Dr Fallon (00:37)
Hi, and welcome back to Brand New Little People, the podcast where we talk about all things early parenting with a focus on sleep and settling during those first few years. I'm your host, Dr. Fallon Cook, and I'm here with Dr. Laura Conway. Hey Laura, how are things?
Dr Laura (00:53)
huh. Yeah, good thanks Fallon. How are you?
Dr Fallon (00:57)
Yeah, really good. It's school holidays, so there's a lot to juggle at the moment. Yeah.
Dr Laura (01:01)
Yes there is, so we're actually recording this on the weekend which we don't normally do, just so that we can free up a little bit of time during the week for us to look after our own children who are home from school.
Dr Fallon (01:14)
Yeah, that's it. Laura, we've seen some really interesting stuff on social media lately, and we've spoken in prior podcast episodes about how we wanted to start picking apart some of the misleading advice around sleep during babyhood and toddlerhood. And I think, you know, we've started to do that a little bit actually in our social media channels as well, which I can see that parents are really enjoying kind of getting to know a bit more of the science behind things.
Dr Laura (01:29)
Mm.
Mm -hmm.
Dr Fallon (01:40)
one of the things that keeps coming back to us though, time and time again in the clinic and often at the end of the day, you know, we have a phone call like, what did you get up to in clinic today? And so often we get these parents coming in exhausted saying, I am following the right awake windows. Yeah. I've been told I have to use these particular wake windows for my baby or my toddler. And I'm trying really, really hard, but it's just not working and they can't sleep that much.
Dr Laura (01:41)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yes.
Dr Fallon (02:08)
can you help me make my child fit to these kind of particular wake windows? Because there's some very prescriptive advice out there that's just kind of spewed out into the universe. Like all babies of this age must be awake for this particular amount of time and must sleep this certain amount of time. And these families are just completely knackered and feel like they're getting something drastically wrong, which is a real shame. Yeah.
Dr Laura (02:10)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah, there is.
Yes.
Yeah, yes, yeah, absolutely. And that's the thing that is very clearly comes across with the families that come into my clinic with their babies and toddlers. And they're saying, what am I doing wrong? I'm doing something wrong. They, my toddler should be able to stay awake for this length of time, or should only stay awake for this length of time, but they want to stay awake for longer. And yeah, please help me make them do what they're meant to be doing. And then generally,
have to take a deep breath and talk about how there actually isn't any science behind these wake windows. And there is just such enormous natural variation in the amount of sleep babies and toddlers need and children in general and adults need. And there's also
Dr Fallon (03:11)
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr Laura (03:28)
incredible variation in the amount of time that babies and toddlers need to be awake during the day, that it is a bit of a long bow to draw to say every child this age should be awake for this length of time.
Dr Fallon (03:34)
Mmm.
Yes, I think it trips up so many parents and it's, you know, there's so much pressure on parents to be getting things right. and that is just, it's, it's awful because we don't want new parents to be feeling all this pressure around trying to get, you know, this, and a lot of parents are panicked. They're like, they mustn't be getting enough sleep. Like,
Dr Laura (04:01)
Yes.
Dr Fallon (04:01)
That could be really bad for my child. So yeah, there's some big meaty conversations we have in the clinic where we talk about, you know, let's have a look at the child in front of us. You know, what are they doing? What does their sleep diary look like? How much sleep do they tend to be actually needing? What's their mood like? And it's so important to look at that because there actually is no science. Like not even just like, there's a bit of science, but the, you know, the jury's out on wake windows. No, there's nothing.
Dr Laura (04:18)
Yes.
Dr Fallon (04:31)
There's no science around wake windows. And there's such huge variation. Like you can have a very healthy, let's just take a four month old as an example. You can have a very healthy, well rested four month old who is getting maybe 10 or 11 hours of sleep per 24 hours. And you can have a very healthy, well rested four month old who seems to need 16 hours of sleep.
Dr Laura (04:31)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (04:57)
per 24 hours and they can both be perfectly healthy and they're both meeting their sleep needs. And you couldn't make them sleep more if you tried. And we know this because there are studies that look at, you know, like how does sleep change? Generally, a lot of these studies will show we can't really increase the total amount of sleep. But sometimes it can increase at a tiny bit. Like maybe one sleep cycle can.
Dr Laura (05:03)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (05:20)
sneak in there if a baby has had a lot of problems with resettling themselves in the night as they get better at resettling, sometimes I'll manage an extra sleep cycle. But by and large, the total amount of sleep they get can't be drastically increased. And there is that variation, like in that example, that six hours difference potentially between two babies. So if both of the parents of those babies had advice to, you know, always put your baby down for their next nap after
Dr Laura (05:21)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (05:51)
I don't know, two and a half hours or something. I'm just picking a number out of the air. That could work. Maybe it would work really well for the one with the really high sleep needs. Maybe they could manage to nap that frequently. The one with the really low sleep needs, if they can manage to nap that frequently, they're just going to have horrendous nights because they'll get far too much day sleep and the nights will be so difficult.
Dr Laura (05:52)
Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Yeah.
Yes. Yeah. And I think that's what we see, Fallon, when families come in and they say, I've got this, I've worked really hard on those wake windows and now the days are sorted. They're doing what they're meant to do during the day. The nights are horrendous. And what we're seeing is that, yeah, you have been able to help your baby or toddler fall into those wake windows that you have been told were the
Dr Fallon (06:23)
Mmm.
Yes!
Dr Laura (06:43)
right ones for your child's age. But if they're then having more day sleep than they need, it's just taking away from their overnight budget. And then they're either taking a long time to go to sleep, and then sleeping all the way through and waking up at like three or four in the morning ready to go, or they are waking up a lot overnight, the night sleep bleeds into day sleep. And
Dr Fallon (06:54)
Yeah.
