I am not sure of the source that my parents attained a copy but over the last few years I have created a digital copy and made some updates in some of it’s original lingo.

It is my hope and prayer that this may be of use to you and your loved ones as we never anticipate our heavenly birthday but in that event I hope we can each so our best to provide our loved ones some answers to make the process smoother for them.

Drop me a line if you have further questions or comments about the answer book.

download answer_book.pdf

Answer Book by Robert Mitchell is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

In July we took an 8 day vacation of the northwest where we stayed in various homes of family. Some nights Grace & Abraham slept a mere 12 inches away from each other.The challenge became creating a quite place without distractions for them to sleep without them entertaining each other.

At home we have placed a curtain between them which had worked wonderfully before our trip. On occasion we would catch Grace out of her bed entertaining Abraham. With minor disciplining actions they would get to sleep at a reasonable hour.

Issue

Right after our trip the kids adjusted right back to their normal sleep habits in their room. Recently Grace has been getting out of bed more often and going to Abraham’s side of the curtain to entertain him. Two nights in a row they did not go to sleep till 8-9:00 p.m.. We knew we needed to do something different because simply getting on Grace for getting out of bed was ot working. After rereading some sections in the sleep book we came up with “operation re-sleep train”

Operation Re-Sleep Train

One of these nights and in some previous times we noticed that Abraham would take longer to fall asleep than Grace. Abraham went into Grace’s room shortly after sleeping through the night. So he has always had someone to go to bed with. He is dependent on Grace to fall asleep.

Our Rules

• Abraham goes to bed at 6:00 p.m. after a relaxing bath
• Say’s goodnight to Heather and Grace in the living room
• Get’s pajamas on and into bed while trying to keep the mood calm and "not fun"
• The first time he starts crying, after 5 minutes, one parent goes in mechanically to soothe him.
• The second time he starts crying, after 10 minutes, one parent goes in mechanically to soothe him.
• The third time he starts crying, after 15 minutes, one parent goes in mechanically to soothe him.
• After each time you keep adding 5 more minutes until he falls asleep.
• Grace goes to bed at 7:00 p.m. in out bedroom then goes into her room with Abraham after he has been quiet for more than 30-45 minutes.

Well you will not find the answer in this one post. I hope you don’t stop reading right now, because there will be some tips. Lately, I have just been hearing too much of how my wife and I are lucky to have such great sleepers. People not understanding how our kids can take such great naps and then sleep 12-14 hours at a night, etc…

The only way I consider us lucky is that a friend of a friend gave a book to our friend when she was pregnant and our friend in turn recommended it to us. My wife first borrowed the book and then loved it so much we bought our own copy of “Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child” by Marc Weissbluth, M.D. around the time our daughter was born in 2006.

I will say upfront the book is not a storybook read. It is more of a textbook read and I personally would not just sit down a read cover to cover. The book is broken up into sections and I recomend that you just read the section that your child is in and preread the section that your child will be into next. The joy and curse of babies is that they are constantly changing, growing and developing. With all of these changes they will constantly be changing their sleep habits on you. Personally I felt it would be right when I got our daughter figured out, she would be doing something else. It was and still is a great joy to watch her grow into a little girl that loves her sleep.

It is my desire to post something every now and then of our journey as parents as we try to teach our kids healthy sleep habits in hopes that you may find support and possibly glean tips in teaching your kid(s) healthy sleep habits.