Honored: Parenting Media Association Awards

Hooray! My article "Tween Tudes: Five Bad Habits We Could Live Without," from the November 2012 issue of ParentMap magazine, was recognized with a 2012 Parenting Media Association Award. Since I did not get to make a speech at the awards ceremony (ahem), I'd like to thank my ParentMap editors for assigning such an engaging topic, and my fantastic sources for delivering excellent quotes. It was fun to research and write, and I even got to interview Alyson Schafer, one of my favorite parenting authors. Have I mentioned how much I love my job?

This is my first PMA Award, though my article "Homeschool Cool," about homeschooling and technology, was honored as a finalist in the 2011 awards. I'm particularly proud of this article because it was the first idea I pitched to ParentMap, and because it draws a bit on my own past as a homeschooled student in elementary and middle school.

I’m a nationally published sleep expert, health journalist, and mom. My articles about sleep, health, and parenting appear regularly in over 80 national and regional magazines and on television. Can I help you? Subscribe to The Well Rested Family to have sleep news, tips, and tactics delivered to your inbox or feed reader by clicking here.

Need more sleep? My e-book Ready, Set, Sleep: 50 Ways to Help Your Child Sleep So You Can Sleep Too is chock-full of mom-tested solutions to help babies and toddlers start sleeping well, tonight!

My new e-book Sleep Tight, Every Night: Helping Toddlers & Preschoolers Sleep Well Without Tears, Tricks, or Tirades is available now!

Post roundup: 10 posts to help older kids sleep

As parents everywhere know, kids’ sleep problems don’t end in babyhood. Here’s a roundup of ten of my posts addressing sleep problems for kids from preschool through the teen years.

Help your child on “I can’t sleep nights”

Too many bedroom TVs

Eight tips for a better bedtime

Running toward the bed: Kids, exercise, and sleep

Little legs, big problem: Surprising facts about Pediatric Restless Legs Syndrome

Tips for sleeping well in winter

Night terror myths and facts

Staying well-rested with nine-children: An interview with Erika Shupe

Setting a bedtime for teens

More help for shared bedrooms

I’m a nationally published sleep expert, health journalist, and mom. My articles about sleep, health, and parenting appear regularly in over 80 national and regional magazines and on television. Can I help you? Subscribe to The Well Rested Family to have sleep news, tips, and tactics delivered to your inbox or feed reader by clicking here.

Need more sleep? My e-book Ready, Set, Sleep: 50 Ways to Help Your Child Sleep So You Can Sleep Too is chock-full of mom-tested solutions to help babies and toddlers start sleeping well, tonight!

My new e-book Sleep Tight, Every Night: Helping Toddlers & Preschoolers Sleep Well Without Tears, Tricks, or Tirades is available now!

Ask Malia: A simple fix for a baby's short naps

I have an almost-five-month old boy who takes short naps, sometimes 30 minutes, sometimes 45. He just recently has started being able to stay awake for almost two hours. He doesn't have a problem going to sleep on his own—when I notice his sleep cues I lay him down and most the time he is asleep within five minutes. He goes to bed around 6:15 p.m. and wakes ups to eat twice and then wakes up for the day around 6:30 to 7:30 a.m. He takes four to five of these short naps throughout the day. Any advice we be appreciated. I have read so much on this issue but just don't see any changes.

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Hi there. You are doing a great job with your son's sleep—way to go! I love to hear parents talk about recognizing their child's sleep cues, and the fact that he can drift off to sleep by himself in five minutes is icing on the cake! Your son’s short naps are a hallmark of the four-to-five month age range. Often, when babies take short naps, it's a sign that they are ready to stay awake for longer before the nap. When a child isn't awake for long enough before a nap, he won't build up the "drive for sleep" (sleep-doctor talk) required to take an appropriate nap, so he'll wake after 30 to 45 minutes.

I recommend stretching the time he's awake before naps by 15 minutes a day over the course of three to four days. When you find the right period of wakefulness before the nap, the nap length will almost always improve (though a small percentage of babies are simply destined to take mostly shorter naps). This period of wakefulness before the nap may be much longer than you think. At five months old, he may be ready to stay awake for 2.5 hours or longer between naps, especially because he is getting quite a bit of sleep at night. As you may know, an age-appropriate nap routine at his age consists of one morning nap, one afternoon nap, and a short early evening nap.

