from the zzzzzz-WAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! dept.
Some Soylentils have managed to reproduce, so this study, which has findings on how to keep the young ones keep sleeping through the night, might be useful.
Overall, studies indicate that 15 to 20 percent of one to three year olds continue to have nightwakings. According to Stephanie Zandieh, M.D., Director, Pediatric Sleep Disorders and Apnea Center, The Valley Hospital, "Inappropriate sleep associations are the primary cause of frequent nightwakings. Sleep associations are those conditions that are habitually present at the time of sleep onset and in the presence of which the infant or child has learned to fall asleep. These same conditions are then required in order for the infant or child to fall back to sleep following periodic normal nighttime arousals."
Sleep associations can be appropriate (e.g., thumb sucking) or problematic (e.g., rocking, nursing, parental presence). "Problematic sleep associations are those that require parental intervention and thus cannot be reestablished independently by the child upon awakening during the night," adds Dr. Zandieh.
Here are some helpful tips to help your child sleep through the night:
Every child is different, but the techniques seem sensible and worth trying, such as giving them a security blanket (or teddy bear, etc) when being put to bed to signal it's time to sleep.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 04 2017, @12:04AM
i.e. up to 44 years [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 04 2017, @12:25AM
In that case, a bottom of the shelf whiskey could work.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday January 04 2017, @12:30AM
s/could/does/
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by mendax on Wednesday January 04 2017, @12:07AM
<sarcasm>Apparently, there was a time when soothing syrup for children wasn't only alcohol- and sugar-based. It also was laced with cocaine. A blast of cocaine would tranquilize even the most colicky child. That seems to be the solution.</sarcasm>In all seriousness, once a child gets beyond a certain age, beyond the need for nightly feedings, a child simply needs to be left alone to go back to sleep. As for the parents, they can wear ear plugs.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Wednesday January 04 2017, @12:15AM
cocaine would tranquilize
Times change, don't they? These days it's thought of as a stimulant.
Cocaine speeds up your whole body. You may feel full of energy, happy, and excited.
-- https://medlineplus.gov/cocaine.html [medlineplus.gov]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 04 2017, @01:21AM
I'm pretty sure that was a typo. The syrup contained "codeine" not "cocaine".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 04 2017, @10:51AM
I'm pretty sure that was a typo. The syrup contained "codeine" not "cocaine".
Pretty sure the typo was "Laudanum", or Tincture of Opium, a parent's best friend. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laudanum [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Sulla on Wednesday January 04 2017, @02:13AM
Unfortunately some people live in an environment where they do not have this luxury. Hard for a person living in an appartment to do this when they have a neighbor that will hit the wall with a broom, or where they have to share a room with the baby. My personal situation is living with an alzheimers grandmother as a caretaker. A night crying baby sends her into fits/you can imagine. I didn't have an issue getting mine to sleep through the night (by eight months) but there are a lot of parents who have their abilities hampered.
Sure they could have waited until they lived somewhere good, but boomers could have also not ruined our economy.
Best method, I feel, is the:
1. Put them in their rooms
2. When they cry make them wait 5 min then go in to southe
3. Repeat process with interval steadily increasing
4. Eventually they get the picture.
Took my wife and I three solid weeks of this, but we also had twins and said dementia grandmother. It really depends on the child as well, I lucked out in that one of mine was very easy to train. I think one of them has woken up in the night three times since then and the other probably five or six, they just turned two. Getting them to go down can be more difficult. My kids don't sleep well when I put them to bed but sleep fine if its mom or my mom, but they also have severe separation issues with me in the day so whatever.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by Techwolf on Wednesday January 04 2017, @12:18AM
Why isolate the child or baby from the parents for sleep? I'me sure during caveman days, they did not have cribs to put kids into. I think this may have something to do with it.
(Score: 3, Funny) by bob_super on Wednesday January 04 2017, @12:26AM
In the meantime, we built a society where people do go to bed later than the sunset and their children.
