Marc Weissbluth > Quotes

“...please remember that leaving your baby alone protesting for more fun with you while you get dressed is not the same things as abandonment. Similarly, leaving your baby alone protesting for more fun when she needs to sleep is not neglect. ”
― Marc Weissbluth, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child: A Step-by-Step Program for a Good Night's Sleep

“If the sleep disruption is repeated night after night, the actual measured impairments do not remain constant. Instead, there is an escalating accumulation of sleepiness that produces in adults continuing increases in headaches, gastrointestinal complaints, forgetfulness, reduced concentration, fatigue, emotional ups and downs, difficulty in staying awake during the daytime, irritability, and difficulty awakening. Not only do the adults describe themselves as more sleepy and mentally exhausted, they also feel more stressed. The stress may be a direct consequence of partial sleep deprivation or it may result from the challenge of coping with increasing amounts of daytime sleepiness. Think how hard it would be to concentrate or be motivated if you were struggling every day to stay awake. If children have”
― Marc Weissbluth, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child

“Remember, sleep training means starting to respect your baby’s need to sleep when he is a newborn by anticipating when he will need to sleep (within one to two hours of wakefulness), learning to recognize drowsy signs, and developing a bedtime routine. Then your baby will not become overtired.”
― Marc Weissbluth, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child

“Sometimes at about 3 months of age, after the extreme fussiness/colic has dissipated, or in a baby who had common fussiness/crying, a child who had been sleeping well begins waking at night or crying at night and during the day. The parents also may note heightened activity with wild screaming spells. These children have accumulated a sleep debt and decided that they would rather play with their parents than be placed in a dark, quiet, and boring room. Parents who do not recognize the new sleep debt might believe that this new night waking represents hunger due to a “growth spurt” or insufficient breast milk. But when these parents begin to focus on establishing a healthy night-sleep schedule, when they put these babies in their cribs when the babies need to sleep, and when they shield their babies from overstimulation, the frequent night waking stops. If”
― Marc Weissbluth, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child: A Step-by-Step Program for a Good Night's Sleep

“As your child’s biological rhythms evolve for day sleep, your general goal is to synchronize your soothing-to-sleep activities with her internal timing mechanism for sleep. This is no different from being sensitive to her need to be fed or changed. Many”
― Marc Weissbluth, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child: A Step-by-Step Program for a Good Night's Sleep

“It is a fact of modern life that day care and nanny care have become more common.”
― Marc Weissbluth, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child: A Step-by-Step Program for a Good Night's Sleep

“drowsy at an earlier hour. Nevertheless, try to soothe your baby to sleep at an earlier hour even if she does not show”
― Marc Weissbluth, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child: A step-by-step programme for a good night's sleep

“Family, friends, even strangers constantly tell us what a happy, cheerful child we have. The reality is that she is a very well-rested child.”
― Marc Weissbluth, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child: A Step-by-Step Program for a Good Night's Sleep

“SLEEP TRAINING DOES NOT EQUAL CRY IT OUT Sleep training involves several general principles to use the natural development of sleep/wake rhythms as an aid to help your child learn to sleep. • Respect your baby’s need to sleep. • Start early to plan for or anticipate for when your baby will need to sleep, similar to anticipating when your baby will need to feed. • Maintain brief intervals of wakefulness, this is the one- to two-hour window. • Learn to recognize drowsy cues (see this page), though they may be absent in 20 percent of extremely fussy/colicky babies. Drowsy cues or sleepy signs signal that your baby is becoming sleepy; this is when you should begin your soothing efforts. • When you put your baby down or lie down with him, he may be drowsy and awake or in a deep sleep. Either way works if you have good timing. • Develop a bedtime routine. • Matching the time when you soothe your baby to sleep to the time when he naturally needs to sleep is the key. For 80 percent of common fussy babies, perfect timing produces no crying. • During the first several weeks, many babies fall asleep while feeding or sucking to soothe even if not hungry. This is natural. It is not necessary to deliberately wake your baby before you put him down to sleep or lie down with him in your bed. Later, your older baby may or may not momentarily and partially awaken as you remove your breast or bottle before falling asleep. Do not force him to a wakeful state before attempting to sleep him.”
― Marc Weissbluth, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child

“If insufficient sleep consistently ‘taxes’ young children’s emotion responses, they may not manage emotion regulation challenges effectively, potentially placing them at risk for future emotional/behavioral problems.…”
― Marc Weissbluth, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child: A Step-by-Step Program for a Good Night's Sleep

“Your baby will likely cry less at sleep onset using this method if Dad is the one putting her down after soothing and Mom has left the house. This is for two reasons. First, your baby knows that Dad cannot nurse, so what is the point of crying? Second, moms are usually more sleep deprived and therefore likely to be inconsistent with the schedule. Mom might go for a walk, get a cup of coffee, or hang out with friends until Dad calls to tell her that the baby is asleep. Some mothers leave not just at bedtime but spend the entire first night away at a friend’s or at a hotel to get some much-needed rest and sleep. If affordable, one night of pampering self-maintenance at a spa hotel is a smart idea for the family and not selfish. Other”
― Marc Weissbluth, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child: A Step-by-Step Program for a Good Night's Sleep

“SLEEP MODULATES TEMPERAMENT”
― Marc Weissbluth, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child: A Step-by-Step Program for a Good Night's Sleep