Hope this is helpful. Thanks for the question.

I’m a nationally published sleep expert, health journalist, and mom. My articles about sleep, health, and parenting appear regularly in over 80 national and regional magazines and on television. Can I help you? Subscribe to The Well Rested Family to have sleep news, tips, and tactics delivered to your inbox or feed reader by clicking here.

Need more sleep? My e-book Ready, Set, Sleep: 50 Ways to Help Your Child Sleep So You Can Sleep Too is chock-full of mom-tested solutions to help babies and toddlers start sleeping well, tonight!

My new e-book Sleep Tight, Every Night: Helping Toddlers & Preschoolers Sleep Well Without Tears, Tricks, or Tirades is available now!

One simple fix for "Spring Forward" sleep woes

In case you missed my post last week about prepping your child in advance for the Daylight Savings Time “spring forward,” (or if you just got too busy and forgot to do much of anything to prepare—I can relate, believe me), you may have found your child a bit, oh, hard to put to bed last night. That’s because at his perfectly reasonable bedtime of say, 8 p.m., his biological clock still thought it was 7. Also known as party time. Add in the extra hour of evening light, and kids across America were revving up instead of winding down at bedtime.

There is a simple fix for this, and here it is: Wake your child up 30 minutes earlier than normal tomorrow. Getting an earlier start to the day will help reset a slightly off-kilter biological clock. After two days of this routine, your child will be ready to go back to his normal bedtime—and you can forget all about Daylight Savings Time until this fall, when you’ll curse it all over again.

Bonus points: With the sun setting later and later, now is the time to invest in a good set of blackout curtains for your child’s room. Darkness is one of the most important biological cues for sleep, and even small amounts of evening light can interfere with your child’s natural production of sleepytime neurotransmitter melatonin. When the sun starts staying out until 10 p.m. in June, you’ll be glad you planned ahead.

I’m a nationally published sleep expert, health journalist, and mom. My articles about sleep, health, and parenting appear regularly in over 80 national and regional magazines and on television. Can I help you? Subscribe to The Well Rested Family to have sleep news, tips, and tactics delivered to your inbox or feed reader by clicking here.

Need more sleep? My e-book Ready, Set, Sleep: 50 Ways to Help Your Child Sleep So You Can Sleep Too is chock-full of mom-tested solutions to help babies and toddlers start sleeping well, tonight!

My new e-book Sleep Tight, Every Night: Helping Toddlers & Preschoolers Sleep Well Without Tears, Tricks, or Tirades is available now!

Ask Malia: I need my preschooler's naps back. Help!

I love answering reader questions as ParentingSquad.com's resident sleep pro. Here’s a reader question I can really relate to: What’s a work-at-home mom to do when her preschooler finally stops napping, effectively short-changing her workday?

I'm a work-at-home parent of a three-year-old boy. I depend on his afternoon naps because I use the time to work. Lately he's been taking a few naps a week, and the rest of the time he repeatedly gets out of bed and calls for me. I'm falling behind on work. Is there anything I can do to encourage him to nap every day?

Read the answer at ParentingSquad.com.

P.S. When a preschooler begins to show signs of nap resistance, he’s giving you a heads-up that his napping days may be numbered. For work-at-home parents who need the daily naptime to work, this can be a prompt to begin investigating childcare options. No need to take action right away, but it’s great to have the information handy when it’s needed—and I’m pretty sure this is why afternoon preschool was invented, anyway.

I’m a nationally published sleep expert, health journalist, and mom. My articles about sleep, health, and parenting appear regularly in over 80 national and regional magazines and on television. Can I help you? Subscribe to The Well Rested Family to have sleep news, tips, and tactics delivered to your inbox or feed reader by clicking here.

Need more sleep? My e-book Ready, Set, Sleep: 50 Ways to Help Your Child Sleep So You Can Sleep Too is chock-full of mom-tested solutions to help babies and toddlers start sleeping well, tonight!

My new e-book Sleep Tight, Every Night: Helping Toddlers & Preschoolers Sleep Well Without Tears, Tricks, or Tirades is available now!