Dr Fallon (00:38)
Hi, and welcome back to Brand New Little People, the podcast where we talk about all things early parenting with a particular focus on sleep and settling. I'm your host, Dr. Fallon Cook, and I'm here with Dr. Laura Conway. And Laura, it's our first birthday for the Sombelle pediatric sleep programs.
Dr Laura (00:56)
my goodness, I can't believe it. Happy birthday, Sombelle and happy birthday to us.
Dr Fallon (01:00)
Woohoo! Yes! my goodness. It has been so much hard work, hasn't it? Like the hundred, probably thousands, thousands of hours that we've put into developing it, testing it, changing it, updating it. But it is just, it has been so rewarding to hear so much beautiful feedback from families. I'm just, I'm really proud of us.
Dr Laura (01:06)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, I am too. I can remember us sitting in that place that we had hired Fallon so that we could record the lessons for the courses, you know, roughly a year ago. And, my goodness, I could, it's gone in a flash. And it's also been 10 years.
Dr Fallon (01:36)
Yeah.
Dr Laura (01:45)
I can smell the room, I can picture us moving the equipment around, I can picture us with our little baby doll that we were using. And yet, my goodness, what a ride it's been this last year. I don't think either of us could have anticipated the number of families we would reach and the lovely feedback that we would be receiving about the impact we've had on people's lives.
Dr Fallon (01:45)
Yeah.
Yes.
Yeah.
Dr Laura (02:14)
It's just been phenomenal, the impact on our lives and the impact on our Sombelle community. What a wild ride.
Dr Fallon (02:14)
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely. And it's just phenomenal. I think, you know, it required so much bravery because we had looked at other programs that were out there and we weren't thrilled with what was being offered to parents. So we weren't just going into it, you know, going, let's just create our own sleep program. We were like, we're going to create the best sleep program that has ever existed. we set the standard very, very high.
Dr Laura (02:32)
Mm.
You
Yes.
Dr Fallon (02:49)
that's why it took so much hard work to pull it all together. And it continues to take a lot of hard work to keep it running and keep it up to date and we're always adding new things. But I'm just so proud of it. It really has done what we wanted it to do. And one of the things, yeah, one of the things we were thinking when we set out to build the Sombelle programs was the demand for our clinic services had gone through the roof. Like we could not cope with the number of new
Dr Laura (02:59)
Yeah.
Yeah, it has and more.
Mm.
Dr Fallon (03:18)
clients who wanted to see us and wait lists were kind of two to three months to get an appointment. And that's just not on. Like no family can wait that long for an appointment. So our thinking was, well, for some families, they can just come in and do this great program and that will be all they need. And then our clinic becomes more available for the really complex cases where they could be like a really very tumultuous medical journey that has come before.
Dr Laura (03:20)
Hmm.
No, no.
Yep.
Mm -hmm.
Dr Fallon (03:47)
their appointment. certainly we work with lots of families with neurodiversity. We're often, you know, speaking face to face is really important. it's opened up room for those families to be able to get in quicker and we've still managed to help so many, other families through Sombelle as well. So it's worked because now our wait list, I think it's just a few weeks long and that's a bit more reasonable and, parents can manage that. So yeah, it's great.
Dr Laura (03:49)
Mm.
Yeah.
Yes.
Yeah. Yeah. And we also decided that we wanted to kind of take the pressure off ourselves a little bit with both of us being working parents and having young children to take care of. And I think many of our listeners would also be entering this journey themselves now with their babies and toddlers. Maybe you've got school aged children and...
Dr Fallon (04:29)
Hmm.
Dr Laura (04:40)
If you do need to go back to do paid work, which most of us do, it's one hell of a juggle to do that. And having the bravery for us to put some time into creating a program that would mean that we could free up a bit of time for ourselves as well and our families was really important, wasn't it?
Dr Fallon (04:48)
Hmm.
Dr Laura (05:04)
And I think this, we probably actually didn't end up freeing up a great deal of time. We just changed one type of work for another type of work.
Dr Fallon (05:04)
Mmm.
That's right. We just switched one out for another, I think. But you know what? We've got some pretty good plans in place that I think will keep helping with that work -life balance. One of the things we're really, really excited about over the next year is we are working with somebody very special. I can't tell you too many details just yet, but someone who is just wonderful, who is a parent counselor and does the most incredible work with families. We're just so, so impressed by her work.
Dr Laura (05:18)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (05:42)
And she's really great at supporting families who are struggling to adapt to parenting because it's such a huge change. And also families who are struggling with their child's behavior and knowing how do I respond to this? How do I parent through this? And we know that she's going to be a really big help to families and it'll be great to bring her on board. I don't know that it'll necessarily reduce our workload and help with our work -life balance, but it will mean that for families who need that extra support where it's beyond our skill level.
Dr Laura (05:47)
Mm -hmm.
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (06:12)
we will have this person there who, is wonderful. And anyway, we can't say too much about that, but when it does all come together, we'll definitely be letting you know. it's really exciting to add someone new to our team. yeah, but yeah, the work life balance, it is just, it's so tricky. When we were chatting, Laura, we thought this is a really good one to talk about on the podcast. Cause it's something that we have that real world, real life experience with. We, we've been juggling paid work.
Dr Laura (06:24)
Yeah.
Mmm.
Dr Fallon (06:42)
and parenting both of us for a really long time. And it's a constant up and down. I don't think there is a perfect balance. I think the whole idea of balance is a bit of a myth. It's about knowing sometimes one aspect of your life is going to run beautifully and something else will have to suffer for it. And then it's a few weeks later, a few months later, that flips again. You know, you might have new and different priorities.
Dr Laura (06:45)
Yeah.
Mmm.
Mmm.
Yes.
Mmm, yeah.
Dr Fallon (07:10)
It's always going to be an evolving process, I think.
Dr Laura (07:13)
Yeah, it is. And as the demands of work ebb and flow and the demands of family life ebb and flow, it will be constantly changing. And when you, I found when I needed to return to work after having children that my, not that I became, I worked any less hard, but I became much more skilled at using my time very, very wisely.