Dr Laura (07:12)
them we really have that's a very clear sign to us that we have to look at well actually those wake windows although you have worked really hard at ensuring your child falls into them they're not actually the correct ones for your child and we can see that because night time's fallen over
Dr Fallon (07:16)
Yeah
Mmm.
Yeah. And wake windows are supposed to naturally vary not only child to child, but even in one child across a day, they should be having varying wake windows, typically the longest wake windows that last one of the day. So yeah, there's huge variability there. And I think it's, it's a really good example of how some of the messaging around wake windows has been particularly strong and prescriptive, especially on social media.
Dr Laura (07:43)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (08:01)
and just online in general. And it has meant that parents have stopped looking at what their child seems to need, you know, and how they're actually coping and doing in favor of going for really rigid prescriptive advice, thinking that rigid prescriptive advice is going to fix everything when actually, yeah, it can make things worse. But I think it's a shame because it's sort of, I think it erodes parent confidence a bit.
Dr Laura (08:19)
Yeah.
Mm -hmm.
Dr Fallon (08:26)
Instead of sort of looking at your baby and going, well, they seem fine. I don't think they need to be put down for a nap now. I'm going to wait longer. Parents are going, they seem okay, but well, I've been told that they actually should be sleeping. And I think that's a shame because we don't want parents, you know, second guessing themselves so much in that early parenting phase. We want you to be feeling really confident and like you're getting to know your baby and starting to understand them better.
Dr Laura (08:26)
Mm.
Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Yes.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (08:54)
So look, I would say if you, there might be parents listening who say, I'm following, you know, these really rigid wake windows and my baby does really well. What on earth are they talking about? You could have one of those babies that actually does fit the wake windows for their age. They definitely are going to be some children who do. But, and that's totally fine. If it's working well for you, you don't need to change anything. You can do whatever you like to do. But there will be a lot of families who try to follow those wake windows and it doesn't work well.
Dr Laura (09:02)
Yeah.
Mm -hmm.
Dr Fallon (09:21)
and they're trying to put down a baby who's far too awake and a baby who maybe is wanting to learn things and experience things is not getting that opportunity too because they're being taken into a dark room and you know, they're having all these settling approaches tried when they're just not looking for that. So if you've tried some wake windows and you're like, actually this just is stressing me out and it doesn't even seem to be helping. You 100 % have our permission to just go through those wake windows out the window.
Dr Laura (09:34)
Yeah.
Yes.
Dr Fallon (09:50)
And yeah, start to look at the child in front of you and think, well, you know, are they happy? Are they settled? Are they coping? Think about how much sleep they tend to average. It could be very different to the other babies in your parent group. And that is perfectly fine. Can't stress that enough.
Dr Laura (09:57)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. And it is, it's not you, it's the wake windows. It's that the wake windows simply do not suit you and your baby. And have a look at your baby, how well they're managing during the day. And of course the toddlers as well. You generally will start to see as babies and toddlers get older that they begin to have
Dr Fallon (10:12)
Yeah.
Dr Laura (10:34)
their longest wake time. We mustn't use the term wake windows, but I guess because it's almost become a colloquialism now, hasn't it? So generally, the longest time awake will be before they go down to bed at night. And the shortest amount of time that babies and toddlers can manage is before their first nap of the day. And it can slowly, the amount of time that they're awake between naps gets greater as the day goes on.
Dr Fallon (10:42)
Hmm.
Dr Laura (11:02)
And if your baby is functioning well, mostly happy during their time awake, engaging with you, meeting all their milestones, then you don't need to try to force them into a different awake time. They're doing really well. And yeah, just try not to get hung up on following those rigid wake windows because there isn't any science behind it. So just try and let go of that.
Dr Fallon (11:18)
Hmm.
Mmm.
Dr Laura (11:32)
one more level of feeling like you're doing something wrong because you're not.
Dr Fallon (11:37)
Yeah, absolutely. And I think parents go looking for sort of that magic solution. It's nice to be told we'll just follow this set thing and it will work. But unfortunately, yeah, that's just not the case for so many babies. They have varying sleep needs. If you are wanting help with that, that's something we have a really big focus on in Sombal is we know that for so many families, unless they're really catering to their child's unique sleep needs, they end up having
periods of time where settling is a nightmare because their babies aren't tired enough. So we always tell families, look at the unique sleep needs, cater to that, look at their, we've got like the daily rhythm charts that parents can look at to come up with a bit of a sense of what could suit their child's unique sleep needs. If it feels horribly confusing for you trying to figure out a daily rhythm, I highly recommend that. And I know some parents will say, why can't you just tell us in the podcast?
Dr Laura (12:20)
Mm -hmm.
Dr Fallon (12:30)
Well, we can't because every baby is so different. And I think distilling the kind of core concepts you need to know to understand your unique sleep needs into the program was really challenging, you know, to really actually put it in a format that parents can work through. So for most families, you'll be able to just look at your baby's tired signs and they'll mostly do pretty well. But if you are one of the families where it's a confusing mess and you feel really, really unsure, that support is there. So don't forget about that.
Dr Laura (12:33)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (12:58)
It was really interesting, actually, Laura, we posted something about wake windows and how, you know, there's no real science behind them. And I had a parent who was a GP who messaged and said, I wondered why you weren't talking about wake windows in Sombelle. Now you know why it's because, you know, we really try to be led by the evidence so that we want parents to not have to kind of siphon through all these different rigid downloadable schedules before they land.
Dr Laura (13:11)
Really? Yes!
