There’s nothing worse than a little one awake for hours in the middle of the night! You want to sleep, and they are ready to party. While this is normal for babies in the first months before they develop a circadian rhythm, it can also be a common struggle for some older babies and toddlers. Long awake periods in the middle of the night are often referred to as split nights.
Read MoreYou may have heard, or identified with a lot of different parenting labels: Attachment parenting, positive parenting, gentle parenting, respectful parenting, conscious parenting, peaceful parenting, intuitive parenting, responsive parenting….Likely I’ve missed a few . All of these various labels are variations of each other. They may differ in how the core elements are presented, but they share a lot in common. Sleep is part of parenting, and how we parent around sleep is part of how we parent over-all. In fact, some of your sleep parenting decisions are the first big ones you make that either emphasize connection or separation, emotional availability or emotional distance. Responsive parenting includes night time parenting. Those decisions and approaches are connected.
Read MoreFeeding to sleep is a healthy sleep habit. The belief that it is not came from opinion not science. Feeding to sleep is normal, common, and healthy. If you want to feed to sleep do so with confidence. If you think it’s time to change things, that’s ok too.
Read MoreIf you are the nursing parent doing all or most of the nighttime parenting, you may have a whole lot of mixed emotions. You may love the closeness of those quiet, snuggly feeds in the middle of the night or feel touched out. You may love feeling needed while also wanting some more freedom and to share the effort with your partner. You may cope ok with disrupted sleep or be desperately tired.
If you are the other parent in this dynamic, it’s easy to feel helpless. To want to support your partner, but to have no idea how.
Read MoreNighttime parenting is hard work. It’s helpful to have some tools to support yourself when your doubting your parenting choices or up in the middle of the night and feeling completely done.
Here are a few tools centering around how we talk to ourselves about nighttime parenting with some specific affirmations and reframing ideas.
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