Latest from EmmaEmma Purdue2016-09-12T23:47:29+00:00
September 2016
Baby Show last month, and we were invited back to run another hugely popular sleep seminar. We then had a lot of requests from you guys around NZ, “How can we see the seminar, we’re not in Auckland!”
5 proven strategies to improve your babies night sleep
So we bring you our first live Webinar, this Friday night! 7.30pm and its 100% FREE and exclusive to our Baby Sleep Consultant Fans!
All you need to do is follow this link and register for the webinar, we will send you a reminder email, and then on Friday night, log in and listen to the seminar! You can ask questions, and chat with other sleep deprived parents! We will be covering these 5 strategies in detail, you will learn tips and tricks you can put into place that weekend!
Learn how naps are influencing your babies night sleep, how to increase your babies day time calories, self settling strategies and re-settling tools. Learn about positive and negative sleep associations and how these influence whether your baby sleeps through the night.
HERE is the link –> https://babysleepconsultant.webinarninja.co/my/wnwebinarlist/index?webinar_id=29938
It’s free to register and we will send you a reminder email so you don’t forget!
We want to keep bringing you loads of content and online sleep support. We understand you can’t all attend our live talks, so what better way to learn everything you need to know for a better nights sleep than an online seminar! I am excited to see you all there!
The other hot topic this month is daylight savings! This means summer is on the way (although I swear we just had one of our coldest weeks this “winter”)…Sunday the 25th of September, 2am springs forward and becomes 3am. Good news for those of us with early morning wake up issues! If your toddler or baby has started waking at 5/6am and you are struggling to get them back to sleep, hang in there!
Sunday the 25th will push your 5/6am wake up to 6/7am wake up! Wahoo! We get lots of concerned parents emailing us about daylight savings, and we have a blog on the website about making the changes in your babies routine. But don’t panic this is the easy one! If you don’t follow our 4 day plan, simply start your day at 7am and see how your routine falls into place.
See you Friday night! Don’t forget to register.
xx Emma
August 2016
Do you wear your sleep deprivation as a badge of honor? I don’t cope with lack of sleep, I struggle with my newborns until I am getting at least 4 hours sleep in a row, then I feel like I can function day to day without help. Up until that point, I can’t really string sentences together and I find social situations a real struggle! I just can’t keep up with the conversation and I am thinking, I really need some sleep, I wish I could take a nap right now.
I figured this out by the time I had my third baby, and placed no expectations on myself apart from looking after my baby, and other children. I said no to lots of visitors, I used part time daycare for my middle child, and let my husband pick up the lions share of the house work.
Once I am getting at least 4 hours in a row I feel human. I can think straight, emotionally I can cope with stress better, and my family has their Mum back! This usually happens for me around 3-6 weeks after having a baby, so I really feel for anyone who is surviving on less consolidated sleep than this long term.
Science tells us its not how long we spend in bed, its how consolidated the sleep is. You can be in bed for 12 hours, but if you are waking every 1-2 hours you will be worse of in terms of cognitive function, reflexes and emotional stability than someone who is only in bed for 6 hours but sleeps a consolidated 4-5 hours.
I believe we all have different threshold for coping with lack of sleep, and I obviously am quite sensitive to lack of sleep! But what worries me is people who believe after 6 or 12 or 18 months that their body and mind is coping just fine with the disrupted sleep night after night.
Your body is adapting, and becoming accustomed to the high levels of cortisol and adrenaline you are running on. It might feel like the new normal for you, but you will be surprised how much better you can feel with a decent chunk of consolidated sleep, even if its just in the form of respite (mum or dad or hubby step in for a night).
Sleep is such a biological necessity, just like food and water, we literally can’t function at 100% without decent amounts of sleep. Yet there is a subset of people who like to make you feel guilty for wanting more sleep or prioritizing sleep for your family. You don’t feel guilty for wanting good nutrition for your family do you? No one gloats about how many years it has been since they ate fresh fruit or vegetables, as if that is just part of being a good parent…. yet some people speak of their years of lack of sleep like its a badge of honor.
Be proud of your decision to improve your families sleep situation, and know your own limits, everyone is different, and its not a sign of weakness!
Ask family and friends for help if you are in the newborn stage so you can take a nap and get rid of that brain fog. Tell your husband you aren’t coping with the lack of sleep, you are in this together and the working as a unit gets much better results than trying to do this alone!
