Naps: Guidelines for Understanding Your Child's Napping Schedule

Figuring out naps for children can be far more dubious and confusing for parents than establishing healthy night sleep. It takes babies longer to “settle” into consistent, adequate length naps than it does to sleep through the night. Regular napping is even more difficult to establish for babies who have a history of colic or very fussy temperament as a newborn.

Naptime is not only more difficult to establish but it also provides different “nourishment” to the child than nighttime sleep. Even the morning and afternoon naps differ in their benefits. Babies have more REM sleep, the stage connected with dreaming, during the morning nap. REM sleep is associated with brain maturation and growth. The afternoon nap is linked with NonREM sleep, which is a deeper stage of sleep, and associated with psychological and physical restoration.

So how do parents know how often their child should be napping, for how long and when those requirements change? Below are some guidelines to help you along the way. Hopefully by knowing these sleep requirements and patterns, you will be able to read your child’s sleep clues and help him/her get the rest s/he needs for healthy maturation and development.

Birth to Four Months: Newborns sleep a lot. At this age the child is establishing good circadian rhythms. The baby begins to associate external cues with sleep. These outward signals include light versus dark, noise versus quite, and eye contact/play versus non-playtime. It is important to learn your child’s signs for being tired, i.e., yawning, rubbing eyes, and/or scratching/pulling ears. Use these signs as a guide for when to put your child to sleep. The idea is to put your baby to sleep before the first signs of being tired appear. Until about seven to eight months of age, a baby should not be awake for more than two hours at a time. Some babies are ready for sleep after only being awake for an hour or so; it is critical to learn your baby’s “comfortable” awake time and put your child to sleep accordingly.

Four to Six Months: Typically by four months and no later than six months, a baby’s sleep will become more organized and more adult like. The child’s body rhythms are in sync with his/her sleep/wake cycles. By this age babies are taking three to four naps during the day. The final nap is usually very brief. The amount of time the child is awake between naps will vary, but should not be more than about two hours. The optimal time for a baby to go to sleep is just before the outward signs of tiredness appear (yawning, rubbing eyes, etc.) This is the ideal time to set up healthy sleep habits for your child. For more information please visit http://www.child-works.com.

Seven to Sixteen Months: At this age the child is taking a morning and afternoon nap. The baby can increasingly stay awake longer as they grow older. Typically, a child will take a morning nap three hours after wake up time and an afternoon nap following lunchtime. The baby will now be able to remain awake for the entire late afternoon stretch until bedtime. An earlier bedtime may be necessary, at least temporarily, once the third nap is dropped.

Sixteen Months to Three Years: Sometime between 16 and 18 months of age, babies will drop to one afternoon nap. Typically the child will be able to stay awake longer and longer in the morning, pushing the morning nap later and consequently the afternoon nap later. When this negatively affects an appropriate bedtime then the afternoon nap is dropped and the child is down to one nap per day. At first the nap will occur in the middle of the day to strike a balance between what use to be the morning and afternoon nap. Slowly the nap will move until after lunchtime (about 1:00pm) where it will remain until the preschool years.

Three to Six Years: During this time the young child will drop the afternoon nap. How this nap is dropped varies among children. Some will take shorter and shorter naps while others will drop down to napping a few times per week. Parents need to follow the child’s lead. This is not to say that once your child announces they no longer want to nap it is time to end napping. Let your child’s behavior be your guide. If s/he is no longer able to fall asleep at an appropriate bedtime at night, then you should begin considering altering the nap schedule. You can either try to wake your child earlier from his/her nap or drop napping to every other day. Watch your child’s behavior for signs of overtiredness. Arrange a nap schedule that minimizes your child feeling overtired.

When it comes to creating healthy sleep habits the most useful guideline is your child’s behavior. Continually monitor your child for signs of being overtired. For a checklist on overtired behavior visit http://www.child-works.com. Children’s sleep needs vary and change as they grow. Starting at four months of age it is critical to have children nap in a crib or bed. Motion sleeping (like in a stroller, car seat, swing or arms) will not allow the child to cycle through deeper phases of sleep and the nap proves to be less beneficial in its restorative quality. Also, many parents tend to underestimate how much sleep their child requires to be able to function well. Learning your child’s signals will steer you in the right direction for providing a healthy sleep schedule.

If you are interested in a phone class on this subject, please visit http://www.child-works.com/

Rachel Steinberg is a sleep consultant and co-founder of Child-Works. Child-Works provides parents research-based consulation in the areas of sleep, behavior and education. Child-Works has created a sleep plan package that helps parents create healthy sleep habits for their child(ren).

