Over the past twelve years I have written several times on the subject of children and sleep. Children need good sleep patterns. But parents need their children to have good sleep patterns as well. Parents need the time for nurturing intimacy and connecting that is afforded when children develop good sleep patterns.

I recently ran across another argument that supports my conviction about children and the need for adequate sleep. From Better Beginnings, Inc., a family resource and education company, I gleaned this fact - the number one stressor for new parents is their lack of sleep due to children not sleeping through the night.

The violence that is behind the "shaken-child syndrome" may in some cases, have more to do with the sleep depravation of the parent than the parent's proneness to violence. The answer to the dilemma is of course to find ways to help your infant (two years and younger) sleep through the night. A baby is sleeping through the night when he/she has an uninterrupted sleep of at least five hours. It is a reasonable expectancy that a child will awaken once or twice during the night through their second year.

If you and your child are struggling with adequate sleep, I would like to suggest a new book:"The No-Cry Sleep Solution, Gentle Ways to Help Your Baby Sleep Through the Night," by Elizabeth Pantley. 

Click to purchase from Amazon.com for only $10.47. 
Click to visit Elizabeth Pantley's Website. 

Conventional wisdom has suggested two ways to help your baby sleep through the night: 1) Let the baby "cry it out." Eventually he/she will learn to fall asleep on his/her own. 2) The other thought is that if you nurture the child through his/her waking periods he/she will eventually will begin to sleep through the night. Elizabeth Pantley offers a third alternative - a gradual approach to your baby's sleeping all night without having to "cry it out."

Elizabeth Pantley's book will help you know how much sleep is needed for your child at ages up to five years. At least through the third year, some of the sleep time needed for the child occurs during one, two, or three nap times. Children from five years to birth need from eleven to sixteen hours of cumulative sleep.

For parents of children through the pre-teen years, there is a marvelous parenting resource on the Internet - . You can buy "The No Cry Solution..." from this web site for about $15.

It is unreasonable to expect that your baby will settle into a mature, all-night, every-night sleep pattern, before their first birthday. It is not, however, unreasonable to begin setting the stage during the first year that will result in your child's developing good sleep patterns by the time they are two or three.

A WARNING for my readers: Getting your baby to sleep through the night will require changes in the life styles of the parents as well as the child - and, in my experience, change is more difficult for parents than for children.