Every new parent has been there-sleepdeprived, exhausted, and pacing the floor at 3:00 a.m. with an irritable baby who is having difficulty calming down and going back to sleep. In Secrets of a Baby Nurse, a medical professional relies on scientific research, personal study, and a lifelong adoration of babies to provide parents with valuable tips that will lead them to discover the delight of a well-rested, tranquil, and happy child-and most importantly, a good night's sleep for everyone. Marsha Podd, a seasoned maternal-infant nurse and lactation specialist, shares her professional expertise in reading the body language of thousands of babies in order to teach parents how to interpret a baby's cues, create a perfect sleep environment, and initiate a peaceful detachment. You'll learn how to ¿ ensure a healthy womb environment; ¿ encourage a newborn toward daytime wakefulness; ¿ build consistent daily rhythms around sleep and food; ¿ observe and react to your baby's signals; ¿ avoid postpartum depression; ¿ stay in a routine and still have a life outside the home. Secrets of a Baby Nurse offers step-by-step, practical advice that will help any parent create a serene, joy-filled relationship with their child.

Secrets of a Baby Nurse

How to Have a Happy, Healthy, and SLEEPING Baby from Birth By Marsha Podd

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2010 Marsha Podd, R.N., C.L.E.
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4502-6164-7

Contents

Preface.......................................................xiAcknowledgments...............................................xvIntroduction..................................................1Chapter 1: In the Womb.......................................9Chapter 2: Your Newborn......................................18Chapter 3: The Basics........................................36Chapter 4: Your One- to Three-Month-Old......................66Chapter 5: Your Three- to Six-Month-Old......................89Chapter 6: Your Six- to Twelve-Month-Old.....................107Chapter 7: Your One- to Three-Year-Old.......................121Chapter 8: Special Circumstances.............................136Chapter 9: Troubleshooting...................................147Resources.....................................................169Afterword.....................................................179Index.........................................................181

Chapter One

In the Womb

Creating a Healthy Womb Environment

The approximately forty weeks a woman is pregnant is a special and transformative time. While some feel it goes by very slowly, it actually is almost too quick. In just nine months, parents are supposed to learn a lot about their child. There is much focus and support by the medical community and others on the process of pregnancy and birth, but very little on the several years of parenting that follow. In just a short nine months, one needs to learn about the care of a tiny newborn infant. It can be overwhelming if you are unprepared. We go to school for years to equip ourselves for a career, yet just nine months are given to parents to prepare their lives for the drastic changes that will come when the baby arrives. I have always wondered why, in one's teen years, there is more emphasis on learning to drive than learning to parent.

What a woman does while pregnant, and even prior to pregnancy, can affect the health and well-being of her child. Nutrition, chemical exposure, and a woman's emotional health can have an effect on her unborn baby. It amazes me to think that I, as an ovum (egg) in my mother's body, was affected by elements my grandmother was exposed to, such as chemicals, minerals, and toxins. My genetic material was once in my grandmother's body! Think about it. It's a little frightening, to say the least, for we have no control over the way our grandmothers behaved and the way they lived, yet the experiences and exposures of past generations can influence a fetus's well-being. More preparation and attention to physical and emotional health should be encouraged not only in schools, but also from the medical community. Before you get pregnant is the time to stop and consider your dietary habits, vitamin supplements, exercise, chemical and drug exposure, and lifestyle choices. The fetus will draw upon the resources of a woman's body and be affected by the life choices of its mother. Furthermore, many women make sacrifices while pregnant, but return to their old ways of behavior after the baby is born, forgetting that breast milk, too, is a living fluid with health benefits or dangers to the infant.

Believe it or not, a woman can affect her baby's sleeping ability right from the womb. Recent research out of Scandinavia has revealed the wonder of essential fatty acids to sleeping patterns. It has shown that pregnant women who eat a lot of fatty fish or take essential fatty acid supplements can increase the length and quality of their infant's sleep. Since the myelin sheath on a nerve fiber is affected positively by essential fatty acids, the fetus's nervous system benefits from being exposed to these nutrients.

Creating a calm and less stressful lifestyle can also benefit the womb environment. Women who consume lots of caffeine during pregnancy have jittery, hyperactive babies. The opposite is true as well. Women who remain happy and avoid depression while pregnant can have happier babies who sleep better. Women who attend to the health of their diets can have calmer babies. Avoiding hard drugs as well as certain prescription medications for the year before conception can have an impact on the health of the baby. It has been shown that, in utero, fetuses can be affected by loud noises as well as strong emotions, especially during the last trimester.

Mothers need to get adequate rest balanced with moderate activity for a healthy pregnancy. Pregnant mothers also need to avoid anger, grief and other strong emotions. Your medical doctor or other trained health professional can instruct you in a beneficial plan for you to implement prior to your pregnancy.

Rhythms of Life

Humans operate according to important rhythms of nature. They eat for energy, eliminate unneeded bulk and fluids, and must stay active to remain strong. They rest when tired. A typical day has repeated patterns of eating, activity, elimination, and rest. Babies also (even in the womb) repeat these familiar rhythms. When inside the womb, baby is most content and healthy when there is a natural rhythm to its twenty-four hour day. Mother Nature has created a rhythm that typically allows baby to be most active during mother's rest cycle. When mother is moving, baby sleeps, and when mother sleeps, baby is often active. When baby is born, she arrives on the planet with an opposite cycle to her mother's. A baby's most active time is usually when mother is sleeping or resting. I think Mother Nature created this rhythm on purpose, so that mother would pay closer attention to her infant at night when it is most vulnerable. For the first few months, a mother has to learn to attend to her alert baby during the darkness of night. Slowly, as she encourages baby to be more awake during the daytime hours, and baby achieves greater strength and activity, she learns to be more wakeful in the day and sleep longer at night. A parent's encouragement toward this daytime wakefulness is a necessary step in teaching baby a parent's natural rhythms. Thus, I have found that both baby and mother do best if encouraged to begin a rhythm of feeding, changing diapers, having activity, and then swaddling and sleep right from the first days at home. It may take a month or two to see longer and longer stretches of sleep from your baby. Usually when baby is over ten pounds and at least two months old, the night sleep cycle approaches six hours of sleep at a time. I will discuss this pattern more fully in future chapters.

Setting up Baby's Sleep Environment

Prior to the arrival of your baby, it is important to look at the environment in which he will be sleeping. The Safe Sleep Campaign recommends that the baby be near his parents, but not in bed with them the first six months of life. Before the baby arrives is the time to study the sleep environment. Here are some questions to consider:

1. How much light is in the room on a scale of one to ten? (Ten being pitch black and one being light.) I recommend trying to create a room darkness that is an eight to ten on the scale.

2. How much noise will your baby be exposed to from the outer environment? Are there street noises, telephones, televisions, dogs or cats, or other children or family members in the same household? If so, I recommend that you invest in a good sound screen to block these...