Dr Fallon (13:26)
Ensemble, we want parents to just be able to cater for their child from day one. And then you'll just never stray too far off the garden path. You're mostly going to have a baby who's sleeping pretty well. If you go into parenting with those skills and kind of understanding unique sleep needs, that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to set up parents with those skills so that, you know, no matter how old your child is, you're able to think about whether their sleep needs are being met and whether their daily rhythm works for them.
Dr Laura (13:31)
Mm -hmm.
Hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah. And I think that just the final thing that I'll add to that great information you've given to Senfalan is that initially when we launched Sombelle we didn't have those daily rhythm charts in there because we were really wanted the aim of Sombelle to be giving parents the confidence to be able to work out and look at their individual child, work out how much sleep their unique child in front of them needs.
Dr Fallon (14:08)
Mm.
Dr Laura (14:24)
and what would be a good daily rhythm for them. But then we found that parents wanted a little bit of a starting point almost, like once I've worked out what their unique sleep need is, well, give us a starting point that we can then, what could it look like, and then make some adjustments around that. So that's why after a few months, we brought in those daily rhythm charts.
Dr Fallon (14:34)
Mmm.
Hmm. What could it look like? Yeah.
Dr Laura (14:51)
And the aim of those again, isn't to be prescriptive, but it's just to say, okay, your baby's got about a 14 hour sleep need. All right, how many naps are they roughly having a day? What that might look like is this number of this duration nap, but that's again, it's not prescriptive. It's, it's always looking at the child in front of you. So although we might say, well, a baby with a 14 hour sleep need, who's having three naps a day might have
Dr Fallon (15:02)
Mm. Yeah.
Mmm.
Dr Laura (15:20)
three hours worth of day sleep and 11 hours overnight, for example, it might be that your baby prefers to have longer day naps and then does nine hours overnight and that's okay. And it might be that you've got a serial catnapper. And we did try to capture that in the rhythm charts where we have what to do if your child's a catnapper because you can alter things for your catnapper.
Dr Fallon (15:31)
Mmm.
Mmm.
Yeah. I think it's really helped to build parent confidence. Like parents are now our song about parents and we see them in coaching calls. They've more confidently decided on what kind of daily rhythm they're going to follow. And I think that's where the daily rhythm charts have really helped to build that confidence. and I'm glad because I worked so hard on those things. my God. I reckon it was probably almost a solid two weeks of just working on those charts and coming up with.
Dr Laura (15:59)
Mmm.
Dr Fallon (16:12)
options for families. So it's been awesome to get some feedback on those. Yeah. Well, we've got some really great questions this week, Laura. Shall we start? Maybe I'll start with Sophie's question. Sophie says, my baby is three and a half months old and can settle relatively easily in her cot with some padding and shushing and they're moving to hands off completely now. So they're sort of weaning off the padding and the shushing.
Dr Laura (16:17)
Yeah.
Mm -hmm.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (16:41)
Sophie says she almost always cries when being settled. The crying can start when we take her into the darkened room or more often when we zip her into her sleep sack. So she obviously knows what's coming. Sophie says she will also cry when going to sleep in a carrier. So even with that sort of really close comfort, she will cry a little bit, although a little less. Sophie says we generally keep hold of her until she stops crying.
Dr Laura (17:01)
Mm -hmm.
Dr Fallon (17:07)
which is about two or three minutes or less, and then they put her down in the cot to settle to sleep. She usually goes to sleep very, very quickly at that point. She says, we have to be quite quick to put her down or she'll fall asleep in our arms. Sophie says, there's obviously no real problem here, although it makes her feel a bit sad every time that, you know, she always has this bit of a cry before she goes to sleep. Is there an explanation behind this pattern? And should we continue to keep holding her or would we be better off putting her straight down in the cot?
Sometimes I feel like she just wants to get on with going to sleep, but it also feels a bit wrong to just put her down, you know, when she's crying and not calm. It's a great question, isn't it? Cause so many babies, it doesn't matter. I find it really interesting Laura that even in the carrier, she'll have a bit of a cry and then go to sleep. it makes me think maybe that crying and grizzling is part of her settling down routine, almost like a self soothing type behavior. But what are your thoughts?
Dr Laura (17:47)
Yeah, it is.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, no, that's exactly where my mind went when I read that Sophie said that sleeping in the carrier is her baby's preferred nap place. And she still cries even when she's in the carrier. Just made me think it's not about where she's going to sleep. It's just part of her self -settling behavior. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (18:13)
Mmm.
Yeah, she might not even be sad. It's just like, I have this bit of a cry and it's very rhythmic sounding and it's actually that that helps them calm down.
Dr Laura (18:33)
Yeah, yeah. So, so if I agree, it isn't a problem. I would just reassure you that it's very unlikely that your baby is sad. And that's the reason that she's crying. And therefore, there's no reason for you to feel sad about it. Try and do a bit of a cognitive reframe that it's just part of her settling behavior, and not her being sad.
Dr Fallon (18:56)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (19:01)
and that might help you feel a little bit less sad about it. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (19:06)
Yeah and if she was feeling worried or upset about something she wouldn't go straight to sleep. Babies who have a problem or need something they don't just fall asleep they get more and more escalated so I think she's okay and in terms of should they just be putting her down in the cot sooner and letting her kind of just settle in the cot completely without sort of holding her until she's calm.
Dr Laura (19:14)
Mm.
Mm -hmm.