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Rachel_Steinberg

Handyman Business Tips

Starting any business is easy but to sustain that business and get repeat orders from your client is what determines the success of your business. The same applies to starting a handyman business. You should do simple research on the potential of this handyman business before you put your hard-earned money here. Statistics reveal that around 100 million households are there in the country and about 70% of them are more than 15 years old. So you should judge by this factor that there is tremendous potential for the maintenance, upgrading, remodeling and renovation business. The owners of residential building often seek the assistance of the handyman for the benefit of their tenants.

Some of the basics for your own handyman business is a home office. You need to employ people who will do the work for you. You should have them on your payroll. Selecting such competitive people to work for you is a tedious task, but you have to do that to sustain. And you need to invest some money to start. And the most important of all is that you should have the right contacts to spread the word about your business. It is better if you have some contacts/clients already. Marketing your business is important to get clients. If all these tasks are tough for you to do then there is an easy way to start the same business. A franchise agreement with some reputed Handyman Business firm is not a bad way to get started.

Going for a franchise with a reputed firm would help you to launch your business and get started immediately. There are several advantages of going for a franchise. You get all the clients that the company has from day one. You save a lot of time in getting your clients. The staff of the company helps you to set up your business and even recruits good people. All you have to do is set the schedule for the work you get. When you go for a franchise, you may have to pay a royalty for the company you are approaching and there are stringent rules and regulations that you have to meet to open your own franchise. Check out the companies that offer such franchises to get started.

Handyman provides detailed information on Handyman, Handyman Services, Starting A Handyman Business, Handyman Tips and more. Handyman is affiliated with Home Remodeling.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ken_Marlborough

How to Make Gel Candles - 11 Easy Steps

Do you love burning beautiful, scented candles? And do you know that you can easily make them yourself? It is exciting and not at all difficult. Here are 12 easy steps to creating unique candles that you can burn at home, give as gifts, or even sell.

Materials for gel candle making

You will need:

* gel
* zinc wicks (cotton wicks can’t be used for gel candles because they absorb too much gel)
* essential oil for fragrance
* liquid color dye
* embeds (optional)

All these materials can be obtained online from candle making suppliers. It is important to use essential oils and colors specially made for gel candles; fragrance oils you can buy in a cosmetic shop are not suitable. Also, you can buy a gel candle making kit. Getting a kit is the best solution for a beginner, because it will include everything you need to make your first few candles.

And of course you will need a container. The best container for a gel candle is glass, so people can see the embeds you put inside the candle, but any non-flammable container would do. You can use any glass, wine glass, or even a small wide vase, but your container should be at least 2 inches in diameter. Garage sales and second hand stores are gold mines, when it comes to candle containers.

For embeds you can use anything non-flammable - colored aquarium gravel, marbles, glitter, sand, sea shells, pebbles, crystals, polished stones, artificial jewels or pearls.

Steps to making a gel candle

1. Place a little bit of hot glue in the center of the container bottom. Stick the wick in it and let the glue set.

2. Cut the gel into small pieces so it melts faster and more evenly. Melt it in a stainless steel pot over a medium heat.

3. The trickiest part is the temperature - you should get it to exactly 200°F, because overheated gel looses its clarity. For that, you will need a suitable thermometer.

4. Maintain the temperature at 200°; all the gel should melt and become smooth, like syrup.

5. Add color dye to the melted gel, a little bit at a time, until you get the desired color - remember, you can always add more dye to make the color stronger, but you can’t take dye away. For a candle with embedded objects, you should use only a little color, so the objects remain visible

6. Add the fragrance - 1/3 teaspoon for each glass of melted gel will give it a nice scent. For a stronger scent, add a bit more fragrance.

7. Heat the container in the oven or microwave to about 150-160°F. This will help to reduce the appearance of bubbles

8. If you want to use embeds, dip them in hot gel first and then arrange them in the container as you like. It is better to keep the objects closer to the sides of the container - they will be easier to see, this way.

9. Now it is time to pour your gel into the container. Place your container on a level surface and pour the gel slowly and carefully down the side. If it is your first time, you will probably get a few bubbles; to avoid that, the gel should be still very hot.

10. Pull the wick up. Roll it on a pencil to keep it straight.

11. Let the candle cool. Trim the wick and you are done! You have a beautiful, unique gel candle, made by yourself.

Tanya Turner is a candle-making expert and a founder of http://www.BestScentedCandles.info, where you can find information about all types of candles, how to make them and where to get best scented candles

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tanya_Turner