The advice in this podcast is general in 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. Lohr 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 ceded.
In older babies and toddlers, night waking is influenced by three key factors.
These are how they settle to sleep, the daily rhythm and what I call motivating factors or things that happen during the night that motivate your baby or toddler to wake.
If one of these three factors isn't addressed, it's likely night waking will continue to be a persistent problem.
Success comes when all three factors have been addressed.
This week's episode is dedicated to helping you and your little one enjoy restful nights.
Plus, we have an exciting announcement to make about a new feature coming soon to our Sondal Sleep Clinic programs. welcome back to brand new little people the podcast companion to the sunbell 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 how hard are those night night wakings in those first few months how did you cope with your little ones uh look i just it feels like it was a baptism of fire i didn't know what i was in for and then i was in it and just somehow each night just bled into
the next night into the next until those first weeks and months behind me what about you it's such a shock to the system isn't it like i just wow nothing you can't prepare yourself for it ahead of time this is no way you can be prepared for it um and yet can be so brutal um one of mine was born premature so the night wakes really went on oh yes time before they started to reduce and i just think it is really amazing what we can manage not that you can ever really adjust to having broken sleep but it's quite shocking i think for a lot of parents when they realize oh my gosh you know I've had these
really broken nights and somehow I still keep getting up and I still keep going through the paces and I keep surviving and yeah so yeah well done to any parent out there who's thinking yeah how do I manage this every day you're doing such a good job it's really hard when you're you're sleep deprived and nights are tricky yeah and this will be often the first time for you know any human that they are having to wake wake up frequently overnight for something that cannot be ignored.
It's not like before you have children where the noisy neighbors or noisy traffic might wake you and you can roll over and go back to sleep.
This is needing to wake up and attend to a small vulnerable human to feed and change the nappy, and it goes on and on and on.
And when they're really little, of course, they have those tiny tummies.
They need to feed often.
They're having explosive poos.
they need to have those nappies changed.
And those needs simply have to be met overnight.
But today we're actually going to be talking about older babies and toddlers, aren't we, Fallon, rather than those very little ones, when we can start to expect the number of wakes overnight to drop to a smaller number than when they were newborn.
born. Absolutely. So I think for today's podcast episode, we're probably focusing really on babies six months and over and toddlers as well.
All of this will be relevant to toddlers too.
And I think as well, we're not going to define frequent night waking here because it means something different to everybody.
But if you're finding night waking feels problematic and you think, I'm sure my baby could have fewer night wakes than what we're currently experiencing, then all of this content will be really relevant to you um but let's unpack so there's really three key factors that influence night waking frequency um let's start with the motivating factors this one I find really interesting because I think there's so much variability that we see from child to child and what this could be so a motivating factor could just be feeds it could be feeds they don't really need anymore but they just kind of like
and they just think well I may as well wake up if I wake up there's a lovely feed on offer and it's just really really nice so sometimes it is just feeding but we do see some kind of weird and wonderful things in the toddlers don't we with parents who are just desperately trying to cope with night wakes sometimes we start to introduce things to help our child get back to sleep quickly but then it kind of backfires because then they're like right if this is what's on offer I'm going to keep on waking.
Yeah particularly for toddlers who have split nights so you know they're awake for more than 30 minutes in the night when parents are so desperate they may offer their toddler a screen to watch for example here we go i'll put some episodes of your favorite show on just so that i can close my eyes whilst you sit next to me and watch something no judgment from me none whatsoever if you've had to do that this is a judgment -free zone we've all absolutely yeah but of course that toddler is going to quite enjoy that time and that can really motivate them to wake up in the night um normally in the second
half of the night when their deep sleep is over um to be thinking oh i'd quite like to watch an episode of bluey or whatever it is they want to watch and then they might call out because they think oh good i can get to do that um so that would be a motivating factor that we quite commonly see in toddlers uh sometimes we also see um toddlers will be getting a snack in the middle of the night that they quite enjoy having some one -on -one time i'm hungry yeah i'll get a banana or maybe a sandwich yeah that's a surprising one there's a lot of toddlers having a 3 a .m snack yes they say they're hungry
then yeah what do you know some food appears yeah and it's not really it's really really hard for us as parents to feel like we don't want to feel like we're denying our children nutrition and particularly if you have a toddler that doesn't take on a great deal of food during the day um you might be thinking oh good well this is one time that I can get some food into them I don't care if it's 2am or 3am let's give them a sandwich um yeah and then we end up sometimes in these situations where our toddlers just keep waking up for that at that time of like Like it was really motivating for them.
Yeah, and long past when they might have needed it, you know, if they were actually hungry because they were very unwell or they had a calorie intake problem.
Yeah, that's it. I think bed sharing is a really common one as well.
Often parents will say, oh, you know, they refuse to go back in their cot from 4am seems to be a popular one.
And so they just keep waking up because they know they get to bed share and it's really lovely.
And at some point, if it's a problem for you, which it might not even be, but if it is a problem for you, at some point it just comes down to going okay from now on we're going to do that walk back to bed each time um so they realize that actually that's that's not on the cards anymore um so what i would say is as we go through each of these three factors to anyone listening in who's worried about night waking have a think about whether there are any motivating factors that you think are influencing your child's overnight wakes um some of them like if it is night feeds you might might think well
night feeds are probably part of the equation but I'm not ready to drop them yet and that's perfectly fine too I just think it's great to have an understanding of some of the things that might be behind the night waking and certainly if you've got a child who's in their toddler years and they're having night feeds I would say it's a really common common one and often it makes a big difference when we do gradually reduce and eventually stop those overnight feeds for the toddlers but just know that being aware of these factors doesn't mean you've got to go and change them all you're in the driver's
seat you're the parent um you can make a call on what works for you and and what doesn't yeah because what we know is that once we take away some of these motivating factors um from toddlers in particular and preschoolers they can have very strong opinions about it at 2am they will yeah so you'll really have to pick your moment that you are going to change something if you decide that um you you do want to do it and then stick with it yeah 100 you don't want to be backtracking no yeah once you make a change just make the change and weather the storm and then you'll be through it yeah all right
so factor number two to think about is and i reckon half of our listeners are going i know what she's gonna say she never shuts up about this but it's the daily rhythm surprise surprise yes it's so important It is so important.