Dr Fallon (19:34)
I think that's a really personal decision. I don't think it's a clear right or wrong. It's totally fine to hold her until she's calm and then put her down in a cot awake and let her settle. But what you might do over time, I'm just purely thinking future planning. Sometimes babies think, well, if I just keep crying, I'll never get put down. So as they get older and cleverer, and if they're thinking, well, I'd like to do one of those lovely contact naps, please, mum. Then sometimes they just think, I'll just keep up this crying for a really long time so they don't put me down.
Dr Laura (19:36)
Hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Dr Fallon (20:04)
It might not happen though, I don't want to scare anybody. But if you are worried about that, then sometimes maybe you put her down just before she's got to that calm point. So you might still give her some hands on support in the cot, but you're doing the padding and the shushing with it in the cot. And when she's calm, then you sort of take a step back and see if she gets herself off to sleep. Just something to think about you could experiment with.
Dr Laura (20:04)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, I think that's all really great advice, Fallon. So good luck, Sophie, you're doing a great job. Yeah. All right. We also had an email from Maddie. And Maddie has written saying that her son is seven months old and has a 12 and a half hour sleep need and is on two naps a day. So Maddie asks, should his long nap be the first or the second? It is a common one. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (20:31)
Yeah.
Mm, it's another really common question, isn't it?
Dr Laura (20:55)
Do you think that we should just answer these one at a time, Felon?
Dr Fallon (20:58)
I think we go through one at a time. Yeah. So in terms of the naps, look, I would say ideally the first nap is the longest if you even get a choice. So some babies have their own plan and that's perfectly fine. But when the first nap is the longest, it just means that the bulk of the day sleep is away from bedtime. So a lot of parents will say it works better to have the longer nap earlier in the day.
Dr Laura (21:10)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (21:23)
But some babies just have different plans. They have their longest nap for their second nap and they still do beautifully overnight. So it's perfectly fine just to look at your child and figure out what works well for them. And even if there's a bit of variation day to day, as long as they're not getting excessive amounts of day sleep, I wouldn't be too worried.
Dr Laura (21:32)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah. Maddie's next question is, she says, I always have to wake my son from his naps, but I feel like I'm constantly waking him mid sleep cycle. His sleep cycles vary between 25 minutes to 48 minutes, which she says she knows from watching the monitor and looking at his movements. And this is different from them being consistently one length, for example, 30 minutes. Because of this, Maddie says that she struggles to know when to consistently wake him.
Is this normal and do we have any ideas? Or should I just pick a nap length and stick to it? that's a really good question! Yeah.
Dr Fallon (22:16)
It's fascinating, isn't it? So it sounds like Maddie is trying to keep a cap on the total amount of day sleep to protect the night, which is sensible. So that's probably why she's saying that she's always having to wake him up to kind of keep that on track. What's really interesting to me is that 25 minutes is pretty much half of 48 minutes, half of 50 minutes anyway.
Dr Laura (22:29)
Mmm.
Mmm.
Dr Fallon (22:38)
So I'm kind of wondering, like, I mean, I don't know, it could be that he has a 25 minute sleep cycle. So when he wakes after 48 minutes, he's coming out of the second cycle. or it could just be that after he gets through that deep phase of sleep, which might go for 20 minutes, and he starts to have more of the lighter stages of sleep in a second part of the cycle. Maybe he's just a baby who moves and makes a lot of noises in the light stages of sleep. And that's being noticed from that 25 minute mark.
Dr Laura (22:54)
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (23:08)
Anyway, sorry, I'm getting too bogged down in details here, but it is really interesting. So I don't think we can actually say for sure how long his sleep cycle is, but it is unusual that they would vary in length. There really probably is just one length that he's sticking to. but maybe it's just difficult to actually pick it. so she's struggling to know when to consistently wake him. Should she just pick a nap length and stick to it? Yeah, I would, I would probably base it around.
Dr Laura (23:19)
Yeah.
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (23:37)
48 minutes. I think that's what I'd be... is that what you would think Laura? I'd probably be thinking that's...
Dr Laura (23:44)
Yeah, it's tricky, isn't it? Because the other thing would be to think it's about 25 minutes and think it does seem short. Yeah, it does.
Dr Fallon (23:44)
Hmm.
Yeah, but that seems a bit short for a seven month old, doesn't it? Like they should be getting up closer to sort of, well, 35 to 45 minutes. It's a hard call.
Dr Laura (23:56)
Yes. Yeah. So, yeah, and it could be yes, like you're saying that he's coming out of that deep sleep at that 25 minutes. And then maybe if since he may be a noisy sleeper, and he could be waking himself up out of those lighter stages of sleep, you know, which we sometimes see in adults when you're more likely to wake up in REM sleep, if you're sleep talking, you wake yourself up before you've come up into the end of the sleep cycle.
Dr Fallon (24:05)
Hmm.
Mm.
Mmm.
Dr Laura (24:26)
Yeah, look, I think you're right, Falon. Let's go with about 48 minutes and then wake him after that time and see how he goes.
Dr Fallon (24:30)
Hmm.
Yeah, and then at least you can be, yeah, you can be more confident that you're not waking him up halfway through a sleep cycle, in which case he's likely to be pretty cranky and unhappy. So yeah, probably. Yeah. Aim for that 48 minute mark or so.
Dr Laura (24:43)
Yeah.
Yeah. Maddie also asks, is it common for babies to want to wake up earlier as they get older? She says, my son has been waking between six and six thirty when he used to wake up at seven. I don't think this is a sleep pressure related issue as it happens even after nights of very little sleep, which has been happening recently due to some medical issues.