And also being a little bit more discerning about what was good enough rather than needing things to be perfect. And I think that is a adjustment that many parents need to make once they return to paid work after having children. You can't be the perfectionist if you were beforehand, you can't do that anymore when you also need to be there for your children and your family. So I know...
Dr Fallon (08:10)
So true.
Dr Laura (08:11)
And I've found that you, of course, have got three children. So one more than me and juggling small children with paid workers, a real struggle. Now you've made a really significant life change by moving from the city to the country in order to help with that juggle. Why don't you tell us a little bit more about what life was like before you made that move?
Dr Fallon (08:17)
Hehehehe
Mm. So yeah, it was, it was so wild. I actually think back on that time and I have no idea. I have absolutely no idea how I made it through. It is just the hardest thing I ever did. So things really had to change. yeah. So I had three kids and I lived on the outskirts of the city.
Dr Laura (08:53)
Mm. Mm.
Dr Fallon (09:03)
and I took about an hour and a half in the car to get to work and another hour and a half to get home. So it was three hours of commuting every day. I mostly was working about three days per week, in the office. but I had three children who needed to go to three different places because we've never had family nearby to kind of support us or help out with childcare. so that meant dropping, what did I have to do? So I dropped my middle child had to be dropped off at like a kindergarten.
Dr Laura (09:08)
Mm.
Mm.
Mm -hmm. Yep.
Dr Fallon (09:33)
like long daycare but kindergarten at one place. My oldest had to be dropped off at before school care and then my youngest came into the city with me because that's the only place we could get a child care place was just across from the Royal Children's Hospital where I was working. So it was three drop -offs to do. So I would get up at 5 .30 maybe 5 .20 something like that. I would
Dr Laura (09:49)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (10:00)
I'd get up and get myself ready. I'd get three kids ready, get them all in the car by, I think it was 6 .30, drop, start, start doing all the drop offs. The drop offs took between about seven and eight AM. And then, yeah, I would start work at eight. I'd finish at four and do the whole thing in reverse. And I would get home probably, I'm guessing it was about six, six 30 PM or so. Cook dinner, put them all to bed, do all the washing.
Dr Laura (10:12)
Yeah.
my god.
Mmm.
Dr Fallon (10:29)
iron their uniforms, cause the eldest was in a school, stupid. These schools that have uniforms that need to be ironed. I mean, that's a whole other podcast. It's ridiculous. But anyway, that's a story for another day. and so I'd fall into bed at about 1130 PM usually, and then sleep till 530 AM and get up and do it again. I was so exhausted. I was perpetually running on a sleep debt. I never ever managed to achieve my.
Dr Laura (10:34)
yeah. Yes. my God. It's ridiculous. Yeah.
my god. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (10:57)
sleep needs that I had. And by the time the weekend came around, my body clock was so frazzled. Like it wasn't like I could catch up. My kids would still wake up early. There was no real catch up. It was, I was just running on adrenaline all the time. it was.
Dr Laura (11:02)
Yeah.
Yeah. Hey Fallon, and you know what is really interesting about the, when you are sleep deprived is that when you're, you're having less and less sleep, your things like your reaction times start to get longer. And we both follow that wonderful person on TikTok, that sleep doc who does some really great work. And he recently did a post about how the study that looked at,
Dr Fallon (11:26)
Mmm. Yep.
Mmm.
Dr Laura (11:40)
whether you ever get used to having less sleep. And interestingly, your perception of how well you're functioning can be, you can think, yeah, I'm doing all right, I'm doing okay. But actually, your reaction times are no better. They've got worse and worse, but you feel like you are adapting and that you're functioning better on less sleep, but you're not, your performance will be impacted.
Dr Fallon (11:43)
Mmm.
Mmm.
Yeah.
Mmm.
Mmm.
Dr Laura (12:10)
And so listening to you describing that Fallon where you're day after day, you're getting up super early to then, you know, you had lived 12 lives before you even got into the office, then do a full day of work. And it's not like it was easy work that you were doing to then go back and not get into bed until really late and then sleep a very short number of hours. And during that time, you've got three children. So I'm guessing that they were one or the other of them would have been up in the night as well at some point.
Dr Fallon (12:10)
Yeah.
Mmm.
Mmm... no.
Hmm.
Mmm.
Dr Laura (12:40)
So it's not like you were every day having good quality sleep.
Dr Fallon (12:40)
Yeah.
That's exactly right. It was just so, so full on. And it just got to a point, you know, the actual tipping point was that, well, I suppose one thing I should say is that I loved my career and I was very, very invested in my career. So I did find that work rewarding. In hindsight, I realized what an incredibly toxic work environment I was in. It was not good for me to be in that place, but I was very dedicated to the work that I was doing.
Dr Laura (12:45)
Mm.
Mm.
Dr Fallon (13:11)
but I think what was particularly hard was I was very invested in making sure my children didn't suffer for my choice to have that career. I had to work. I don't come from a wealthy family. we are a hundred percent relied on every single sense that I was earning. but I didn't want the children to, so for me, it was like always putting on this and the kids loved the car. Right. They actually, we used to do stuff in the car. It wasn't like I ever just zoned out and just went, they can just do whatever.
Dr Laura (13:20)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah.
Hahaha!
Dr Fallon (13:39)
It was like me going, okay, if I'm going to be taking them, getting them up early and taking them to before school care, this time has to be great time to get, I worked so hard to kind of protect them from the chaos of it. And they talk about that time. Like it was wonderful. I was dying, but they had a great time. my gosh. Anyway, so what happened was I, I was very fortunate to.
Dr Laura (13:53)
well you did a great, yeah.
Dr Fallon (14:04)
actually get some funding, which is a very hard thing to do in health and medical research. I got funding for a fellowship, which gave me a very small amount of money, but enough that would allow me to go overseas. And I went to Harvard in Boston and did some training there and got to observe some sleep clinics. It was fantastic. But I took the kids, the whole family went for that. So we chipped in our own money as well. And we did this sort of around the world trip. So from
Dr Laura (14:16)
Mm -hmm.
