Free The No Cry Nap Solution by Elizabeth Pantley Page A

to sleep for every nap and bedtime—so to avoid that scenario,
    start this idea today. (To modify an existing “suck-to-sleep” associa-
    tion, go to page 154.)
    Don’t Smoke Before Your Baby’s Naptime
    If you are a smoker, avoid lighting up in the hour before your baby’s
    nap—especially if you breastfeed. According to Julie A. Mennella,
    a psychobiologist who completed an extensive study of breastfeed-
    ing mothers who smoke, “Infants spent less time sleeping overall
    and woke up from naps sooner when their mothers smoked prior
    to breastfeeding.” Mennella’s research demonstrated that nicotine
    levels peak in breast milk thirty to sixty minutes after smoking
    and are gone after three hours, so the more time you can place
    between smoking and your baby’s prenap feeding, the better your
    baby will sleep.
    Tune Out Other People’s Bad Advice
    Many people have very strong opinions about babies and sleep—
    even people who don’t have babies have opinions! Much of this
    opinion and advice is inaccurate, misguided, or downright danger-
    ous. Inoculate yourself against bad advice. Do your own research
    and know the facts so that you can minimize their effects on you.
    As an example, some people will try to tell you that letting
    your baby cry it out will solve all your sleep problems. Not only
    is this dangerous advice when applied to a newborn, it is rarely
    a simple one-time solution. Even with older babies, crying it out
    must be done over and over again, often at the expense of baby’s
    and parents’ emotions.
    58 Newborn Babies
    Nap When Your Baby Naps
    You’ve likely heard this advice already, and for very good reasons.
    New parents can fi nd that taking care of a baby in addition to
    other responsibilities takes a toll on their mood, their health, and
    even their marriage. New mothers are more likely to suffer from
    the baby blues and postpartum depression if they don’t take care
    of their own sleep needs. Taking your own daily nap can help you
    combat fatigue, and it can help you to be a better parent. Even
    a twenty-minute nap can rejuvenate you and help to offset your
    disturbed nighttime sleep, so defi nitely give it a try.
    Create a Prenap Routine
    Newborn babies don’t require much of a bedtime routine, as they
    sleep and wake all through the day and night. However, after
    the fi rst few months, your baby will fi nd it easier to fall asleep if
    you help him “wind down” for twenty or thirty minutes before
    naptime. If you go from a bright, noisy room—playing with your
    baby with television noise in the background, for example—and
    Professional-Speak
    “New parents sometimes try to put their baby on what they
    view as a reasonable schedule. From the baby’s point of view,
    that’s not reasonable at all. The best solution is a compromise,
    letting the baby call the shots while providing a stable, pre-
    dictable home environment. A baby given this freedom likely
    will eat and sleep better, and cry less than if you try to make
    the baby conform to your schedule from the start.”
    —Michael Smolensky, Ph.D., and Lynne Lamberg,
    The Body Clock Guide to Better Health
    Nap Tips for Newborns 59
    then expect him to go directly to sleep, it’s likely that he’ll be too
    revved up to relax.
    In the time before a nap, avoid noisy situations, bright lights,
    and active stimulation. Create a short but peaceful prenap rou-
    tine, including a quiet diaper change and soft sounds (such as lul-
    labies), and perhaps a bit of baby massage. This will help your baby
    transition easily from awake to asleep and begin to build the cues
    that will be invaluable as your baby gets a bit older.
    Relax and Be Flexible
    It is a fact that your newborn will be waking you up at night and
    will be napping on an unpredictable, ever-changing schedule, so
    you may as well be fl exible about sleep issues right now. Being
    frustrated about your newborn’s sleep patterns won’t change a
    thing. It won’t help your