When babies are learning new things, they may miss out on sleep. That's the conclusion of a study I write about in today's Toronto Star. I interviewed eight parents, a sleep expert, and an expert in infant development.
Unfortunately, my article was too long and some of the wisdom that the parents shared with me had to be cut from the original article. Rather than allow those bits of wisdom to be lost, I thought I'd share their experiences via this blog.
I think I'm going to start doing this more often -- sharing outtakes from some of my articles. Some really good stuff gets lost on the editing room floor. What's more, I really appreciate the time parents spend sharing their experiences with me and I don't want their contributions to be lost.
Anyway, here's what the parents who didn't end up being quoted in the article had to say:
“Max (8 months old) is definitely working on crawling. He’s
still not sleeping through the night and his sleep seems to have gotten worse
lately.”
- Michelle
Williams, mother of three, St. John’s, Newfoundland
“Eli was a fairly good sleeper up until age six months.
Lately, he’s been up twice, if not three or four times, each night. He just
started crawling this week.”
- Laura
Kohoko, mother of four, Toronto
“There definitely have been some challenges with sleep. From
the time Charlotte was 8 months to about 9 ½ months, she was very fussy at
night.”
- Mike
Reynolds, father of two, Ottawa
“Once Erik had crawling down pat, his sleep improved for a
while. Now he’s learning to walk and he’s quite obsessed about that and back to
waking up more in the night.”
- Kim
Winiski, mother of two, Calgary