My name is Wendy Dean and I am the mother of Ben, Caitlin and identical twins, Ewan and Joseph.

Before starting my family I spent many years at various Universities and completed a BA (Hons), a Master’s Degree a PH.D and finally a P.G.C.E. I went on to have a successful career as a University Researcher, later worked as a Policy Planner and finally as a University Lecturer. This academic and practical career path developed my interest in Child and Parent Psychology, which would later lead me to start my own company, Baby Sleep Answers Ltd in 2005. The cornerstone of this publishing and internet advice company, is this book and www.babysleepanswers.co.uk, the website that supports it. The philosophy of this manual is very much “what works”.

So how did it all begin? When my first child Benjamin John was born I was knocked completely sideways. On the 26th November 1999, I found myself holding a screaming 7lb 13oz bundle and I did not know what I was supposed to do with it.

The next few months were horrible, my son refused to sleep for longer than 20 minutes during the day and woke four or five times in the night. I was afraid to ask for support from my Health Visitor and none was offered. I thought I was a bad mother who had done something wrong.

Finally, in desperation we sought professional help and 6 weeks later my little Ben, was sleeping through the night and having regular naps in the day. I resolved that if I was ever lucky enough to have another baby, I would never go through that experience again.

Since then I have had three more children, written and updated The Baby Sleep System and launched my own website. The book is based on research done by myself from dozens of books and medical journals. It has been informed by my own personal experience and that of thousands of families who have used The Baby Sleep System and the www.babysleepanswers.co.uk online support forum over the years.

The book has been deliberately written (I hope) in a clear, concise format and is intended to be accessible to the sleep deprived. I would always recommend that you use The Baby Sleep System in conjunction with the online Forum www.babysleepanswers.co.uk/forum. All babies are not the same and via the dedicated website, my team and I will try and tailor our advice to your individual baby and circumstances.

Good luck,

Wendy Dean
 

It may be possible to avoid a full scale night time sleep training plan, even if your baby still wakes regularly to feed through the night. Have a quick recap of the following checklist, to make sure that you have not missed a simple solution:

1. Is your baby taking enough food at each sitting? By 4 months an average baby should be taking a minimum of a 5 ounce bottle in one feed. If your baby’s weight is above average then this will be more. A full breast feed should be delivered by feeding for 20 minutes on 1 side and 10 on the other. Feeding more regularly than 3-4 hourly can mean that your baby snacks throughout the day rather than filling up in one sitting.

2. Breast fed babies sometimes do not get enough milk at the last feed, especially if their mother is exhausted. Consider topping him/her up with a few ounces of formula or express more milk off in the morning to give him via a bottle in the evening.

3. Although the latest advice is to not wean (introduce solid food) a baby until s/he is six months old, use your own judgement. If your baby is above average weight then he may be ready at 17 weeks (see section 3.2 of The Baby Sleep System for more information). Remember, this is your baby and you know them best.

If you are confident that you have now tried all of these tips and your baby is still not sleeping through the night, it is time to progress to a sleep training programme. There a number of strategies within The Baby Sleep System that can be used to settle a baby who currently relies on milk feeds to get to sleep through the night. You can choose which one you would like to adopt that best suits you and your little one.
 

Congratulations if you have now succeeded in getting your baby down for regular daytime naps. The next stage may well be to extend the length of a cot nap – most baby’s if they were previously poor nappers, only manage short naps to start with. If your baby regularly wakes too early from a nap (less than 40 minutes for morning naps, and less than one hour in the afternoon) then you can use pick up/put down to get him/her back to sleep. If you can manage it, leave your baby for 10 minutes before going in, you may find that s/he settles herself back off to sleep on her own. If after 10 minutes, there is no sign that your baby is falling nodding off, go back in and do 10 minutes of pick up/put down. Pick up if s/he cries, put them down the second they stop. If after 10 minutes your baby is still showing no signs of settling, leave the room for a further 10 minutes. After this period you can get him/her up, but do try again the following day. It may be necessary to take your baby for a push out in the pram or a drive in the car to ensure that they get some sleep later in the day. Try to avoid a nap after 5pm, as this could make it difficult to get your baby down at bedtime. It will take 2-3 weeks of consistency to see an improvement, but at that stage your baby should start to either sleep for a longer stretch or re-settle into a second sleep cycle. If you are still struggling, post on the Forum www.babysleepanswers.co.uk

Addressing daytime naps should be the last goal when implementing The Baby Sleep System. It is actually harder for a baby to learn to nap than it is to settle at bedtime and sleep through the night – hence the reason why I advise that the former are addressed first. Your baby needs to have mastered the art of self-settling before trying to introduce him/her to napping in the cot. Described below are the average number and length of naps that babies and young children need to take in order to follow a good sleep pattern. Remember all children are different so the figures should not be taken literally, they are for guidance.