Dr Fallon (25:09)
Hmm. I don't think there's a lot of research looking at wake up times. Just trying to think. So overall, I don't think necessarily, I think it's an earlier wake up time. I'd be thinking more like, is this a child who has total FOMO in the minute they're feeling well rested enough? They're just like, right, get me up out of here. I've got things to do today. or is it that there's something environmental?
that where he's thinking, you know, there's a change in the environment and he thinks, it must be nearly morning time and I just want to get up now and do things. I would say if he's waking up naturally between six and six 30, that's great. I mean, I think of the babies we see in clinic who wake up in the fours or the fives, if it's past six AM, it's brilliant. So I don't think it's anything to worry about. It shouldn't get much earlier, but if it kept creeping earlier and earlier, it could be a sign to trim down the day, sleep a little bit. Maybe he's overdoing it.
Dr Laura (25:36)
Mm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, or moving bedtime a bit later if you wanted to keep the day sleeps the same.
Dr Fallon (26:08)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Good, good luck Maddie, you're doing a great job. We also have Olivia who emailed in. Olivia says that she's working her way through the chapters in Sombelle and notes that the wind down routine suggests feeding a baby before bed in a dark room. She says, I've been advised that feeding my baby in a brighter room will discourage feeding to sleep.
Dr Laura (26:10)
Mmm.
Dr Fallon (26:32)
My baby had been feeding to sleep for the first five months until I implemented a structured sleep schedule and she no longer feeds to sleep unless it's during an overnight feed. What would be your advice on the last feed before bed? Should I actually be doing this in a dark room? What do you think, Laura? Hmm.
Dr Laura (26:47)
good question. Yeah, really good question. I would say that if you have had a child who is has a feed to sleep need reliance, then I can completely understand why the advice would be to feed them outside of the bedroom environment just to really put a break between the feed and going to sleep. So I think you probably receive some good advice to do that, Olivia.
If your baby is no longer feeding to sleep, then there's no reason why you can't go back to having a feed in a dark room as part of the wind down routine. But I would always suggest having something between the feed and going into the cot. So you might do a feed, then do a book or a nappy change. So that then they're always going into their cot awake. If you have a baby that just almost
without fail starts to get very dozy on having a feed sensible to continue to give that feed earlier on in that wind down routine and even out in a brighter room and then go into the bedroom 20 minutes or so before bedtime and do the full wind down routine then without the feed as part of that in that dark room.
Dr Fallon (28:00)
Hmm.
It's a great question though Olivia and I'm so glad you sent it in because it really did make me think as well I was doing some professional development training the other day and it was talking about how when humans enter a dark room it kind of kicks off some of the physiological processes that initiate sleep and so that could be something we actually update in Sombelle is explaining a little bit more around when you might want like if you've got a real FOMO baby having that feed in a dark room can mean they take a bigger feed
you know, they're kicking off those physiological processes. Maybe they're then going to be much easier to settle. but yeah, if you've got a baby who gets very, very sleepy, sleepy very quickly while they're feeding and in a dark room, then yeah, you could separate those things out. it's a good example of how, but always thinking about like, can we tweak the information in Sombelle? Is there something new to add? We want to make sure it's always up to date with the best evidence. So love that you've reached out about that one, Olivia. It's a really good question. Yeah.
Dr Laura (28:52)
Mmm.
All right, so our next question is from Marge. Marge says that her son is now five and a half months old and has still been waking frequently. The longest stretch he seemed to manage was the four hours. She said that she dropped the last half hour nap, which helped for a few days, and then he was back to his old wakings. that's frustrating, Marge.
She says, I'm tracking his sleep again and I'm currently four days in. It seems his sleep need has decreased to around 11 hours. We did two one hour naps during the day and he got up at 6 .30, bedtime around eight, which he was happy to do, but he would wake two hours later then and almost every 30 minutes after that. you poor thing. Gosh. Last night I hit, I bit the bullet.
Dr Fallon (29:53)
Hmm.
Dr Laura (29:56)
and kept him up until nine and he slept until 2am, had a feed and then went straight back to sleep when I put him down. And then he slept until six. Now look, that is a really good indication Marge that having higher sleep pressure is helping your baby to maintain his sleep for longer. And that new bedtime is causing that sleep pressure to be a bit higher. So I'd probably suggest
Dr Fallon (30:15)
Hmm.
Dr Laura (30:25)
continuing that for a while and see how things go.
Dr Fallon (30:26)
Mmm. Yeah. It's great when parents experiment and then kind of hit upon like a really good little bit of evidence that they're on the right track. So yeah, that's really good.
Dr Laura (30:37)
Yeah, because the previous timing that Marge has written there saying that they were doing two hours in the day, and then about eight and a half, sorry, 10 and a half overnight does take him beyond that 11 hours. And so by moving bedtime later, that's actually reducing the amount of time that he's in bed for overnight to within the realms of what he's probably able to do with that 11 hour sleep need.
Dr Fallon (30:53)
Mmm.
Yeah. And given he was waking almost every 30 minutes, like that is that really frequent night waking is a pretty good sign that sleep pressure is just not, not there, not high enough. I love that Marge has like, yeah, gone in with this knowledge and yeah, start to really piece together this puzzle. It's brilliant. So yeah, well done, Marge. It's great.
Dr Laura (31:08)
Oof.
Yeah.
Yeah, really good. So Marge goes on to say, my son has power naps on me whilst he feeds, which is every two to three hours during the day. He doesn't do every feed. My question is, is there any way to avoid it so he can do better blocks of sleep and potentially go to bed earlier? Do I just let him nap whilst feeding when he wants until he's on solids and hope that with help, the
power napping will fall away whilst feeding.
Dr Fallon (31:54)
so it sounds like sometimes he's having those power naps and Marge is taking that away from that total day sleep. So he doesn't overdo the day sleep, but she's thinking if we can get some longer blocks of day sleep. Hang on. Am I understanding this right? Yeah.
