Guest blog by Erin Hanehan, Certified Kids Yoga Instructor and Drama Teaching Artist here in Durham, NC. Erin shares about her experience starting solids with her first child, along with some very helpful resources.

To honor the mothers we love so dearly, we’re curating musings on motherhood from some of our favorite small business in the Triangle (Raleigh, Durham, & Chapel Hill, North Carolina and the surrounding areas). We’ll be posting a new perspective each day this week and hope you’ll find inspiration within. Thank you to all of the moms out there doing the hard work with grace and might!

When schedules are regular and fairly consistent, they can hum along nicely without anyone having to lose sleep (literally) over timing. But establishing a schedule is a painful process for some parents. You can’t just put a schedule in front of someone and say “Here, follow this!”

So, that got me thinking. I talk about this all the time with my clients — but what about the folks who download our free schedules and e-books online? Or read our social media posts? When I say, be regular with the schedule, not rigid, do that even make sense?

Screen-time is an easy fix when you’re exhausted at the end of the day and your kid is hungry, tired, and whiny. But the unfortunate truth is that evening screen exposure negatively impacts sleep. In this article, we offer 10 pro tips on how to keep your kiddos engaged, with little to no help from you, while you prepare dinner and unwind from the day.

Toddler sleep regressions have a way of dropping out of the clear blue sky. If you’ve experienced one, you know exactly what I mean, and also how maddening they are. One night your toddler is sleeping soundly, and the next night it’s like there’s a literal monster under the bed. Just when you’d gotten used to getting a full night’s sleep -- here we go again with the night wakings, in spades, toddler style.

Spring forward is socially enforced jet lag. The clock time changes but our internal clock (circadian rhythm) does not, just like what happens with Eastward time zone travel. And this makes us feel crummy for a few days as our internal clock reprograms itself. Fortunately, with a little planning ahead, you can cruise through the time change with your littles (and you!) feeling just fine. Keep on reading for simple steps to cruise through the time change, well-rested.

White noise muffles the sound of your cat scratching underneath the door at 4:00AM or your labradoodle barking at the nice UPS driver. It can downsize the impact of a big sibling’s tantrum (How dare you turn off Paw Patrol?). And if you have the audacity to put away dishes during nap time, it’s got your back. Life is loud and white noise makes the sleep space a little less sonically chaotic amidst all the noise.

I took the Stellar Sleep course when my son was a newborn, and one of the most impactful takeaways for me was learning about how calm parents = calm babies. I think about it all the time - even now. If my own feelings and emotions are regulated, it is easier for my son to find regulation as well.

But real talk, it is very hard. And it can feel like a lot of pressure.

Let me begin by saying I am not a medical doctor…of any kind. I’m not even that seasoned of a parent. I am just a mom, standing in front of you, telling you that having a sick kid is H A R D! My son is 18 months old now. He got Hand, Foot & Mouth Disease about two weeks after starting daycare - a consequence of the oral nature of early childhood learning & how contagious most childhood illnesses are, not the rigorous safety standards at his school. Although I knew that children who attended school of any kind got sick (who hasn’t heard of the dreaded daycare germs?) I was completely shocked when my son spiked a fever.

I call BS on everyone who says there is one “right” way to approach baby sleep in your home. Cry it out, care it out, wait it out, or something in between might be the best path forward for you, depending on your unique family’s needs. But there’s a fundamental piece of the successful sleep puzzle that all of the sleep training methods (which are otherwise quite effective) leave out: YOU. You are the parent. You are the teacher. You are 50% of the baby + parent equation and your feelings matter.

Thinking about teaching your baby to sleep on their own? Or maybe you’ve been researching sleep training online and came across dizzying amounts of conflicting advice? Or maybe you stumbled into one of the vicious debates about sleep training, and want to know what the fuss is all about? Let us help you drill down into what sleep training is and isn’t, and how the Little Dipper approach is different from the masses.

Sleep patterns begin to mature around 3 to 4 months, and this change is permanent. Babies start sleeping in stages and cycles, just like adults. They’ll have a brief period of wakening after each sleep cycle, which is a hard-wired protective behavior designed to keep us humans safe.

So, where they may have slept soundly all night before (if you’ve been one of the lucky ones who probably isn’t reading this blog), or at least for 4 or 5 hour chunks, they now will begin cycling in and out of sleep, every hour or so, ALL NIGHT LONG. And here’s the big kicker: if they don’t know how to get back to sleep on their own, then each time they move from one sleep cycle to the next, they are going to need your help. This is the special nature of the 4 month sleep regression beast. Keep on reading for tips on how to manage this regression and sleep better!

It’s taken me a lot of years to realize that I can’t parent within a bubble. I can’t control all of the variables. Not storms. Not power outages. Not school closures. Not sick babies. Circumstances arise that throw our plans and our paths off course. Bedtimes get disrupted, tantrums mess up lovely outtings, babies skip naps, and kiddos puke right before you’re supposed to leave for vacation. Life is messy and unpredictable. Parenting is hard AF. But if we can let go of our rigid scheming, and relentless planning, it gives us the freedom to enjoy the snow day or the candlelit bedtime with our children.

Happy winter solstice, dear parents. Today, the earth’s axial tilt is the farthest from the sun that it will be all year for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere. In other words, it’s the shortest day of the year. Or what may be more pertinent to parents -- the longest night.

Short naps, aka crap naps, can be one of the most frustrating sleep woes in the early years. If you're a stay at home or work from home parent, it can leave you feeling unnerved and out of control of your day to day activities. If you're working outside of the home, crap naps lead to bedtime confusion (when should this kid go to sleep if his nap was 28 minutes?) and uncertainty about how to approach weekends and days off. No matter what, it's so tough to know what to do when naps are unpredictable and short. Or predictably short. Or predictably unpredictable! Understanding why naps are sometimes short, or chronically short, and what the heck to do about it, can make all the difference in the world.

Traveling with kids around the holidays isn't for the faint of heart. We don't go on "vacations" with our kids, we relocate to Grandma's for a week (or maybe the beach). If you’re like me, you definitely don’t want to miss all of the fun. But if you also don’t want to end up with the tantruming turkey at your holiday gathering, you’ll want to check out these 6 Pro Tips for holiday survival.

Have you ever been out at dusk or after dark with your child, and gazed up at the twinkling stars together? One star and planet coming to light at a time, until the sky is illuminated in a wondrous display of celestial magic? I remember this feeling as a young child, cozied up and star-gazing with the people I loved most. Time stood still and nothing in the world mattered other than being in that moment of sweetness.

Transitions can be really hard for kids of any age, and the back to school transition is one of the toughest. Here's the conundrum: bedtimes get later as the summer progresses (following the natural rhythm of the sun), often reaching their latest just in time for early school bells. Without advanced preparation, this can lead to some major overtiredness and sleep debt in that first week or two of school. Your kids will lose an hour or two of sleep until they adapt to their new routine and start falling asleep earlier.

Being overtired is not great for quality rest and sleep debt is not good for learning, executive functioning, or your child's mood — and definitely not the best way to start the school year.

Follow these sleep tips to get your little one, and yourself, and your biological clocks ready for #backtoschool.

When we offer our full presence and give our children our mindful attention, their security buckets and sense of worthiness flourish. In this article, we share four fun and easy baby mindfulness activities to promote balance and connection. You can try them with your toddlers and bigger kids too. Remember: when security buckets are full, sleep is easier!