Dr Fallon (14:31)
America, we went over to Europe and very much on a shoestring. But it was, I think about five weeks or so where we just had what we needed in our bags and the kids had the adventure of their lifetime. And really we didn't do anything pricey. You know, we're flying economy. We were staying in Airbnb's and some of them were not flash, but we just.
had the time of our lives. And there was a point on that trip when my husband and I looked at each other and we're like, what the hell are we doing? What have we been doing? Here we are staying in little tiny apartments and things. We've only got one backpack and we're the happiest we've ever been in our lives, just having the time of our lives. And we suddenly went, why are we just living this life where we are working to pay a mortgage on a nice house, but it's just a house.
Dr Laura (15:15)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (15:26)
Like it's just a house, you know, and we were at work so much, we barely got to enjoy a nice house anyway. and it just really, we had this huge reassessment of our priorities. And by the time we got home from that trip, we were like, that's it. We, we love this house, but it's just a bloody house. Let's sell it. Let's sell it. Let's actually change our whole lifestyle. So I know not everybody can necessarily do this. And we were lucky to be in a position where we could, but we sold a house and we just rented in Melbourne.
Dr Laura (15:26)
Mmm.
Mm -hmm.
Yeah.
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (15:55)
right in the center of the city in a really lovely area. We got to ride our bikes to work and to school and walk through a park to get to school. For the first time in a long time, I could set my alarm for 7 a And yeah, exactly. And then so we were just living in the inner city. Like this is bloody amazing. You know, we can just we've got this fantastic life and everything's relaxed a little bit. And then Covid happened and we were in lockdown.
Dr Laura (16:06)
Hmm. A reasonable hour.
yes.
Dr Fallon (16:25)
But I still, even though we were in lockdown, I loved that time. It just took the pressure off. We kind of went to ground as a family, had a lot more time together. But of course the whole time we were like, you know, what are we going to do? There's no way we could afford to buy in the city. I think there's this perception out there that if you have the doctor title, you're completely loaded. It's hilarious. Absolutely hilarious. I'm not that kind of doctor. We are the wrong types of doctors. We...
Dr Laura (16:40)
Mm.
Yeah, no.
No. We are the wrong type of doctors. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (16:54)
don't earn the good money. So we were like, we'll never afford to buy in the city. And we wanted to come up with a simpler way of living. So that's when we had this quite hair -brained idea that we would just go and buy something in the countryside in an area we were familiar with. We were like, let's just buy some little old farmhouse, cheapest chips. And who knows what we'll do. Maybe we'll just go there on weekends sometimes. Just thinking that we may as well invest our money from the sale of a house and something.
Dr Laura (17:16)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (17:23)
but of course we fell in love with it. And so this little old farmhouse we ended up buying, I'd never actually seen it in person. I just sent my husband up to look at it when lockdown would allow. and that's where we eventually just ended up. We just kind of went every weekend, we'd go and visit and we'd go, I don't really want to go back. Wouldn't it be nice if we could live here? And then of course, working from home became a big thing.
Dr Laura (17:35)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (17:48)
And it was at that point we just went, let's just do it. Let's just go really back to basics and have a much lower stress lifestyle, a cheaper lifestyle. You know, it's more affordable living in the countryside. And it was just completely game changing. Completely game changing.
Dr Laura (17:48)
Yes.
Yes.
Yes. I remember it was a privilege to be like kind of travel along with you on this journey from when you lived out in the right out on the outskirts of Melbourne. Then I remember you going and doing your overseas trip and coming back and you saying, I've had an epiphany. We can't do this anymore. So then being alongside you as you moved into your rental and then you finding the place in the country.
Dr Fallon (18:22)
Mmm.
Hehehehehe
Dr Laura (18:33)
and your three children sharing one room because like you said, Dr. Tytle doesn't actually mean money. So you're in a two bedroom.
Dr Fallon (18:37)
Mm. Yeah. No, our house is tiny. It's no big matter house in the countryside, is it? It's like teeny tiny little cottage in the countryside that has a lot of asbestos and every single room needs renovating.
Dr Laura (18:54)
Yes. But the seeing the change in how you're living your life and how you're enjoying your life, you know, it's chalk and cheese. So why don't you tell us about what life is like now?
Dr Fallon (19:09)
Yeah, it's so drastically different, but it is still always, especially with Sombelle actually Sombelle can soak up an unlimited number of hours of my day. so trying to protect some time is, has become more important. There's definitely a push and a pull that goes on there. but just being able to actually meet my own sleep need is life changing. I used to feel sick every day, literally just sick, like gross, gross, like just nauseous and horrible.
Dr Laura (19:18)
Yeah.
Mm.
Mm.
Dr Fallon (19:38)
and I just don't have that anymore. It's far less pressure. of course the cost of living has gone through the roof. So where we thought we'd be able to save more money, we certainly haven't. And, you know, surprise, surprise, really old hundred year old farmhouses that have had almost no maintenance in 50 years, actually costs quite a lot of money to restore. I'm being pummeled with bills lately for renovations that exceed my annual salary. So, you know, it's pretty full on.
Dr Laura (19:43)
Hmm.
Yeah.
I'm sorry.
Yeah. Yes.
Dr Fallon (20:08)
but it has been just really nice to see, also see the kids go from being in a, that they were going to a private school that was very reluctant to meet them where they were at. So my kids are pretty fast learners and they really wanted to sprint ahead with the curriculum. And we just got so much pushback with that. They were bored out of their brains at that school. to now they're in a tiny, tiny little country school, public school.
Dr Laura (20:30)
Mm -hmm.
Dr Fallon (20:37)
that is a hundred percent on board with just meeting them at their point of need. And isn't that just a basic right for every child? Like every kid should have the educational needs met. And yeah, this new school costs nothing and they've got a wonderful group of friends. And I think for everybody in the family, it has been an enormously positive thing. Anyway, so the point of this podcast is not to convince every listener to sell up and buy an ancient farmhouse in the countryside.
Dr Laura (20:40)
Mm -hmm.
Mm.
Hmm.
Hehehehe
Dr Fallon (21:04)
But if you do tell me your Instagram handle because there's nothing I like to watch more than other people suffering through the same renovations that I'm doing. But it does make you think, I think, you know, the thing, the message I would like to give parents is to look at your circumstances as they are. There's going to be times when it's just not working for you and that might be temporary. But if for a really long time you feel like you are drowning,
And you can't see a way for things to improve. You're stuck in this cycle that just feels like you're on this treadmill that will never stop. Don't be afraid to go, hang on, is this how we really wanna live our lives? You've got one precious life. You've really, your kids are gonna grow up really quickly. So I guess just, yeah, I just want parents to be thinking about that when you're kind of planning out your life and how you do it. Are you getting enough time altogether as a family?