“In 9- to 16-year-olds, the timing of sleep, not just sleep duration, makes a big difference. Even when the sleep duration is the same, those children who went to bed later did less vigorous exercise each day and had more periods of physical inactivity than children with an earlier bedtime.”
― Marc Weissbluth, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child: A Step-by-Step Program for a Good Night's Sleep

“When parents are too irregular, inconsistent, or oversolicitous, or when there are unresolved problems between the parents, the resulting sleep problems converge, producing excessive nighttime wakefulness and crying.”
― Marc Weissbluth, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child

“many children suffering from insufficient sleep appear fine during most of the day, only to exhibit the symptoms listed below as the sleep tank begins to go dry near the end of the day (4:00–5:00 p.m. for children under the age of 3 years, and 5:00–7:00 p.m. for children 3 years and older). This is known as the “witching hour.”
― Marc Weissbluth, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child: A Step-by-Step Program for a Good Night's Sleep

“The prevention and treatment of unhealthy sleep habits in infants and young children is important, because if those habits are uncorrected, they will persist. There is no automatic correction. Children do not simply outgrow these problems. Adult sleep specialists commonly see incurable adult insomniacs, chronically disabled from sleepiness and dependent on sleeping pills, who correctly describe themselves as never sleeping well as children.”
― Marc Weissbluth, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child: A Step-by-Step Program for a Good Night's Sleep

“Separately from short sleep duration, habitual loud snoring is associated with hyperactivity, depression, and inattention. Additionally, habitual snoring has been shown to be a factor in fragmented sleep.”
― Marc Weissbluth, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child: A Step-by-Step Program for a Good Night's Sleep

“The completely opposite scenario occurs when one parent, usually the father, demands that the other parent, usually the mother, keep their child up late so that he can play with him or her. Not only does the child suffer, but it is the mother who is the unappreciated victim, because she is trying to maintain marital harmony and trying to keep her child well rested—and she can’t do both. Obviously this is not simply a child’s sleep problem but a family problem.”
― Marc Weissbluth, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child: A Step-by-Step Program for a Good Night's Sleep

“and systemic inflammation also result from not sleeping well.”
― Marc Weissbluth, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child: A Step-by-Step Program for a Good Night's Sleep

“When you put him down drowsy but awake and he cries hard, immediately pick him up for more soothing and try again some other time that day or the next day. If he makes very quiet sounds, wait and see. He might drift off to sleep or begin to cry hard. If he now begins to cry hard, quickly pick him up. Don’t be disappointed if he does not fall asleep when you first start to practice putting him down drowsy but awake; it just takes practice. Expect to become frustrated, because initially you may be successful only about 10 percent of the time during the first week. But by the end of the second week, you may be successful 20 percent of the time. This percentage may double each week, so after a few more weeks it becomes much easier. Be optimistic! After a few months of practice and the maturation of sleep rhythms, you will develop an anticipatory sense of when he will need to sleep. Later, when he is completely well rested, don’t be surprised if drowsy signs disappear altogether because you have successfully synchronized the timing of your soothing to sleep with the beginning of his emerging sleep wave. It’s like being good at surfing; you catch the wave for a long ride. Patience, practice, timing, and trial and error will guarantee success.”
― Marc Weissbluth, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child: A Step-by-Step Program for a Good Night's Sleep

“For example, fatigue produces an increase in adrenaline concentrations. That is, when we are tired, our body chemically responds with a burst of adrenaline to give us more drive or energy.”
― Marc Weissbluth, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child: A Step-by-Step Program for a Good Night's Sleep

“The goal is to recognize and respect your child’s need to sleep and not do things that interfere with the natural sleep process.”
― Marc Weissbluth, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child: A Step-by-Step Program for a Good Night's Sleep

“In one study, when children learned how to cope with frustration during the day, they were observed to settle themselves better at bedtime and later at night when they awoke.”
― Marc Weissbluth, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child: A Step-by-Step Program for a Good Night's Sleep

“The baby who goes to sleep with help from one of his or her parents by nursing, rocking, or holding learns only adult transition skills and needs an adult present in order to fall asleep. The baby or toddler who goes to sleep alone cuddling a stuffed animal, holding his or her favorite blanket, or sucking his or her thumb learns valuable self-quieting skills that can be used for many years to come.”
― Marc Weissbluth, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child: A Step-by-Step Program for a Good Night's Sleep

“The general guideline after 4 months of age is to feed your baby overnight when hungry, but no more than two times.”
― Marc Weissbluth, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child: A Step-by-Step Program for a Good Night's Sleep

“Self-quieting skills refer to a child’s ability to calm himself or herself, with no help from an adult, when the child is unhappy, angry, or frustrated.”
― Marc Weissbluth, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child: A Step-by-Step Program for a Good Night's Sleep

“H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago). I have helped thousands of families understand how their children’s sleep habits directly impact behavior and school performance”
― Marc Weissbluth, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child: A Step-by-Step Program for a Good Night's Sleep

“These are the most common complaints of older children with unhealthy sleep schedules. So if your child doesn’t appear to be very sick but has frequent headaches or episodes of vague abdominal pain, especially near the end of the day, ask yourself if he might be overtired.”
― Marc Weissbluth, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child: A Step-by-Step Program for a Good Night's Sleep

“Teach self-soothing. Learning self-soothing does not mean that your child will necessarily cry. Patience and perseverance will pay off.”
― Marc Weissbluth, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child: A Step-by-Step Program for a Good Night's Sleep

“a baby becomes increasingly crabby even if her nightly sleep is constantly just a little too brief.”
― Marc Weissbluth, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child: A Step-by-Step Program for a Good Night's Sleep