Sleep

I'm not talking about exhausted parents, reaching out for help. Im talking here about rude, self entitled a'holes who talk about their babies as though they are objects – inconvenient objects at that. They use words like ‘stubborn’ and ‘manipulating’ to describe tiny helpless infants. 

There is a lot of noise out there creating fears about a lot of perfectly normal baby behavior. However, when you are exhausted, knowing what’s normal doesn’t give you a sudden burst of energy. Sometimes you do need help so you can get some much needed rest, just so you can make out the woods from the trees. But, how do you find safe help ? What…

It’s scary isn’t it, being a new mum and feeling pressured from all directions to resist cuddling, rocking (or heaven forbid!), feeding your  baby to sleep – in case you create’ bad habits’?

Check out these very important things you need to know about night time feeds – they will settle all those niggling doubts and help you believe in your self, your baby and your boobs.

We all have sleep associations, we don’t bat an eyelid about our own quirks or needs around what helps us sleep. Yet, with even a very young baby, there is pressure to ‘teach your baby to self-settle’ – to fall asleep without any help from you.

Your baby’s cues, or non-verbal language, are his way of trying to tell you what he needs. It may take a few weeks to get to know your baby’s cues. But if you do some baby-watching, you will be amazed at how even very young babies can give clear signals that they want to interact (or not), are tired or hungry.

Of course, all babies are unique little individuals and you may have hit the sleeping baby jackpot. If your baby is sleeping a longer stretch over night and is gaining weight and contented, that’s perfectly fine. However, very few babies can sleep longer than 2 or 3 hours in the early weeks – day or night - so if you are feeling pressure around…

Sleep deprivation is a bitch! And if you dare complain how exhausted and crappy you are feeling, you are sure to get the same old answer: “you need to do ‘sleep training

Just like us, babies are individuals –and this goes for sleep requirements too. In most infant sleep studies, 'all night' is defined as five hours. If you are thinking that even five hours uninterrupted sleep would be a dream come true, there are some gentle strategies you can try to help your baby, and you, to sleep better:

My stinging sleep deprived eyes would well up as I detailed my baby's wakeful habits and I'd cop the standard lines of, 'have you tried swaddling', 'putting him down drowsy but awake', 'bedtime routine', 'listen for his protest cry it's different to his emotional cry', 'it's because you're still feeding him', 'you need to not hold him, you've built…