Dr Laura (21:41)
Hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Mmm.
Mm -hmm.
Dr Fallon (22:01)
do you need to sell up and move a couple of hundred K's away, or maybe you've earned more than I do and you can afford to live in the city, which would also be lovely.
Dr Laura (22:08)
Yes.
Yeah, yes. Yeah, and all those families listening who, you know, most people who are listening to Sombelle are the parents are sleep deprived. Of course, you're, you're off to sleep and settling help. And it's not gonna last forever. It is very, very hard when you're going through it. And
Dr Fallon (22:26)
Hmm.
Dr Laura (22:31)
And I've been through that as well, where I've had very unsettled babies. It does eventually come to an end, either with help or without help. And with Sombelle, our aim was to get evidence -based help and advice to as many families as we could so that you could get out of that trapped feeling of being sleep deprived and your family not functioning as well as you want to. So with the help of Sombelle,
Dr Fallon (22:40)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dr Laura (23:01)
You should begin to be getting better sleep in the whole family. So your baby, your toddler, yourself, your partner, if you have one. And then with that fresh, well -rested mind, you can then have a look around and kind of lift your head up over the parapet and have a look, see what's around and think about, is this current lifestyle working for me? And if it is wonderful, if it isn't, is there anything you can do?
Dr Fallon (23:18)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Dr Laura (23:30)
to tweak things. I personally haven't been able to make a move to the country. So, but one day. So that's Fallon's experience. Thank you so much for sharing that Fallon. It just goes to show that what's happening with you now in your life with very little children isn't going to be what it's like forever. This is one chapter of your life. And who knows where you'll be in another.
Dr Fallon (23:36)
One day.
Yes.
Dr Laura (23:58)
five years, you know, potentially you'll be living in Paris, like one of our friends who are totally out of the blue change. So as you say, Fallon, it's one precious life. And when you're well rested, you can really enjoy that precious life to the fullest.
Dr Fallon (24:02)
yes, yep.
definitely. Yeah. If my kids had had persistent sleep problems, that entire, entire structure we had built around our lives and how we lived would have completely crumbled and it wouldn't have been doable. And I don't know how I would have gone. No, I do know how I would have gone. I absolutely could not have stuck with that career that working in research is incredibly punishing. it has its upsides, but.
Dr Laura (24:27)
Hmm.
Mm.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (24:40)
in an environment with a lack of funding, it's cutthroat and there's no way I could have coped with that with interrupted sleep. Yeah, so I don't know if that's even helpful for families, but I feel like it's, it can be helpful, I think, to hear others experience and to know it doesn't last forever. And sometimes things change and you have the ability to make some changes to, yeah, get that balance a little bit better and working for you a bit better.
Dr Laura (24:47)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Mmm.
Dr Fallon (25:07)
It does happen. And gosh, like you were saying, Laura, it changes so much when your kids get older. I think from the time my youngest turned about five, maybe hitting closer to six, it all just became easier. On the weekend, we were like, cause we're renovating, we were painting like mad people outside in the freezing cold. And I barely saw the kids because they were very happy to make up their own farm, get their own snacks. I don't think very much fruit was consumed, if I'm honest, but I did not care because they were.
Dr Laura (25:11)
Mm -hmm.
Yes.
Yes.
Dr Fallon (25:35)
Totally happy doing their own thing so we could paint. And I mean, wow, that's, that's a big change from the early years. That's for sure.
Dr Laura (25:37)
Yes.
Yes, absolutely. All right, well, shall we move on to some of the questions that we've received, Shalan?
Dr Fallon (25:50)
Yeah, we've got some great questions this week. Do you want to start with Lisa?
Dr Laura (25:53)
Yeah.
Yeah, so Lisa wrote in she has a toddler who has an 11 hour sleep need. And she describes that his bedtime is eight o 'clock. And he has an hour daytime nap and his wake up is generally around 550am. gosh, very specific wake up time Lisa. That sometimes happens. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (26:15)
Yeah.
Dr Laura (26:18)
He has to be woken from his day nap after an hour because if he sleeps longer during the day, he'll wake up even earlier in the morning. gosh. Yeah. Well, look, that's a really good sign, Lisa, that the balance is right, that the one hour nap is working well, as long as you're happy with that 5 .50 AM wake up. So Lisa says, the problem is he still looks tired in the morning. She says her gut is telling her it's still not enough sleep for him.
He won't resettle in the morning when he wakes. And if Lisa tries to, he just gets aggravated or lies there wide awake. By 11 a he's very, very tired and it's a struggle to keep him awake until his nap time. So Lisa asks, how do we get him to sleep in long?
Dr Fallon (27:05)
It's such a good question. And this often happens when parents like Lisa have done a brilliant job of working out unique sleep needs and they've really been working towards, you know, having a really good predictable daily rhythm. They often do come to a point where they say, I just feel like they need a little bit more sleep. And that's where it's so important to have a bit of an experiment and see what you can do to kind of optimize their mood while still getting them to meet their sleep needs. my first thought is.
Dr Laura (27:22)
Mm.
Dr Fallon (27:35)
That wake up time is so specific for Lisa's child. There's a good chance his circadian rhythm just goes, yep, this time is morning time, 5 .50. You know, this is my morning time. This is when I want to get up. It could be hard to change that. There's two things mainly I would try, Lisa. The first is obviously do that big check of that sleep environment early in the morning. Can he hear birds outside shrieking their lungs out in the very Australian way that they do?
Dr Laura (27:44)
Yeah.
Hmm.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (28:03)
is there some light coming in? Is it the rubbish truck? yeah. Is it quite cold? just do a bit of a check, make sure all of those factors are addressed because we don't want him to know that it's morning time. If it's, if it is getting a little bit, probably not light coming in this time of year, but if there is some noise and you can mask it with white noise, often it's just something really simple like that. And suddenly they sleep in that extra 30 minutes, they're happier and everything else still stays on track. So definitely think about that.
