The advice in this podcast is generally nature and does not constitute medical advice.
Always consult your doctor if you are concerned about your child's health.
We recommend always following the safe sleep guidelines.
In the spirit of reconciliation, Dr. Fallon and Dr. Law acknowledge the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia and the continuation of cultural, spiritual and educational practices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
They pay respect to their elders past and present and recognise that sovereignty was never defeated.
It's a big concern for so many new parents, the dreaded four -month sleep regression.
The science behind sleep regressions is actually non -existent.
So mostly we tend to disregard them.
But the reality is sleep often does become a big challenge at four months of age for so many parents and their babies.
Today we're going to unpick why that is and also talk strategy.
Welcome back to Brand New Little People, the podcast companion to the Sombell Pediatric Sleep Clinic programs created by us.
I'm Dr. Fallon Cook and I'm here with Dr. Laura Conway and we're the directors of Infant Sleep Australia.
Laura, let's dive in.
Let's start with what is a sleep regression and are they backed by any science?
Okay, so this is one of those, that kind of terminology, that's seeped into the kind of public discourse around sleep and what the idea is, is that there are particular times across the first year or two of a child's life when their sleep worsens, so regression going backwards.
So yeah, there's a lot of emphasis on these particular time points where sleep is said to go backwards, so locked to these ages and developmental milestones, which then leads a lot of parents to live in dread of these particular points in time, where their child is going to lose skills that they previously had, or learnings that they previously had.
But I think you and I can quite categorically agree on the fact that, Fallon, there isn't any scientific evidence to show that sleep worsens at these particular points in time, is there?
Do you want to talk a little bit about what the science shows us?
Yeah, for sure. So if you go into any of the big sort of databases that are sort of like the repositories of all the scientific evidence that we have, and you search for sleep regressions, you'll come up with nothing, absolutely nothing.
So a sleep regression isn't kind of a scientifically defined phenomenon.
But the idea has been around for a really long time, I think it was about the 1940s, some researchers started to kind of talk about this idea.
But we just don't see the evidence for them emerging.
And it would be really obvious if there are certain ages where all babies have a worsening in sleep, that something would find really easy to spot in the data.
Like you'd look at a graph of the sleep of babies and you'd see this sort of blip when these apparent regressions happen.
and one of my most favourite baby sleep researchers Jodie Mindel.
She's an absolute legend and we got to meet her once didn't we Laura?
And we did starstruck.
But she's amazing. So she's done some of the most phenomenal research looking at so many different aspects of infant sleep.
And she actually carried out an informal analysis and I'd love for her to actually publish this paper.
I'm sure she's got plenty on her plate.
But she did have a look through like her reams and reams of data gathered from babies and thought well, okay, if there are regressions, I should be able to spot this pretty easily.
And of course, she couldn't, there was just no evidence that these regressions exist. And I think what's really important to know is that when we talk about data from babies, we're not talking about bringing babies into a lab, or putting them in a sleep, sleep study type setting.
This is just parents tracking their baby's sleep at home, which is, I think, the more reliable data to look at, the majority of our sleep science data actually comes from sleep in the usual context of being at home.
So when parents are tracking their baby's sleep over time, if there are trends in there or certain ages where things tend to happen, it would make it pretty easy to spot.
But yeah, we just don't see it, do we?
No, we don't, but if we were to ask parents to note down when their babies took their first step, for example, and we were to get a thousand families across the country to log that, we would see that's virtually nothing before, let's say nine months and then there may be, we start to see one or two really early walkers emerging.
And then we would see that across that, you know, more around the 12 months, we'd start to see a lot of parents ticking that, yes, this is where my baby took their first step.
And then there'd be some that take their first step a little bit later.
And that is really easy to see in the data.
And we trust that. We trust what parents are telling us about when the baby took their first step.
And if we look at, if we are asking parents about their child's sleep and asking them to log it across that first year or two of life, again, if there were these times that parents are observing sleep getting poorer, then parents, there would be this window each time, oh yes, this thing happens always at this age, this thing happens always at this age.
We would see it. So when sleep gets worse, parents are the ones feeling it often, and we would be able to see it in the same way we would see when they report their baby took their first step or something else developmental that happens.
Yeah, absolutely. So I think that's really the first thing that I want parents to know is don't dread any of these apparent regressions.
There seems to be a regression for every age and stage at this point.
Largely, I would say parents don't need to be fearing these times.
It can create a lot of anxiety for absolutely no reason because what we do see in the data is that babies have ups and downs in their sleep but that it is scattered.
It's not time locked.
It just happens at various different times and it could be for a whole bunch of different reasons.
um so you know just um i think take each day as it comes and don't be panicking about something in the future that might not even happen um but having said that so having said that the one if i was going to give any weight to any of these particular regressions um it might be the one they talk about at four months of age because we definitely do see a lot of parents reporting that sleep becomes trickier, harder to manage, maybe their babies are harder to set or night waking increases at around that four month mark.
Laura, do you want to talk us through why sleep can become trickier at that particular age?
Yeah, well, once a baby is four months and older, their what we call their sleep architecture changes, they, they're moving beyond the very little baby stage of sleep to having more adult like architecture.
So their circadian rhythm system matures.
They're producing their own melatonin.
They also begin to be a little bit more awake and aware of what's going on around them than when they were really small.
They can start to have a more idea of cause and effect.
There's little babies.
And, you know, all those cute videos of babies giggling and laughing.
And realizing that if mom does something and they laugh and, or if they do something, mom laughs and then they do it again and the mom laughs again.
And it's beautiful.
We all love this. It's so sweet to watch. My favorite type of content to consume on TikTok is babies laughing.
Yeah, likewise. right.
And so there are all these developmental changes.
So not in just in the sleep space, or there's the, not the actual sleep space, but you know, what's happening with their sleep, and what their sleep looks like if we were to look at their brain waves, but also just cognitively where they're at.