Um, you know, thinking about that kind of sleep budget for anyone who might be new to listening in, you know, your baby or your toddler has an amount of sleep that they uniquely need.
And if they get too much sleep in the daytime, they just don't think of it like a budget.
They just don't have enough sleep left to do overnight sometimes.
And so often babies and toddlers wake a lot overnight because they're given more opportunity to sleep than they need.
So, let's just imagine they've got maybe a 14 -hour sleep need and they have three hours of day sleep.
They might need 11 hours of sleep overnight.
But if we always offer them 12 hours of sleep overnight, often circadian rhythm kind of picks up on, oh, there's some wiggle room here.
I don't have to sleep 12 hours, 11 hours rather.
No, 12 hours. 12 hours.
I'm confusing myself.
The circadian rhythm is thinking, I don't need to sleep 12 beautiful hours in a row.
I can wake up for an hour in the middle of the night.
Or maybe I'll just do lots of little five -minute wake -ups, you know, split across the night.
So definitely be thinking about that daily rhythm because I would say that is the number one thing that the majority of parents with persistent overnight wake problems really report to us is that they've tried all the things but they haven't actually nailed that daily rhythm.
They haven't really mastered sleep pressure.
Sometimes parents think they're doing a close enough job but when we look at the diary, we're like, no, actually there's some room for, for changes.
Um, so I think it's just crucial.
And I think you see that a lot in your clients in the clinic too, Laura.
Yeah, definitely. Um, and I think that idea of there being a daily budget is really helpful for parents.
So if your budget is, um, yeah, 12 hours or 13 hours a day and your child is having having a three hour nap, then you can't be expecting them to do 12 hours overnight as well without something falling over.
So we can see that they wake frequently or do extended overnight wakes or they start the day early.
Of course, we're not talking about early rising.
In this episode, we're talking about those wakes during the night.
And it's really understandable.
They They simply are not able to build their sleep pressure up to a high enough point at the start of the night to be able to maintain their sleep in a lovely, long, restorative stretch during the night.
They're up, down, up, down, or they do their split night.
And in that time where they're awake for however long in the middle of the night, they're waiting for the sleep pressure to get high enough again so that they can do their next stretch of sleep.
sleep so it's really worth looking at that daily rhythm and determining what that daily nap budget is going to be and how much that leaves overnight and therefore what would be an appropriate bedtime and wake -up time that fits that nicely for your little one yeah it's so crucial because we see so many families where they've been following maybe it's a really rigid age -based schedule and so so often they aim for huge amounts of sleep that most babies of that age can't even do anyway.
But often they're really insistent on naps have to be very long and, you know, we're aiming for this huge amount of sleep.
And these poor parents have often worked so hard on self -settling skills and just find it doesn't stick.
It just doesn't stick.
Like they might have even gone to a sleep school for a few nights and mastered self -settling, but they get home and their baby just won't do it.
and so often it's because that daily rhythm hasn't been catered to that specific child's needs.
And so initially they might manage to do it a few days and then they have this huge crash in sleep pressure because they've overdone the sleep for a few days and then they just compensate by being awake a lot.
It's so important. It's just a crucial factor.
In fact, a lot of parents will say once I got the daily rhythm right, I didn't have to worry so much about the other factors because they were tired enough to do pretty well overnight and it was, you know, not entirely problem solved, but it got us a long way towards our goal.
Yeah, and I think it's so often the case that parents who say, oh, cot settling didn't work, that wasn't the cause of my child's waking overnight, are the families where this individual sleep needs haven't been catered for.
And so So working on cot settling is only going to get you part of the way if that is an issue, because if you even if you teach your child, support your child or toddler to be able to go to sleep without lots of hands on support from you, if they're in their bed for 12 hours overnight, and they only need 10 hours, they've got two hours where they're just simply going to be doing something other than sleeping.
And it doesn't matter how well you stuck to the plan from the early parenting center or or from your nurse or from, anyway, from wherever you got it from, it just will not stick until you refine the daily rhythm.
So that's why we really often bang on about it is because it's so often the missing piece of the puzzle.
Yeah, and I'm glad there's a lot more awareness of this now.
It's something that really should change for parents because I feel like it's so unfair that so many parents try and try and try again.
you know they're working so hard they're trying to fix these problems it's exhausting it is so tiring some families we see they find us when their child is a three -year -old or a four -year -old and they have been in this battle for three or four years and this one thing would have changed everything they could have had a great sleep since their baby was maybe four or five months old um but just didn't get the right advice um so yeah it's that important um yeah Yeah.
All right. And then factor number three will be no surprise to any of our listeners either.
It's the settling and the sleep associations and how they fall asleep.
So of course, it's a key driver of night waking.
If your baby falls asleep, maybe you're rocking them in your arms or your toddler that, you know, they're rocking in your arms and you put them down when they're asleep.
It is absolutely natural human behavior to do a systems check during the the night the end of each sleep cycle our brains are kind of like is anything changed is there anything you know any reason i need to wake up and if they've been transferred to their cot when they're asleep they are going to spring awake um reasonably frequently overnight some babies are very sensitive to this and will wake every sleep cycle others can make it through a few sleep cycles before it really starts to bother them but it's you know when we look at the scientific literature where they've asked parents to track their
baby's sleep and we've got data from thousands of babies, how they fall asleep is just consistently one of the key drivers of night waking behavior.
So, definitely be having a think about that.
I think this is one that parents really are quite aware of mostly already.
But just have a think, you know, what is it that you're doing when your baby or toddler falls asleep?
And during the night, are you still there doing it in the middle of the night?
Probably not. Probably gone to bed.
That could be part of it and sometimes for toddlers it's just they fall asleep with a parent nearby in the room and they wake in the night like where did you go you know get back in that chair right now so another one i had recently in the clinic fallon was that the um toddler was falling asleep whilst mom and dad were in the living room which was just outside the bedroom door with the tv on and so the child was going to sleep with the tv playing and then was waking up when the TV got turned off later, and so it's not necessarily that what you're...