Dr Laura (28:16)
Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Dr Fallon (28:32)
But what I wondered was, is there some room to tinker with bedtime a little bit? Since keeping, having a longer day nap does tend to make him wake up even earlier in the morning, maybe keep the length of the day nap the same, but maybe trial bedtime, say 15 minutes earlier and just do that for one week and see if he can adapt to that. If he's...
Dr Laura (28:56)
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (28:58)
you know, constantly waking up at 15 minutes earlier in the morning. It might just be that that's about as good as we can get it right now. And as he gets older, excuse me, he'll just get better and better at managing that daily rhythm. But there is a chance that a slightly earlier bedtime, he'll still get off to sleep okay, because he didn't overdo it with the day's sleep. And just getting that little bit more sleep before he wakes up in the morning might just mean that his mood is that that little bit better.
Dr Laura (29:04)
Mm.
Mm.
Dr Fallon (29:25)
So yeah, it's not a clear cut answer, Lisa. I think there could just be a little bit of tinkering to do. We always say when you're at this point to make one timing change for a full week and just see what happens. So, add 15 minutes in, maybe try 15 minute earlier bedtime for a week. And if he starts to wake up a lot at night or is waking really early, then you know why it's because of that one change. Whereas if you make lots of different changes, obviously that's going to be confusing and you won't know which one of those changes did it.
Dr Laura (29:35)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Dr Fallon (29:55)
So hopefully that helps. Would you add anything to that Laura?
Dr Laura (29:55)
Yeah.
No, I don't think so. I think you've got everything covered. We can't increase the length of the nap because it just brings his wake up time earlier. And the other thing to consider is that what time that nap is at. Now, if he's really tired by around 11 and you're aiming for around midday for that nap, see how he goes going down at around 11 or 1130.
Dr Fallon (30:27)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (30:27)
That could be another change. So you could think about adding the extra 15 minutes to bedtime and do that for a week and see if that improves things. And then another change would be just move his nap time a bit earlier, still cap it at one hour. But oftentimes toddlers do have, well, babies and toddlers have their shortest time awake earlier on in the day. And it may be that just by having the nap a little bit earlier than you're currently aiming for, he actually coats quite well.
Dr Fallon (30:57)
Yeah, yep, that's a good, good idea. Ruth wrote in with a really lovely email Laura and I thought I've just got to read this out because it gave me the warm fuzzies. She says, firstly, I'd like to thank you so much for your podcast, which has been the soundtrack to the first nine months of my son's life. She says,
Dr Laura (31:04)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (31:18)
I adore how you seamlessly combine empathy and science. It's felt like having two super smart friends supporting me through those long lonely nights. What more could a new mom want? She says, you've facilitated a deep level of understanding of my baby's low unique sleep needs without which I would have spent many a frustrated hour torturing my baby trying to get him to sleep beyond his capacity.
Thank you so much for providing me and my family the tools to manage our FOMO babies low sleep needs in a way that suits us. That's just so lovely Ruth that absolutely makes my day. it makes me a bit teary. I love it. Yeah. So Ruth describes that her baby has recently stopped feeding to sleep. It is now mostly settling in his cot and she's been using the quick fade approach.
Dr Laura (31:51)
Yeah. Yeah, me too. Yeah. Yeah. So lovely.
Dr Fallon (32:11)
He wakes up three times at night and the first time he resettles in his cot with the quick fade The other two times she feeds him back to sleep without the feed to sleep for day naps He is full of beans and more interested in playing than napping She was offering two naps. The first is one and a half hours and the second is one hour But now he seems to want just one day nap. He has an eleven and a half hour sleep need and
Dr Laura (32:17)
I'm gonna go to bed.
Dr Fallon (32:41)
And reading over Ruth's email, she's been sticking to a really good daily rhythm that fits his sleep need. It's just now that he's in his cot that he's struggling to nap. So Ruth is worried that it's probably a bit too early to drop to just one nap. And I'd agree with that. He's only nine months old. And she'd like some guidance around a new daily rhythm and next steps. So quite a big.
Dr Laura (33:06)
Mmm.
Dr Fallon (33:08)
Sort of complicated situation, Laura, but what are your first thoughts?
Dr Laura (33:12)
My first thoughts are probably to try and keep the two naps for the time being. He is only nine months old, so that would be very young to drop to one nap. And you might find that he simply can't do it. So I'll be looking at the duration of those naps. So it sounds like you've been aiming for one longer nap and perhaps one shorter nap. So I'd probably suggest...
keeping two naps but aim for just one sleep cycle each for those naps. So if his sleep cycles, you know, they're anywhere between 30 minutes and 50 minutes of sleep cycle. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (33:44)
Mm. Yeah.
Hmm. Yeah. And with being a FOMO baby too, I think you can give yourself a bit of a break, pop him in the pram or the car if he's going to settle easily. Cause I hear the struggle that Ruth's describing when you've got a FOMO baby, you're trying to fit in two naps still. It can be so, so hard. So do give yourself that get out of jail free card.
Dr Laura (34:13)
Yes.
Dr Fallon (34:14)
If it's going to be easy to settle him in the pram or the car, then one of those naps can just be on the go, or even both for a while, if it's going to give you an easier time of things. Yeah, it's hard when they're just wide awake and want to do things.
Dr Laura (34:21)
Mmm.
Yes, yeah. And they don't want to miss out, then they come up after one sleep cycle in their cot and they think, what's mom up to? Or what are any siblings doing? And what's that noise? And they're not so likely to go, I could still do with another sleep cycle. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (34:39)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, they just think, right, I'm ready to go. I'm recharged, mum. Get me out of here. Yeah, that's it. And I was thinking too, you know, in hearing what Ruth's describing, now he's had some experience in his cot. I would be inclined to do a really big push with just cot settling because sometimes when they're doing some settling in their cot, some feeds to sleep.
Dr Laura (34:50)
Yeah, I want to join in. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (35:11)
it can kind of become a bit confusing. And then they're just not really settling very well, because they're thinking, well, they've put me in the cot, but well, sometimes I get to feed to sleep and that might be nice right now. And it could be that you maybe move to something like the Supported Accelerated Approach Now, Ruth, where you're a little bit more hands off with the settling and just putting a little bit more pressure on him to use those self settling skills that we know he's got. And if you did that for every settle, except for those odd pram or carnaps,
Dr Laura (35:13)
Mmm.