And so it just is like a perfect storm, if you like, of changes that can result in baby beginning to be more aware of what's happening at sleep time, beginning to develop some preferences for things they like to happen at sleep time.
Whereas previously didn't really matter a great deal.
And it's from this point, therefore, that habits and preferences develop and we can start to see an effect on their sleep.
What else would you add, that happens around this time?
Well, I think this is a real key age where, you know, they start to do, all humans start to do this kind of systems check.
So, you know, we go through a sleep cycle, we start to come up into the lighter stages of sleep.
And it's just in human nature, that we do, you know, often we don't even remember it, but our brains do a little bit of a check.
Am I too hot or too cold?
Am I hungry? Am I uncomfortable?
Is there danger around me?
has anything being changed.
So even little babies four months old will start to do this check.
And if anything kind of sets off the system, the brain's like, oh, hang on, something has changed or something's not quite right.
They will fully wake up.
And they need that, whatever it is, they'll need it to be addressed.
So this is why a lot of parents will say, oh, they slept so well, those first few months.
I could settle them any old way I wanted to.
And they would have some pretty good stretches of sleep overnight that we're pretty happy with.
And then come four months, or sometimes it's closer to five months.
Suddenly they were just springing awake, like after almost every sleep cycle.
And we hear that all the time.
And often that is because, you know, for so many babies, they might be, let's just take the example of being held and rocked to sleep, which is pretty common for little babies.
Pretty normal thing to do.
If a baby has only experience being held or rocked to sleep.
Before four months of age you could hold them and rock them to sleep.
pop them down in their cot or other sleep space when they're asleep and they'll still just sleep okay because they're not really doing that systems check.
Once they hit the point of starting to do that systems check you know they're settled in your arms you put them down in the cot and then after a sleep cycle they do the systems check and go hang on a minute my sleep environment has changed.
I don't like it. They spring awake, outraged.
Where did you go? Get over here now.
I need to be held back to sleep again.
So often there is quite a bit of crying.
And then parents rush over, hold them back to sleep, but then they find they're doing that it might be five times per night, it might be twelve times per night.
It can be very, very exhausting.
And humans do this because we are protecting ourselves.
You know, if we think about the evolution of humans, once upon a time, we did live you know in more wild kind of ways.
We had predators and things that we had to be really cautious of that we don't so much these days.
And I often use the sort of tiger in the cave analogy, humans who would wake up when something changed in their sleep environment, like a tiger prowling around the cave, were the ones who survived.
So now we are these rather anxious sleepers where we constantly want to check that things are still the same, much like as an adult, if you fall asleep with a pillow under your head, you wake up at 2am and the pillow is not there, you don't just go back to sleep, you tend to kind of get a bit of a start, you wake up, you replace your pillow and then you go back to sleep.
So that's what's really happening for babies at around about that four month mark.
They're starting to get very sensitive to waking up somewhere unexpected though they'll tend to want to, they'll well, I'm usually held to sleep, therefore I only want to be held to sleep.
And that's important to know, I think, because what we tend to hear reported from families is that if they mostly settle their baby in their cot and sometimes hold them to sleep, often that baby's preference just becomes falling asleep in their cot.
So there isn't really that problem with an increase in night waking because they fall asleep in their cot, they wake up there, no alarms are kind of going off from that.
and I think that sometimes also some babies are more sensitive than others and so I think a lot of the pushback that we see online in particular around the idea of sleep associations and sleep preferences comes from people who have had babies where they're not particularly sensitive.
So they will go to sleep in their mom's or dad's arms will be bounced on a fit ball or fed to sleep or whatever it is.
A lot of support to fall asleep and they pop down in their bassinet or cot or even co sleeping, if that's the choice that the family is making, and then their baby does great big long stretches.
Then those parents will say, oh, there's no such thing.
What are you talking about?
Because those babies, they are still doing that systems check, but they're just a little bit more, I don't know, resilient, perhaps.
I can't think of what the word would be.
Maybe they're just good enough.
Yeah. Close enough to my usual.
Yeah. They'd be so bothered by it, whereas some are really sensitive.
I think it's the parents of the babies that are really chill that just like aren't so fussed about how they fell asleep.
They might be the parents that are writing these like inspirational quotes online, like, cherish every moment.
One day they'll grow up and they won't need you anymore.
It's like, Yeah, but you've, you've had one or two night wakes.
Like, no, yeah, that's no biggie.
What about the ones who have 12 night wakes?
Like, they'd rather cherish those precious moments in the daytime.
Yeah, 12 times per night, a little bit much. for those girls.
Absolutely. Yeah, so if you have a baby that goes to sleep in one way, and then you pop them down in their cot and they only wake up maybe once or twice overnight and it's not bothering you, then that's fine.
But just be aware that there are many, many, many families that are not having that experience and their babies are falling asleep in one place and then are waking up, annoyed, upset, startled to find that they are somewhere else and then they need that same thing to happen to ensure that they can go back to sleep.
And that can happen from around four months, which is why people talk about that four month regression.
Well, let's dive into what parents can do about this because I think every parent wants some practical strategies and I think raise a really good point, Laura, in that, you know, it's a really personal choice.
A lot of families will just go, well, look, sleep's been going fine.
It may or may not worsen at four months, don't really care, just got to see how things pan out, make a call, at that point, and that's completely valid and fine.
If you get to that four -month mark and you're like, oh, no, okay, we're getting lots of night waking and I'm giving them a lot of support to fall asleep and maybe that's part of the reason why they're waking a lot, well, then you can make the choice to change that.
You can decide then to work on cot settling if that's what you want to do.
And I think Noah as well, that often babies at about four months of age adapt really, usually touch wood, pretty well to cot settling, like with some consistency they tend to just take the lead on their parents, like, oh, you know, my parent seems pretty chill about me being in the cot, I'm getting lots of support, actually this place is okay.
