Search Results for: blog no end yet to sleep deprivation

Dealing With Noisy Hotel Guests

How do you deal with unruly guests at a hotel? A. Contact the front desk staff and have them handle it B. Pound on the wall separating your room from the offender’s C. Knock on the loud guest’s door and politely ask them to keep it down D. Hail a “sleep warden” and have them kick out the belligerent guest If you are vacationing at select hotels in the United Kingdom, answer “D” is an actual option. “Sleep wardens” are all the rage at Travelodge properties in Europe. The specially trained staff members patrol the hotels’ halls making sure that … Continue reading →

I Don’t Have Teeth Yet, But They Still Hurt.

After watching the way my daughter has been acting in the last month, I realize how miserable teething must be for babies. She’s always been a mellow, easy-going baby. In fact, the only times she has ever really cried are when she is hungry or when she is tired. Even then, her cries were pretty quiet, and short-lived. In addition to being easy-going, she slept through the night early on. I felt pretty lucky. I still feel lucky, because I love her dearly, but for the last month, she has been a much different baby. More often than not, she … Continue reading →

Surviving Sleep Deprivation

You have a baby. Your baby does not sleep. This might be because he’s teething, or he has colic or reflux. Or perhaps he is just simply a baby, and one who does not sleep. Babies naturally wake at night because they are hungry and because it’s adaptive to connect with mama a lot during the night time hours as well as the day time. Whatever the reason, how can you survive the days and the weeks of sleep deprivation that follow the birth of your child? Here are some strategies to survive sleep deprivation, from someone whose child neglected … Continue reading →

Single Parenting and That Magical Word: Sleep

Every parent is a busy parent, but a single parent is most likely overwhelmed. You are alone and there is no one else to rely on 95% of the time, maybe even 100% of the time depending on your circumstance. We crave what we need the most and that is usually the thing that we get the least of. A single parent is tired pretty much all of the time. We are severely lacking in the area of our lives that will keep us going strong, yet we cannot satisfy the need because there is not enough time. I have … Continue reading →

Sleep- It Does a Body Good

I was thinking about how much I really needed a nap when I ran across an article in USA Today where researchers are cautioning us that once we lose too much sleep day after day, our ability to catch up on our sleep may also be lost. As busy parents most of us don’t get 8 hours of sleep. How can we with so much on our plate? There’s always something that has to be done around the house. We’re either finishing up one day or preparing for the next day. Not to mention some parents stay up late so … Continue reading →

Getting Enough Sleep Should Be a Priority

Meeting the needs of children with medical problems or behavioral disorders can be exhausting. A child who must be checked and re-checked throughout the night, or one with sleep disturbances or night terrors can leave parents frustrated and overwhelmed. And if we’re not careful, we can become accustomed to getting very little rest and almost forget what a real night of recuperative sleep feels like. When we’re sleep-deprived, we’re more likely to feel like we’re incapable of handling everything we have to accomplish in a day. Problems seem so much bigger. We’re irritable without knowing exactly why. Sometimes sleep-deprivation makes … Continue reading →

No End Yet to Sleep Deprivation

I thought that once my kids were out of diapers and sleeping through the night, I would get my own long nights of uninterrupted sleep back. But, over the years, there have been nightmares, illness, coping with various biological clocks, sleepovers and a myriad other reasons why those long, languid nights of uninterrupted sleep have been scarce. Now, with three teenagers, I think I’m getting less sleep than ever! This past Saturday night as I found myself drinking tea and trying to stay awake while waiting for my eldest to come home from a party, it dawned on me that … Continue reading →

Challenging Children

I have a friend who told me a story about a baby in the foster system. This baby was in several foster homes. The foster homes were not able to adequately care for this child because her needs were greater than the homes’ abilities. No, this was not a special needs child. This baby did not need to be in a medical needs home. She just happened to be the kind of child that was more of a handful than the foster families wanted to deal with. What was her challenge? She cried non-stop. I don’t know if it was … Continue reading →

Book Review: Annie’s Baby

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Annie’s Baby is a book whose official author is Dr. Beatrice Sparks, an adolescent psychologist who also edited Go Ask Alice. But the book’s real author is “Annie”, an anonymous client of Dr. Sparks, who narrates her story to her diary. As the book begins, Annie is a fairly typical fourteen-year-old—she plays on a soccer team and enjoys rollerblading. She says she’s too much of a tomboy to be one of the “popular girls”, but she has several good friends with whom she likes to go to the movies or the mall. Annie lives with her mom, a teacher. The … Continue reading →

3 Bad Bed Time Habits You Shouldn’t Start

I almost hesitate to post this. The truth is one family’s bad habit might be another’s god send. As someone who doesn’t do sleep deprivation well, I find myself returning to this motto: do whatever allows you the most sleep. But there are a few things that are definite no-no’s and/or will make your life harder down the road. Bad Habit #1: Putting Baby to Bed with a Bottle This isn’t my opinion. It’s the opinion of the American Dental Association, as well as the American Association of Pediatrics, as well as the World Health Organization. Why, is this such … Continue reading →