Mm.
Mmm.
Dr Fallon (35:41)
if you did that for every settle, including after the nighttime feeds, you're making sure he's put back down awake and you do that same approach. There's a good chance within a week or so he'll be like, right, got it. When I put, you know, when I'm put down in my cart and mum does this exact thing every time I know that it's time for sleep. And then you might find that he's much more willing, to have those couple of short naps in the daytime. And you should notice the nighttime overwakes, overwakes overnight wakes, starting to reduce as well.
Dr Laura (36:03)
Mm.
Yes, you might find that because he's nine months old, he's having two feeds overnight, you might find that he starts to be able to go overnight with just one feed, for example, particularly if he's eating well during the day and his weight gain is okay. And then before you know it, Ruth, he'll stop waking for feeds, you know, or you can decide yourself when you've just think that he no longer needs those feeds overnight.
Dr Fallon (36:23)
Mm.
Mm.
Dr Laura (36:39)
And when you're not relying on giving him that feed to get him back to sleep and you've got that other approach to use, it won't be such a daunting prospect. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (36:48)
Mm. Yeah, absolutely. I was also thinking Laura, from what Ruth's describing, I would be really closely monitoring his sleep needs. because I wondered if maybe his sleep need is actually has dropped slightly more simply because he used to be fed to sleep for the day naps. And often that can mean that babies doze a lot on the breast and yeah, they, they kind of, they get more sleep than what they actually need. Cause they're spending a lot of time just kind of.
Dr Laura (37:07)
Mm.
Mmm.
Dr Fallon (37:17)
dozing in the latter stages of sleep. So when a parent measures a baby's unique sleep needs, it can be a little bit inflated. And once they're no longer feeding to sleep, we actually need to tighten up that schedule a little bit more again. So that could be something to think about is now doing another check on what his sleep needs are, Ruth. And then you could use the daily rhythm charts that are in the Sombelle programs, just as an example, to kind of get some ideas on what you could do, because there is a section in there for...
Dr Laura (37:23)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (37:45)
babies with a particular sleep need but who only catnaps. So that could be something to check out. And then once you've really got that daily rhythm nicely matched to his unique sleep needs, if you were to move to something like Supported Accelerated Approach, or even if you just stick with the Quick Fade Approach for now, you're likely to see, yeah, some pretty swift progress, I'd imagine.
Dr Laura (37:49)
Yeah.
Mm.
Yeah, good luck Ruth. Thank you for that lovely email and before you know it, you'll have your baby settling really nicely in his cot when you want him to. All right, shall I read out Sophie's email, Valen? So Sophie wrote in and she said, she's got a really little baby. Her baby is almost 11 weeks old.
Dr Fallon (38:09)
Mmm, yes.
Yeah.
Hmm.
Dr Laura (38:32)
and sleeps great from around eight or 8 .30 at night until three or four a when she gives her baby a feed. After this time, however, her baby sleeps very restlessly, some of which seems like active sleep, but she can also wake up and cry needing to be rocked in the cot or picked up. Sophie says, if I keep my hand on her, so she's in a sidecar cot, so that's one of the ones beside.
the bed, the parents bed, she will sleep quietly. So we do this on and off until she really wakes up at somewhere between 6 .30 and seven. This seems worse the later she wakes up for the feed, that is closer to 4 a results in more restless and shorter sleep until morning. Moving bedtime earlier an hour helped as the feed hit closer to 2 .30 or three. But as she keeps lengthening her sleep, excellent,
we ended up in the same spot. She has five naps, 30 minutes in the cot once or twice, and the rest are longer contact naps or naps in the carrier. And the late evening one is around six o 'clock. That one in particular is becoming very tricky. Sophie says she's tired and cranky, but hard to keep asleep at that time. But Sophie says she can't seem to get the timing right to avoid that last nap.
unless we bring bedtime forward again. So, so if he wants to know what to do, that is, me too.
Dr Fallon (40:03)
Wow. That is a lot to hold in my head all at one time. I've got, you know, that meme with the lady with all the maths equations like above her head. That's me right now trying to like calculate it all. Sophia, it sounds really challenging. Yeah. Look, I would say I'm going to sound like a broken record again, but I would track her sleep in a sleep diary for at least a few days to a week. And then,
Dr Laura (40:13)
Yes!
I know I need to take a moment.
Dr Fallon (40:33)
have a look at building out a daily rhythm that's really predictable. So the things that make me say that, it's, I just put my microphone probably deafened all of our listeners then. Sorry about that. So the things that make that make me think, you know, we need to look at the daily rhythm is that she's spending hours in this kind of light sleep where, you know, you're having to do a lot of hands on support to keep her asleep.
Dr Laura (40:43)
You
Hmm.
Mmm.
Dr Fallon (41:00)
It sounds like sleep pressure is pretty low towards morning. it's also that, you know, five naps, it's a lot. It is a lot at, you know, I'm guessing close, yes, close to three months of age now. and some of them are short naps, but then some are longer ones, you know, contact naps or carrier naps. So that makes me think there's a lot of movement in the length of naps day to day and.
Dr Laura (41:11)
Mm -hmm.
Mmm.
Dr Fallon (41:28)
At 11 weeks old, it's a key time point for the circadian rhythm. At around about the 12 week mark, which Sophie's baby is close to, the circadian rhythm is starting to produce its own sleep hormones. There's just a really big shift in how babies sleep. So having that variability day to day, it's totally fine in those first, probably first couple of months, but as they're getting towards three months, I tend to say, start to have the same bedtime, the same wake up time.
Dr Laura (41:33)
Mmm.
Dr Fallon (41:58)
make sure you're not overdoing the day's sleep. Because what I think is, is that there's a little bit too much day sleep happening and that's what's causing those nights to be tricky. So if you work out what her unique sleep needs are, you can use those daily rhythm charts like we spoke about earlier to get some suggestions on what a typical day could look like and then start to work towards that a bit more purposefully, which is fine to do at this age because they're starting to get out of that really newborn phase.