You might not be doing anything hands -on, but there's something in the environment, some sound or some light that then changes when you yourself go to bed, and so with that family, what they worked on doing was just over a few nights just turning the volume down of the TV, so they weren't listening to it with such high volume, and actually then turning it off and yeah there was other things going on of course because I tend to see more complex cases in the clinic but you know they found that that led to real improvements because their child their toddler then started to be able to fall asleep without
that sound of the tv on and then were able was able to maintain their sleep overnight so think a little bit more broadly than just whether you were rocking them to sleep or patting them to sleep is there anything else in their environment that has actually become an association that you haven't realised might be the case.
What a great tip. Yeah, that's a really good tip because it really can be all sorts of things, can't it?
And we know as adults what it's like if you fall asleep, you know, with everything just how you like it and you wake up in the night and something has changed.
Like I've got older kids so I know if one of them gets up to use the bathroom and leaves the hallway light on, I'll wake up because I'm like, hang on, what?
I didn't leave that light on.
you know and it's i mean they're really minor things but for your baby it can be quite a shock to go well hang on i was in my parents arms somehow i'm in my cot and they can be really unsettled by that so um you know you're going to hear a lot of stuff out there about how um you know babies should be held to sleep fed to sleep all all these sorts of things as if they really really need it but actually if it's really distressing to your child to wake up and find that that they've been put in their cot, well, the kind of thing to do is actually to help them build their confidence, to feel okay to
fall asleep in their cot so they're not constantly waking up with a shock overnight over and over again.
Yeah, so they're sort of the three core things that we, even in the clinic, you know, with any client that we see, we're thinking about these three factors.
And there's lots of information about these factors within the SOMBAL programs and all the different considerations considerations you need to make when sort of assessing these different factors.
There's lots of strategies and things that you can use once you identify what some of those factors might be that are influencing your baby or your toddler's sleep.
But what I would say is always be thinking about, is it the right time?
So what I really don't want is for a parent who's quite happy with their child's overnight waking.
It's not a problem.
I don't want them to hear this episode and think, oh gosh, they're saying I've got to go and change this and I'm doing it wrong.
You're not doing anything wrong.
As we always say, you shouldn't feel any pressure from anyone about how you're settling your baby or your toddler or what you're doing in the middle of the night.
If it's working fine for you, then you don't need to change anything at all.
Hopefully this information is just helpful because often parents feel okay about things, but over time that starts to change.
change um it might be that the night waking eventually does start to feel more of a problem for you and you'll just have this knowledge and be able to think about um some of the things that you might be able to change to to reduce that night waking when you feel ready yeah absolutely and we know that some children um are just like some adults are kind of more resilient sleepers than others um and we've got you know I see babies um in the clinical rather I'm often seeing their siblings but other younger brothers or older brothers or sisters might have happily laid in their cot um in the morning
just watching their hands or playing with their dummy for half an hour or an hour before it was wake -up time and so it was never an issue for anyone um but baby number two or three comes along and actually it's just completely different kettle of fish and as soon as they're awake they cannot stand being alone in their cot and then just like come on come and get at me.
So it can vary within a family as well, what you're experiencing within a family.
So think about what's going to be right for you and your child and decide whether it is now the right time to do it.
If it is, then read through the appropriate modules in SOMBEL and decide how you might address those, which factor it is that's causing wakes overnight, whether you need to look at those motivating factors whether you need to look at the daily rhythm or whether you need to change how they go to sleep and then work up your plan pick a day that you're going to start have all your ducks in a row and then jump in and get things sorted when you're ready yeah 100 well that leads me really nicely into our big announcement that i'm so excited to make we have been working on something pretty cool and i'm
really excited to tell our slumber members about this so in the next couple of weeks yeah drum roll in the next couple of weeks we are releasing a night waking master class and it will be free for all existing members so it's not something we're going to be asking you to pay for but i've I've currently written these masterclasses and I've got to still sit down and record them and actually upload them into SunVal.
But the reason why I wanted to do these video masterclasses is to sort of recognize that SunVal is a wonderful resource with, you know, all this detailed information, but a lot of people process information differently and hearing it spoken or watching someone talk through it and show diagrams is really helpful.
And you might learn learn better that way.
Um, so I thought this would be a really lovely way to still be using the Sombal content, but really expanding on it in a bit more of a chatty way.
So I can really walk you guys through, um, you know, for the different age groups, what is it we're thinking about in terms of night waking, what's causing it, how we might go about treating it.
Um, so I'm really excited to sit down and record those and I'm hoping that they will be up and available in in the next couple of weeks, you'll see that a new chapter will appear in your SunVal program.
It will be called Masterclasses because our aim is that we will be eventually adding more Masterclasses to the mix because we are really just wanting to make SunVal the absolute best we can possibly make it.
So this is something we really want to do and kind of test out how that goes and we're keen to hear feedback from parents on if they like that format.
that um and then over time we'll hopefully build up a bit of a library so that you can just sort of sit down and um let me walk you through it all yes so you don't need to do anything um i'll let you know when it's available so i'll probably send out an email to all the members once it is up there um and live and good to go the other exciting thing we're trialing is we are going to have the option of a comments field underneath the master class so if you watch it and you've got a question you can pop it in the comments or if you've got some feedback you can pop it in there as well it's a feature
we're just going to trial um and see how it goes see if it's helpful to parents um you know to have that kind of format to um you know ask questions and get feedback um so yeah it's something all current members will get and obviously new members joining as well um and i want to sort of discuss this with a few parents they were keen to know like why is this being like, why for free?
Like why, why is it for free?
Why aren't you selling tickets to it or something?
And look, at some point we might have ticketed masterclasses or webinars, things like that, that we do.
But we always intended that Sombau wouldn't just sit there and be static because the science around sleep changes all the time.
We always want to be keeping on adding more value and really maximizing the content so that it's as helpful as possible to as many families as possible so we're hoping that having a bit of a video format um to the master class you know really helps make it a bit more accessible to some families um so yeah for now this one is a freebie and i'm really excited to get it up there so yay yay yeah it's so exciting and yeah we'd love to hear your feedback once it's up and live um let us know what you think and of course um you can send in emails with suggestions for future masterclasses you might enjoy
as well. We can't promise we'll do them really, really quickly, but we will do our best because they take a lot of work.
