Hudson Valley Parent

HVP - December 2013

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Sleep Training 101 Expert tips on making it through the night By LEANNE SOWUL I t's late. It's dark. You're exhausted after a day of working and caring for your family. But instead of sleeping, you're rocking your baby back and forth, looking resentfully into the pair of wide-open eyes peering up at you. Sound familiar? If so, you're like the many parents who, at some time or another, have had difficulty getting their child to sleep. "Everything is stressful when you're tired," says Lisa Graziano, a Kingston mother of two. Heather Sullivan, a mother of two from LaGrangeville, agrees. "It's frustration at the highest level, because you're tired and you want to relax, and they're not letting you." While some parents are fortunate enough to have babies who sleep well from birth, most will need to commit to teaching their child how to soothe herself, or the whole family may become chronically sleep-deprived. A few short months ago, I was one of those parents. From birth until almost 10 months, my son Edwin was incapable of putting himself to sleep, whether at the beginning of (845) 342-3413 88-8 Dunning Road Middletown 12 Hudson Valley Parent n December 2013 the night, at naptime, or during his multiple night wakings. On a typical night, Edwin would wake up every hour or two, crying for us to help him get back to sleep, a process that often took an hour or more. Diagnose the issue If this scenario sounds familiar to you, the first thing to do is diagnose your child's biggest sleep issue. Does she have trouble falling asleep? Is he incapable of sleeping more than a couple of hours at a time? If so, is he waking up hungry, or just out of habit? Is she napping enough? martials arts karate iron dragon self defense after school enrichment kindergarten PreK Middle School Academic Club, Art Club, Voice and Dramma club, Group Instrumental, cooking and spanish Wimpfheimer and infant toddler center at Vassar College Full, half and extended day six weeks through kindergarten

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