When it comes to kids’ bedtime routines, we all have those little things that help make the process that bit easier – the set number of (3,934,586,098) bedtime stories, the little pyjama dance, the teeth-cleaning song (just me?).
From the kid who has to snuggle a (fresh) nappy, to the boy who gets two minutes to look at the weather app, I am so relieved it’s not just our household who’s going through this bizarre parenting rite of passage.
Here are the best responses…
He has to see a picture of a time he was sad and then a time he was happy.
Three washcloth puppets have to join us for book time. They don’t come out any other time.
We have to sing rockabye baby to each family member by name, including the dog.
We say “ahoy matey” as the last thing before turning off the lights.
She sleeps with a clean diaper as if it’s a stuffed animal.
I must throw his blanket from the chair onto his bed, then he runs exactly four laps.
She must be holding my arm skin. Sleeves are not acceptable.
We have to look out the window until we see a bus drive by so she can say good night to the bus.
2-year-old went through a phase where she had to watch YouTube videos of Ferris wheels being constructed.
My daughter just raw-dogs two slices of American cheese.
We used to have to sing happy birthday to everyone she’s ever met plus the entire gang of Sesame Street, individually.
I have to talk to her like Gru from Despicable Me and say “Goodniiighttt, leettle guorrrl.” Even I’m creeped out.
Two-minute timer for him to look at the weather app on my phone.
How to get your child to go to bed
If you spend about a thousand years putting your kid to bed, welcome to the club. The good news is there are certain things you can be doing to get your kids to wind down a bit easier.
Sleep consultant Jenna Wilson at Little Dreams Consulting and sleep coach Dave Gibson caught up with baby retailer JoJo Maman Bébé to share their sleep hacks. And perhaps the most important of all is sticking to the same bedtime (even with the evenings getting lighter).
“Consistency is the key here as this conditions our brain to anticipate sleep is coming,” said Gibson.
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“The ideal bedtime routine would involve doing a series of relaxing rituals in the same order at the same time each night.”
With younger children, it’s really important to not vary bedtimes too much, he said, suggesting “15 minutes either way is fine”.
“If they need to stay up later than usual, put them down for a nap during the day so they have some ‘sleep in the bank’. It’s important to maintain the schedule on weekends too,” he added.
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For Wilson, a good evening routine looks a bit like this: some quiet play time in a dimly lit room and a story before sleep. Experts also agree that we shouldn’t be using devices an hour before bed (sorry miniature weather app fans).
“It can be tricky to have quiet time before bed but aim for 10-15 minutes inside with the curtains closed and a lamp on so your child can start to produce melatonin (the hormone which helps sleep),” Wilson said.
Before becoming a parent, I often heard from other mums about how self-aware you become when you have kids, but I never imagined how something as simple as a passing comment could ignite such deep reflection — and even make me fearful.
In early December, my daughter and I flew back to Colombia to visit my family. It was the kind of day I’ve come to cherish when raising a child abroad. But in the midst of all the warmth, I heard a phrase that made my heart sink.
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“Don’t ask for too much; be grateful for what you have,” my grandmother said to my mum.
It wasn’t the first time I’d heard her say it. She had said it to me when I started many of my jobs, and she meant it with the best intentions of a caring grandma. In all of those instances, I didn’t think much of it. This time, however, it hit differently. This time, I pictured my 10-month-old daughter hearing those words one day, and the thought terrified me.
Beliefs like this one are not unique to my grandmother; many of us have them. However, working with female entrepreneurs to overcome financial trauma has taught me that phrases like these create a turmoil of mixed signals between pursuing what you want and staying where you are.
Why this phrase is so limiting
I’ve learned that every phrase reflects a belief system that makes sense for the season and context in which you grew up. For my grandmother, “don’t ask for too much” represented humility, gratitude and holding on to what she had accomplished with much effort. But it also discouraged her from taking further risks and continuing to nurture her ambition — and, consequently, my mum’s ambition.
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I remember my mum once telling me how she had wanted to become a flight attendant when she was younger. Her face lit up when she talked about it.
Still, she never pursued it because, while deciding whether to stick with her current career — which offered security — or take a leap and pursue her dream, the phrase “don’t ask for too much; be grateful for what you have” echoed in her head.