But we are really keen.
Yeah, we're really keen to keep value adding to SOMBEL and supporting new parents to support their little one's sleep and sleep health.
Yeah, and this is probably a good time to mention, too, that if you've been thinking about joining Sunbelt and you're not sure, we are in our last few days of our end -of -financial -year sales.
So it's currently 30 % off memberships, but that is ending forever and it won't be offered again.
So if you're keen, definitely move quickly because that will end in a few days from when we publish this podcast episode.
Awesome. Well, let's dive into some parent questions.
We've got tons today.
day so yeah we do rapid fire bang bang bang yeah so um laura has written in with a question about her eight -month -old baby um she says that before starting the program she was accidentally doing stage two of the slow fade approach and they were sometimes able to settle their baby in the cot but only laura could do it and not her partner um she says that they've gone back to the start of the slow fade approach to build proper sleep associations and get their partner involved.
But Laura says it feels like they've taken a step backwards.
They've been picking their baby up more often overnight to strengthen their sleep associations, but are wondering if that's making their baby clingier and undoing the progress they'd already made.
Her main question is, should she persist with the slow fade from the beginning to get their partner involved or Or switch to another method they can do by themselves.
And she has a second smaller question, which is that they've noticed that patting or shushing during the transfer sometimes wakes the baby up.
What tips do we have, Fallon?
Yeah, I would say you always want to build on what you're already doing.
So rather than taking a step backwards, I would just go, well, you know what, what we're doing at the moment is pretty close to step two of that particular approach. so let's just stick to step two of that approach because if you do go in and add more support well then you only got to wean them off that again um so i would tend to just say if stage step two is roughly what they've been doing just stick to that for every settle um and then you don't have that problem of the padding or shushing during the transfer sometimes waking the baby up because you'd be doing padding and shushing in the cot
at that point um and you can still get your partner involved, you can take turns.
And when your baby sort of picks up that, oh, it doesn't matter if it's mum or dad or granny or nanny or whoever it is, they just do the same thing.
That's what really helps them to go, oh, well, it's probably not a lot of point in getting all furious for dad, for poor old dad, you know, because he's just doing exactly what mum does or what that other caregiver does.
So it's fine to just start sharing that and start from step two is what I would would suggest. Yeah, definitely.
And then if you find that on step two of one of the slower approaches, things are going really well, you can always switch to one of the quicker approaches.
Some parents are really surprised at how quickly their baby adapts.
And then they go, oh, do you know what?
I think we've all now gained a little bit of confidence with cot settling.
Let's switch to, you know, they might switch to quick fade or even supported accelerated.
So don't feel that you need to just stay with that one approach if things are going well you can speed up if you would like so good luck let us know how you get on yeah brilliant and fiona has a 14 month old who sleeps well at home with blackout blinds but can also nap in the pram without them she's considering weaning off the blackout blinds in the future but isn't sure when or how to do it she asked what's the best age and approach to transition away from the blackout blinds is around two to three years of age a good time?
Well, I think, Fiona, that there isn't actually any particular age where it's a good idea to wean them out, wean your child off the blackout blinds.
We know that some children just always prefer to sleep in a very dark environment, and so their parents will continue to have blackout blinds in their bedroom until, you know, they start primary school even.
you know I'm from the northern hemisphere and often we'd we'd be putting to children to bed at seven or eight at night and in an English summer it's still really very bright so we'd have the blackout blinds for a long time simply because even for adults it's easier to fall asleep with darkness and we know that's when melatonin is released so don't feel that there's a hurry to get rid of the blackout blinds if there's a particular reason if you just have temporary ones on the window perhaps Fiona that you just think are unsightly and you want to stop using and you could be looking in the toddlerly
years to maybe just peel off the blackout blinds a little bit and just for a week or so increase the amount of light in your child's room as they're going off to sleep and then just yeah slowly like that get rid of those blackout blinds altogether but I just don't think that there's any particular hurry and if you carry on needing to use them for many years to come, there's nothing wrong with that.
It doesn't sound like your child has a problem sleeping in the light or in the dark.
So, yeah, either the slow wean like I just described or just hold on to them.
I think that's really good advice, completely support that idea.
Okay, so we have a question from Belinda who has a three -and -a -half -month -old and she says he usually pulls a first stretch of six six to nine hours of sleep at night and then sleeps in two or three hour bursts after that.
However, he only catnaps in the day.
So Belinda says she's never worked out his sleep needs properly because it hasn't been a problem.
But recently, she says that she believes his sleep awareness has changed, which I guess he's heading towards a four month mark.
So that would make sense.
And he stopped linking sleep cycles.
He needs his dummy replaced and a little pat every hour and is wanting feeding every two to three hours overnight he's also quite refluxy so feeding him lots overnight creates cycles of trapped air spit up some pain Belinda says and she asked what are our thoughts to support better nighttime sleep my first priority would be to reduce the night feeds a bit since Belinda describes that it is a problem because he's quite refluxy, I would aim to just offer two feeds overnight.
And it might even be that very quickly you can get him down to just one overnight feed, which I think, you know, given what you described, Linda, there might be a priority to do that because it's also going to help lead to better sleep if he's not sort of constantly spitting up and having trapped air and things like that.
And I would work on that daily rhythm.