Dr Laura (42:04)
Mm -mm.
Yeah.
Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Mmm.
Dr Fallon (42:26)
I think Sophie, you'll really start to find just a really good groove to the day. And then then it becomes easier to go, okay. maybe they're a bit wakeful towards morning. Do we need to, trim the last nap of the day? Or it just, cause you've got, you're enforcing a little bit more predictability. I feel like it then becomes easy to look at a sleep diary and go, yeah, okay. Maybe this part of it is becoming a problem. Am I making sense, Laura? Yeah.
Dr Laura (42:43)
Hmm.
Yeah, you are. You are. I think that what Sophie is describing is a baby who is beginning to be ready to drop that fifth nap. Because at the moment she's now she's finding it hard to maintain her sleep in the early part of the morning, kind of after she's had her feed onwards. And I reckon that if we were to look at that, whatever Sophie's baby's sleep need is, we'd probably probably start to look at
Dr Fallon (43:02)
Mmm.
Mmm. Yeah.
Dr Laura (43:20)
getting rid of that fifth nap and moving her to just the four naps, because Sophie describes that she's getting, it's getting a little bit harder to settle her for that final nap of the day. But then, and it's at six. Yes, but she's also describing that it's a bit tricky to not have that nap. And that would be because the sleep is quite restless early in the morning. So by the end of the day,
Dr Fallon (43:22)
Mmm.
Yes. And it is at 6pm, so it's getting pretty late.
Hmm.
Dr Laura (43:47)
Sophie's baby is going to be feeling a bit discombobulated and will be a little bit cranky or, you know, a little bit restless and hard to keep asleep, but also hard to keep awake. But once we get rid of that fifth nap, move her to a, probably a four nap rhythm, you'll probably find that she starts to be able to maintain her sleep a little bit more solidly after her feed in the middle of the night or, you know, earlier on in...
Dr Fallon (43:54)
Hmm.
you
Dr Laura (44:15)
around that three or four o 'clock time. And then that means that that sleep is going to be better quality, which means that she's just going to be able to cope with having the fewer naps during the day.
Dr Fallon (44:26)
Yeah. Yep. I think that is such good advice. And it just don't forget that in those early months, it's really normal for babies to be cranky as hell in the evenings. You know, even on the perfect schedule, they can still just be a handful and want to be held a lot. And it's just that tricky time of day. So don't take that as a sign that they have to have a nap. It could just be completely normal. It means that they're really getting rid of all their energy so they can settle into that lovely long sleep.
Dr Laura (44:35)
yeah!
Yeah.
Mm -hmm.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (44:53)
But yeah, well done, Sophie. It's such a juggle at that age and it sounds like you're doing a really good job of trying to figure out, you know, look for the clues and figure things out. So definitely dive into that unique sleep needs chapter a bit further. Lauren wrote in with a question, quite a quick and easy one to answer, Laura. She wants to know more about average sleep cycle lengths.
Dr Laura (44:58)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mmm.
Mm.
Dr Fallon (45:18)
working through Sombelle and have decided to cap their son's nap at about an hour and a half for the first nap of the day. And they wondered is it best to wake him at like an hour 20 or maybe an hour 40 just to make sure he's at the end of a sleep cycle and not still in the deepest stages of sleep.
Dr Laura (45:33)
Hmm. So good question, Lauren. So sleep cycles, I think maybe I may have said this for one of the other answers. Sleep cycles, generally somewhere between about 30 minutes and 50 minutes in length for babies and toddlers. For adults, we're looking more like 90 minutes. And in that time, babies will go down into first phase one, sleep phase two, then they go down into the deep levels of sleep, and then they come back out again.
Ideally, when we are waking a baby, we wake them from the, when they're coming out of the sleep cycle. So they're not woken mid sleep cycle, particularly in those deep stages of sleep. If a baby is woken at that point or a toddler or an adult for that matter, tend to be a bit grumpy because it doesn't feel very nice. And so it's always good to try to avoid it if you can. In order to determine how long your baby's sleep cycles are, Lauren, I would,
advise you to during one of the naps just to observe your baby from around 25 minutes onwards whilst they're asleep. If they've been asleep for 25 minutes, just start to watch them. And you might get a sense of how long the sleep cycle is by looking at his behavior as he sleeps. Often as babies come to the end of a sleep cycle, they'll wriggle their little bodies, their eyes might flutter open. They might, it might be very subtle or it might be louder.
and more obvious. But at the point that they make those movements, kind of, if you had a stopwatch, stop your stopwatch, that's roughly the length of time of their sleep cycle. And some babies have very specific ones, 37 minutes often comes up in clinic with me, Fallon. 37 minutes, it's just as really specific on the dot. And then you would want to be thinking about if you are waking your baby at the end of a nap, you are
Dr Fallon (47:01)
Hmm.
Yeah, it does, doesn't it? It really does. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr Laura (47:29)
do it in increments of that sleep cycle length.
Dr Fallon (47:32)
Yeah, yep. So an hour and a half nap will work well for a baby with a 30 minute sleep cycle. They'll just have three sleep cycles and for a 45 minute sleep cycle, they would just have two. If they've got more of like a 40 minute sleep cycle, it might be, yeah, that you aim for an hour, 20 minutes or so. That's perfectly fine. Awesome. And finally, Laura Gia sent in an email and she describes that her 16 week old has recently started self settling in her cot. So well done Gia.
Dr Laura (47:48)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (48:00)
Gia describes how her baby likes to flap her legs around in order to self -settle. So she tends to leave her daughter to do this and she's been able to put herself off to sleep, which is great. The difficulty is that lately she's waking up for longer during the night and doing a whole lot of leg flapping. So she's trying to fall back asleep, but then she's getting really frustrated. She can't get herself back to sleep. She starts to cry and she might be awake for one and a half hours even each time.
Dr Laura (48:04)
Hehe!
Mmm... Yeah.
Oof.
Dr Fallon (48:29)
So very tricky. Gia also describes that her daughter has three and a half to four hours of day sleep split across five naps that might be cat naps in the cot or much longer naps in the pram, which can be around two hours long. And Gia is a bit confused and wondering, is this the four month regression? What should she do? And I know immediately what Laura's going to say. I think I do anyway.
