Summary of Richard Ferber's Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

Book Preview:#1 The most frequent calls I receive at the Center for Pediatric Sleep Disorders at Children’s Hospital Boston are from parents whose children are sleeping poorly. The parents are tired, frustrated, and often angry. Their own relationship has become tense, and they are wondering whether there is something inherently wrong with their child.

#2 The Sleep Center treats sleep problems in children, which are usually common throughout families and social environments. It is important to note that sleep problems are rarely the result of poor parenting.

#3 Parents often believe that if their child is a restless sleeper or can’t seem to settle down at night, it’s because he is by nature a poor sleeper. However, this is rarely the case. Virtually all children without major medical or neurological disorders are able to sleep well.

#4 It may be tempting to assume that your child is one of the few children who have difficulty sleeping, but that is almost never the case. Most children have a normal ability to fall asleep and remain asleep, even if they have a sleep disturbance such as sleepwalking or bedwetting.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Feb 24, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669352778

IRB Media

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Insights on Richard Ferber's Solve Your Childs Sleep Problems

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The most frequent calls I receive at the Center for Pediatric Sleep Disorders at Children’s Hospital Boston are from parents whose children are sleeping poorly. The parents are tired, frustrated, and often angry. Their own relationship has become tense, and they are wondering whether there is something inherently wrong with their child.

#2

The Sleep Center treats sleep problems in children, which are usually common throughout families and social environments. It is important to note that sleep problems are rarely the result of poor parenting.

#3

Parents often believe that if their child is a restless sleeper or can’t seem to settle down at night, it’s because he is by nature a poor sleeper. However, this is rarely the case. Virtually all children without major medical or neurological disorders are able to sleep well.

#4

It may be tempting to assume that your child is one of the few children who have difficulty sleeping, but that is almost never the case. Most children have a normal ability to fall asleep and remain asleep, even if they have a sleep disturbance such as sleepwalking or bedwetting.

#5

It is important to recognize that poor sleep affects your child’s daytime mood, behavior, and learning. However, you must also realize that not all of your child’s behavioral or learning problems can be attributed to poor sleep.

#6

If your child sleeps well at night, wakes easily in the morning, and naps only when necessary, he is probably getting enough sleep. If he is also sleeping excessively during the day, or if his behavior and ability to concentrate deteriorates in the mid- to late afternoon, he is probably not getting enough sleep.

#7

Adolescents rarely get enough sleep. Teenagers are not likely to wake spontaneously on school days, and they almost always sleep late on weekends. If your teenager does not start sleeping through the night by five or six months at the latest, or if he begins waking again after weeks or months of sleeping well, something is interfering with the continuity of his sleep.

#8

Before we begin to discuss specific problems and their solutions, you should have a basic understanding of sleep itself. It will be helpful for you to understand what sleep is, how normal sleep patterns develop during childhood, and what can go wrong.

#9

Until the 1950s, doctors and other researchers believed that sleep was a single state distinguishable only from waking. However, we now know that sleep is divided into two distinctly different states: REM sleep, or rapid-eye-movement sleep, and non-REM sleep.

#10

As you begin to fall asleep, you enter Stage I, the state of drowsiness. As you fall into deeper sleep, you enter Stage III and finally Stage IV, your deep sleep. Your breathing and heart rate become very regular, you may sweat profusely, and you will be very difficult to wake.

#11

If a stimulus is important enough, you will wake even from Stage IV sleep. However, you will be confused and unable to think clearly when you first wake up.

#12

The most striking feature of REM sleep is its characteristic bursts of rapid eye movements. During these bursts, the heart rate, blood pressure, respiratory rate, and blood flow to the brain all increase and fluctuate irregularly. If you are awakened during one of these bursts, you will almost certainly report that you were having a dream.

#13

We live in three states: the waking state, non-REM sleep, and REM sleep. In the waking state, we are rational and can take care of ourselves and meet our survival needs. In non-REM sleep, the body rests and restores itself while the mind rests.

#14

The theory is that over the course of evolution, REM sleep developed as an intermediate state between non-REM and waking, in which the mind would wake up before being connected to the body. This allowed the mind to be more alert, but with its brain still disconnected from its muscles, it could not make any movement or sound that might alert a predator.

#15

The baby’s sleep pattern begins to develop even before birth. REM sleep, which is the stage in which the baby twitches and breathes irregularly, is the most prominent stage of sleep in the fetus and infant.

#16

The sleep cycle for a child grows from 50 minutes at birth to 90 minutes by adolescence. The percentage of REM sleep and the total amount of sleep time spent in REM decreases as the child grows, until they reach adult values.

#17

The first REM episode, which occurs in children between the ages of five and ten, is relatively short and not very intense. The child will then enter another cycle