So no, there's not a single case I would see in in clinic where I wouldn't look at the daily rhythm and probably make a few tweaks here or there um I would measure his unique sleep needs and come up with um a daily rhythm because if every hour you've got to do some pats it's a lot of night waking I think there is probably a sleep pressure component to that waking it's not a problem that he's only cat napping in the day that's really normal for a three and a half month old but we want to make sure he's not taking you know six or seven cat naps and then just has built up no sleep pressure for the overnights
dummies always have to be replaced until around about seven months of age so you could also just have a think are you happy to keep replacing the dummy for him or is it time to let that go um would you add anything to that laura yeah i know that often for babies that are refluxy a dummy can be really helpful um so if you decide to keep the dummy belinda then be thinking about doing the dummy play during the day he's so little of course he's not going to be able to to um learn to replace it for a long time yet but you can start to lay some foundations helping put the little the dummy in his little
hand and moving his hand with the dummy towards his mouth rather than just popping it in um directly um but know that you have got quite a few months ahead where you will have to replace that dummy um yeah and i think otherwise what you said is um not that that wasn't right what you said just correct you there Fallon that's right I won't take it personally um I mean that's the only extra thing that I would add and otherwise yeah good luck Belinda let us know how you get on yeah all right Ursula wrote in and she asked how do I push past the fact my eight -month -old requires to hold my hand when she
falls asleep sleep she says i have tried to replace my hand with a comforter but she has no interest she also has a dummy which she knows to replace when she is awake but when it falls out at night she gets so worked up that she doesn't look to replace it consequently she does not connect sleep cycles easily has false starts no matter what i do she sleeps 13 and a half hours and her day naps total two to two and a half hours her last nap finishes around 3 p .m with bedtime around 7 to 7 30 What do you reckon, Laura?
I would be looking at just tightening up the daily rhythm a little bit, Ursula, just because there's kind of an hour difference there in whether she's having two to two and a half hours daytime sleep or whether and where the bedtime is seven or seven thirty.
And I think that will probably go some way to explaining those false starts.
um so if she had two and a half hours nap and then went to bed at seven rather than 7 30 you know a few times a week that's likely to lead to um some false starts so i would decide on one or the other for the both of those things so perhaps it's two hours worth of daytime sleep um and um bedtime is the earlier one um or you know the other way around um then i would be thinking um gosh you've it's really hard ursula when you do have a baby that likes to hold um your hand as um they fall asleep because when they're holding your hand they're doing something something quite active with their muscles
in their fingers are wrapped around your hand and you've tried your best to replace your hand with a comforter which is a really smart move you might find with higher sleep pressure um you can try that again and maybe this time around your baby may um tolerate it a little bit better um but otherwise i'd be um thinking about um choosing Choosing one of the settling approaches that doesn't involve you holding her hand, maybe it's patting her all the way off to sleep or one of the quicker ones where you give her a few pats and then pause for short intervals before going back to her.
And knowing that within a short space of time, she's going to adapt and adjust to getting used to not holding your hand as she falls asleep.
She won't like it initially.
And for the first night or two, it might be a bit tricky for her to go to sleep because it's like how if we go to sleep with a different pillow or a different doona or in a different bed, it feels a bit uncomfortable initially.
And we're like, oh, this isn't what I'm used to.
But we do eventually get used to it.
And it will be the same for your little one.
so um yeah i would be having a read through the chapters on the different cot settling approaches and picking one um and saying okay from this night onwards that's the way that i'm going to her to sleep um instead of holding her hand would you have anything to add yeah only that i'd be thinking about the wake -up time as well i find it really interesting lots of parents tell us all the the details except the wake -up time and i totally get it i totally get it but if you've got a great daily rhythm but after a tricky night your baby or toddler sleeps in to make up for that tricky night you've lost
it all you've lost all that pressure you were trying to build um so pick that wake -up time and no matter how tricky the night is get them up give them a big dose of bright light start their day and then you're telling the circadian rhythm you can't be waking all night Like you can't be up and down or having a long night wake or whatever because you've got to get up on time and you can't overdo the day sleep and you've got to get through to bedtime.
So when you work out that daily rhythm, Ursula, just be thinking about having that set wake -up time and really trying to push through on it because Ursula did mention that it sort of doesn't, yeah, she says false starts no matter what I do.
And when I hear that, I think just make sure you've done the exact same thing the same daily rhythm for a full week and I say this heaps in the coaching calls it's any one night is influenced by the whole week of sleep prior so often parents just kind of go whoa like mind -blowing really and it's true so if you've tried a cup for a couple of days maybe even three days and then went oh that didn't help you haven't tried long enough so try doing it for a full week I know that sucks a bit sometimes but often it's after a week that it clicks and and they fall into that pattern, and, you know, then
we're off and away, it's very easy to look at one day and go, well, you know, that night was terrible.
So I won't do what I did that day.
But it just doesn't quite work like that.
So once you apply that new daily rhythm, give it a week, you'll see a buildup in sleep pressure.
And then you should have an easier time making progress with the independent settling.
Awesome. Okay, we have a question from Sarah, who has a 12 -month -old who has a solid rhythm of two one -hour, 40 -minute naps and about 10 hours overnight sleep.
Two days a week, her toddler attends daycare, where she only sleeps for 45 minutes at a time.
She has two 45 -minute naps.
And although bedtime and wake -up time stay consistent, she seems exhausted.
So Sarah asks, would you recommend changing her her whole daily routine every day to the two short naps and extending the overnight sleep which she says she's tried this on daycare days but it doesn't seem to result in longer overnight sleep or do we recommend just changing bedtime for the two days that she's at daycare and keeping in the old routine for the other days?
So it's the sort of situation where some children will cope with that variability and some absolutely will not.
So if with that variability at the moment things are kind of okay, your child's coping okay with it, then you don't have to change anything.