So often after a couple of settles that require a little bit of hands on work, then they make that adjustment and they're often away.
But I think as well, a lot of parents will aim for prevention, which is also perfectly valid.
For some parents who are there could be any number of reasons they might just know they don't cope well with interrupted sleep.
They just want to be on the front foot with sleep from the get go.
Or they could have multiples or older kids or physical health concern, or any number of reasons why you might be particularly wanting to protect sleep and keep things as settled as possible.
And that's a really valid choice as well.
So for those parents, they might even, certainly this is the case for a lot of multiples, they might settle them in the cot from day one.
So you're still having lots of cuddles and interaction with your babies.
But that's when they're awake.
And when it's time for sleep, you're consistently settling them in the cot, because that's where you always want them to sleep.
And that's perfectly valid as well.
Would you add anything to that, Laura, about what parents can do?
Yeah. I think that parents who are members of Sombel can look at the various cot -settling approaches and pick one that feels right for them and just know that all of the approaches you're staying with your babies, they're varying the amount of patting and shushing or humming or whatever support it is that you're giving to them as you introduce that cot settling.
And when they're small, if you are aiming for prevention, so maybe they're three months old and just thinking about giving them the experience of being in their cot or bassinet, sometimes when they are awake.
So it's always about the experience and so picking a few times a day where you might be working on cot settling and in that time, your baby is learning actually, this is fine.
I'm right. Mom's still here with me dad's still here with me.
And it's then just building up the experience for them and for you.
So that when they hit that four month developmental stage, where perhaps they are beginning to develop some preferences for settling that are just not sustainable for you and your family, then you can continue to build on the strategies that you have already kind of tried or run?
Yeah. I really, I love that thinking of you just building upon something that they've had some practice with.
And I know a lot of people will say, when it comes to cots settling, it just comes down to practice.
And all practice is good practice.
It's just opportunities for your baby to see that the cot's a really lovely place to be and it is a note I would say too that there will be some parents listening who just think...
no way can I put my baby in the cot.
There's just no way.
That's okay. I think we all have moments as new parents where the thought of putting your baby down can feel horrible.
You just think, no, I just want to keep holding them.
If that's where you're at today, that's fine as well.
You've got to choose your timing.
You shouldn't feel pressure from anyone to go, oh my gosh, I've got to start working on cots settling all of a sudden, like, it really is your choice.
And if it feels too hard, it probably is, just wait until you're feeling ready.
Because we do see a lot of people online saying, oh, there's all this pressure on parents, there's all this pressure.
And I agree with that.
And I think the best thing that you and I can do, Laura, is give parents the information.
And then you absolutely should run with what feels right for you and your family.
100 % every time. I would always say that.
Yeah, definitely. I would just, of course, as ever, or the only thing I would add is make sure that you are not in a dangerous situation with your baby and that you are following safe sleep guidance from red nose, avoiding holding your baby to sleep on a recliner and falling asleep yourself or sleeping on a sofa.
So all of those things are dangerous.
And so, yeah, just make sure that you are ensuring your child's safety all of the time.
Yeah. Once they're asleep, put them in a safe space.
And if they spring awake, as soon as you try and put them down, often that is the prompt where parents go, okay, now I know we're gonna have to work on cot settling because we can't do these transfers anymore.
Oh, I was just going to say I'm curious to know, did you take a bit of a prevention approach with your kids?
Or did you kind of wait and see what happened?
I, for my first, just went into it with no idea about the sleep, because it wasn't the area I was working on at the time.
So no, certainly did not take a prevention approach, because I didn't realize where things could lead.
For my second, because he had reflux and some other health issues.
We attended a mother baby unit for quite a few weeks.
And that was really helpful.
When he was quite young, but it did make the whole sleep and settling side of things really tricky because we were managing some medical concerns as well.
But it was really great to have the support of nurses at the mother -baby unit where I, where I was.
And we actually went in on a couple of occasions in that first year.
And so there was a little bit of prevention and then there was a little bit of unpicking when he was a bit older.
How about you, Fallon?
I think I went into it because I had been working in sleep before I had my first. So I did go into it with a bit of a prevention lens, I guess.
So for mine, it's not that I did every single settle from day one in the cot, but I was always thinking like, when I can, when it feels doable, when I think, oh, they're just, you know, that perfect amount of sleepiness, I'll pop them down.
That's what I tended to do was just to make sure that it wasn't an unfamiliar place for them.
And that's all I really did and they did pretty well with that.
We didn't kind of end up having to take some sort of targeted action, you know, because they couldn't fall asleep in their cots.
They just sort of knew how to do it.
But like, don't kill me.
They had they had the temperament for it as well.
And that's a really big, there'd be parents going, oh, for goodness sake, my kids would never and I know I know that there are kids who would never, you know, who you try and practice cot settling.
And it's just hard even when they're really little.
Yeah. Yeah, I would have hated hearing your story when I was in the trenches.
Yeah, we didn't know each other at that time.
I wish I had known you at that time, but we're going like quite a few years now.
Yeah, yeah. I wish we'd known each other when our kids were really little.
But yeah, look, I just think...
I think just having that in mind, that you can practice a bit of cots settling when you feel ready, can be a helpful thing.
Yeah. So, what about the other regressions?
Would we say that parents you know, there are any other time points where we're like, oh, we've got to look out for this one?
No, absolutely not.
Really do not be thinking that there are particular ages that you should be worried about, it might not happen.
And you spend the whole of the seventh month dreading the eighth month, and then then the eight month regression doesn't happen.
Yeah, it can just lead to anxiety.
And like we know that anxiety is the enemy of sleep.
And we're thinking about parents sleep as well.
So if you are just thinking, when is the what's that expression?
When's the shoe going to drop?
