Hey guys,

Just thought I would pop in about babies and sleep - another passion of mine! Your babies are only very little. Routines are generally not recommended until 6 months + as little babies aren't born with what they need to understand routine and a sleeping pattern - they find this in their own time, some sooner than others.

On average, based on a study, babies sleep a total of 5 hours overnight (not necessarily in one block) and wake anything upto 9 times a night. It is frustrating waking in the night when you are so sleep deprived I know - I have done it for almost four years! In fact it's quite normal to have a 12 month old who doesn't sleep through or older sometimes. But you see it's the baby's brain and body making the necessary connections it needs to find it's rhythm into sleeping through. Sleeping cues are perfectly fine to follows - learn your baby's tired signs and make a routine from there, put some music on, dim the lights, cuddle... (check out Pinky McKay's 100 Ways to Calm the Crying for lots of great ideas and heaps of info on babies and crying).

I know there are lots of routines out there that professionals have seen to have a negative effect on mums and bubs - for example Pinky McKay is seeing lots of mums distraught because they think they are not bonding with their babies or their babies don't 'love' them. They have been following routines which advocate things like no eye contact at sleep time - so the babies wont give eye contact at all. The Babywise routine has been linked to failure to thrive and dehydration due to scheduled feeding. In another case of an older baby, whenever the boy hurt himself or was upset, he would no longer go to his mother for comfort - he went to his four year old toddler brother instead!!! This is all true. Many stories like this and it's getting worse. The sad thing is so many parents say it works on their little babies, but when babies cry, cortisol floods their little brains, which makes them shut down, not sleep, so they go into a cortisol-induced sleep. This often does not work long term, like the mums who come home from sleep school and back as it used to be. These babies are very smart to fall for that! This is not what they are programmed for.

Listen to your babies ladies and trust the connection you have - give your babies cuddles, enjoy them - because lots of mums also struggle with routines and then say later that they wished that they hadn't been so strict with routines and enjoyed their babies more. They aren't born with the right stuff to sleep like champs and they are so little and tiny to comprehend this stuff, but with your gentle encouragement and support for them to be themselves and develop in their own time with love, they will become confident sleepers.

All those routines out there are written by completely unqualified people - mostly childless nannies who have no training into the medical and psychological effects their routines may have on children. Ironically, now that the first control crried children are older, it's amazing how many of them have sleeping issues as adults...

Check out Pinky's books, Parenting by Heart and 100 Ways to Calm the Crying - you'll get heaps of recommendations on here from those who have read it, they will give you confidence that you can help your baby sleep on your own, gently yet more effectively than short term solutions.