But if you're finding that, you know, it's just I often describe it as wobbliness, like there's this real wobbliness, you know there's some nights where there's more wakes there's sometimes really tricky settling that's when I would just change it to match what happens at daycare well you can even go halfway at home you could say okay one hour and 40 minute nap and then the other one's going to be just the one sleep cycle and see if that's a bit closer and manages to keep things going along okay so it might just take a bit of experimenting but keep in mind like I was just saying full week on whatever
it is you decide to do do it for a week maybe track it in a diary so you can get a sense of what happened during that week um if it didn't go well try it the other way um really you're putting on your scientist hat and you're gathering data which i love but i think it's a great great way to do things as a parent is to try something out consistently you know look at what the results are yes your results section um and then write up your report yeah make your conclusions accordingly in what's the future action scientific journal i love that idea um phallum of um yeah maybe splitting the difference
one longer nap and one shorter nap on the day she's at home uh i think that's a really uh sensible idea uh and also knowing sarah that probably not too far in the distant future your little 12 month old is going to drop down to one nap so you will get it just us right for a brief period of time and then she's going to switch to one longer nap and this will be a distant memory so hang in there yeah absolutely all right jess has a 15 month old who transitioned to one nap nearly a month ago since then she's been waking three to three and a half hours after to bedtime bedtimes around 8 p .m and she's
just needing brief settling with some bum pats previously she would sleep for six or more hours before waking so jess asks what could be causing these night wakes and how can they resolve them okay um well um probably any of those three factors that we talked about at the start of the podcast so yeah i've been working through those yeah i've be working through as is there any motivating factor is there a daily rhythm mismatch or is there a way that she's going that your 15 month is going to sleep that is causing them to wake up what we often see is that a wake that happens when you're describing
it between three and three and a half hours after falling asleep that's often when the deep sleep is coming to an end and babies are starting to move into the lighter stages of sleep so it's not uncommon for issues to arise there if your little one is going to sleep with you in the room for example or the tv playing in the background or you know something in the environment which in the first few hours of the night didn't bother them you know it was neither here nor there when they cycled or moved through their sleep cycles but as the sleep pressure gets a little bit lower after after that deep
sleep is over, then becomes an issue.
So I'd probably be just having a think about what is happening at the point that they fall asleep and is that different at that three -hour wake -up mark and making any adjustments.
Yeah, and probably just thinking about how long that one nap is that they're having now, if that could be either shortened or positioned slightly differently in the day that might also help um that overnight um wake so i think there's a few things there for you to work through jess um whilst you do some problem solving the good news is your little one is going back to sleep really quickly with the um with the bum patting so it should be relatively easy to resolve once you work out what the motivating factor or settling issue is at bedtime i think that's really good advice and how about this one
laura we've got maddie who has an 11 month old baby who had frequent split nights until they started son pal oh good after using the quick fade and now supported accelerated approach settling has improved greatly however she still occasionally has two hour split nights despite consistent naps and bedtime at 8 30 p .m wake up at 6 30 a .m during the split nights pain relief and bottles don't help so Maddy asks should they reduce daytime sleep they're currently offering two hours and 15 minutes and is there anything else they can do to stop the split nights she does note that her average sleep need
does appear to be reducing according to the sleep diary yes look split nights Maddy are almost always a sleep pressure issue almost always and you've ruled out that it's not pain or hunger because when you offer pain relief and when you offer bottles your little one is not able to go back to sleep.
Most of the time they are managing to sleep the whole night through and your sleep diary is suggesting that their sleep needs have dropped so I think that looking at adjusting the daily rhythm is going to be the way to resolve these ongoing split nights you don't necessarily have to reduce the daytime sleep it might be that you look at bringing wake up time a little bit earlier than 6 30 for example although I know that 10 hours overnight can feel you don't really want most parents don't want to reduce the amount of sleep their child is getting overnight to below 10 hours unless they really really
have to. So perhaps it is going to be reducing the day sleep would be the better option for you, Maddy.
So think about perhaps moving to just an hour and a half because I suspect their sleep cycles are about 45 minutes long.
So it might be an hour and a half daytime sleep.
And then you might even be able to add an extra 15 minutes to the nighttime sleep and see how you go with that and stick with it for a whole week.
So trust your sleep diary, trust what it's showing you and if the sleep needs have dropped, that's okay and then adjust the bedtime and wake up accordingly and reduce that day nap to maybe two sleep cycles.
Yeah, I completely agree and it's so important at this age too.
We want their nights to be as consolidated as we can get them as they're heading off into toddlerhood.
So, yeah, that's good advice.
Great. So we have a question from Nicola who has a six -week -old baby, so really right at the beginning, a teeny one.
And Nicola is trying the quick tapered approach when possible.
She says with two older children and a FIFO partner, settling is tricky in the mornings.
And she wants to know is it okay to leave her baby in his cot crying in the hope he goes to sleep and check in every few minutes for a cuddle or a pat she says i can't shush and pat at that time for half an hour because of the two other children and then she finds that she's in a vicious cycle as he then gets overtired and stays awake in her arms while she carries him around with her this is a great example of how parents know their babies best so nicola i would say if you think you know you're saying if you're carrying the baby in your arms they're just kind of looking around and not sleeping
like carrying them to sleep is not an option um and if you feel like they're okay in their cot then that's a valid option um I would think about it a lot like when we work with toddlers twins or triplets or quads um those babies just have to wait sometimes we just can't be with all of the babies all of the time and you know what happens with those babies these they're perfectly fine yeah perfectly fine so if what you can manage is to have your baby in a safe sleep space whilst you're looking after older children and those older children are much more likely to come into harm's way if you're you
know turning it back for too long so your priority has got to be keeping the older ones safe then that's fine and just go back in when you can offer reassurance yeah and that is a perfectly valid way to manage it yeah yeah and And I think that's all you can do.
And your baby will probably get used to falling asleep in their cot really, really quickly because they're going to get a lot of practice at it early on.
And that can be a really good thing when you've got multiple children as well is just often it's really important that they can fall asleep in their cot at a relatively young age because you've got so much going on in your life and juggling sports and school and childcare and all of that.
Would you add anything, Laura?
Laura? No, I think we simply have to be pragmatic in these circumstances.
And I so often come back to that when I'm working with families in clinic.
We just have to be pragmatic.
And you're right, Nicola, it's not possible for you to be doing some patting for half an hour or more in the morning whilst you're on your own with two other children.
So cut yourself some slack, your baby's going to be absolutely fine.
You're going back in frequently to support him.
That's the best you can do and your little one is going to be absolutely fine.
So hang in there. This is a really, really busy time.
I think that all children number three or four, I'm one.
I'm child number three in my family.
We're all all right.
In the end, we're all okay.
