The Complete Sleep Guide for Contented Babies
and Toddlers

The tried-and-tested methods outlined in THE COMPLETE SLEEP GUIDE FOR CONTENTED BABIES AND TODDLERS have already worked for thousands of parents and babies all over the world. Whether parents want to establish good sleeping habits from the start, or find they need to cure a problem and get their child back on track, Gina Ford has the answers.

Sleep, or rather the lack of it, is the issue of paramount concern to the overwhelming majority of new parents. Getting enough sleep is vital for the health of a growing baby or toddler, and the sanity of mums and dads. Yet striking the right balance between their differing needs can be hard to achieve. Once sleep problems set in, they can fast demoralise and exhaust parents, undermining confidence in their ability to cope.

What You'll Find Inside
Gina Ford has come to the rescue with her answer: the key to a good night's sleep for the whole family lies in teaching parents to understand the changing sleep needs of their growing baby. This book informs and reassures parents, dispelling many common myths and anxieties and offering practical solutions that work.

Gina advocates the structuring of feeding and sleeping times in order to ensure that all a young child's needs are satisfied, thereby enabling him quite naturally to start sleeping for longer stretches at night. Most babies raised on Gina's routines start sleeping through from 7pm to 7am at between 4 and 6 months old.

Gina explains what happens during the natural progression of regular light (REM) and deep (non-REM) sleep cycles experienced by young babies, and stresses the importance of certain factors in helping to encourage a regular sleep pattern including:

• Establishing the right sleep associations from an early age
  
• The importance of a correct, nutritionally balanced diet
  
• Avoiding overtiredness and over-stimulation
  
• Where to put your baby to sleep
  
• Regulating daytime sleep

A clear understanding of how much sleep babies and toddlers need at different stages is essential for maintaining good sleep patterns as they grow. Gina covers in detail what parents can expect and what they should aim for at birth, from 1-4 months, from 4-6 months, from 6-12 months, from 1-2 years and from 2-3 years. She sets out for parents the timings of a typical day and emphasises the importance of a good bedtime routine and the necessity of allowing babies to settle themselves to sleep.

Gina also highlights the many complications that can arise and upset night-time sleep at each stage of development, including:

• Hunger
  
• Wind and colic
  
• Dummy dependency
  
• Early morning waking
  
• Wrong sleep associations
  
• Teething
  
• Nightmares and night terrors
  
• Arrival of a new baby
  

She offers practical advice on how to tackle these problems and includes valuable case studies which demonstrate how her advice helped to resolve difficulties when put into practice in real situations.

For parents who find themselves with a child that has already developed a severe sleep problem, Gina Ford discusses four widely used methods of sleep training; the core night, crying down, controlled crying and gradual withdrawal techniques. She advises how parents can determine exactly what is causing excessive night-time waking and how to select the approach best suited to their child.

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