Author Elizabeth Pantley
The No-Cry Nap Solution:
Guaranteed Gentle Ways to Solve All Your Naptime Problems
Foreword by Tim Seldin, President, The Montessori Foundation; Chair, International Montessori Council
Introduction by Meir H. Kryger, MD, Chairman of the National Sleep Foundation
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Will your child only nap in your arms, in a swing, or after elaborate rituals? Does your child take cat naps -- or none at all? Let world-renowned, trusted parenting author Elizabeth Pantley help you. She’ll guide you with the same sensitive expertise and gentle approach used in her other No-Cry bestsellers about sleep, discipline and potty training.
Research proves that daily naps improve health, mood, growth, intelligence and well-being. Yet children often resist the naps they need and parents don’t know how to make them happen. The results are fussy, crying babies and cranky, grouchy kids who also have trouble sleeping at night!
In The No-Cry Nap Solution Pantley explains to parents of children ages newborn to kindergarten the importance of napping to both behavior during the day and sleeping during (and through!) the night. She then shares with you her gentle, loving child-friendly techniques--tested on families of all sizes and circumstances--and shows you how you can customize her solutions for your own family.
Pantley addresses issues such as children who resist naps, dealing with schedule changes, turning short naps into longer ones, helping a child go from needing motion for sleep to “stationery” sleep, nursing at naptime, daycare-related napping problems, newborn “in-arms” or “in-sling” napping issues, and much more.
(Excerpt below)
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Dear Reader ~
I thought I knew everything there was to know about naps, since I’ve written two other books and countless articles about children and sleep, but I was shocked and amazed at the new information I discovered while writing this book.
I set out on this venture knowing that parents struggle getting their children to nap. Everyone knows that children need naps, but the biological reasons behind this will convince you, without a doubt, that you should do everything you can to provide your baby or young child with daily nap time. It is common knowledge that when a child misses a nap he gets cranky, but you will be intrigued to learn the actual reasons why this happens.
Naps take only a few hours of time, but naps – or lack of naps – shape all twenty-four hours of your child’s day. The quality and quantity of your child’s naps influence his mood, behavior, health, and brain development. Naps can affect how happy your child is when she wakes up in the morning and how easily she’ll go to bed at night. An appropriate nap schedule is a vital component for your child’s healthy, happy life. When you consider all of this, you’ll also understand that your child’s naps – or lack of naps – can affect all 24 hours of your day, as well as your child’s.
While all experts agree that naps are important, and while they all know that nap problems can be a challenge to parents, what’s often missing are gentle, sensitive, loving solutions. Every idea I present is kind and respectful of the needs of both children and parents. In addition, I know that all children and parents are different, and cookie-cutter solutions are not what parents seek, so I include many options that can be customized to your own needs.
I have included excerpts for you below. For a complete set of excerpts please visit my website here: http://www.pantley.com/elizabeth
Why Short Cat-Naps Are Not Good Enough
By Elizabeth Pantley, Author of The No-Cry Nap Solution
If your child’s naps are shorter than an hour and a half in length, you may have wondered if these brief naps provide enough rest for your little one. You might suspect that these catnaps aren’t meeting your child’s sleep needs – and you would be right. The science of sleep explains why a short nap takes the edge off, but doesn’t offer the same physical and mental nourishment that a longer nap provides.
It takes between 90 and 120 minutes for your child to move through one entire sleep cycle, resulting in a Perfect Nap. It has been discovered that each stage of sleep brings a different benefit to the sleeper. Imagine, if you will, magic gifts that are awarded at each new stage of sleep:
Stage 1 - Very light sleep
Lasts 5 to 15 minutes
The gifts:
Prepares body for sleep
Reduces feelings of sleepiness
Stage 2 - Light to moderate sleep
Lasts up 15 minutes
The gifts:
Increases alertness
Improves motor skills
Stabilizes mood
Slightly reduces homeostatic sleep pressure (The biological process that creates fatigue and irritability.)
Stage 3 - Deep sleep
Lasts up to 15 minutes
The gifts:
Strengthens memory
Release of growth hormone
Repair of bones, tissues and muscles
Fortification of immune system
Regulates appetite
Releases bottled up stress
Restores energy
Reduces homeostatic sleep pressure
Stage 4 – Deepest sleep
Lasts up to 15 minutes
The gifts:
Same benefits as Stage 3, but enhanced
Next Stage – Dreaming
Lasts up to 9 to 30 minutes
The gifts:
Transfers short-term memory into long-term memory
Organizes thoughts
Secures new learning
Enhances brain connections
Sharpens visual and perceptual skills
Processes emotions
Relieves stress
Inspires creativity
Boosts energy
Reduces homeostatic sleep pressure
Longer naps
For as long as your child sleeps
The gifts:
Repeat all of the above stages in cycles
In order for your child to receive all of these wonderful gifts he must sleep long enough to pass at least once through each stage of sleep. Longer naps will encompass additional sleep cycles and provide a continuous presentation of gifts.
Newborn babies have unique cycles that slowly mature over time. A newborn sleep cycle is about 40 to 60 minutes long, and an infant enters dream sleep quickly, skipping several sleep stages. Infants need several sleep cycles to receive their full allotment of gifts. If your infant is sleeping only 40-60 minutes at naptime it is an indication that your baby is waking between cycles instead of returning to sleep on his own. We’ll cover a plethora of ideas to help your baby learn to go back to sleep without your intervention.
Now you can clearly see why a short nap doesn’t provide your baby or young child the best benefits of napping. You can also see why a mini-nap can fool you into thinking it is enough – since the very first five to fifteen minutes reduce feelings of sleepiness and bring that whoosh of second-wind energy that dissipates quickly, resulting is fussiness, crying, crankiness, tantrums and whining.
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This is a copyrighted excerpt from The No-Cry Nap Solution: Guaranteed Gentle Ways to Solve All Your Naptime Problems by Elizabeth Pantley. (McGraw-Hill, December 2008).
You may reproduce this on your website or in your work. Please include my name and book title. More excerpts (available for reprint) are posted on my website. http://www.pantley.com/elizabeth
4 weeks ago
