The Mama Coach

I don't need more sleep. Said no one. EVER. Thursday, January 21st at 1pm PST I will be hosting a FREE Zoom workshop on infant sleep! We will be talking about sleep science, tips to reduce tears at bedtime, how to set up healthy sleep habits and more! Reserve your spot through the link below. You don't have to turn on your camera or mic if you don't want to! Just sit back, sip your coffee and admire my work from home track suit Hope to see you there! https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/free-sleep-seminar-tickets-1357

TEMPERATURE// How do we know if baby is too hot or too cold? This is a common concern with a baby of any age! While we don't want our babies to be cold at night, overheating may increase the risk of SIDS so your sweet little babe is your very own Goldilocks...she needs to be juuust right! Set up your sleep environment and use a sleep sack as your extra layer for baby. A sleep sack with a TOG value of 0.5 or 1 (such as muslin or light cotton) is good for summer weather or war...mer climates and consider using a sleep sack with a higher TOG value (such as fleece) for colder weather. The principles of layering and checking baby's core temperature apply when you're taking your baby outside too so don't be afraid to try a nap on the go (even in winter) and get some much needed fresh air for you and your baby! If you need help or have any questions, send me a DM!

EARLY WAKE UPS Ah the early morning alarm clock you just can't seem to hit snooze on! Narrowing down on the WHY behind these wake ups may help you squeeze out an extra hour or so and hit the snooze! REM sleep- Babies spend the last third of their nighttime sleep almost entirely in REM sleep. REM sleep is that very light and active stage of sleep where he may kick, punch, and even cry out but still. be. asleep. So you may think he is awake, especially when you see him movin...g and shaking on the monitor. Try giving him a bit of time before you go in to see if he will stay asleep and fall back into that next deeper cycle of sleep. Sleep pressure- This is that drive for sleep; it builds up the longer we are awake and makes it easier for us to fall asleep. If a baby hasn't had enough awake time, their sleep pressure won't be as high and it makes it harder to fall asleep. This can come into play in those early morning hours when your baby is cycling through that light REM sleep. They may not be able to push past the surface of sleep and connect another sleep cycle and instead wake up because they're just not that tired! This may mean your baby is ready to drop a nap or that they are ready to be awake for longer periods during the day! Milestones- learning a new skill is exciting! And scary! And takes a lot of brain power! When your baby is hitting a new milestone, they begin thinking about their new skill A LOT. This again, causes them to spend even more time in REM sleep where their brain processes what their learning and makes them want to practice any chance they get! Some babies then wake from their light REM sleep and use this time to practice their new skill instead of falling back to sleep. This is exciting for them but can also be scary! They finally master that roll from back to front, and are scared to find themselves in a position they've never been in before! Help them get LOTS of practice during the day to help move them through the skill faster and tire them out before bedtime! Drop me a if you've got an early morning rooster!

Back in November I did a guest talk with Madie Anderson in The Nourished Mama Collective on all things infant feeding! What was supposed to be an hour TOPS turned into an hour and a half and we could’ve kept going! If you missed it, it’s now available in podcast form! Have a listen on Spotify or Apple Podcats if you want to hear more about breastfeeding your baby, setting yourself up for breastfeeding success, bottle feeding, transitioning to solids and the importance of choosing a feeding method that promotes that beautiful bond between you and your baby above ALL else https://open.spotify.com/episode/24eLJTTZ3gKSz2ZdGHh2kK

Heading out to grab the last items on your gift list this weekend? Stuck on what the heck you're supposed to get a baby for Christmas?! Check out my post for toy ideas for each age group in the 1st year. These are things your baby will actually enjoy AN as a bonus, all of these items help with development too! Happy shopping! . . * Suggestions adapted from CPS Caring for Kids "Playtime with your baby: Learning and Growing in the First Year".

Happy holidays.....??? This year we may be feeling a whole rainbow of emotions thinking about the holidays and how its going to look for our families. I could think of many different adjectives to describe this holiday season but lets just stick with DIFFERENT. This may have some of you feeling excited for a quieter, more intimate year, but for most, it's probably anxiety provoking. Whether its your baby's first Christmas that you don't get to share with your family or you ha...ve 4 older kiddos that you now have to keep entertained at home for 2,3,4 weeks (maybe longer??)... this year is NOT what we imagined. So I'm asking you today to go easy on yourself. Dr. Kassia Johnson is a developmental paediatrician and she talks about how we often set lofty goals and behaviour changes that we want to achieve in these situations. When we don't achieve them we're left feeling frustrated and disappointed and for many like a bad parent for not delivering on the picture perfect ideals we had for our littles. So this year, tell yourself that you don't need to teach your child how to read, build the perfect gingerbread house, bake 3 dozen cookies, and build a Pinterest worthy craft EVERY SINGLE day over the holidays. Instead, Dr. Johnson suggests picking ONE goal for your family such as: -Trying to connect virtually with family or friends consistently every couple of days over the holiday - Reading ONE book or listening to an audiobook every day as a family. Not everyone has to like that book, everyone can have their turn to pick on different days. - Create an online learning community of your child's friends and family that they can connect and learn with every day or every few days. Plan virtual play dates, have family read stories over Zoom or have older cousins speak a different language to them. - Create a family idea jar and draw one from the jar and do that activity as a family every day, every few days or once a week. The bottom line is, this year brings stressors like no year before. Recognize that you may not feel merry and bright every moment of every day this holiday season and that your kids might not either. But you don't have do EVERYTHING. Pick ONE thing. Then sit back, grab an eggnog, and ride out the rest of this crazy year. Check out more of Dr. Johnson's wisdom on parenting through a pandemic in her article here https://www.cps.ca//parenting-during-covid-19-a-new-fronti

Overtired This is such a hard one mamas! In the early days our littles can only handle being awake for such short windows its so easy to get behind. Even in older babies, sometimes life just gets in the way, you little miss misses her nap, and UGH we are hit with an overtired babe. The crying begins, and she REFUSES to sleep even though we know she is So. Dang. Tired. This is the cycle of overtiredness! Being overtired causes our bodies to release our fight or flight hormones... and we go into "wired" mode. We've all been there and know the feeling! These elevated hormones then make it harder to wind down, and then in a rude turn of events from mother nature, they also cause your babe to spend more time in active REM sleep. This sleep is not the deep and restorative sleep that makes us feel rested and it is lighter so babies in REM sleep tend to wake up easier and more frequently. This leads to shorter naps and broken sleep, and around the cycle we go. At this point your goal is to find them sleep ANY way you can. Rocking, bouncing, feeding to sleep, naps on the go and standing on your head are all your friend with an overtired baby! The overtired cycle is HARD to break!! Lean on your supports and give yourself grace as you work on getting you and your little back on track. . Check out my FREE awake times tracker to help you get get back on track . And if you're having trouble, reach out! I can help you and your babe get back some of those zzz's and get the rest you both need See more