Trusting Your Child’s Understanding
For a lot of parents, it can be difficult to pinpoint exactly what your child with special needs can understand. Some kids can be hyperactive and lack focus, making it hard for them to do a simple task. Or, a child may not have language yet so they can’t give you feedback. For immobile or […]
Facing the Challenges of Being a Single Dad
This week’s blog post comes from Daniel at dadsolo.com. Daniel is a single father and has created dadsolo.com to give resources, experience, tips and more for single dads and parents. Please be sure to check out his site! When you think of a single parent, you typically think of a young single woman working two […]
Technology and Sleep – Why Sleepwalking Happens
Each day, I get daily updates on all the things coming out with regards to sleep science. This week, one article stood out in particular about sleepwalking and night terrors. Here’s what I found really surprising: Nearly 20% of children are considered regular sleep walkers, and 5% of kids have re-occurring night terrors. That’s a […]
How much sleep do new parents lose?
An article this month in The London Economic reveals that new parents lose the equivalent of up to three months of sleep during the first year of their baby’s life (about 2 hours nightly, on average). The surprising results of the study showed that oftentimes, dads are losing just as much sleep, if not more than […]
Nidra Yoga for Sleep
This past weekend, I had the pleasure of attending my first nidra yoga class. This type of yoga is gaining popularity as it is often recommended to adults who have sleep problems. It is one of several forms of mindfulness meditation. Going into the class, I was already feeling tired — Saturday night my sister […]
Guest Speaker: Martin Rawls-Meehan
(from left to right: My husband, Spencer Doman, Martin Rawls-Meehan, and me) A week ago, I had the pleasure of seeing Martin Rawls-Meehan speak at IAHP’s annual conference about the importance of sleep for children. Martin is the CEO at Reverie, a sleep technology company based in Detroit. They sell customized mattresses for a better […]
Sleep Help: The best gift for your partner
“My kid’s not sleeping, and my wife is going crazy.” – Dads of sleep deprived kids everywhere Each week, I get several calls from families wanting to know more about sleep training their child with special needs, and how I can best help their family. And, more and more often it’s dads seeking help for […]
Getting Back to Nature
Why Camping Has Shown to Improve Sleep In a recent article by Civilized, it was shown through studies that a weekend under the stars had excellent effects on resetting the body’s natural circadian rhythm and helped to improve the sleep of the campers that were part of the experiment. Their findings? Natural light source helped […]
Key to Healing – Sleep!
The link between improved sleep and recovery from brain injury is strong, according to research published in Neurology. Better and more consistent sleep patterns were related to patients recovering faster. The findings show sleep is essential for the restoration of proper brain function and poor sleep could be related to slower recovery. One researcher stated, […]
Sleep and Your Child with Special Needs
For many kids with special needs, sleep is especially hard to get for a variety of reasons: seizures, reflux, rigid muscles, sensory issues, and more. The problem many of my parents face is that there are plenty of recommendations for neurotypical children, but very little information out there for children with developmental disabilities. The good […]
