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• Bedtime: Does Your Kid Have One?

  Do your kids have a regular bedtime, like Sasha and Malia Obama? (The first kids, aged seven and ten, are in bed by eight p.m., according to reports.) Or do they just keep going and going, exhausted little energizer bunnies, till late into the night? Growing up in the freewheeling 70s, I remember being smug about my family's lack of set bedtimes -- and I remember falling asleep in school all the time. In fact, my bedtime-free childhood seemed less and less fun as I got older, leading to mornings of scrambling out of bed, late as usual, and arriving at high school (college, work) with wacky hair and bleary eyes.  Read More... Posted Mar 11 2009, 03:01 PM by Kate Tuttle with | with 5 comment(s) Filed under: toddler, school, teens, teenagers, tweens, sleep, sleeping, sleep deprivation, schoolkids, sleep needs, brain chemistry, school hours, sleep habits, dr. perri klass, sleep researchers, circadian rhythms

• New Rick Springfield CD For Kids

  The guy who wondered why he couldn't find a woman as great as the one Jesse had eventually settled down and had two kids of his own. Turns out they weren't great sleepers. So Rick, being a songwriter, wrote them some lullabies. When he recently found the songs "stuck in the back of a drawer," he found that he liked them and decided to put them out for the world to hear. In an interview, Rick (he lets me call him Rick) referred to the tunes as "baby pop songs." That's a good description, but they also feel deeply personal. Listening to the CD feels a little bit like eavesdropping. These are actually songs he wrote for his children, and by his own admission, they aren't as polished as some of his other work. That doesn't mean unprofessional; the sound and production values are fine. But since the songs weren't initially written for everyone to hear, they have an appealingly private quality. Put simply, don't expect "Jesse's Girl" or "Love Somebody." Read More... Posted Mar 10 2009, 10:33 PM by Brett Singer with | with 5 comment(s) Filed under: parenting, kids, entertainment, music, musicians, fathers, rock stars, sleep, sleeping, kids music, Brett Singer, lullabies, new rick springfield cd for kids, rick springfield, my precious little one

• Parents Ignoring Back to Sleep Campaign

  The Globe and Mail calls it new parents' dirty little secret.  But is it really a secret that parents ignore the "experts" all the time? For that matter, is it all that dirty? The article looks at a series of parents who have heard all the warnings against putting babies to sleep on their tummies . . . and are doing it anyway. Read More... Posted Feb 25 2009, 12:02 PM by JeanneSager with | with 10 comment(s) Filed under: sleeping, SIDS, Jeanne Sager, back to sleep, Back to Sleep campaign, expert advice, parental fears

• They Say: Get Some Sleep or Die

  CNN says that you need at least 7.5 hours of sleep every night. Otherwise you are "at greater risk of heart attack, stroke, and sudden cardiac death than their peers who get more shut-eye." Do these people have kids? Read More... Posted Nov 17 2008, 01:00 PM by Brett Singer with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: parenting, kids, CNN, sleep, sleeping, studies, Brett Singer, they say, how much sleep do you get each night, do you get enough sleep

• 3-year-old boy has never slept

  I don't know what to make of this story. I do know that I'm unlikely to ever complain about Thing 2 waking up in the middle of the night. A little boy in St. Petersburg, Florida hasn't slept in 3 years. Not "oh, he woke up last night at midnight." No sleep. At all. For 3 years. Read More... Posted May 12 2008, 12:00 PM by Brett Singer with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: health, sleep, florida, sleeping, surgery, brain, Brett Singer, chiari malformation, mind, not sleeping

• Sleep Issues: Parents Up, Kids Down?

  We've always slept a few feet away from our daughter, separated only by a short hallway, a few doors and the sound-proof bank vault we had installed in her room so we couldn't hear her cry in the night. Read More... Posted Jan 28 2008, 08:57 AM by Mike Adamick (Cry It Out!) with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: sleeping

• Sleeping Babies: In Strict Silence or Normal Household Noises?

