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Strollerderby
The first time my baby mysteriously slept – and slept, and slept – for what seemed like the whole day, I was worried. Was there something wrong?
Of course not, my mom assured me. The baby was just having a growth spurt. Sure enough, she did seem bigger when she woke up.
Now, science has caught up with the wisdom of grandmothers. A new study finds that babies’ sleep patterns are linked to their growth spurts. They really do need more sleep when they’re doing the hard work of getting bigger.
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.
My kids are young enough that they’re actually excited about going back to school What they aren’t excited about is their bedtime, which has been scaled back from “whenever” to 8 p.m. “It’s still light out!” they complain.
According to a piece at MSNBC, I should explain to them that they don’t “have” to go to bed, they “get” to go to bed. I’ll let you know how that works out for me.
But, really, the advice is on the right track. Helping kids reset their body clocks now might not make them bounce out of bed the first time you nudge them awake at 6:30 a.m. But there might be less crying and gnashing of teeth — on their part and yours.
Here are some more tips from MSNBC for getting your kids ready for summer’s end and their new school routine:
Joslyn Gray 
Amber Doty 
Julianna Miner 
Monica Bielanko 
Sierra Black 
Meredith Carroll 
Carolyn Castiglia 
Sunny Chanel 
Madeline Holler 
Wendy Michaels 
Rebecca Odes 
Danielle Smith 
Danielle Sullivan 
Katherine Stone 
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