And we somehow invented a mild disapproval for clubbing noisy brats over the head to help them sleep.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by mth on Wednesday January 04 2017, @12:49AM
It also seems strange to me why they would call sleep associations that require a parent "problematic"; inconvenient for the parent maybe, not I don't see why they'd be inherently bad.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday January 04 2017, @03:30AM
I have to agree with this. There are all sorts of judgmental folks who have opinions about the "correct" way to parent or what is "problematic" (generally with no conclusive studies ever backing it up). Kids have been raised in all sorts of different ways in all sorts of different cultures over the millennia, and most of the judgmental stuff comes from cultural traditions or opinions, rather than clear evidence of any harm (or benefit) to the child.
With my son, we "fought the good fight" for trying to get him to go to sleep by himself for many months. Sometimes it would seem to work for a couple weeks, and then we'd be back to a kid who would rather scream for a long time rather than go to sleep in a room by himself. It was not only exhausting (woken up at odd hours all the time), but stressful.
Sometime around the time he turned 1, we just started doing co-sleeping. Once he was used to it, it frequently would only take 5-10 minutes with one of us before he was SOUND asleep and would stay that way for several hours, so we could get back up and do what we wanted. He slept through the night a lot better, with few issues. And he kept sleeping with us until close to the time he was 3, where he finally became interested in sleeping in the "big boy bed" (toddler bed) we got for him. And then we'd stay in the room with him for a couple minutes, and again he was usually "out" quite quickly.
(And just to note: Though co-sleeping is a less frequent choice in modern Western society, it was the norm before we all adopted this idea of separate "cribs" for infants and toddlers sometime in the 19th century in Western society for middle and lower classes. Co-sleeping still is the norm in most parts of the world, particularly outside of Europe and North America.)
One thing I learned during my first year as a parent was -- just don't judge other parents. Unless they're actually physically abusing a kid or something, I'm not going to judge anybody's choices or methods to figure out what works best for their family. Even within a family, every kid is often different.
For some people, they believe that having a kid "put himself to sleep" even when still an infant is some sort of achievement. For some, the annoyance of having to stay with kids for a few minutes at bedtime is a problem. For others, they don't mind the time. For other parents, they keep lying down with their kids as they go to sleep until they're 6 or 7 or whatever. Over the years, I've talked to a lot of other parents, and I've heard all sorts of opinions, but I'm pretty sure there's no psychological or developmental study that shows any particular "method" is going to guarantee a better outcome or whatever... it's just between you and your kid to "figure it out."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mechanicjay on Wednesday January 04 2017, @12:59AM
Inclined to agree. There's thousands of years of evolution, which the invention of the electrified suburban existence has a hard time competing against.
Our 3 year old wakes up at about midnight and comes to our bed. Every night. Our just 6 year old stays in his own bed all night now, but when he was 3, he did the same. Slowly but surely his "waking" time got later and later, stuck at 4am for a long time and now, is basically until it's time to getup for school. We read and stay with our kids until they go to sleep every night, usually only about 20 minutes. Though we're starting to pull back on that with the 6 year old, because he just doesn't need it any more, though some nights he does...and that's okay too. They're only kids once, if you can't be arsed to give them the love and attention they desperately need in the first handful of years, don't bother pro-creating. They're kids, they need to feel safe and protected. Lest you think we're over protective of them, we always encourage them to do stuff for themselves back way the hell off when they demand to do something themselves -- give them the love and support they need so that they're not afraid to try and fail and learn and try again and finally, most importantly, so that they're not afraid to ask you for help when they need it. Not saying that staying with them till they sleep is the deciding factor here, but it's definitely a component of an overall parenting philosophy, which so far is working out pretty well for us.
My VMS box beat up your Windows box.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jdavidb on Wednesday January 04 2017, @01:23AM
I read to my children most nights right after they go to bed. Typically I read to them awhile, then put on an audiobook or sometimes music, and I usually sit near them for awhile, surfing the net on my laptop. The original reason this worked out this way was because we couldn't get them to stay in bed when they were younger, but all our children seem to enjoy and appreciate it. Originally I used to sit stressing and doing nothing which was miserable for me and for them. Then I decided having a laptop to read from and surf on wasn't a bright enough light it would prevent them from sleeping, and it was tranquilizing for them (and for me).
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 4, Informative) by microtodd on Wednesday January 04 2017, @02:39AM
(posting anonymously cause I'm embarrassed)
To be bluntly honest? Sex. I can't have sex with my wife when the kids co-sleep with us.