How that phrase shaped me
I was only able to grasp the extent of how this phrase had shaped me when I left home at 19 years old and started living on my own. I started noticing the same patterns in my own life, and whenever I felt I wanted to reach for something different, aim higher, dream bigger, or ask for what I deserved, I had a little voice in the back of my mind that would make me hesitate to take the step. I’d feel as though I wasn’t being grateful enough or was asking for too much if, for instance, I wanted to ask for a raise.
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This inner conflict only worsened when I started my business. I had to dream more significantly to create the kind of movement I wanted for female entrepreneurs and finances; I needed to ask for more. Although I had been very blessed to have already experienced things that nobody else in my social circle was experiencing — like traveling around the world — that inner hesitation made me question if I truly deserved and was capable of the career and lifestyle I was pursuing.
It wasn’t until much later — through my studies of financial trauma, therapy, self-reflection and the building of my frameworks for helping entrepreneurs achieve wealth — that I began to unpack how deeply ingrained those beliefs were.
Surrounding myself with ambitious, like-minded women also helped me see that those beliefs weren’t mine. They had been passed down, generation after generation, like an heirloom I never asked for.
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Breaking the cycle for my daughter
Now, as a mum, I’m determined to rewrite what was once a subconscious narrative. I want my daughter to grow up with a mindset that supports her in her dreams and growth and encourages her to seek as many opportunities as she desires. I want her to believe — and genuinely know — that she can dream big, ask for what she wants and deserves, and take up space in any room she enters.
But breaking the cycle isn’t easy. It starts with unlearning my subconscious beliefs, so I don’t unintentionally pass them on to her. For instance, when she asks for something — whether it’s a new toy or a more significant goal down the road — resist the urge to say, “you don’t need that” or “you already have enough.” Instead, I try to understand her context, explore what she wants, and help her determine what makes sense in her environment.
It also means modelling what I preach. I can’t tell my daughter to be ambitious while shrugging off opportunities myself. So, I’ve made it a point to dream big and take risks, even when they scare me.
After much anticipation, the Duchess of Sussex’s new lifestyle show With Love, Meghan has officially dropped on Netflix.
In a teaser shared on the streaming service’s Instagram page a day before the release, the actor-turned-royal-turned-lifestyle-guru could be seen carefully cutting and arranging fruit in the shape of a rainbow for her children Archie, five, and Lilibet, three.
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“You don’t have to do a big platter of this,” Meghan said in the clip while arranging the fruit – an array of chopped blueberries, raspberries, pineapple, grapes and strawberries – by colour. “You could do this with one small row for your kids for breakfast, genuinely, and it makes the morning a lot more fun.”
The clip, which was shared yesterday, has prompted a mixed response on social media, with some questioning its relatability and who would have time to pull together £40-worth of fruit for their kids.
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“Seriously, what busy mum has got time to fiddle about with a plate of fruit?” one Instagram user said on social media.
“I must be an awful Mother as I didn’t make rainbow fruit plates for my children!” added another.
Even Lorraine Kelly had something to say about the platter.
“Doesn’t that all look so clean and gorgeous and lovely and unrealistic though, for the rest of us!” said the show host on ITV’s Lorraine.
She later added: “Are you seriously, though, trying to say to me that you don’t, in the morning, when you’re getting the kids out to school and stuff, that you don’t cut up fruit in a beautiful way and put it in the shape of a rainbow? Are you telling me that?!”
It’s worth noting that the duchess did reflect in the clip that the platter isn’t an everyday occurrence in her trailer for the show.
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While prepping the fruit, she said: “It’s a real delight in being able to be a present parent. And it’s a luxury sometimes because we all have to work. We all have a lot of stuff to do, but when you can take a minute to just…”
A member of the film crew quickly interjected with “Saturday morning” and the mum-of-two nodded. “Yeah,” she whispered.
In the eight-part series – which sees Meghan joined by guests including Roy Choi, Mindy Kaling and Alice Waters – the host also revealed her surname is now Sussex, to match her children.
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Responding to Mindy Kaling, who said: “People wouldn’t believe that Meghan Markle ate at Jack In The Box [a fast food restaurant]”, Meghan replied: “You know I’m Sussex now.”
She added: “You have kids and you go, ‘No, I share my name with my children.’ I didn’t know how meaningful that would be to me, but it just means so much to go, this is our family name, our little family name.”