Like you're just waiting for something to happen, it can really just start to color your parenting experience and your own sleep.
And so just try as much as you can to forget about these age locked that your child's sleep is going to go a bit wobbly.
Know that it will go wobbly at some point, but just like everything does.
And if you follow our Sombel principles around understanding your child's unique sleep needs, understanding when sleep changes across that first year or the first few years of life, it's really going to put you on the front foot to use an expression you used earlier, Thallon.
Yes. So true. And we get so many summer members saying, oh, I really love the program because when we hit a hurdle, we just went straight back to the program.
Went, oh, yeah, that's the problem.
Read through the relevant bit of info to do with that problem and then got things back on track.
And that's what I love about the program is that, you know, it's about educating parents.
So you've got all these skills you can refer back to it.
And I think, too, once you know how to kind of modulate sleep pressure and be thinking about unique sleep needs with a few, you know, different settling strategies that you sleeve, you're set.
So yeah, yeah, awesome.
Alright, well, let's move on to parent questions now because we've got quite a few to get through.
So we're going to we're going to have our skates on.
We're going to try and power through aren't we, Laura?
We are. Shall I kick off?
Yeah, go for it. Okay, so we've got Elizabeth, who has an eight month old baby girl who keeps waking up early for the day, and she's praying that she doesn't have an early bird on her hands.
So she says that since daylight savings ended in April, their baby's been waking for the day between 4 .30 and 5 .30 in the morning.
Her sleep need is about 13 hours.
She goes to bed at 6 .30 in the evening and although Elizabeth has attempted to push bedtime later, they haven't able to successfully make that change because they find that their little girl doesn't cope very well.
She usually has two or three naps totalling between two and a half and three hours.
But recently, more often, it's just been the two naps a day.
But Elizabeth is worried that that results in a long wake time before bedtime.
So she wonders if we have any tips to stop those early risings.
Yeah, I think a big shift in the circadian rhythm is kind of needed here.
So with two and a half to three hours day sleep, your baby's probably looking for about 10 hours overnight.
So if they fall asleep at 6 .30 p .m. then yeah, it makes sense they might be waking up around 4 .30 or 5 .00 a .m..
So the maths works!
But Elizabeth, don't feel like you can't change this.
It will be hard and I don't want you to be worried about overtiredness.
Think of it like jetlag, if you'd just flown in from another time zone you would push quite hard to get your baby back into the usual kind of day night rhythm.
They'd be very cranky about it as well, you'd see a lot of crankiness but you'd be like, well too bad we can't be awake all night and up all day cause we're not in England anymore or wherever you've flown in from.
It won't hurt to push it along.
So you could either start to push the naps later in the day and bedtime later and wake time later you can gradually push it along 15 minutes every few days or so, but I would be tempted to help that along.
I would stick to two naps because she's eight months old so she definitely can manage two naps and if it's going to be three hours of day sleep then have a think around your bedtime and wake -up time.
So is 7 30 p .m to 5 30 a .m going to suit you or does it need be 8 .30 pm to 6 .30 am.
Yes, I have a bit of a think about that and don't be afraid to just push on with those changes because yeah, I don't like the sound of those Helly wakeups either.
I wouldn't put up with that.
No, it sounds very taxing.
Yeah. Would you add anything to that Laura?
Look, just our usual thing that we have different views on.
The Power Nap option!
The Power Nap finding that she can't get through until bedtime, then potentially a 15 minute little power nap later on in the day to get her through.
But to be honest, the fact that she is starting to just do that two nap transition herself.
She's eight months, not six months.
Yeah, so it's all right.
She'll be okay if she's having two nice long naps a day.
I think what you've said, Fallon.
Perfect. So she'll come good.
Often like yeah, I see a lot of parents who think their baby shouldn't be cranky in the evening before bed, but they're really supposed to be, like it's really normal.
So a lot of parents go, oh, they're really cranky really early.
So we put them to bed.
But actually, they're supposed to be a bit cranky.
And you know, it's really normal and you will certainly notice that in their toddler years as well.
Oh, yeah. That's right.
A bit of crankiness in the evening.
Yeah, very normal. I like the idea of just moving bedtime 15 minutes later every night for a week or so if you wanted to go gradually.
Or alternatively, just rip the Band -Aid off, get some friends around, get granny and grandad over to be on entertainment duty in the evening when she is really grumpy.
And then a nice long shower or bath to support her until bedtime.
Yeah, love that. Good luck, Elizabeth.
Katie wrote in she feels like a six month old daughter is having extra sleep compared to one month ago so over the past month her baby has transitioned from four naps to three and sleeps for an extra hour overnight so she's now doing 7 p .m. to 7 a .m. Wow occasionally she wakes around 5 30 or 6 a .m. and babble happily before falling back asleep on her own.
Katie typically wakes her up at 7 a .m. which is very easy to do.
Katie is wondering if it's okay to let her baby return to sleep after those early wakeups Especially since waking her earlier has led to an extra catnap during the day She adds that she is a very happy catnapper always waking alert and happy Katie I think it sounds like it's working for you and your family at the moment And she's given she's a catnapper.
She's hanging on to more naps for longer than if she was for example like Elizabeth's daughter who has two longer naps.
So sometimes we do find that cat napping's hold on to their naps for longer and she's six months old and has only just transitioned down to three naps.
I suspect what you'll start to see, Katie, is maybe in another few weeks, she's not going to be able to go back to sleep when she wakes up early in the morning.
So, at the moment, she can.
She babbles. She's happy.
You don't need to anything and she does go back to sleep perfect but she will start to probably be unable to go back to sleep in which case I would say at that point you'd move her down to two naps and then there's more likelihood that she's going to be able to um stay asleep until a reasonable hour in the morning again.
That's really good advice yeah just to say that um while whilst most babies have a gradual decline in sleep needs it's most babies but not every baby so some of them will add some extra sleep to their schedule like what Katie's baby has which is why we're always looking at, you know, is our schedule working?
