My son was worried about how he would sleep and be protected from the nightmares. I reassured him that the force field can be activated just by thinking about it and if he sang the song to himself when he went to sleep, it would still work. It broke my heart that such a simple, harmless bedtime ritual could be turned into something bad. Didn't we all read fairy tales and learn about magic when we were kids? I have always believed that stimulating and encouraging a child's imagination is a good thing. I think if all fiction writers had their creativity squashed like this when they were children, the world would have a lot fewer books for us to enjoy and none of us would know about a little wizard named Harry Potter.
How do you help your child deal with nighttime fears? Do you feel that it's wrong to make up a story?
Sleep is an issue for any new parent. Not only are they not getting any, but where in the world is the baby supposed to sleep? Co-sleeping is either ideal or dangerous, depending on who you talk to. Putting the baby in a crib in their own room just adds distance between you and a crying baby in the middle of the night, meaning you have a much greater chance of crashing into doorways in your sleepless stupor.
The 
Good news if you're a coffee junkie: that venti drip could possibly prolong your life, and it certainly won't kill you. A new study has found that coffee drinkers -- even those guzzling decaf -- had slightly lower death rates than their coffee-free peers.
The 
When you have a baby you are automatically inducted into the cult of people-who-will-sleep-anywhere-at-all. Welcome. It's a lovely place, really. Especially if you're Daddy, and you're on night duty. Or maybe you're not on night duty, and you're in the way and snoring.
The first thought I had when I read this 
During my custody trial, one of the things I was questioned and criticized about was a bedtime ritual I had with my son that I had written about on my blog. I tried to explain my beliefs about encouraging creativity, stimulating a child's imagination, and finding ways to make them feel safe, even if it includes an imaginary story. However, it seemed to fall on deaf ears because it sounded too much like "magic" or "witchcraft."