It seems the show itself is very much like Marmite – with some loving it, and others, well, not so much. The Independent described it as “queasy and exhausting”.
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“Cant wait to watch,” said one commenter in response to Netflix’s fruit platter-filled trailer.
Meanwhile in Google’s reviews for the series, a viewer said: “Really enjoying the show so far. Some great tips and ideas for different foods. I would also like to mention how sweet and lovely lady Meghan is.
“You can clearly see she is passionate, kind and an amazing mum to her lovely kids. Loved the kids tea party idea and very affordable for any household.”
Toddlers and preschool-age children are forces of nature. Those tiny tyrants are full of love, life and wonder – but they’re also unyielding when they decide they don’t want to do something.
Thankfully though, there’s a hack (or four) for that.
A Reddit thread of parenting hacks has flagged some absolute gems which I will be using for the foreseeable future.
“If she asks for a snack and I offer her healthy options she will often refuse, ask for something like chocolate, and then get hangry when I don’t give her what she wants,” wrote user tomtink1.
“If I leave something like a banana at the edge of the kitchen counter earlier in the day she will steal it and eat it and everyone is happy.”
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Another parent said they can get their toddler to (mostly) listen and do as they say by asking: ‘what if you did it silly?’
It’s an especially great way to diffuse potential battles when trying to leave the house.
“Yesterday trying to leave daycare with 1 degree temps outside, she was working up to a screaming ‘no!’ over putting on winter gear. I was this close to ‘do it or I’ll do it to you’ when instead I asked ‘what if you put it on silly?’,” said user anotherface95.
“Now mind, she’s 3…. So to her, the silliest she can get is she makes silly noises and wiggles a little. Snow gear – on! Tantrum – averted! Frostbite – thwarted! Power struggles – rescheduled!”
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In the comments section, a parent said they use a similar tactic called ‘march, march!’ with their son.
“If he’s getting grumpy or distracted going anywhere I start chanting ‘march, march!’ and I will march to wherever we’re going,” said user pandito88.
“He always follows me with giggles and he tries to march his little leggies. Instantly snaps him out of grumpiness and redirects him where I want him to go.”
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And if these don’t work for you, just call whatever you want them to do ‘a project’ – a particularly useful strategy for getting them to help tidy up at the end of the day. (I tried it last night and can confirm, it does work.)
“Mine is to call everything a ‘project’ so my three year old will help or at least tag along happily,” said user Typical-Dog244.
“Folding laundry? Project. Weeding? Project. Making me a coffee? Project. The girl can’t resist.”
In one of his more recent videos, the father-of-three can be seen shushing and bouncing a baby to sleep, before trialling some more, ahem, avant-garde sleep techniques.
“Go to sleep now or I’m going to set fire to this,” says the comedian, while standing next to the cot holding Ewan the sheep.
“I don’t actually want you to go to sleep,” he says in the next breath, trialling a bit of reverse psychology. “I think you should stay up all night.”
Next on the dad’s list of techniques is peer pressure. Perched casually by the side of the cot, stroking his face, he says: “So apparently all the cool babies have been getting early nights recently… Yeah, that’s just what I’ve heard.”
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Lewis also trials whale sounds, bargaining and the threat of cancelling Christmas. At one point he’s standing near the cot with a 4-pint bottle of milk.
But it’s the last tip that seems to do the trick: boring his child with chat about Bitcoin.
The 37-year-old from Manchester told HuffPost UK: “My baby isn’t sleeping at the moment so I’ve been desperately searching Instagram and TikTok for advice.
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“Once you try everything and it still doesn’t work you start resorting to crazy threats and ultimatums that a baby is obviously not going to understand.
“I thought it’d be funny to do a ‘how to’ video that isn’t particularly helpful but reflects our desperate behaviour as parents.”
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Parents dubbed the video “hilarious” and many seemed to think the Bitcoin tip – while a joke – was actually pretty genius.
There were also plenty of suggestions from others about the lengths they’d go to to get their little ones to sleep.
“I used to read books in a really boring voice, then I would fall asleep and they’d stay awake,” said user rachlbc.
“Just put a recording on of the finance review work Teams call,” added hannahlou1983.
Another commenter, nicoledanica, said the video was “spot on”. She added: “I’m a nurse and I used to give detailed lectures to my son about anatomy and physiology when he was a baby and would wake up in the middle of the night.”