Dr Laura (32:10)
I read it that what is happening is that Marge is giving him the two one hour naps, but then he's also having power naps on top of that whilst he's feeding. So that suggests to me that perhaps if Marge hasn't counted those sleeps that he's having whilst feeding, maybe he has got higher than an 11 hour sleep need and he's trying to get, yeah, yeah.
Dr Fallon (32:21)
-huh.
Yeah.
Yeah, it might be more like 11 and a half. Yeah, so how, what would we do? Look, I would say, I mean, it's not necessarily a problem. If the nights are going really well, like maybe it's fine to just allow a bit of that. And yeah, maybe when he's on solids, you'll see less of the, the dosing while he's feeding, having his milk feeds. But if it's something you really want to stop, I would plan, maybe plan out a few days where
Dr Laura (32:38)
What do you think, Fallon?
Dr Fallon (33:01)
there's lots of distractions. Yeah, it might be that you feed in a noisy room with the TV on, or if there's an older sibling running around from there, a good distraction just means they're getting their feed, but they're also kind of interested in what's going on around them and they're a bit less likely to doze off. So yeah, it could be planning a bit of that. So if you have been feeding in a dark room, maybe you try feeding out in the light. It's interesting it sort of factors into the prior question as well.
Dr Laura (33:10)
Yes.
Yeah, it does, yeah.
Dr Fallon (33:27)
And yeah, I think that would be a good thing to experiment with because it might mean that, yeah, you find that you can have an earlier bedtime. 9pm is pretty late and a lot of families are looking to have their own downtime in the evening once baby goes to bed. So it would definitely be worth trying to reduce those little power naps during feeds, just maybe for the wellbeing of the parents being able to have a bit of extra time to themselves in the evening. So yeah, give it a try Marge, you're doing a great job. Let us know how things go.
Dr Laura (33:36)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (33:54)
We also have a few questions actually from Mei So Mei says sleep has been generally very good even through sickness and teething thanks to SunBowl. that's awesome. Mei says she's having an issue now with her baby's sleep and would like some advice. Her son is nine months old now. He self settles quickly and easily and has a 12 hour sleep need.
Dr Laura (33:58)
Mm -hmm.
great.
Dr Fallon (34:19)
Mei then describes a really, really good daily rhythm that fits nicely to that 12 hour sleep need, which is brilliant. She says he has occasional five to 10 minute naps in the car. Mei says that this daily rhythm that she's been using has been working really well for a couple of weeks, but now he's starting to have some one and a half hour night wakes. So split nights by the sounds of it. He's also had some separation anxiety emerging recently.
Dr Laura (34:22)
Mm -hmm.
Mm.
Dr Fallon (34:47)
So Mei would like to know, do extended night wakes always mean a sleep pressure problem? Hmm.
Dr Laura (34:55)
Yeah. Yes. I would say that unless there is a like, there's a medical reason, like an irritated gut or sore skin or sickness or teething or pain in some way, or any sleep, disordered breathing. If we rule out those things, then ordinarily persistent extended overnight wakes do mean that there's a sleep pressure issue.
Dr Fallon (35:02)
Mm.
Dr Laura (35:19)
And it's just not quite high enough at the start of the night for your son to be able to maintain his sleep for long stretches in the night. So from what you're saying there, Mei, I would be thinking about those car naps that they may well just be taking the edge off that sleep pressure every day. And just meaning that although he's able to go to sleep easily at the start of the night,
Dr Fallon (35:19)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (35:43)
the sleep pressure is rather than being up here, which would help him maintain a sleep all night, it's actually down here. And then he's having those periods of time awake in the night where the sleep pressure then climbs again for him to do his next stretch of sleep. So this actually what Mei is describing again, it's interesting in relation to the previous question, where what Marge was experiencing is a baby who is having those
Dr Fallon (35:57)
Mmm.
Mmm.
Dr Laura (36:09)
little feed, a little sleeps whilst feeding and then bedtime is pushing later. What Mei is describing as a child who's having naps in the car and then the experience on the nighttime sleep is extended overnight wakes. So yeah.
Dr Fallon (36:14)
Mmm.
Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? That so many parents will say, if my baby has even 10 more minutes, five more minutes, you know, of day sleep, we really feel it in the night. So it's like some babies are very sensitive to having a little bit of extra day sleep, whereas other babies will just be like, it's fine. They can have an extra half hour here or there and they're rock solid. You know, their nights are very resilient. Whereas others seem to have these very sensitive nights.
Dr Laura (36:35)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yes.
Yes!
Dr Fallon (36:51)
So it could be worth experimenting with that. Like just really try to avoid any sneaky carnaps. Maybe it's for a week or so. It's hard to do that with a little baby, but just do your best. It might be that you don't take the baby to the shops and you send another caregiver to do the shopping for that week or something like that. Sometimes it makes a big difference.
Dr Laura (37:08)
Yeah, all you time the trip to the shops at a nap time so that your baby has the nap in the car on your way to wherever it is that you're going. And with a 12 hour sleep need, that is towards a lower end for a baby at nine months age, it's a lower sleep need, it's still very, you know, within the normal range, nothing to worry about. But what I sometimes see in the clinic, Fallon, is that
Dr Fallon (37:13)
Yeah.
Mmm.
Mmm.
Dr Laura (37:38)
you have, if I saw a nine month old baby that had a 15 hour sleep need, it's neither here nor there if they have an extra half an hour or a cat nap because it's such a relative to the total amount of sleep that that baby needs. That little nap in the car isn't much at all. But when you have a child that only has a 12 hour sleep need, 15, 20 minutes is actually relative to the total amount of sleep they need quite high.
