Do you feel tired? Many adults enough sleep in quantity, but not in quality — it’s quite possible that your sleep isn’t as restorative as it should be. Or maybe you’re not getting enough sleep either. Either way, these 10 tips will improve your sleep.

Little Dippers Helps You Make Sleep a Priority

Ensuring you and your children get to sleep during the hectic holiday season can be challenging, especially when you mix in extended families, parties, and general excitement. Our trained family sleep consultants have created The Stellar School with programs designed and researched to help children and families get the sleep they need.

Parents need honest and realistic conversations about melatonin. It’s everywhere these days, promoted as a cure for insomnia in adults and kids alike. But it isn’t a wonder-drug, it can’t teach a child to feel safe and secure in their beds, and it comes with risks. As parents, we need to know the whole story when making health decisions for our children.

Guest blog by Erin Hanehan, Certified Kids Yoga Instructor and Drama Teaching Artist here in Durham, NC. Erin shares about her bedtime storytime and the practice of mindfulness.

So, what causes jet lag and why does it make some of us feel so crummy? In a nutshell, the circadian rhythm (the internal process that regulates the sleep–wake cycle and repeats roughly every 24 hours) gets out of whack when you cross time zones quicker than your bodies can adapt. Your internal clock is out of synch with the cues of the new time zone. And since the circadian rhythm controls many other functions in the body, such as hormonal secretion, hunger, alertness, and urine excretion, sleep isn’t the only thing that suffers—you may generally feel rotten for a few days until you adjust to the new time zone. This is jet lag.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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!

Mantra is a powerful tool available for free to everyone, everywhere, to improve sleep and in many cases, cure insomnia. Learn everything busy, tired parents need to know about using a mantra to fall asleep faster from a mindfulness coach. And did you know that mantra can improve your child’s and even baby’s sleep too?

Essential sleep hygiene tips: everything busy, tired parents need to know about sleep hygiene from a pediatric & family sleep coach

It’s well established that fresh air and exercise are important for overall well-being. But did you know they’re also a crucial part of ensuring a good night’s sleep? The whole family, even babies, will benefit from well timed outings and fresh air.