If life seems expensive right now, that’s because it is.
Between high energy costs, spenny supermarket bills and extortionate childcare expenses, your bank balance probably looks a little worse for wear by the time payday comes around.
For those looking for ways to accrue a bit of extra cash, a personal finance expert has shared the one hack that’s helped save her thousands of pounds a year – and it’s surprisingly simple.
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Gemma Bird, who is known on social media as @MoneyMumOfficial and is also a member of ITV Lorraine’s Saver Squad, told HuffPost UK that she stopped paying for parking when she worked for a bank.
What did she do instead then? Well, she found somewhere to park for free just over a mile away from where she worked.
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That might sound like your worst nightmare – especially if you’re prone to running late. But the hack actually helped save her a lot of cash in the long-run.
“I also cancelled the gym because I was getting my steps and could do home workouts instead. I ended up saving on the gym and parking all at once,” Bird revealed.
In addition to avoiding daily parking charges, Bird rented her driveway during the daytime when she was at work, and claims that in total she saved £250 a month.
Parents frequently say that “all they want” is for their kids to be happy. But what does this happiness look like?
The things that parents tend to focus on — good grades, college acceptances, a fulfilling career — are all measures of achievement. Pride in an achievement may well engender a feeling of happiness, but it certainly isn’t the only way to get there. Plus, most parents don’t really want their child’s happiness limited to milestones like graduations or championships.
Parents often “think something is wrong when our children are unhappy. We become distressed when they are distressed. Often, when we intervene to take away their distress, we are robbing them of the opportunity to learn to tolerate their own distress and, thus, limit their ability to develop resilience — which, in itself, gives us greater access to happiness,” Bolton told HuffPost.
In other words, kids need experience dealing with a full range of emotions — including sadness, disappointment and frustration — if they’re going to lead the kind of lives we think of as happy ones.
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Parents’ laser-focus on kids’ achievement is another obstacle. The pressure to succeed can leave kids feeling like their parents’ love is conditional, that they are valued for what they do instead of who they are.
“In our parenting and educational practices, we increasingly value things outside of the person to justify their value — their achievement of grades, the number of likes on their social media posts, and their participation on several travel teams are examples of this. These can lead to moments of happiness that undermine longer term unhappiness,” Bolton said.
A student might feel momentary pride about a test score, but the pressure to keep their grades up might cause anxiety in the long run, for example.
Instead of positioning happiness — a state we all know to be elusive — as yet another goal that kids need to reach, Bolton suggested that we think in terms of kids’ wellness. “Wellness, for me, includes both the ability to enjoy happy moments but also the resilience to cope effectively with the hardest moments,” he said.
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To help our kids lead the kind of happy lives that wellness makes possible, we can focus on helping them build resilience and social connection through small daily habits, or micro-practices.
“In the same way we know that eating vegetables and moving our bodies help our physical health, there are everyday behaviours we can teach children that build their happiness muscles,” Ariana Hoet, a psychologist who is the executive clinical director of The Kids Mental Health Foundation, told HuffPost.
Here are some micro-practices that parents can encourage their kids to do every day to promote their well-being.
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1. Social connection
“Children with strong social connections have more positive emotions,” Hoet said.
“Having meaningful connections with friends and family every day is protective to children’s mental health and important for their happiness levels,” she continued.
Social connection is also the antidote to social isolation, which puts people of all ages at risk for anxiety and depression, in addition to other health issues. Whether it’s a family meal, walking the dog together or riding bikes around the neighbourhood with a friend, interactions that help your child feel connected to the community they’re in will promote happiness.
2. Behavioural activation
If a kid is feeling down, it’s easy to get stuck in the rut of inertia. That’s why it’s important to encourage kids to do something every day that makes them feel good. This could mean spending time outdoors, seeing a friend or making art.
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Hoet recommends that kids “do at least one pleasant thing every day for at least 5-15 minutes.” There are a huge variety of activities that might fit the bill. Hoet recommended choosing ones “that help a child feel connected to others, proud/accomplished, or simply that bring them joy.”
Bolton underscored the value of mastery, which he defined as “the experience of getting better at something that is meaningful to us (not because we will get an award).” An example, he said, would be “the child who loves building with legos without the expectation of a prize or gold star for the best creation.”