Are they happy? Could they do more?
Yeah, so I think Katie's handled that really, really well.
Yeah, that's right.
We never want to be rigid around the sleep that we're offering our little one.
You know, when you're working on changing something about where or how they sleep that's when we do suggest just looking at the sleep in the last week, then trying to stick with that for a period of time whilst you work on the new cot settling.
But after that, it's absolutely appropriate to add in a little bit of extra sleep and see if they can achieve more.
And sometimes you will have a baby like Katie's baby who does in fact start to sleep more and that's great.
We're always just making sure that we are giving them all of the opportunity to get the sleep that they need It sounds like that's what Katie has done.
So, well done. Perfect.
Okay. So, we have a question from Erica, who has a 21 -month -old who also has had a recent change in her sleep needs.
So, previously Erica's toddler self -settled and slept through the night.
But recently, however, she's been waking up in the night for over an hour and is needing constant reassurance, checking if Erica is still present overnight and she can no longer fall asleep independently at bedtime.
She's getting out of bed she's crying at the door and she really is upset at being left alone at bedtime.
So Erica has tried reducing the nap to one sleep cycle during the day and adjusting bedtime for a couple of days, but there's been no improvement.
And Erica wonders if we think it's a sleep pressure issue, separation anxiety or something else, and what should she do?
Oh, it's a really interesting one.
So definitely, if you've reduced the day nap, give it more than a couple of days.
So try and give it sort of a week to see how much that helps.
Sometimes sleep pressure is a bit higher, and then they're not so worried about where you are when they fall asleep.
But I would say there's probably a sleep association issue for this toddler where you're present when they fall asleep.
They wake up overnight, checked if you're there.
You're not there. They call out, they get upset.
You've got to come back.
And then that's kind of on repeat overnight after every sleep cycle.
They're wanting to see that you're still there.
One of the, what would I be thinking about?
Look, it could be separation anxiety without sort of knowing how that child reacts at other times of the day.
It's hard to say for sure.
What I'd be thinking Erica is maybe just looking at something like the guardian gate approach in Sombel, where you can be present, your child can still see you.
But it just provides a little bit of structure to how you settle them.
So it's going to mean that you're not being too hands on.
You're still giving some reassurance.
It's just a good balance of some reassurance but you're not sort of staying right beside them the whole time they're falling asleep.
Something that could be a really good idea.
And then you can kind of gradually phase out your presence from that point.
I don't think we've quite got time to go into all the different strategies we use in those situations but I think for Erica maybe starting with the Guardian Gate because it sounds like they're not in a cot anymore, that could be a good point to start from.
And if you're hitting big hurdles because sometimes it's really tricky with separation anxiety, book in for a coaching call.
We could always have a look at the diary, have a really talk through the behaviours he's seeing just to work out what the best plan is going forward. What do you think, Laura?
Yeah, I think it's really hard when you have a toddler who previously fell asleep independently and is no longer able to do that and then is kind of hypervigilant overnight and yeah, it can be hard. And so I think what you have suggested is a really good idea, Fallon, just to kind of help revise the independent settling by using an approach that Erica can stay present and triggering any anxious response in the toddler.
Yeah, but I think, Erica, do book in for a coaching call if you find that that approach isn't working and yeah, we can then unpick what's going on there for you.
Yeah, good idea. Megan has a 16 -month -old who has always had low sleep needs.
She says he currently has about 10 and a half hours of sleep per 24 hours.
So that's completely fine.
It is on the lower end, but um, yep.
Some of them just have a low sleep need at that age.
Um, she says he self settles at bedtime, which is around 9 30 PM and wake up is at about 7 AM.
However, he keeps waking for an hour early in the morning before self settling back to sleep.
His nap is capped at an hour.
Megan wants to know what else she can do.
Okay, yeah, that's a tricky one.
So at 16 months old, your baby is likely to continue to need that nap.
And I was talking to a family this week in clinic about that real tightrope that parents are walking when they do have children who are low sleep needs because we have to ensure they have enough daytime sleep to function well, but we don't want them to have so much that it impacts their nighttime sleep.
Now at 16 months, your baby is just having that one hour nap.
Probably wouldn't be looking at reducing it much further at this point.
Perhaps if he was a little bit older, I might be saying we could try for one sleep cycle, Um, but I don't know, I think that that at the moment that balance looks about right an hour for the daytime sleep and then about the nine and a half hours overnight.
I'd be really tempted just to wait wouldn't you, like just wait and see like, if you're self settling after being awake for an hour, sometimes they just have a blip in the radar and after a couple of weeks they're back on track again because they've realised well even if I wake and call out at, you know, 5am or something like that, absolutely nothing interesting happens.
But if he gets a feed and you watch Tali for a bit and then you put him back down, well, he's gonna be like, Ripper, I'm waking up this early every day!
So if he can stay the course, wait, let him put himself back off to sleep, there is a chance that he will start to fill that gap, I guess.
And maybe it's a case of just waiting a couple of weeks to see if that happens before you start to change that daily rhythm.
Because 10 and a half hours, it's not a lot.
And not many really have a sleep need much lower than that.
So no, we wouldn't want to cut too much sleep too soon.
No. The only other thing that occurs to me is that potentially, Megan, his circadian rhythm is wanting to start to kickstart a bit earlier.
So, 9 .30 bedtime to 7 a .m. wake up, it may be that he's starting to have a preference to start the day early.
So, one thing you could look at doing is perhaps moving wake up to 6 .45 and then moving bedtime that night to 9 .15.
And then kind of like what we'd suggested for one of the earlier members' questions where you just see if you can actually just start to shuffle everything back.
So that in the end he's going to bed a little bit earlier and then the wake up is more in line with what his body clock wants to do, you know, perhaps half past six or even 6am might be what he is wanting to do.
