Rock-a-bye Baby: Bedtime Advice for Moms

Moms have a new source of help for putting baby to sleep – the Internet. A yearlong review of the online Customized Sleep Profile shows that the advice given out there worked. Babies and toddlers – and their mothers – were able to sleep better as a result.

The Customized Sleep Profile has a database of sleep information stored in its memory. The information is separated into categories based on a child’s age. When a mom accesses the online program, she fills out a series of questions about her child and her child’s sleep habits. The program analyzes mom’s answers and finds comparable examples in its database.

Suggestions for improving the child’s sleep are based on these examples. The suggestions include things like following a regular bedtime routine, stopping night feedings, and answering fewer cries in the night.

The Customized Sleep Profile is available for free from Johnson & Johnson at http://www.johnsonsbaby.com/sleep .

To test the effectiveness of the Customized Sleep Profile, researchers sent surveys to 264 mothers who were using the online program. After three weeks, 90 percent of the moms said the Customized Sleep Profile was helpful and that they planned to continue using it. Their children were sleeping longer and waking up fewer times during the night, the moms said.

The moms also reported less tension, depression, fatigue and confusion because their babies were sleeping better.

A year later, researchers followed up with 171 of the moms still using the program. Their study was published in the Oct. 15 edition of the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine. The results show that the Customized Sleep Profile continued to be a valuable resource.

Read more about this study, or additional blog posts about infants and toddlers. The AASM has more about children’s sleep needs on the Your Sleep website.


Photo By: David Clow

New parents and the joys of being Up All Night

Seemingly endless crying. Late nights. Being up when your alarm goes off. Sleep deprivation. Parents of new born babies know these scenarios very well.

The plight of new parents has become something of a source for comedy. In a new show on NBC, Up All Night, a couple finds out what it means to be the parents of a newborn. They discover what it feels like to be sleep deprived because their baby needs constant attention.

The show follows the process of how a couple, accustomed to staying out late and partying hard, adjusts to having an infant in the house. The new parents are played by Will Arnett and Christina Applegate. They bring the situations parents face to the screen with comedy and realism.

In one scene of the pilot, the couple is seen recovering from a night of attempting to “reclaim” their party lifestyle. However, as they are still trying to shake off the grogginess, the baby begins to cry. After that hard lesson, the parents realize that they will have to sacrifice some of their past habits.

They would have benefited from the knowledge that infants that are 3-11 months need 14-15 hours of sleep. The number of hours needed decreases as they grow older.

As they grow older, young children may develop sleep-onset association which usually results in sleep deprivation among parents. When they wake up, children may cry. The parents naturally feel that they should help their child fall back asleep. They do this by feeding, rocking, holding or lying down with their child. As result many children aren't able to fall asleep on their own. They begin to connect sleeping with an activity or a person.

Here are some tips to help your child sleep better: establish a relaxing setting at bedtime, follow a consistent bedtime routine and don’t allow your child to have food or drinks that have caffeine. As your child the gets the correct amount of sleep, they will most likely be more cheerful during the day.

Picture By: iskir

Infant study: Sleeping babies capable of learning

A study released today reveals infants are capable of making real-world associations while they’re deep in dreamland.

Researchers at Columbia University repeatedly played a tone while blowing a puff of air into 26 sleeping infants’ eyelids. Each time the babies would scrunch their faces in response.

Eventually the puffs of air stopped, and the tone continued. A video camera that recorded their facial expressions shows almost a Pavlovian response. Nearly all of the infants scrunched their faces as if they were bracing for another air burst.

Electroencephalogram readings show there were fluctuations in brain wave activity with each tone. The authors of the study believe this is evidence that the infants learned to associate the tone and air puffs.

Babies who were not exposed to the air bursts had no reaction to the tones.

This type of learning is controlled by the cerebellum, the section of the brain that connects sensory input and muscular response.

Because of the limitation of the study scientists still don’t know if adults are able to make the same type of associations in their sleep.

In April, we learned that dreams can help the adult brain learn complex tasks, like navigating a 3-D maze. You can read the entire article here at the Sleepeducation blog.

On a side note, the authors say the techniques they used in the sleeping infant study may lead to the discovery of a test for certain developmental disorders. The non-invasive test would hopefully identify infants who are at risk for developmental disorders don’t show up until later in life.

Image by Badruddeen