3. Mindfulness
It’s a buzzword these days, but the truth is that mindfulness simply means “being present in the moment, instead of in your thoughts worrying about the future or sad about the past,” Hoet explained.
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But that doesn’t mean mindfulness comes easy. Kids (and adults) will need to practice frequently in order to build this skill. We tend to associate mindfulness with breathing exercises and meditation, but those aren’t the only ways to get there. The only requirement is to try to stay present in the moment, so you can practice mindful eating, walking, or many other daily activities.
“Mindfulness is a wonderful way to quiet our nervous system,” Bolton said.
Tom Werner via Getty Images
“There are everyday behaviors we can teach children that build their happiness muscles,” said psychologist Ariana Hoet.
4. Gratitude
With practice, we can train our brains to “notice the good in our day-to-day life and spend less time thinking about the difficult things,” Hoet said.
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Bolton also expressed this. “Our emotion often follows our attention,” he explained, adding that a practice like a gratitude journal can help us hone in on the good things in our lives. Likewise, saying “grace” before a meal, whether or not in a religious way, is a way to share a daily moment of gratitude, Bolton said.
5. Goal-setting
Goals don’t have to rely on standard measures of success like money, grades or likes on social media. Your child might want to learn to play a song on the piano, or cook a meal for the family.
“Children with achievable goals feel a sense of purpose and meaning to their lives. Goals give them something to look forward to and can increase their motivation,” Hoet said.
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6. Generosity
“When we do things for other people, it boosts our sense of ourselves,” Bolton said, adding that there is a body of research showing the benefits of being generous.
One study, for example, found that people’s depression and anxiety symptoms were reduced by performing acts of kindness.
“We know that creating the habit of kindness toward others helps children feel happier, calmer, and less anxious. There is also the added benefit of helping foster social connections,” Hoet said.
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Walking a neighbour’s dog while they are homebound or helping to prepare food for someone in need are meaningful acts of generosity in which kids can participate.
“Enough with the guilt-tripping against parents who sleep train their toddler-age children,” she said. “Most times it’s needed for the entire family.
“Let’s not normalise parent and child functioning every day on sleep deprivation – because that is what’s harmful to a child’s developing brain and a parent’s mental health.”
She continued: “If you don’t do it, that’s up to you. But let’s stop putting information out there … that’s misleading parents and guilt-tripping them, because that’s just unkind.”
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What is sleep training?
The premise of sleep training is fairly simple: parents are aiming to teach their little ones to fall asleep without their help. So that means no rocking, swaying, feeding to sleep, etc.
But putting it into practice is less than simple. Often it involves a bit of trial and error and possibly some crying while your child figures out how to get themselves to sleep.
When are you meant to start sleep training?
The Sleep Foundation suggests babies aren’t ready for sleep training until they’re about six months old. This is because prior to that “they haven’t developed the circadian rhythms that will help them sleep through the night”.
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“Just as there’s no exact right age to begin sleep training, you also don’t have to sleep train,” the foundation says.
“Babies will eventually learn to sleep on their own. However, sleep training is effective and offers significant benefits to both babies and parents, with no evidence of negative long-term effects.”
There are a few different methods parents try, from the Ferber method to the fading method and the more controversial cry-it-out method.
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Here, we’ll quickly break down what they entail:
Ferber method
This involves putting your baby in their cot while they’re “drowsy but awake” and then leaving the room. If they cry, wait for three minutes (roughly) before going back in to check on them and comfort them.
The idea is that you console them but you don’t pick them up.
Then you leave the room again, this time for five minutes. And repeat. Each time you increase the amount of time you leave the room for until they’ve fallen asleep.
And if your little one wakes up in the night, the idea is you repeat the process to help settle them again.
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Laura Ohlman on Unsplash
With sleep training, parents are aiming to teach their little ones to fall asleep without their help.
Cry-it-out method
This strategy involves leaving your baby to fall asleep on their own without comforting them and then leaving them until a set time in the morning.
“Parents are instructed not to intervene and to ignore crying and tantrums unless there’s a concern that the child is ill or hurt,” according to Huckleberry.
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Fading method
This is another more gradual approach where parents camp out in the child’s room until they fall asleep. The premise is that you pop your child into their cot when they’re drowsy and then stand nearby or sit on a chair in their room, offering minimal levels of comfort, until they fall asleep.
