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Baby sleep: nature or nurture more important?
Today, in a study published online in the journal Pediatrics, researchers asked the question of whether sleeping patterns are related more to genes or the environment. In other words, are some babies and little kids just inherently programed to wake up more during the night and sleep a shorter time overall, or do parenting style, schedule, and all the other aspects of our daily life patterns make more of a difference?
The researchers studied 314 pairs of 18-month-old twins and looked at co-sleeping, total sleep duration, and night wakings to see how nature and nurture played in to each. Here’s what they found: Continue reading »
If you could have one superpower, what would it be?
OK, now that you’ve indulged your dreams of flying, turning invisible or having your own personal Tardis, check out this seemingly magic power: short sleep.
Short sleep is the ability to genuinely thrive on 4-6 hours a night of sleep. Short sleepers don’t just get by on less than seven hours a night like every parent I know; they genuinely don’t need any more sleep.
It’s a real-life superpower that one to three percent of the population is blessed with, giving them an extra couple of hours every day to do what they want with. Short sleepers go to bed after midnight and wake up with the early birds, fresh as daisies and ready to start the day all over again.
Two ways that technology disrupts sleep
A study by the National Sleep Foundation says that 95 percent of us engaged with some form of technology in the hour before bedtime.
Almost all of us watch TV, text, go online, or play video games when we should be winding down for sleep.
People age 46-64 were the most likely to watch TV every night, and about one third of people age 13-29 play video games before bed. One in 10 kids reports being woken up by texts throughout the night.
60 percent of us are on our laptops before bed.
The obvious way that sleep and gadgets are at odds: technology has an addicting quality — we can’t help ourselves but watch one more episode of Jon Stewart or jump from site to site in search of the perfect end table or an answer to the Skuut vs. training wheels dilemma.
But that’s not the only problem. Here’s the biological explanation for why technology cuts into sleep: Continue reading »
If you're awake, get out of bed
As a parent, having insomnia is a double whammy. A child means an ever-present alarm clock that precludes sleeping in, even on the weekends — but if you also have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep even when your little one is soundly slumbering, well, that’s just not fair.
When we can’t sleep, most of us lie there tossing and turning with our eyes closed, sometimes for hours. But a new study published Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine says that doesn’t work as well as a few other tricks.
The first one: Get out of bed. Here’s why – along with the other 3 techniques that help people stop staring at the ceiling in the wee hours: Continue reading »
Are you getting any?
Are you getting any? Sleep, that is.
Not me. Last night, I worked late, then stayed up to pack lunches, unload the dishwasher, throw in a load of laundry, and fill out some school paperwork. I looked at the stack of bills waiting to be paid, but decided to pack it in for the night, because I was already looking at sub-six hours of shuteye. Then, in the middle of the night, my son needed me. Then, my daughter had a nightmare. And I played musical beds.
Newsflash: Moms aren’t getting enough sleep. And 67% of moms say that they would rather sleep than have sex.
According to a new survey conducted by the website Hybrid Mom:
“Moms don’t sleep. Not during pregnancy. Not after the kids are born. Not after they’re in school. And especially not after they start driving. In fact, a totally unscientific poll of mothers recently revealed that no mom sleeps until her kids are grown and out of the house. Part of the reason is that we’re good parents. We try to give our kids a clean home, clean clothes, and a modicum of attention. But let’s face it, sleep is the new sex, we all want more, and none of us are getting enough.”
Does your child get 11-13 hours of sleep each night?
Most kids don’t get enough sleep, plain and simple. Lack of sleep doesn’t only lead to sluggishness and inattention; it can also cause kids to pack on the pounds. Researchers at the University of Chicago say that if kids catch up on weekend sleep, it may help prevent them from gaining extra weight.
Chronic sleep deprivation can have long-term effects, everything from catching more colds and viruses to anxiety and depression. This study published in yesterday’s journal Pediatrics, suggests that it’s beneficial to let our kids sleep in on weekends. If you have trouble, like so many of us do, click here for helpful tips on getting your kids to sleep.
Most children between the ages of 4 and 10 do not get the recommended amount of sleep. The National Sleep Foundation recommends that preschoolers aged 3-5 sleep 11 to 13 hours daily and children aged 5-10 sleep 10 to 11 hours. But this can be a hard task when some moms don’t make it home from work by that time, or many kids have afternoon activities that aren’t over until 6pm or so …. and then it’s dinner time.
Sleep: Practice makes perfect!
I’ll never forget it. I was getting ready to leave a friend’s annual birthday brunch. As I was saying my goodbyes to a woman I’d known for years, a mother of boy/girl twins, we started talking about –what else? — sleep. “You know,” she confided, “Ferber says sleep in children doesn’t fully consolidate until 8.” My kids were 6-months-old.
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