Dr Fallon (37:45)
Mm.
Hmm.
Mmm. Yeah, it would be worth experimenting with that. Mei also asks, could these long night wakes be due to separation anxiety? And if so, is there anything that they can do because he already sleeps and settles, self settles on his own. She says he's taken to giving a single cry when she leaves the room, but then he's quiet and he's off to sleep.
I mean, my gut feeling is no, I don't reckon that separation anxiety, cause it'd be a heck of a lot more than one cry if he was feeling fearful. Is that what you'd say, Laura?
Dr Laura (38:32)
Yes.
Yeah, yeah, I'd say like, if he was a toddler, and with separation anxiety, who's getting out of bed and coming to find you and seeking connection and really unable to go back to sleep overnight without a lot of support, then yes, I'd be thinking we have to be really cognizant of that separation anxiety. But if it's just a, yeah, if he's mostly fine, I think it's more sleep pressure problem.
Dr Fallon (38:59)
Hmm.
Yeah. Yeah. And then finally, Mei asks, is it possible for his sleep need to drop again so soon? She says, I'm running out of day sleep. I feel you. It's really hard when sleep needs are dropping and you've got to keep trimming day sleep. I mean, sleep needs absolutely can drop very quickly and suddenly, for reasons we don't understand. But what would you think, Laura, would you say there needs to be a big change, you know, to the daily rhythm now or?
Dr Laura (39:10)
yeah.
Mm -hmm.
Dr Fallon (39:31)
Should they give it a try a bit longer before they start to trim more day sleep?
Dr Laura (39:36)
Yeah, I'll try for a bit longer. I think that the focus should be on trying to avoid being in the car between naps for the time being just to help get the overnight sleep a bit more under control so that her son is doing long stretches of sleep overnight without having that hour and a half awake each night. And yes. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (39:58)
Yeah, and I'd keep a sleep diary too, wouldn't you? Just to see where the sleep needs are travelling, if they are reducing. Yeah.
Dr Laura (40:06)
Definitely. And if you keep the sleep dive for a week and you see that his sleep needs have dropped to about 11 hours, for example, and he's mostly still functioning well, seems happy most of the time during his awake times, then yet you will need to look at changing the daily rhythm. And it may be that you say you're running out of day sleep. So you might want to keep the day sleep cycles to sleep cycles each perhaps.
that might be enough. Or if you can't trim any more off the day sleeps, you would still need to be on two naps for a while longer at nine months. So then you'd be looking at either bringing wake up a bit earlier, maybe, I don't know, we haven't got the information, but perhaps closer to six or moving bedtime a little bit later.
Dr Fallon (40:56)
Hmm, yep, I think that's good advice.
Dr Laura (41:00)
Okay, and Elizabeth has written and said that her daughter is 14 months old, used to be able to settle herself to sleep. Elizabeth said, we traveled overseas for one month and then were unwell when we returned. During this time I was patting and sometimes singing her to sleep in the cot. Whilst traveling her night wakings increased and she also started having split nights. Once we were home and recovered from illness, we've tried to drop her to one nap to see if it would help reduce the night wakings.
We've also gone back to our previous resettling methods where we would come in every two minutes to offer support rather than patting to sleep. This is more successful when my husband does it than when I do. My daughter has been having one nap for over a week and it hasn't helped reduce the night wakings yet. She's also waking from the nap after one sleep cycle, which then makes it hard to get her to bedtime. So she's got a couple of questions, Falon.
Dr Fallon (41:32)
.
Mmm.
Dr Laura (41:57)
Her first question is does the fact that she can't extend the nap mean that she isn't ready for one nap? How long do we keep trying for? And her second question is since she resettles better for my husband should we continue to get him to do the resettling to help get back on track and how can I work towards her resettling the same way for me?
Dr Fallon (42:19)
Hmm, really good questions. So does the fact that she can't extend the nap mean she isn't ready for it? I would say no. It sounds like you're still doing some work on re -establishing her self settling skills. So after one sleep cycle, she's not inclined to resettle herself. She's waking up quickly. Love that you dropped to one nap and I would keep, I would keep going with it. She's 14 months old. She should be able to manage it. I'd give it another week.
but I'd also be really working on the self settling. So typically when a parent says, you know, we're coming and going every couple of minutes from the room, I always think it doesn't sound like you're following a particular approach. And maybe I'm just picking it hazy, but I think it's important to think about like download an approach. So it sounds a bit like the supported accelerated or advanced accelerated approaches, depending on which of the programs you've got.
Dr Laura (42:47)
Mm -hmm.
Mm.
Dr Fallon (43:15)
Follow it really meticulously. Really have one, you know, one thing that you're doing when you're going back into her, really work through those steps really closely. Because sometimes parents sort of go, I get the gist of it. We just kind of come and go every couple of minutes and give some reassurance. But actually it's got to be done in a really structured way for it to work well. If you've been doing it for a week and she hasn't quite got the self settling skills, yeah, I think I'll just revisit those steps and make sure you're following it really closely because
Dr Laura (43:18)
Hmm.
Mm.
Dr Fallon (43:44)
It's always going to be this combination of building higher sleep pressure at nighttime, plus working on the self settling. That's kind of like the magic combo. And if one of those isn't quite right, it won't come together. And I think you're getting the sleep pressure right, but maybe there's a bit of work to do on the settling. I definitely wouldn't stop now. I think you're probably on the cusp of a bit of a breakthrough. I just make sure that the settling approach is incredibly consistent and predictable.