“Each night, the parent gradually moves further away from their child while still remaining in their sight,” explains the Sleep Foundation.
Pick up/put down method
This one requires a little more patience. According to The Mother Baby Centre, parents put their baby down drowsy and if they start to then cry, you let it happen for a bit before picking them up and soothing them.
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Then you put them back down again while still awake and repeat the process until they go to sleep.
Her approach is that you do your bedtime ritual as usual, say ‘goodnight’ to your child after popping them in their cot and then leave the room.
When your child cries, take no action for two minutes. Then, go back into the bedroom and comfort them but without picking them up (this might involve lying them back down and putting your hand on their tummy while shh-ing them).
Go back out of the bedroom and then stay out for four minutes. Then repeat the exercise until your child goes to sleep.
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Is sleep training good or bad?
It’s hard to definitively answer this.
“Looking at how babies slept for most of human history (together with caretakers) we realise that sleep training today is more about suiting parental lifestyles than what’s biologically and evolutionary normal for babies,” explained science communicator Violeta Gordeljevic, on the Science for Parents Instagram account.
She advised proceeding with caution if you do try it: “When in doubt about physical and emotional safety, choose caution. This may mean choosing gentler methods.”
In a video that might put parents’ minds at ease, Professor Emily Oster recently set out to share what the research on sleep training says in an informative video.
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The CEO of ParentData, who has two children of her own, said sleep training can be a “very polarising” topic but suggested the data is “pretty good” in this area (although Gordeljevic disagrees) and came up with a summary for parents who are deliberating whether to give it a go.
“First, on average, sleep training improves the quality of infant sleep,” said Prof Oster. “It is not a panacea, it doesn’t work perfectly for every kid, but on average it improves sleep.”
Her second point is that sleep training, on average, “improves mood and happiness for parents” probably because “parents are sleeping better”.
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And her last point is that when looking at either the short-term or the long-term impact, “we do not see any differences in attachment measures, in emotional regulation, in any of the metrics you might worry about with sleep training”.
“It just does not look like sleep training makes kids worse off,” she concluded.
When you’re a kid there are lots of things you believe that aren’t necessarily true.
Most of the time this is down to what your parents have told you (like the police will tell you pull you over if you don’t turn the light off in the back of the car), but other times it’s just what you’ve made up in your head – and nobody has questioned it, so it’s taken as gospel.
In an amusing thread posted on Mumsnet, user @Carryonrunning asked the masses: “What do you remember from your childhood that you now realise you really misunderstood?”
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Cue, a hilarious thread of eyebrow-raising confessions… (If you’re a parent reading this, it’s a useful reminder that kids take things very literally.)
I thought you got given an actual sack when you lose your job
“My dad came home from work one day with a hessian sack he’d acquired from somewhere. He then told my mum, ‘I’ve been given the sack’. It took me years to realise that a) he was joking and b) you don’t get given an actual sack when you lose your job.”
– BlossomCat
I thought you became an adult at 100 years old
“As a young child I thought you became an adult at 100 years old. Imagine my shock when someone at primary school told me it was just 18. I had a full on existential crisis when I realised most people don’t even live to 100!”
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– Flustration
I thought you were meant to drive with one wheel either side of the central road line
“My family didn’t have a car, so my main experience of driving when I was really young was my grandad. He only drove us occasionally and from these rare experiences I worked out that the white line in the road was a guideline to keep you straight – a wheel each side of it. When I got to about 8 I began to wonder how cars going in opposite directions could both straddle the centre line without crashing. As I got older I realised my grandad was a really bad driver.”
I thought ‘cash back’ was free money
“In the shop when my mum and dad answered that they didn’t want cash back I always wondered why they turned down free money.”
– EdithGrantham
I thought it was the last day of the world
“I remember leaving primary school one day and I heard the teacher say to a friend’s Mum, ‘It’s the last day tomorrow.’ I must have been about five. I actually thought she meant that it was the last day of the world. I remember laying in bed that evening and worrying and worrying… In the end I went downstairs, crying to my Mum and asked her if it really was the last day of the world the next day.
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“To my amazement, she looked at the calendar. I remember thinking, surely the people who make the calendars wouldn’t know when the last day is?! In reality she was just checking that it definitely was the last day of term. She hugged me and explained that the next day was just the last day of term, not Armageddon!”