(Score: 5, Funny) by microtodd on Wednesday January 04 2017, @02:41AM
.......well shit
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 04 2017, @03:05AM
Because your wife laughs that the baby is more hung than you?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 04 2017, @03:33AM
Not called microtodd for nothing, you know.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday January 04 2017, @03:44AM
Just to note -- it is generally possible to find somewhere else for parents to do what they want. Get creative! Surely you must have had sex somewhere else than the bed before the kid came along? Most young kids tend to go into a very deep sleep (particularly if they're really tired) soon after they first fall asleep. So parents can get up, go someplace else, and do what they want. Or schedule your "private time" during the kid's afternoon nap. Or whatever.
Also, this is probably a little less likely for people raised in modern Western culture to believe, but until the 19th century, most families just shared a bed. When Mom and Dad wanted to do something else late at night, they'd just roll over together and do it. It's a modern prudishness about sex and the belief that somehow kids can't be exposed to it that leads to these conundrums.
Nevertheless, I probably can't recommend the practice nowadays, even if it's what people did for thousands of years. Today, you'd probably be branded a "pervert" of some sort and have Child Protection Services showing up at your door if anyone discovered parents doing a natural act in bed next to a sleeping child.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 04 2017, @07:26AM
Actually, You might be onto something. If the woman is a screamer, that might also explain why kids can't sleep.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 04 2017, @03:05AM
Because they didn't have soft beds either. Now you can roll over and suffocate the baby in your sleep. Also we don't know how caveman raised their babies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 04 2017, @07:26AM
I'me sure during caveman days, they did not have cribs to put kids into.
Beep, naturalist fallacy. Just because something "has always been that" because "evolution made it so" doesn't mean it's a good thing. Rape is natural too.
(Score: 1) by mechanicjay on Wednesday January 04 2017, @04:31PM
Boop, modernist fallacy. Just because something is new and different doesn’t mean it's a good thing.
My VMS box beat up your Windows box.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Bot on Wednesday January 04 2017, @04:32PM
My AI web search found a certain pediatrician doctor Benjamin Spock, who found a surefire method to put the child to rest by a certain vulcanian nerve pinch.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 04 2017, @12:19AM
Give them 3 mg of melatonin. Consult your pediatrician first.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 04 2017, @01:10AM
Every pediatrician will tell you not to do that (if one does then find a better pediatrician). Melatonin isn't even legal in every country. Getting a kid's body hooked on externally sourced melatonin is an excellent way to fuck them up for the rest of their life (modern society doesn't tolerate sleep disorders at all). Your body doesn't bother producing what it has available nor maintaining those production systems. Look at the vitamin studies: people who constantly take vitamins lose the ability to extract those same vitamins from the food they eat. This effect will be amplified when those systems are just starting to be developed. Babies don't have synchronized circadian rhythms when they're born. They need to learn how to fall asleep and this study helps to confirm that.
(Score: 4, Funny) by wonkey_monkey on Wednesday January 04 2017, @12:28AM
Give your baby gin [youtube.com]!
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 04 2017, @01:02AM
My grandmother said her parents gave her and her siblings poppy-water pacifiers. Nothing like a dose of opium to send the little ones to sleep! And also explains some things about my gran.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 04 2017, @01:07AM
> some things about my gran.
Such as??
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Snotnose on Wednesday January 04 2017, @01:07AM
Always have, probably always will. I'm talking 30-60 minutes minimum in bed before I actually go to sleep.
I didn't even realize it wasn't normal until I was maybe 12, when I realized all my Boy Scout tent-mates were asleep within a minute or two of turning out the light. Me? I can't sleep in a car, on a plane, on a train. Hotels are fine. I can't take naps, I've tried. Daylight Saving time really wipes me out, both ends.
Warm milk? Exercize? Meditate? Been there done that, they all work. For about a week. Then it's back to "normal".
It sucks to be honest.
I'm 58, not exactly a spring chicken anymore.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 1) by charon on Wednesday January 04 2017, @01:34AM
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday January 04 2017, @01:52AM
Similar. My "norm" is to lie awake for half an hour or more. My mind stays busy, just won't turn off. But, there are other times when my head hits the pillow, and I'm gone. Naturally, if I'm extremely tired, the times is shorter, and if I'm not really tired, the time is longer. But, I can't always predict it either. Often times, if I haven't fallen aslee in 45 minutes or so, I just get up, take a shower, make coffee, and sit down in front of the computer. The results of that is, either I crash and burn, or I just stay up all night.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 04 2017, @10:56AM
Similar. My "norm" is to lie awake for half an hour or more. My mind stays busy, just won't turn off.