So give it a go. I think watch the space, don't do anything for a couple of weeks, and see if it resolves on its own and if it doesn't then think well perhaps actually he's just a little bit of a lark and then just see if you can move bedtime a little bit earlier so that he's just able to do a nice long stretch overnight without having that blip early in the morning.
I think that's really good advice.
Fingers crossed that he has that nice long overnight stretch again.
So Sarah has written in, she has an eight month old who sometimes cries intensely after being placed in his cot and that might be for two minutes or it might be for half an hour.
He has a sleep need of about 12 and a half hours and two naps totaling two and a half hours, sleeps overnight from nine until eight with one wake up.
Sarah says that settling has been a persistent challenge, but he now settles independently after they attended an early parenting center before she joined Sombell.
She says that despite the fact that he can settle independently, the crying can feel discouraging.
She's wondering what might be causing these episodes of crying and whether any adjustments to nap timing or the daily rhythm could help.
Or she's also wondering if perhaps crying is just normal for some babies and if her expectations are a little bit unrealistic.
I love this question.
Look, some crying at bedtime is just normal.
We've talked about that before how some babies whenever there's a transition, they just don't willingly want to really do it.
So some babies will just have a big cry, let out all their energy and go to sleep.
And doesn't matter what we do, just kind of how they are.
But we can still think about what we could do to minimize that crying.
So one thing jumps out at me straight off the bat is that that's a 13 and a hour daily rhythm, unless you want there to be a one -hour overnight wake up which I'm assuming you don't.
I would trim that, I would stick to a 12 and a half hour daily rhythm because that could make a really big difference for how long it takes him to settle and it might mean that there's far less crying because maybe at the moment he's sometimes being put down when sleep drive isn't quite there and he's feeling frustrated and that could be why he's crying so you could certainly adapt that daily rhythm, you know, could just be having an earlier wake up even.
And just seeing after a week does that help to make the settling time a bit quicker?
Because 30 minutes is definitely a long time.
Yeah, it makes me think that sleep drive isn't quite high enough.
And then I'd also be thinking about what you do to settle him.
So the reason I say this is that some early parenting centres, actually a whole bunch of different sleep services, Some of them will suggest approaches where you're gone for a long time and then when you go back to your baby you can do anything you want for a minute or two minutes or five minutes whatever it is.
I reckon that creates a real peak in crying because they sort of don't know what you're going to do when you go back in.
I'd be thinking keep your intervals pretty short if you are wandering out of the room before he falls asleep.
And when you go back in stick to just one thing because then your baby realizes, oh, you know, mom or dad or whoever, um, they're still around, but when they come in, it's a few pats, it's a phrase or whatever it's going to be.
It's just the same thing.
It's brief and then that's it.
So then they sort of start to go, well, that's not very exciting.
You know, I don't get a pickup or a feed or a pat or a, you know, bouncing or whatever else it could be.
Um, keep it really consistent because if you're coming and going reasonably frequently, just the same boring, repetitive thing.
I feel that that is what really helps to reduce crying.
Yes. Coupled of course with high enough sleep pressure that they're able to get to sleep quickly.
You know, Fallon, I'm just looking at the next question and I think that your answer really applies to that question from Caitlin as well.
Shall I just read it out briefly?
Yeah. So Caitlin has a seven and a half month old, who used to settle readily for the naps, occasionally fussing briefly, and then was sleeping for an hour to an hour and a half each nap.
But over the last four days when Caitlin sent this message, the baby's actually been crying hysterically at every nap time, taking 20 to 30 minutes to settle, and then waking up after only one sleep cycle.
But nighttime sleep currently is unaffected.
Caitlin has wondered whether the fact that her 7 1 1 1 2 month old has started standing up in her cot, pulling herself up on furniture might have something to do with it and whether we've got any tips with managing that behavior.
I think what made me think it's similar to perhaps something similar is going on for Caitlin as might be happening for Sarah is that in this instance, the baby's behaviour is changing at nap time and is pulling herself up to stand.
Therefore, that might mean that Caitlin is doing something different each time she's coming in at nap time, because there's a different behaviour that needs to be responded to.
Then the baby's like, oh, okay, something different is happening there.
Perhaps then that is leading to an escalation in the crying behaviour.
Yeah. And it's human nature.
Isn't it? And for babies as well, that if, you know, when you do something like often, I think for the analogy of, you know, if there's a vending machine, I don't know, it's blank.
You don't know what it does, but there's a button on the front.
You push the button.
If something different comes out every time, it's a piece of chocolate, it's a little race car, it's 10 bucks.
You know, you're just going to keep pressing that button.
Like, what is going to happen next?
Like we all would, we all would be like, oh, what's going to happen?
But if each time it's a piece of chocolate, you love chocolate.
You're like, this is awesome.
You're going to press the button a bunch of times, but after maybe 10 times, you're going to be like, yeah, I know what happens.
It's always a piece of chocolate.
I'm only gonna press this button now, if I really want the chocolate.
And that's, yeah. Probably sounds a bit crazy that analogy, but that's kind of how human brains work.
You know, when there is absolute consistency, when we do one thing and we get the same response, it becomes pretty boring.
Um, but if we do something slightly different than yeah, a baby or a toddler will be like, ah, so if I pull myself up to stand, um, you know, especially with these parents and I know you can't help it because I would have done it too, but the parents who see on the monitor that they're staying up and they walk in there and they go, oh look at you, how did you do that?
You clever thing. And these toddlers are just like, wow.
This response is awesome.
I'm so proud of myself.
Let me show you how to do this.
I'm going to do it 50 times now, I couldn't see, because I want this really amazing reaction.
So yeah, definitely as they get a bit older and really start to figure out or want to figure out how the world works, it certainly does become a bit more challenging.