– Feelinghurt2
I thought my mum’s heart would miss a beat and she would die
“I heard my mum talking on the way home from picking me up at school, to some of her mum friends. She said something like ‘my heart missed a beat’ and from that moment on for YEARS I was afraid that hearts could do this. I worried that my mum’s heart would miss more beats and she would die, or that my heart might miss a beat and something bad would happen. I’d lie in bed listening to my heartbeat and wondering if I’d notice if it missed one…”
– Vroomfondleswaistcoat
I thought giving the middle finger meant ‘up and over’
“I remember my dad giving the 1 finger salute when driving and me asking my mum what that meant. With a rather frosty look at my dad she said it meant up and over. I then got confused as to why I got into trouble doing it.”
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I thought the olden days were actually black and white
“I thought that the ‘olden days’ really were black and white and there really was no colour – just like the photographs. I thought that at least they had grey and different tones of black and white.”
– Whatthechicken
I thought To Let signs meant public toilet
“I used to think that when you saw a ‘To let’ sign on a building, it was a polite way of saying there’s a public toilet in there.”
My due date was fast approaching when I had a moment of clarity. Or it might have been madness, I’ll let you decide.
I’d been receiving maternity care at a local hospital – the same hospital where my eldest daughter had been born almost three years earlier – and decided I really didn’t want to go back there to give birth.
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So, at 34 weeks pregnant, I went online and did what I knew best: researched.
With my laptop perched on my ballooning belly, I looked at other hospitals and saw there were some decent options. But, palms all sweaty, I quickly realised it was the thought of another trip to the labour ward that was filling me with so much dread.
I briefly considered a home birth but realised I wouldn’t be able to relax properly if I knew our neighbours could hear me mooing away (and believe me they would be able to hear it – our walls are paper thin).
Then I saw something intriguing on Instagram of all places: a freestanding NHS birth centre and it was just 10 minutes further than the hospital where I’d been receiving antenatal care. How had I never heard about it?
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Why I switched up my care
I’m not a particularly anxious person but the very thought of going back to that first hospital to give birth filled me with dread. Just thinking about it would make my heart race.
The thing is, I had always thought I didn’t have a particularly bad experience at that hospital – compared to the horror stories I’ve heard, it was a “walk in the park”. I was one of the lucky ones. My birth was relatively straightforward: it was a vaginal delivery, no interventions, and my baby was OK.
I experienced some tearing but didn’t really think much of it at the time because it was all quite numb down there. My partner got kicked out a couple of hours after giving birth, which I found to be the most distressing part of all because I had no idea how to look after a baby and was absolutely exhausted.
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I remember spending the following 12 hours sat in a bloody hospital gown waiting for my partner to be allowed back into the hospital for visiting hours (cheers, Covid) so I could finally have a shower and hand our newborn over to him.
I was exhausted because I’d barely slept all night – my daughter had been born late the night before, so I’d been up all night checking she was still breathing and listening to the coughs of other mums on the shared ward, hoping they didn’t have Covid. It also happened to be the hottest day of the year which only added to my anxiety.
In the days and weeks after the birth, I experienced some issues with an infection and my stitches coming undone. I also saw a GP at my eight-week follow up appointment who checked my perineal area and suggested my tear had been worse than first thought.
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“I was one of the lucky ones. My birth was relatively straightforward: it was a vaginal delivery, no interventions, and my baby was OK.””
I felt I couldn’t really complain about the fact the midwife “popped my vein” – she failed to put a cannula into my arm before I was about to give birth, so we had to wait for a doctor to come and do it. My blood platelets had been on the low side so they thought they’d put a cannula in ahead of time in case I needed a blood transfusion or something – a thought which made me feel really relaxed!
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Or the fact that I had to be on a labour ward because of those cursed platelets and all I could hear in the rooms along the corridor were screams.
Or the fact I had two midwives – an experienced staff member and a student – rummaging around in my vagina, one after the other, before delivery. It prompted a panic attack and, I’d argue, was more painful than birth at points. Now, I know midwives are short on time and we all have to learn, but I was not prepared for how painful that examination was going to be. And I wasn’t allowed an epidural because of the platelet issue, so I felt it all.
These things were all unpleasant, but nothing compared to what I’ve heard from other mums. I was a lucky one, right? My baby survived.