One of the bigger lies Runaway has told us. How can a mind not be turned off, if it was never functioning in the first place? Oh, grate, now Runaway will have to lie AWAKE even longer to ponder that one, and to wait for the President-elect 3am tweet.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday January 04 2017, @02:30PM
I still haven't decided whether there are half a dozen of you who spend their time making personal attacks on me, or if it's just one person. Do I have one big fan, or a score of little fans? One thing for sure - none of you can have a real life, if the best use of your time is to follow me around to make personal attacks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 04 2017, @03:30AM
I'd say try sex, except you're 58.
(Score: 2) by jelizondo on Wednesday January 04 2017, @03:37AM
I had the same problem and found a solution that looks stupid, but works for me. The problem is an overactive brain that won’t shutdown until exhausted so you need a particularly boring problem to get it to shutdown. My solution is to count from 1 to 100 very slowly, not allowing any other thought to come between each digit.
Some years ago, I could count to 90 or thereabouts, nowadays I barely get to 30 before falling asleep.
As usual, YMMV.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 04 2017, @03:39AM
Are you sure? I used to think that was the case, then I started going to sleep with a brainwave monitor and most nights that hour was more like 15 minutes, but time tends to get distorted as you get closer to sleep.
If it is taking that long to fall asleep, that's not normal, most likely, it means you need to go to bed earlier or later as your body isn't ready for sleep at that time..
(Score: 2) by tonyPick on Wednesday January 04 2017, @07:57AM
I've had the same problem, although recently I've found podcasts + small mp3 player are incredibly useful - something like The Hidden Almanac [hiddenalmanac.com] is ideal (and hilarious, if you're into that sort of comedy.)
I think it's the humour & imagery gives me something distracting & relaxing to focus on rather than have my mind spin out of control, and the short sequences that don't require concentration so I can drift in & out and ease into sleep work well for me.
Plus having a routine that tells my brain it's time to sleep helps immensely. (I also had a fairly irregular sleeping schedule, and having a routine helped kick that as well).
(Score: 2) by jimshatt on Wednesday January 04 2017, @08:34AM
But seriously, I used to lie awake too, mostly because I turned in too early. Now I don't go to bed at the same time as my wife, and we have separate beds, which also helps.
That, and masturbation.
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Wednesday January 04 2017, @11:41AM
Try coffee... no really.
It is a well known trick whem everything else fails - drink a cup of warm coffee and go straight to bed (do not linger about - nor nurse the coffe, it is a matter of hitting one of the initial phases of the effect).
(Just try it one night when you've given up on sleep anyway)
On a personal note - I've found that the taste of mint jolts me awake so I either brush my teeth long ahead of going to sleep or use a salt/soda-based toothpaste instead.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 04 2017, @03:23PM
I've tried and failed at polyphasic sleep a few times (mostly uberman, but also everyman and dymaxion), and had the following effects from the experience:
I discovered I was actually prone to dreaming that I was lying awake.
I learned how to fall asleep much more quickly and easily, and even to nap.
My understanding and experience of sleep in general changed for the better.
I know it's an odd and radical suggestion, but trying to subsist on a sparse and entirely nap-based schedule for a couple weeks or longer can really teach you a lot about the nature of sleep and totally recalibrate something in your brain/body, even if you probably won't succeed at (or don't intend) adapting to the pattern long-term (or even get beyond 3 to 5 days without passing out for 3+ hours at some point).
But regardless of tactic, if you actually give yourself good /practice/ at sleep somehow, you can actually get better at it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 05 2017, @03:14AM
Me too. Right now, 1,5 hours of trying to sleep. I think my personal best is falling a sleep after about 7 hours of trying to sleep.
I pretty much have all the things that makes falling a sleep difficult: very sensitive to light and sound, exploding head, flashes of light, feeling of falling (forgot the name), hypnic jerks, i toss and turn, restless legs syndrome etc.
I find sleeping aid pills sometime seem to work, but otherwise definitely not.