And you've got three felons so I'm sure that your youngest one had to just put up with stuff that the other two wouldn't have yeah they don't get that level of attention as the first born that's for sure I think this is a great question from Nicola too because it underscores the importance of truly just tailoring to the child you've got the circumstances you've got like the you know people say all sorts of things on the internet and I often just bang my head against the wall thinking like come on that advice isn't going to work for every parent out there and parents need permission to look at their
situation and go well that doesn't work for me but this option does and you've got to feel confident that's the right decision for your family and dive in yeah okay so good luck nicola it sounds like you've definitely got your hands full um but yeah i think you're on the right track yeah amazing our next question is from brie who has a five month old who did have a 12 and a half sorry a 12 hour sleep need which is now trending closer to 11 to 11 and a half hours previously she relied on feeding to sleep or contact naps but now successfully settles for all naps in the cot and on the go well done
brie that's brilliant she says that night settling is still via feeding she cat naps for 30 to 40 minutes in her cot so ends up having having four naps a day, totalling between two and a half to three hours, which leaves only eight hours at night.
So bedtime is around 8 .30 and she has a five to six hour stretch, then a feed and another short stretch with a consistent 5 a .m. wake up.
So Bree asks, how can she improve overnight sleep with such low sleep needs?
Great question. Interesting.
So she's sitting on 11 to 11 and a half hours.
Often it's babies that sit on that amount where we really have to, if we want longer nights, and if you think your baby is ready for this shift, we have to start really stretching them out between those day naps to really try and push more of their sleep into the night.
So that's something I would be thinking about is is they're five months old even on cat naps a lot of them with low sleep needs are on three naps per day at this point so you could definitely work towards stretching it out to just the three naps per day on the other hand i mean we're going through the sort of those factors again in a way but i would be thinking you know overnight settling is still via feeding so whilst they've got some self -settling ability they're settling in the cot for naps um by the sounds of of it overnight, they're probably still waking up and kind of going, I was feeding,
what's going on? I want another feed.
Um, so there could be sort of a bit of motivation happening there as well.
So I would keep going with the cot settling and really work on the independence with the cot settling.
And I say that because sometimes they master self -settling and even if sleep pressure is a little low, they're so good at self -settling, they'll do it anyway.
So sometimes we see that total sleep duration increase.
So we really want to address all of those factors that can influence night wakes because when they are all addressed, sometimes we do see them getting a little bit more sleep.
So I would be, yeah, that's where I would be starting is trying to stretch to the three naps and doing a bit of a push with the independent settling.
What would you say, Laura?
Is there anything you missed?
No, I think that all sounds like a really good plan.
Be brave, breathe, that three naps a day is going to be appropriate for your baby.
um and um you know probably in another month they'll drop down to just the two naps a day um and um yeah just work on that cot settling you're doing an awesome job you know to have moved away from feeding to sleep and contact naps during the day to having four naps in the cot that's really really awesome because often it's night time settles it's a bit easier to do in the the cot so brie you've managed to do it during the day so have a lot of courage um that once you probably drop down to the three naps during the day your little one is going to be able to fall asleep in the cot without at night
time without relying on that feed it's going to be easier than you expect so let us know how you get on yeah yeah well done brie and yeah good luck i think you've got this absolutely yeah all right we're running short on time we've got three more to of power through.
So Lisa has a 20 month old with a sleep need of around 10 and a half to 11 hours.
Initially he had five or more wakes a night, but after using the advanced quick fade method, he now falls asleep independently and wakes only one or two times overnight.
Resettling with just some shushing.
However, recent changes, challenges rather have emerged.
night waking so he's waking at 1 to 3 a .m and taking an hour to resettle he's resisting his nap so he's standing up singing and saying no nap oh dear um and then he's hard to wake after an hour when he does take his nap lisa wants to know how can they troubleshoot the recent overnight hysterical wakes after such good progress any tips to support consistent cot naps again and how to to make nap wake -ups easier so they don't feel so abrupt or disruptive oh Lisa you've made you have made such great progress and then yeah you've hit a real stumbling block it sounds like your little one is probably
gearing up to drop his nap um and yeah because what we often find is that children that do have sleep knees that are down the lower end of the normal range they do often drop their naps sooner than children with average or above average sleep needs so um we'll try to hang on to this nap for a little bit longer for you um so that you um yeah hopefully get another few months of it i would be thinking i'm thinking about your comments lisa about how how he's quite hard to wake after an hour when he has the nap that to me suggests that his sleep site that you might be waking him mid sleep cycle um
yeah and so i would be thinking how long are his sleep cycles um if his sleep cycles are like 45 minutes you'd be better off just giving him a 45 minute nap he will wake up much feeling much better rather than giving him that extra 15 minutes which can feel like it's a nice thing to do but actually then involves waking a child mid sleep sleep cycle and they can then feel really grotty.
Someone in clinic the other day called it nap sick, which I hadn't heard before.
They essentially have what's known as sleep inertia, where they're working the mid cycle.
So I would be thinking, let's have a think about how long his sleep cycles are.
So have a look in Sombel to see how you can work that out.
And then cap his nap at one of those, however long it is.
If it's half an hour, it's half an hour.
If it's 45, it's 45 it's 50 it's 50 um and um then thinking about adjusting that daily rhythm you know is it 10 and a half hours rather than 11 hours his sleep need um and then adjusting bedtime and wake up so that it's um in line with what that daily rhythm is um sometimes at this point um with the nap when it is just one sleep cycle and we know it's only for another few months some some parents will say they're just going to have to nap in the car on the go or in the pram just to get through it.
Yeah, because this kind of singing and saying no nap, it's a bit hard to argue against that.
Yeah. So it may be that the naps need to be on the go.
But either way, shortening that nap to one sleep cycle is also going to help with the overnight wakes because we should find that with that daily rhythm in line with if it's 10 and a half hours it's in line with that sleep need um he's less likely to be waking up for an hour at a time in the night do you have anything to add Fallon I feel like I went around the house no I think you hit the nail on the head I think adjusting that nap will make a difference just just surrendering to naps on the go can just take a bit of weight off the mind as well and yeah I agree I reckon you've got maybe a couple
of months left and that nap will be gone but sometimes that's not a bad thing it means you get a longer night and that might work really well so good luck Lisa.
Amelia's written in she's just started using Sunbell and has created a sleep diary for her 10 month old but she is unsure about how best to record naps when the duration varies so much depending on the environment.
