Helping your toddler to sleep, Siobhan Mulholland

I’m including this book as I want to keep a complete record of what I’ve been reading. I have a few parenting books but rarely make the time to read them: it’s the most important thing I’ll ever do yet I expect to learn by watching snatches of other people’s examples. How forward-thinking and strategic of me. Anyway I have an almost three-year-old who very rarely sleeps through the night and when she does I feel like I’ve won the lottery and been asleep for a thousand years. I’ll have a drink to celebrate and she’ll spend that night screaming, ad infinitum.

We’ve never left her to cry or done any proper sleep training, believing a baby should be nurtured not punished and that if we show her unwavering love and support she will grow up to feel secure and happy and be able to do things such as SLEEP!!!!!! independently. When this day comes I’ll invite you all to the party, but in the meantime I learnt a little from this book, which I read while we engaged in the lightest touch of sleep training earlier in the year (basically sitting next to them and holding their hand and telling them you’re there without actually getting into bed with them).

What I learned is that a child cannot have too much love and attention, so if you’re holding back at night a little, why not go overboard during the day? So instead of batting her off while I try to make dinner/tidy up/do the washing/hang the washing/call people/wash up I try to carry her with me and give her more hugs and join her in. The sleep has improved a tiny, weeny, little bit.

Helping Your Toddler to Sleep (Vermilion, v v cheap on Amazon at the moment)