In the army i could take naps outside even during full daylight, but that ended there. Also when i was a kid i could sleep in the bus and mostly woke up a stop or 2 before my stop.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 04 2017, @01:37AM
Did you subject your son to the horrors of circumcision? I suspect that it would be psychologically disturbing to have had one's penis cut up, especially when there is usually so little an attempt to mitigate the pain.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 04 2017, @04:17AM
Yes, you are off topic, so I cannot mod you up. Certainly, it would not apply in all/most cases since I think most males can heal successfully from ritual male genital mutilation.
My ex-mother reported that for the first two years of my life I was inconsolable when I should have been sleeping. I have no studies to prove it, but something went wrong when they mutilated my genitals. I continue to suffer physical discomfort and sometimes pain even in adult life---waking life---, in addition to sleep disturbances.
Mod offtopic, but only because I'm supposed to accept that amputating a body part from me was safer than dunking my head momentarily in water. My ex-mother chose the ritual, and she got what she deserved: a son murdered by the shapeshifting forces of hell. She deserved it, because she did not reason with her rational mind. Perhaps she would still have a son today if she had not mutilated his genitals at birth and thus killed that son herself?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 04 2017, @04:44AM
Ah, so we finally figure out what Aristarchus' problem is. His wee-wee is damaged.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday January 04 2017, @05:29AM
That sounds more like Kurenai than Aristarchus...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 04 2017, @12:35PM
My parents having the endof my dick cut off has caused no end of problems for me.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Subsentient on Wednesday January 04 2017, @03:39AM
I find that my offspring enjoy my warm chunky vomit down their throats before bed, as well as putting new entrails in their pillows, because stale entrails don't taste fresh for their late night feedings, and indigestion makes it hard to resume hibernation. Might also try removing the parasites from under their tentacles, as the itching can keep them awake. Concentrated sulfuric acid is gentle enough to kill the ticks without irritating their skin or suckers.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Wednesday January 04 2017, @04:07PM
+1 Creepy?
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday January 04 2017, @03:03PM
Identify the problem.
The problem is the kid can't fall asleep so the parent(s) (well, lets be realistic here, the wife) gets no sleep can't function in society can't go to work or safely drive or whatever. That's the real problem. Its the same as infant bottle feeding at 2am problem but slightly older kids.
My wife and I just phase slept for a while, I got home from work ate dinner went to sleep, she stayed up till like 1am. Then I got up around 1 and she slept till I went to work quite late in the morning.
Kid gets up at midnight, who cares she's up till 1 or 2 and I'm snoring away. Ditto kid gets up at 3am, who cares I've been awake for hours and my wife is snoring.
Everyone gets tons of sleep. Well, maybe not the kid who wakes up at night, but that kinda takes care of itself, doesn't it? Eventually the kids just kinda stopped that wake up stuff.
If they wake up at an inappropriate time, I wouldn't get them riled up by playing baseball with them or going on a hike or blasting music that would wake everyone up, but if they're just unable to sleep, sure sit there do nothing but watch Dad type on a computer, boring as hell and they're asleep again in 15 minutes, or if it takes them three hours I don't much care. I got a great nights sleep, we'll see who wins the competition to stay awake, kid.
There's a meme circulating for decades about one sleep interval per night being both unusual and unhealthy and very recent in human civilization and adults laid quietly or had sex or whatever in the middle of the night naturally, and the only problem with kids doing their natural multi-interval sleep is it wakes up the entire family until they're old enough and disciplined enough to shut the hell up, unless one of the parents is already awake anyway and keeps the kid calm and quiet-ish. I suppose around the savannah campfire it would be have evolutionary useful for a math problem along the lines of "given a tribe number of humans and they're naturally awake for an hour each night randomly, you naturally get a minimum of X tribal adults standing guard for hyenas or WTF". So a kid wakes up and hangs out with the tribes guards for a bit, like whats the problem?
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 04 2017, @03:32PM
"Does this rag smell like chloroform?"
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Wednesday January 04 2017, @04:10PM
I seriously doubt that parents around here have trouble stepping away from their kids. If anything, we should be encouraged to be in closer contact with the little "parasites" (as I expect most Soylentils to characterize infants). After all, so far I've seen comments suggesting ear plugs, gin, cocaine, and clubbing as solutions (in varying levels of jest).
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?