Oh, this is a common question, Fallon, isn't it?
For example, a cot nap is usually one sleep cycle, about 40 minutes, whilst contact naps or car naps can be up to an hour and a half.
Pram naps fall somewhere in between.
Since they live rurally, some naps each week are inevitably in the car.
So Amelia's question is, should they try to track naps during a week when more are in the cot, or just go with the usual routine and record the mix of nap types and durations and she has a second question which is do we have any tips for helping dad do bedtime their baby is bottle fed but refuses to take a bottle from dad and becomes inconsolable when dad handles bedtime even when mum stays out of sight from the start of bath time oh that's tricky yeah let's start with the first part of that question which is is when you keep a sleep diary, your only thing you need to do is live your life.
Just live your life, do whatever you would normally do on that particular type of day and just track when they sleep.
It's as simple as that because your baby is already used to sometimes having a short cot nap, sometimes having a car nap, and we just want to get a reading on their circadian rhythm for what is typical for them.
So go about your normal life and just track sleep when they sleep and that's it.
it's that simple and i actually did update the directions in some box we do get a few questions about this um and i updated those steps for keeping the sleep diary the other day so it's in there as well so in terms of tips for helping dad do the bedtime and you know so many babies just either have a preference for one parent and then a few months later it switches to another parent look i would say it's just going to take practice we just have to practice and practice practice, and practice, and eventually babies will realize, okay, it's the same bottle, whether I get it from mom or from dad or from another
caregiver. It might be that you choose if there's a particular time of day when your baby's a bit more likely to take their bottle from their dad, maybe you keep practicing at that time, even leave the house.
So your baby knows you're not around to do the bottle.
When that's getting a bit easier, then start to introduce more practice at bedtime as well.
And I think that's just it.
It's challenging, but you'll get through it but you've just got to show your baby that it doesn't matter who gives you this bottle it's the same old bottle either way yeah I think that's a really lovely idea Fallon to um you know maybe it's the morning bottle where lots of babies are really hungry in the morning and they are more likely to take the bottle from whoever gives it to them because they're just hungry and so yeah asking um dad to do the bottle at that time letting that the baby get more experienced at taking the bottle from dad and then saying, okay, now let's give it a go at bedtime.
Yeah, good plan. And lucky last question is from Michaela.
She'd like to know how to tell if a toddler is ready to stop their day naps altogether.
Will they go back and forth between day napping and not for a time before dropping them altogether?
Will they sleep longer at night once the day nap is dropped?
And how do you know if you're pushing them too fast to drop the day nap?
hmm so we have a lesson on um signs to look out for um that a child is ready to drop a nap um in the in all of the programs um when it comes to toddlers dropping their nap altogether um we'll often see um toddlers really resisting their nap so a bit like um one of the members questions earlier where the toddler's singing and saying no nap um they're really not interested at all in lying down for their nap and sometimes therefore skipping it.
Or if they do have it, then taking a long time for them to fall asleep that night.
So I'd be looking at the other signs in the section on signs to drop a nap and seeing if your toddler is showing those consistently, we want to make sure that they've been present for at least a week before you then say, yep, yep, now we're going to drop the nap.
For some toddlers, they do have a period of time where they might have some days where they have one sleep cycle for a nap and other days not.
That tends to make the transition a little bit more wobbly and it goes on for a bit longer.
But if that suits you, like if you are needing to be in the car, for example, on some days of the week, and so your toddler just has a nap on those days, then move bedtime a bit later on those If you can, try to drop the nap.
Cold turkey, but you can give your child a little power nap in the later afternoon to get them through into a bedtime.
If you have to, at the time that normally would be having a nap, think about having some quiet time with them.
Instead, some rest time where perhaps you just read books together or play a low energy game or watch something on TV just to get them through.
Whether the sleep gets added into the nighttime sleep, so the daytime sleep, whether that gets added into the nighttime sleep will depend on what their current sleep needs are.
so sometimes yes if their sleep needs haven't changed the daytime nap will move into the nighttime sleep and bedtime often then comes earlier if you're in a situation where dropping the nap has coincided with a drop in their sleep needs sometimes that nap duration just goes off into the ether poof it's gone and bedtime and wake up stay the same as they were whilst the child was still having a nap so it will depend on your toddler um i always do fingers crossed hope for the best you can bring bedtime earlier initially and let's see how you go um and it may be that for a period of time as they're
getting used to not having a nap at all bedtime is a bit earlier they manage to maintain their sleep until morning and then after a week or two sometimes three where they've got used to it um as in they've got used to not having a nap during the day bedtime can start to move a little bit later um and um wake up stays the same so good luck Mark, Michaela, let us know how you get on.
Absolutely. Thank you to all the parents for submitting such brilliant questions.
And I really hope everyone's picked up a few tips or a few factors they can think about if they're worrying about night wakes in their baby or toddler.
And don't forget our Night Waking Masterclass is coming very soon to Sombel.
So if you are in the trenches right now thinking, I really need some support with this, it's probably perfect timing actually with the last days of our end of financial year sale.
It's a great chance to get 30 % off joining and you'll know that those masterclasses will be available really quite soon.
So if you're keen on that support, yeah, check out the link in the show notes to learn more about Somvell.
We also run some pretty fantastic sleep clinics as well where we see families from all over the place via telehealth.
We also have our face -to -face clinic in Melbourne too.
So if you just want to work one -on -one with someone, we can absolutely support you as well.
And lastly, if you would like to buy us a coffee, please do so.
There's a link in the show notes.
We did have somebody lovely buy us a coffee the other day and I forgot to put it on our notes.
It was Sarah. So maybe next week.
Sarah, thank you. Thank you, Sarah.
That's so lovely. All right, so all those tired parents out there, have hope.
It does get better.
It does get easier.
and if you need support we're here for that so do reach out if you need us otherwise you'll hear from us well not next week actually we're going to um take a week off for school holidays and um all the ups and downs that that brings to our schedules um so we will take a bit of a break but you'll you'll hear from us again very soon 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 pediatric Sleep Clinic program for babies and toddlers aged zero to three 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 sombell .infantsleep .com .au.