Dr Laura (48:38)
Mm.
Mmm.
Yeah, yeah. Gia, I really want to know what your baby's unique sleep needs are. I really would want you to revisit the unique sleep needs chapter, log your baby's sleep. You are just at the end of the wildest ride in terms of sleep changes. Sleep changes so much during the first year, but the first three to four months in particular,
Dr Fallon (49:01)
Yeah.
Yeah
Yeah.
Dr Laura (49:22)
is just a white -knuckle ride and sleep needs can drop a lot during those first few months. And the fact... It is.
Dr Fallon (49:23)
Mmm.
Yes. Yeah. It's a lot of day sleep, isn't it? Like there aren't many babies who can have that much day sleep and still have a good night. And what I think is Gia's babies got the ability to self -settle. but I reckon sleep needs have fallen off a cliff for this baby and have dropped, but the day naps have stuck around, which means that the nights have just progressively worsened. So in order to get the better nights, we reduce the day sleep back and then we'll start to see more sleep pushing into the night.
Dr Laura (49:37)
No.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yes. Yes.
Dr Fallon (49:57)
because she has done that hard work of the self settling and has picked up that her daughter likes to flap her legs around to get herself off to sleep, which kind of implies that once the timing is right and we're sure that sleep pressure is high enough, it really should come together, I think.
Dr Laura (49:57)
Definitely.
Yeah. Brilliant. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. So again, a bit like was it Sophie earlier, who was describing that her baby has five naps at nearly 12 weeks old. So Gia's baby is 16 weeks old and is on five naps. I would definitely be looking at reducing to four naps, even three Gia. And then looking once you have a sense of what her unique sleep needs are, then making a judgment call about how.
Dr Fallon (50:21)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Dr Laura (50:40)
much of that sleep is going to be in those naps versus overnight. And then it's really very likely, Gia, that once you get that timing right, your baby's going to go back to being able to do lovely long stretches of sleep overnight. She's desperately wanting to resettle herself by banging her legs up and down or flapping her legs up and down. And then she's getting frustrated because she just can't do it. But she's got the skills to, but she just can't.
Dr Fallon (50:42)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Hmm.
Dr Laura (51:07)
Once you work out that timing, Gia, things are going to really improve.
Dr Fallon (51:07)
Yes.
And I feel like Laura, this is just the most important message we can give parents is that if you work on self settling and it goes well, and then the wheels start to fall off, you have to reassess the unique sleep needs. I think this is the most common thing I see. And I see it a lot in the coaching calls with some bell families. They're like, well, you know, it started to come together. It just hasn't quite stuck. And it's always that.
Dr Laura (51:32)
Mm -hmm.
Dr Fallon (51:34)
there's too much sleep being offered at some point in the day. And then at nighttime, they're just not having the sleep pressure and that sleep drive to get through the night. So if you have, you know, had some successes and then it feels a little bit wobbly and a bit funny, go back to Sombelle. It's designed for you to keep returning to whenever there's a hurdle, go back to it, work through the unique sleep needs chapter. Cause I think for a lot of families, they come into Sombelle and they go, I think the daily rhythm is fine. I don't think that's the problem. I think it's just the settling and they work on the settling and it.
Dr Laura (51:42)
Mm -hmm.
Dr Fallon (52:04)
They get some success with the settling, but it won't stick until they've addressed unique sleep needs. It is so important. I think if everybody understood this, I'd have no coaching calls to do. it seems like that's so often the problem. So not to say you shouldn't put coaching calls, but do just consider that first. Often, there's that need to work on, on sleep pressure. and that's often the missing ingredient.
Dr Laura (52:07)
Yes.
Yes.
Hehehehe!
Yeah.
Mm -hmm.
Dr Fallon (52:31)
So I hope that helps Jia work through that unique sleep needs chapter. And you know, I think you'll see it start to come together when sleep pressure is a bit higher. All right, so it's been another full on podcast. We've gone to all the far reaching corners of sleep and settling in one episode as we usually do. And I just want to end by, yeah, by just thanking all the families who have made this first year of Sombelle so, so special. I can't tell you how much we appreciate you.
Dr Laura (52:31)
Yeah.
Yeah.
you
Dr Fallon (52:59)
Every time someone new joins Laura and I go, yes, woohoo. Like, and I'm always saying in my head, I'm picking a random name here, but I'm like, yes, welcome Diana. I'm so glad you're here. I'm like, I always check what's their name. I don't know why I check what their name is, but I'm always just so excited to be like, yeah, got a new one. It's brilliant. So thank you.
Dr Laura (53:02)
Yeah, we do. We do.
Yeah, yes, I mean, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, we love having you and we're always delighted when more and more people join and they've found us. And we know that then you're in the right place and we're going to be able to help with your baby or toddler's sleep. So yeah.
Dr Fallon (53:28)
Mmm.
Yeah
Yes. Yeah. And because it's our first birthday, what we're going to do is I'm going to pop a code in the show notes. If anybody's been listening in, they're not a Sombelle member yet, but they've kind of been thinking about it. It is the perfect time to join. Not only do we currently have a 30 % off sale that we're running. I'm going to pop a code in the show notes. I'm just going to make the code like first birthday, all letters, just first birthday. And that will give you an extra $20 off your joining fee.
Just because it's our birthday, so why the hell not? And if you're a current member of Sombelle and you're thinking about purchasing the next program up, so if you've got a baby and you're thinking, I want to have that toddler program so I can keep things on track, just reach out to us. Shoot us through an email because we're really happy to do a discount for existing members who want the next program. So yeah, just reach out to us if you'd like that.
Dr Laura (54:05)
No.
Mm -hmm.
Dr Fallon (54:27)
Thank you everyone, like I said, for making this just so much fun. Thank you to everybody who sends in the questions. I love making these podcast episodes and we love hearing your feedback. You know what a great first birthday present would be for us? Hit subscribe and please drop us a five -star review if you've gotten anything out of listening to this content. It really helps us when we get those reviews. We really appreciate it. All right, have a great week everybody.
Dr Laura (54:52)
Yeah.
Thanks everyone, bye bye.
