JOURNALING TO SLEEP TRAIN

Journaling is very helpful and important to meet your sleeping goals. Here is information about how to keep a journal of your baby's sleep. This will be helpful when you post a question, so that we can see a snapshot, so to speak, of your day. We will be able to more easily pinpoint any troublesome areas in your baby's day that could be affecting his/her sleep. This will, also, help you to be consistent with training and see any improvements that you may have not realized were there before. Many parents believe that journaling their baby's day and night is very eye opening!

You would journal what time your baby wakes up for the day, nap times, how long they lasted, what time baby went to bed and what times during the night and naps the baby woke up. Please, also, post any naptime/nighttime routines that you use. Make sure that you post your baby's age, if it's not already in your siggy.

This is a great *sleep chart* I found to use to track your baby's sleep.

If you'd like, this is a calculation you can use at the end of each journal day. It helps to make the picture even more clear:

TNS = total (hours) nighttime sleep
NOW = Number of night wakings
LSS = Longest stretch of (uninterrupted) sleep
TDS = total (hours) daytime sleep
T24 = total (hours) sleep in a 24 hour period

When you start a journal entry thread, anyone can respond with advice and you can continue posting your journal entry each day in that same thread.

Check here for your baby's sleep needs -- How Much Sleep does your baby need? Guideline for age appropriate sleep needs. (Above post)

Feel free to ask questions.