I realise now – after years of mentally dismissing what had happened – that perhaps there was a reason why my body was going into fight or flight when I sat down to consider the thought of another hospital birth.
My body was saying no, and thank goodness I listened.
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So, at 34 weeks pregnant, I switched up my maternity care. It’s fairly easy to do – I self-referred to the birth centre and then called the hospital and explained I was moving my care across.
I had to do another booking appointment (this is the first appointment you usually do when receiving antenatal care in England, where they check your weight, height, take urine and blood samples, etc.,), but on the whole it was an easy process.
And I cannot stress to you how refreshing it was to speak to the midwives at Edgware Birth Centre.
They were so relaxed and didn’t overly-medicalise things. I asked about my platelets again and they didn’t seem worried – my midwife was so reassuring and, unlike at the hospital where I’d seen a different person each time, this person was someone I spoke to continuously for the following six weeks.
It’s hard to express what a game-changer it was having the same midwife for my antenatal appointments. When we chatted on multiple occasions in the run up to the birth, I felt like I was a human, not just a number who was there to pop out a baby.
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On the day I gave birth, I went to the birth centre at around 11am when my contractions were ramping up and called my midwife en route, who amazingly was on shift. They got a room ready for me and started filling the birth pool, as I’d asked if I could try that for pain relief purposes and also to help reduce the risk of tearing again.
When we got there, we went straight to the room and I nearly cried. They’d turned some fairy lights on and there was a diffuser pumping out a calming fragrance in the corner. The birth pool was trickling away. There was nobody screaming in the distance. The atmosphere was so… tranquil.
“Do you want a drink?” my midwife calmly asked me, and then my partner. We looked at each other in disbelief.
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Natasha Hinde
The room where I ended up giving birth.
The next few hours were a bit of a blur but consisted of a lot of reassurance from my midwife and her colleague who kept telling me that I knew what I was doing, to listen to my body, and to let them know if I felt an urge to push.
I believe their kindness and reassurance, as well as the feeling of safety from being in this little sanctuary they’d created on my behalf, helped everything speed up a bit and by 2.30pm, our baby was in my arms.
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I didn’t need stitches (thank you, birth pool) and by 7pm we were home.
It was a good birth – and I feel bad for saying that, because so many women do not get to have a good birth. I firmly believe that if I hadn’t switched up my care at the eleventh hour, it might not have been a good birth.
And of course, we can never know, but studies have found having a baby at a birth centre is as safe as giving birth in hospital,yet results in fewer interventions.
However, the story doesn’t end there. A few months after I gave birth, I received an email inviting me to join a consultation about the proposed closure of the birth centre. The NHS North Central London Integrated Care System said that, on average, fewer than 50 women give birth there a year.
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Under proposed new plans, the birth suites could be closed however the birth centre would still provide antenatal and postnatal services. I couldn’t believe what I was reading.
Deflated by the proposed closure, I attended the online consultation and sat listening to other mothers who had received positive experiences there.
The stories I heard hammered home exactly what can happen if a maternity service isn’t overwhelmed with demand and midwives can truly focus on the people giving birth: they are treated like human beings. The midwives have more to give because they are not physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted.
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The decision on the fate of the birth centre is due to be announced this spring.
Dr Jo Sauvage, chief medical officer at North Central London Integrated Care System, told me: “Your positive feedback is a great reflection of the midwifery team at Edgware Birth Centre. We want, above all else, for everyone who gives birth in North Central London to have a similarly high quality of experience, and this means making some difficult decisions.
“The proposed option that we put forward for consultation would see us retain and expand the antenatal and postnatal services at Edgware Birth Centre. For those who choose a midwifery-led birth, we are proposing to maintain the option of home birth, and co-located midwifery-led units which provide a home from home environment.”
Action group Delivering Better is currently calling on the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Wes Streeting – who has openly said the maternity crisis keeps him awake at night – to improve maternity care with two key changes: the chance to see the same midwife throughout pregnancy and proactive health checks after the baby is born at three and six months.You can add your voice to the open letter here.
There’s a lot of work to be done when it comes to overhauling the UK’s maternity and postnatal care system – and one birth centre cannot change that. But if it helps women have a good birth, a safe birth, then I’d argue it’s worth its weight in gold.
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Update: We have amended the article to clarify that, on average, fewer than 50 women give birth at Edgware Birth Centre each year.