Yes. Something else that Caitlin could be looking at is just thinking about how the settling is one thing.
And then the other issue is that her baby has started to do shorter naps, rather than the longer naps.
And again, that could be because if she is going being settled a little bit differently for nap times now that she's standing up, maybe after one sleep cycle, she's bringing awake.
But it could be that her sleep needs have just changed a little bit.
And, you know, perhaps she doesn't need you know, if both of her naps were an hour and a half, she was having three hours worth of daytime sleep.
As babies get older, their sleep tends to push more and more into the nighttime until they're not having naps at all anymore.
And so maybe she just doesn't need as much daytime sleep and wants to push that sleep into the night.
So it may be that She just has, um, you know, one long nap and one short nap and that's also okay.
Yeah, absolutely. Cause Caitlin's saying nighttime sleep is unaffected.
Well, we want to keep it that way.
So if your baby's trying to drop some sleep because they're ready for it, let them drop, not necessarily drop the naps, but let them reduce the length of their naps, because we want that over them suddenly deciding, oh, I'm going to have a party at 3AM for an hour.
Because I had way too much day sleep for what I actually need.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So hopefully that advice helps both Sarah and Kaitlin.
Good luck and give us an update.
I love to hear how you get on.
And of course, you need more support, there are coaching calls available and we can always take a really close look at what's happening.
Good. All right. Shall I read out Manique?
Yes. Manique has a 14 month old whose previously consistent sleep has recently changed.
He started childcare a few weeks ago and has started showing signs of separation anxiety and he also became unwell or that's a tricky combo.
Although he'd previously stopped feeding overnight he started again when he was sick.
He has also been waking early for the day but can resettle after a feed until 6 30 to 7 am.
Manique is wondering what to do with routine and night wakes with illness especially as she anticipates he will be sick a lot now he's in sickness and a big change in a child's life collide.
And unfortunately, daycare and sickness do often collide.
And those little germ factories that that our children go to.
I mean, they're wonderful in many, many ways.
And I use daycare for both of my kids, as most of us do.
So, we're not casting any aspersions here.
And so, the fact that your child previously could sleep without a feed, just helps us know that he can go all night without a feed.
When he does get unwell again I'd be thinking about offering water overnight rather than offering feeds per se.
Oftentimes when we are sick we are more thirsty overnight, particularly if we've got a temperature and it is important to keep hydration levels up.
So it would be perfectly reasonable to offer more fluids overnight.
But I'd be offering water rather than reintroducing breastfeeds or formula feeds unless you've been advised otherwise by your medical doctors.
Some children, perhaps if they have a hand, foot, and mouth or something that's impeding their ability to take in calories during the day might need some calories overnight.
But yeah, I would take advice from your medical practitioner around that.
Now, what else to do when they're sick?
So offering more, yeah.
You go, Fallon. I was gonna say it's so tricky when they're sick to get them back on track when they suddenly go, oh, hang on, night feeds are on the table sometimes.
What I've been suggesting to quite a few parents lately who have had this exact problem because there's so many bugs going around.
You know, drop the feed, you can just drop that feed cold turkey, your child's old enough, they will be fine off of water if you're worried about thirst, but for maybe a couple of days before you do that, load them up on other calories in the daytime.
So it's probably not the time to introduce them to foods they've never had before, or are unlikely to like.
You might stick to some favourites, yoghurts, porridges, mashed potatoes, things that are high in calories and really yummy that your child likes because if we can load them up on those calories in the daytime, then their drive to get those calories overnight is gonna start to reduce.
And we don't know but it might make it a bit easier when you say, actually, no, we're not having a feed this time buddy, we're going back to sleep again.
And yeah, I think a lot of parents like using that strategy of just bringing in more calories in the daytime in an easy way before you take away the overnight feed.
Yeah, that's a really good tip, Fallon, I like that one.
And yeah, depending on how unwell your little one is, he may need more sleep during the day, might need a slightly earlier bedtime, don't go wild.
Unless he's really unwell, then you just, all bets are off, if you get the flu yourself.
I often say you need to sleep all day.
If your baby gets a flu, they need to sleep a lot.
So just adding in extra sleep that is appropriate for the type of illness that your little one has, it might only be an extra 30 minutes if it's just a very mild cold, but it might be a lot more if they're really unwell.
And then just thinking through whether they need, when they're unwell, do they need a little bit extra support as they go to sleep.
So perhaps it's a case of just patting mattress or just resting your hand briefly on their body as they go to sleep and then once they're better, starting to wean off that support.
And then you're just ensured that your child is getting all the sleep that they need whilst they're unwell, that they've been supported whilst they're unwell, but then know that there's a strategy to get back to the good sleep habits that they had previous to that point.
Hmm. Good advice. All right.
We've got two last questions to race through.
Eva says her toddler is 23 months old, and he's normally quite upset after waking up from his nap.
It can take him about 45 minutes to pick up and be his normal self again unless there's a really good distraction like this thing, the grandparents.
Eva says we used to cap his naps at two hours, but recently started capping the nap at an hour and a half to see if that means we can put him to bed a little earlier.
Changing the time we wake him after and that doesn't seem to make a lot of difference to his mood if we do let him sleep longer.
So he wakes more rested.
He goes to bed later.
Do we have any thoughts on that?
Yeah, so Ava, I'd be thinking about how long your toddler's sleep cycles are and ensuring that you're not waking him mid sleep cycle with normally an hour and a half nap is, you know, whether it's 45 minutes half an hour sleep cycle.
That normally works well.
So in all likelihood that duration is all right.
But just double check how long his sleep cycles are to make sure that you're not waking him mid cycle and that might be making him feel a little bit grotty when he wakes up.
I think it's interesting that if you have something really motivating for him on waking even from a short nap he picks up pretty quickly.