  With the plethora of cutesy "Shh! Baby is sleeping!" door hanger signs that abound I can guess which of two camps most parents likely fall in, but apparently there's some debate about how to treat your sleeping baby: Camp #1: Do anything and everything possible to ensure Baby, once asleep, remains asleep. Tiptoeing and whispering is mandatory. Any errant sound, and I mean any sound, can disrupt what has become your only respite from the incessant demands of your tiny dictator. Camp #2: You already have (insert number here) kids, what's one more? He'll sleep when he's good and tired. While the article I'm citing makes some good points (Camp #2 may be a necessity if daycare is involved, for example, and of course balance is nearly always advised), I'm not sure that the suggestion that a child can be conditioned to join one camp or the other is all that valid. I think there are some perhaps genetic and preferential factors to be considered. My older son had silence but can and does sleep through anything. My younger daughter would only sleep, until she was almost four, if I was holding her. Ugh. Now, she too sleeps through anything. So is the need for Camp #1 derived from desperate sleep-deprived parents? Can you truly make your child join Camp #2? What camp do you fall in? Posted Jul 26 2007, 10:37 AM by Karen Murphy with | with 8 comment(s) Filed under: babies, sleeping, sleeping babies

• Co-Sleeping Is for Masochists

  My 14-month-old daughter's bedtime routine is a well-oiled machine. She sleeps in her crib all night. And her mother and I enjoy a little alone time to truly bond as a couple and do something we can't do in front of our child: Watch TV for five straight hours. A recent vacation changed all that. Emmeline refused to sleep in her porta-crib, and because she has developed a singularly charming trait of vomiting whenever she's frightened, she quickly soiled her sheets. So Dana and I brought her into bed with us. Big mistake. Read More... Posted Jun 25 2007, 10:58 AM by Mike Adamick (Cry It Out!) with | with 11 comment(s) Filed under: sleep deprived, sleep, sleeping, co-sleeping

• Babble Talk: To Swaddle or Not to Swaddle?

  It was about 4 in the morning when I first considered using duct tape on my daughter. She had, finally, learned to break free from her swaddle, not only earning her the all-too-cheesy nickname 'Dini but also moving her one step closer to the hard knock life. The kid simply would not sleep without a full swaddle, and it was driving us mad. A little duct tape around her mid-section, I figured, wouldn't hurt her. Would it? In the end, I was too tired to make it all the way to the kitchen for the tape, so I just readjusted her swaddle and went back to sleep -- hoping for at least 10 minutes of peace before she broke free again. Still, the swaddle was great while it lasted -- allowing her to sleep soundly for much longer stretches than we could have hoped for. We were turned onto the swaddle by the book "Happiest Baby on the Block" (which actually included an anecdote about a dad who used tape) but didn't do much research beyond that. Turns out pediatricians approved anyway. According to a new Babble survey, 80 percent of pediatricians say the swaddle is just dandy, while 19 percent really couldn't care less either way. What do you think? According to the poll, 77 percent of parents say "yes." Cast your vote here. Posted May 14 2007, 02:19 PM by Mike Adamick (Cry It Out!) with | with 5 comment(s) Filed under: baby, Babble, sleep, sleeping, babble talk, Babble Rules!

• The Intellicot: No, It Doesn't Come with a Freezing Agent (At Least, Not Yet)

  I'm sure that Cencio has 10,000 research studies showing that their 2001: A Space Odyssey baby cot will help my kid grow to be the next Albert Einstein (or at least the next Jimmy Page). To me, it looks like this poor kid is preparing for a good, long cryogenic nap. Cencio's Intellicot boasts a monitoring system, an automatic rocker, air circulation, and a built-in lifting system to reduce "parental back strain." I didn't even know that was a rampant medical problem. Due to go on sale sometime this year, the Intellicot will likely retail for around £1,000, or close to $2,000 US, but will be marketed more to hospitals than to the general public. While I'm not impressed, I'll bet money that this thing becomes the Cadillac of cribs for gadget-obsessed dads. Posted Jan 25 2007, 04:14 PM by thezeroboss with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: baby, products, bedtime, cots, intellicot, sleeping, cencio