Dr Laura (43:54)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (44:10)
And I would keep going with that one day nap. And if she does manage to start having a longer day nap, factor that into the daily rhythm. So have a look at that daily rhythm chart, you know, for whatever her sleep medias. I don't think we know we don't have it here, but check what her sleep medias look for the daily rhythm chart and then have a look at some options for how you might split that sleep up to make sure you're keeping that sleep pressure at nighttime high enough. And then in regards to her settling,
Dr Laura (44:18)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (44:39)
better for Elizabeth's husband. That's very common. Often toddlers are that much better at falling asleep for their dads. You know, should he be doing more of the resettling to get her on track? I would say yes. For now, get him to be working really closely on whatever approach it is you're going to use. Make that progress. Get to that point where you can just say good night, wander away and she's happily putting herself off to sleep.
And then I would start to, there's so many ways we can do this. It could just be that we just send Elizabeth in and we just change just like that and that's fine. And her daughter might cope fine with that. But if not, you could even walk in with your husband, do whatever it is you're doing for the settling approach and then leave with him as well. So your daughter sees actually, even if mum's here, the exact same thing happens. Or you could just take turns going in and out. But I would start to introduce that, but I would just do it once you've made that progress.
Dr Laura (45:21)
Mm.
Dr Fallon (45:33)
that's when it will tend to go better. Whereas if you do it too early, sometimes they think, there's mum, there's dad, and there's mum. And so they kind of think, well, I'll keep getting really worked up because maybe one of them will change their mind. So just having total predictability at first can be really helpful in some circumstances.
Dr Laura (45:44)
Yes.
Hmm. Yeah. And I think also it being very, very consistent between the two of you so that your daughter isn't getting the preference because she knows that, you know, actually her preference is probably for you at the moment, perhaps because you might stay in for an extra minute or two, maybe, I don't know. But when you go in, maybe you pat her in a slightly different way to dad.
Dr Fallon (45:58)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (46:18)
or you say something a little bit different, you stay by her bedroom door for longer, or in some way, there's just something that she likes a bit more about you, and she wants to try and keep you there a bit longer to do it. Whereas perhaps when dad goes in, dad just does the pat, says goodnight and goes again. And it's just, so there's nothing that exciting about that when dad does it. Dad's really boring. So all right, well, yeah. Whereas mum does something a bit different and good, good, good. I'd like mum to stay here a bit longer.
Dr Fallon (46:30)
Mmm.
Yeah. He's boring.
Dr Laura (46:47)
And as mums, we can't help ourselves sometimes. We're a bit so we can be quite soft as mums. And of course, we want to feel like we're giving all of the support that our child needs. But in this instance, when you're really, really working hard on cot settling, because that is what you would like your toddler to be able to do, then it's the time to say, I'm going to be tough with myself. And I'm going to be as boring and predictable as my husband. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (46:49)
Hmm... Yes.
Mmm.
Yeah, yeah, I think that's really good advice.
Awesome. Well, another bunch of really, really excellent questions. So to wrap up this week, I just wanted to say we've had a whole lot of new parents of toddlers join the toddler program, which is amazing. We would love to be answering more toddler questions. So if you're you're just setting out on your Sombelle journey, you've got a toddler yet facing a difficulty. We love toddlers. my gosh. I love all the crazy, wild, wonderful things they do at bedtime. So please do send in your questions about your toddlers.
Dr Laura (47:39)
You
you
Dr Fallon (47:46)
We also wanted to know, you know, how can we make Sombelle even better for you? We get lovely feedback. But if there's something you think, gosh, I wish in Sombelle there was more of this, please tell us. Like, do you want to see more, you know, sometimes we think maybe we should do some webinars focusing on, you know, very particular sleep difficulties, or maybe it's small group coaching opportunities or an online community. We would really love your feedback on what you think would be really helpful for you.
Dr Laura (48:14)
Mm -hmm.
Dr Fallon (48:15)
very welcome to email us at sombelle at infant sleep .com .au. We would love to hear what you think. Follow along on social media. So we've been doing some more posts around addressing misinformation and talking about some of our own sleep science. And there's gonna be more of our own sleep science from our research programs popping up on social media. So.
Follow along, give us a like, share things, comment. It all really helps to get that really sensible sleep advice out there to more families. It's infant .sleep .australia is our Instagram handle. If you're looking for some support, of course, join Sombelle. It's great. There's lots of coaching calls available too. So if you're thinking about joining and you're like, maybe I need to talk to someone though, you can actually have both. There's plenty of coaching call availability. So.
Dr Laura (48:55)
You
Dr Fallon (49:06)
If you want to have a chat to either me or Laura, let us know. We can absolutely arrange that. And there's also availability in our clinics as well. So if you're not really an online program person and you just want to talk to someone for, you know, the whole, to address the whole sleep difficulty or settling difficulty, we can totally accommodate that. I think the wait time in the clinic might only be a few weeks at the moment, which is shorter than it was last year when we're up to two or three months wait time. So.
Dr Laura (49:28)
Yeah.
Yes!
Dr Fallon (49:32)
It's been really great, hasn't it Laura, seeing more families opt for Sombelle and a coaching call and it's relieved the wait list in the clinic a little bit. So we're getting a really nice balance happening across the two.
Dr Laura (49:41)
Yeah. Yeah. And you can see us virtually over Zoom. If you book in at the virtual clinic or you can come and see me in Hawthorn East in Melbourne, if you live in Melbourne.
Dr Fallon (49:55)
Yeah, awesome. Well, we hope everyone has a really fantastic week. Keep the questions coming in and yeah, if you've got a moment, subscribe to the podcast and leave us a review. We would love to get your review. So have a great week, everyone, and we'll catch you next time.
Dr Laura (50:11)
Thanks everyone, bye bye.
