A Typical Night in the Daley Household: 8:38 PM: Younger Daleys are finally asleep after water, reading, and multiple questions about the schedule for the next day, weather, religion, choices for career….. 8:40 PM: Streaming comedy show with oldest Daley child 9:06 PM: Oldest Daley child is in room reading, husband tries to remember which...
Are Naps Good For You? In this episode of Psych in 60, our sleep expert Dr. Kristin Daley answers a very popular sleep question. Are naps a good idea? Leave YOUR psychology questions in the comments below!
Help Your Child Sleep Better As we head back into a school year, sleep starts to get more attention. Gone are the lazy mornings where sleep schedule is less relevant and back is the intense race to have everyone ready. Here are some simple ways to help sleep go well this year: 1. Get Them...
A friend recently contacted me for some guidance in encouraging her relative to wear continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) to treat his sleep apnea. Having worked in the sleep world for 20 years now, I am very familiar with this struggle. In a 2008 study, Wolklove et al found that 31% of study participants never...
Check out the first part of this series: Your Bed or Mine? The Struggle of Sleeping With a Partner Some couples are destined for failure in the bedroom… No, not THAT kind of failure, but failure to sleep well in a common space. There are gender differences in sleep need (women typically need slightly more...
Check out the second part of this series: Your Bed or Mine? The Struggle of Sleeping Apart People who struggle with insomnia face many challenges, and one of the biggest can be adapting their sleep issues when they sleep with a bed partner. A 2017 German study evaluated whether or not sleeping location affected sleep...
Summertime has arrived and with it comes a shift in schedules, activities, and priorities. Kids are out of school. Families take vacations. Schedules are no longer centered around school, tutors, or carpool. Now cookouts, vacations, and camps control the itinerary. Don’t Turn Relaxation into Unhealthy Living Summer is an opportunity to relax and take a...
ADOLESCENCE As mentioned in the last blog entry, we are charging right into adolescence. I like to view the middle school years as almost a “sweet spot” where sleep is concerned- many of our elements of behavioral insomnia and parasomnias are outgrown, and many of the psychological factors affecting adolescent sleep have only started to...
As children enter the school years, we start to see a reduction in some of the behavioral sleep disorders. For many children, there are great surges in the ability to regulate emotions and self soothe. Sleep in this age group becomes more distinct and the pattern of sleep is much more reflective of adult sleep-...
When I think about sleep in preschoolers, there are several important topics that come to mind: increased independence, bedtime fears, parasomnias, and elimination of naps. The preschool years encompass ages 3-5, and this represents a time of increased cognitive complexity in children. They start to develop theories about how things happen in the world and...