Bright Lights Before Bed = No Sleep?
New research highlights the effects of light on melatonin levels in preschool children. What does this tell us about our evening habits for all kids?
New research highlights the effects of light on melatonin levels in preschool children. What does this tell us about our evening habits for all kids?
Two new pieces of research highlight the intricate relationship between feeding method and sleep in infants, notably how parents perceive their child's sleep. Importantly, there are implications for the idea of building "bad habits" and sleep training.
Recent research suggests that "sleep problems" at 18 months carry a higher risk for later emotional and behavioural problems. What can we take from this research? Is it valid? Does it support things like extinction sleep training?
I feel like sleep trainers are like a mythical monster where every time you cut off one head with science and reason, two more take their place that are even more dangerous than before. In the last few months alone, the media has highlighted this method of locking your child in a room for 12 hours a day under the guise of “helping” your child and a method of sleep training newborns by not feeding them at night.
A study in the Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics has made rounds recently with a bold claim that bedsharing actually harms infant sleep at 18 months by doubling the risk of “sleep problems”.
Ever hear that your child should be sleeping through by 3 months of age? Or that night waking is a sign of something wrong? Here are some of the myths about night wakings and the actual facts associated with them.
Oftentimes parents confuse routines and schedules and aren’t quite sure what is best for babe, despite there being a rather striking difference between them. So let’s review them both to see which is more biologically normal for your child…
In many ways, sleep is a social activity and is hugely important to our social well-being. Though we sleep alone in our society, this is not how we have evolved, and we see this when we return to shared sleep when we marry or live with another person.
Recently, an article by Anna Price and colleagues has been covered in the media as it supposedly touts that there are no long-term effects of infant sleep interventions. I got my hand on the article (which is still in early release through Pediatrics) and decided to write my own peer review.
Hopefully a full examination of the CIO method without sticking my foot in my mouth, but I make no guarantees on that last bit!