0 - 3 months: Small babies tend to nap every one and a half to three hours.

3 - 6 months: The time between naps start to lengthen to two and a half to four hourly intervals.

6 - 9 months: Your baby will start to take a nap in the morning, a longer nap around lunchtime and maybe a short cat nap in the afternoon. The total amount of time he will be sleeping during the day should be a maximum of around three hours.

9 - 12 months: Your baby will now take a maximum of two naps, one in the morning and a longer nap after lunch. Some baby’s do drop to one nap at this stage in their development.

12 months – 2 years: One X two hour nap or less a day will be sufficient, which is best taken just after lunch.
If your baby seems to be constantly tired and grumpy and unable to sleep for longer than 45 minutes, then you may need to embark upon a strategy to help him/her nap better. However, if your baby seems to be quite content through the day and perhaps grabs sleep on the school run or whilst you are out and about, you may decide that daytime sleep training is not necessary. In an ideal world it is better if your baby can sleep anywhere i.e. in the cot when you are at home and in the pram/car whilst you are out and about.

You may be experiencing another common napping problem, short naps! As at night, babies sleep in cycles through the day. If your baby is waking at or before 45 minutes has elapsed, then they have roused at the end of one cycle and failed to re-settle again into the next. This is sometimes as a result of an enthusiastic parent dashing in at the first sign of waking and not giving their little one the chance to re-settle. If you can, try and wait 10 minutes before going to get your child and they may surprise you and go back to sleep!

If your baby struggles to fall asleep at all through the day, then this could be because of a timing issue. If your baby is not tired enough, s/he will not sleep. Conversely, if your little one is over-tired, they will also struggle to fall asleep! Go back to Section 3.5 and see if your baby might be being put down too early or too late. Waking early from a nap (after around 30 minutes), can also be a sign that you may be putting your baby down too early.
In summary, be confident that your baby knows how to self-settle, keep persevering with the timing of naps and always give your baby the chance to re-settle if s/he wakes early. If you are still having problems, post on the Forum www.babysleepanswers.co.uk .

This is a most crucial component in order to help your baby into a healthy sleep pattern. Get this bit right and you will be well on your way to a guaranteed full night’s sleep. The Bedtime Routine must include a range of “sleep cues” that your baby or child will learn to recognise in a short period of time. Sleep cues are the things that you will do every night, to show your child that it is time for bed and sleep.

Here is a list of “sleep cues” that you can use. It is not exhaustive and you may develop some extra ones of your own:

• Bath;
• Massage;
• Dress in pyjamas;
• Read a book or play a quiet game together;
• Turn off main light and put on night light;
• Activate musical mobile;
• Same use of phrase such as “night, night sleep tight”.

The routine can start at around 5:45pm but no later than 6:30pm. Run a nice warm bath and add a baby sleep time product. Make the bath fun. Dry the baby in his or her bedroom, massage him if you wish and put on a fresh nappy and a comfortable sleep suit. Give your little one a final milk feed and wind if necessary. It is important that all babies experience a gap, no matter how short, between the feed and going to sleep in their bed. Read baby a story or play a lullaby. Turn the lights off and activate a musical mobile. Leave the room (this might not be possible immediately, you may need to settle him/her). This routine should be the same every single night and last no longer than 45 minutes. The key point is that s/he goes down in his/her cot tired, but awake.

If you are really struggling to get your baby down awake because you have identified that your baby needs to feed to sleep, consider doing a split feed as part of the bedtime routine. Start the feed at 6pm and give him/her approximately ¾ of it (if you are breast feeding, then you will need to time the length of a normal feed and calculate your timings from there). Do the rest of your bedtime routine as normal and then quickly top him/her up before putting them down. This should mean that your little one doesn’t get a chance to fall asleep on the milk.
 

No matter what your personal circumstances, your baby needs some activity and a change of scenery as a part of his/her day. This will provide him/her with plenty of stimulation and stop your little one from becoming bored. If you are walking to and from at least some activities, s/he will benefit from some sleep inducing fresh air! If your child attends nursery or other formal childcare setting, an activity programme and perhaps a trip out will already be in place. If you are a full or part time “stay at home” mum it is important that you get out of the house at some point, speak to other people and thus avoid feeling isolated. The best time to do this is in the morning for three reasons:

• Most babies take their longest stretch of sleep through the night (or at least that’s what we are aiming for). This means that they tend to be less tired in the mornings than the afternoons and will therefore enjoy your choice of activity more.

• If your child is active in the morning, it will be much easier to get him to take a long nap, preferably in his cot, in the afternoon.

Of course, routines have to be flexible, if a long nap in the afternoon won’t work for you, follow your activity routine for a couple of weeks and see where your baby naturally falls asleep. As you implement The Baby Sleep System in the order suggested, your baby should begin to display a pattern for where s/he prefers to sleep or be entertained.