So something that some parents find helpful is to have a wake up menu of some activities that your toddler absolutely loves to help motivate him to get out of bed quickly and warm up more readily.
So think about creating a piece of paper with lots of pictures on or your pictures of favorite activities maybe is seeing grandparents, maybe it is going to the park.
Maybe it's helping you make pancakes in the kitchen or whatever it is that you think that your toddler might like doing.
And so when you wake him up after that hour and a half say which one of these do you want to do?
Or have us set the station with some toys set up I've got up the teddy bears are having a picnic in the kitchen.
Let's go and have a look so that you can get them up and get them going.
And you're not then having that 45 minutes of him being a little bit slow.
and he will adjust. And yeah, so just hang in there.
And ultimately we do want to at this age, we want to be pushing the sleep over night.
So you're doing the right thing to start to reduce the duration of that nap.
And I know that if you keep if you keep the long nap bedtimes really late, and then that's difficult for the family.
So yeah, I hope those tips help over.
I think those are lovely strategies.
I'd just be like, oh, chuck the tally and we'll have a cut over 45 minutes.
I'd be making that my downtime as a parent.
I'm just, bluey. It wouldn't go on.
Yes. So your strategies are much nicer than mine.
I know. You can tell who did the PhD on parent -child interaction.
Okay. And our last question is from Naomi.
And Naomi has a 19 -month -old who's an early riser waking somewhere between five and six AM, but sometimes four.
That's horrible. He has one nap lasting between one and two hours and goes to bed around 730.
So Naomi says he's now fighting his nap tooth and nail and is not tired at bedtime.
She says the kicker on top of all this is the split nights, sometimes three to four hours awake in the night.
Wow. She said, tried settling in that time but it's just impossible.
We had a patch where the split nights stopped but they have come back with a vengeance lately.
She says I know the advice is not to drop a nap completely until two years.
But is it possible he's almost ready at this age or should I start with one sleep cycle 45 minutes and see if this helps?
I think Naomi, you need to keep the sleep diary, work through the unique sleep needs chapter, to work out what his unique sleep needs are and then spend a week or two just working on the daily rhythm that fits his unique sleep needs before you even think about changing the settling.
Three to four hours split nights is massive.
There is definitely a significant timing problem there.
So I would definitely be working through that chapter because catering to his unique sleep needs is going to be absolutely key.
And like I said, one week minimum on new daily rhythm so that we're starting to get that pattern in place.
So it might mean waking him up at a particular time.
Maybe it will be capping his nap at a shorter nap if he just seems like a real goer who doesn't want to nap much well that might be fine.
Maybe it will be a short nap but be guided by the advice in that chapter because it's going to be so important to get that timing piece just right.
And then when you do go to work on you know if there's anything you need to do in terms of settling and, and that side of things, it will be so much easier when that timing issue is addressed and you're only settling him when he's truly tired and ready for sleep.
And that does sound very, very challenging.
And I know I've said it a few times, but if you want to talk about it, I've still got some availability later this week for coaching calls.
So anyone of our Sunbelt members, who's like, oh, I really need a bit of a hand with this particular problem.
Jump online and book in with me and I can look at the sleep diary.
We can talk through the behaviours around sleep and come up with just the exact right plan that we need in place so that you can have as quick a progress as possible.
So on that note, there were a few things coming up we want to let you know about.
So there are a couple of Baby Sleep webinars coming up that I'm doing for the Raising Children Network and they're going to be really fun this time because we're doing a Q &A type segment.
So it's a bit more of a conversation between me and the wonderful Derek, who's the director of the Raising Children Network.
The first is tomorrow night and it's focusing on newborn, so zero to three months of age babies.
So if you've got a younger baby or you're expecting one, definitely tune in, you can register for that.
I'll pop a link in the show notes.
And if you can't join tomorrow night, you can always watch it back later on as well.
And then in a fortnight's time, we're doing the same thing again, but talking about baby sleep in babies four to 12 months of age, it's a great way to just get to the lowdown on sleep, you can submit questions and things as well should be really fun for everyone.
We also have coming up this Saturday, Laura and I have pre recorded a presentation for what's called Parents' Day.
So we're invited by the International Congress on Evidence -Based Parenting Support.
I remembered. Yes, well done.
Otherwise shortened to ISEX. It's a great big international conference where they pull in lots of experts on different topics.
And for Parents' Day, they've got these experts talking to their topic in a parent friendly format.
And it's only $22 for a ticket to the whole day.
So you can join in and learn about all sorts of parenting stuff.
We're specifically talking about bedtime in children from two years of age all the way through with the teenage years.
So yeah, it's a great one to join in on, if you're keen.
What else do we need to say?
There's the Link In Show notes if you would like to buy us a coffee.
We love it when people buy us coffees.
It's always so lovely, and we've had some lovely messages with those as well, so thank you so much to those who have done that.
And of course, if you are struggling with sleep and settling, we are here to help.
We cut through all the nonsense around sleep.
We provide that common sense, middle ground and practical strategies that parents need.
And it's all advice that you know is evidence based, but we actually practice this advice every day in our sleep clinics and we've worked with thousands of parents.
So if you're feeling lost and confused, check out Sombao or come and book into our sleep clinics.
There's multiple ways that you can come and have support with Laura and I and our amazing team of practitioners.
So on that note, it's been a long episode Laura.
We've got through everything in the end though.
But to all of our lovely listeners, we hope you have a fantastic week and yeah, look us up online, come follow us on social media, we'll be posting videos throughout the week.
Thanks everyone, bye -bye.
If you need help with your baby or toddler's sleep or settling, you need Some Bell.
Some Bell is Australia's first online paediatric sleep clinic program for babies and toddlers aged 0 -3 years.
It contains all the best resources from the sleep clinics at Infant Sleep Australia, so you can rest easy and soak in your child.
To find out more, click the link in the show notes, or visit somebell .infantsleep .com .au
