Dr Fallon (00:02)
Sending your little one off to childcare for the first time, it's nerve -racking. It's a really big adjustment for any family to go through. And it's particularly stressful for parents who have been battling with sleep and settling problems in their baby or toddler. Often there's a lot of fears around how will they settle for sleep at childcare and how will their sleep pattern change as they start to attend childcare.
Welcome back to Brand New Little People, the podcast where we talk about all things sleep and settling across the first few years, including sleep and settling at childcare. I'm your host, Dr. Fallon Cook. And I'm here with my co -host, Dr. Laura Conway. How are you going, Laura?
Dr Laura (00:46)
Yeah I'm good thanks Fallon, how are you?
Dr Fallon (00:48)
Yeah, really good. I'm wondering how you went with childcare and sending your kids off to childcare for the first time. it, was it scary or stressful or some parents will say, actually it was brilliant and I loved finally having a bit of time for myself. So I think everyone's experiences are very different. How were yours?
Dr Laura (01:06)
Yeah. Well, we used, I think it was about three different childcare centres in the end, over the years where both of our children were at childcare. And we loved all of them. We had really wonderful experiences. But I know that the very first time I dropped my eldest off at daycare, I was just a bag of nerves. And so was she. So I think she probably fed off my nerves.
Dr Fallon (01:14)
Mmm.
Mmm.
Dr Laura (01:33)
And I remember dropping her off and then going down the road to sit at a local cafe with a friend because she was also dropping her little one off for the first time. We thought it might be nice, the two little ones going in together. And I got the phone call first after about an hour and a half to say I needed to come back because my one wasn't very happy. So it was a little bit bumpy, but soon enough she adjusted. And then when my second one attended,
Dr Fallon (01:43)
Bye.
Yeah.
no.
Dr Laura (02:03)
It was a bit easier, I think, for him because his older sister was there and she was able to come and give him cuddles if he did have a little bit of a wobble at some point during the day. Yeah, so that was really helpful.
Dr Fallon (02:06)
Hmm.
Yes. It really helps, I think, for second and third and subsequent children. When they've had an older sibling already go there, it's like there's somebody else who's breaking that new ground and stepping out into the unknown before they have. And they've often been there at drop off and pick up. So they kind of understand what happens and they're familiar with the place. Whereas the poor first borns, we kind of just nudge them out there like, you'll be fine. And you're thinking to yourself, I hope you are. I hope this is okay.
Dr Laura (02:26)
Yes.
Yes.
Yes! Yeah, and am I gonna be fine as the parent?
Dr Fallon (02:45)
yeah, exactly. It's so hard. know, you know, I've got three kids for some of them. was really feeling good about it and like, yeah, they're really ready for this and they're going to love it. And then for others, I was like, I'm just not ready. And I would have given anything to have been home a little bit longer. but you know what, at the end of the day, it's, you've just got to give yourself the time and space for that adjustment. So give plenty of time for doing the orientation.
Dr Laura (03:03)
you
Mm.
Dr Fallon (03:13)
activities, go to the orientation as many times as they'll allow you to go. You know, don't rush on those first few drop -offs, spend time, spend 20, 30 minutes just sitting there in amongst it all, watching your child adapt to it so that you're being reassured that actually they're pretty good here, you know, they have settled in here and your child's reassured that you're not kind of disappearing too quickly either, that you are there to help them settle in. But eventually, I think for your kids, Laura and for mine,
Dr Laura (03:25)
Mm
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (03:43)
they end up just being part of this amazing community and their childcare centers become an extension of, well, like an extension of home. That's their community. And for so many of us, that's really important because I know both of us, didn't have family nearby. So we were kind of giving them that extended family that they didn't have close by at the time. And they're forming new bonds with other people, which is so important to do in those early years. So overall was pretty positive.
Dr Laura (03:46)
Yeah.
Mm
Yeah.
Yeah. And yeah, do you know what my, the centre where my two went as their last place that, you know, it took us a long time to get a spot there. And then we finally got a spot. And so by at that point, my eldest was only there, I think for one, maybe one and a half years. And then the other one was there for quite a few more years. I just have such fond memories of that place. And every now and again, I bump into
Dr Fallon (04:19)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (04:37)
one of the carers on the street. you know, she still remembers my children and who they were friends with years later. And you and I have actually gone and given a talk there a couple of times, haven't we, Fallon? So we really built some strong bonds. And it's just really lovely to have had that experience. And I hope that many of our listeners also do get to have that experience that the
Dr Fallon (04:39)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Dr Laura (05:06)
childcare centres that they're using. Excuse me. Yeah. What was your experience like at your centres?
Dr Fallon (05:09)
Yeah, yep.
Yeah, good. think there was, I'm a big believer in trusting your gut when it comes to choosing a childcare center for your kid. I don't think there's any science involved. I think it really just comes down to that gut feeling of, know, if you walk in and your child is warmly welcomed, you just know they're where they need to be. So I did quite a few tours of different places. And some of them were just so clearly a no, you know, just walked in the door and just looked around and went.
Dr Laura (05:39)
Mmm.
Dr Fallon (05:42)
something's just not right here. And I think it's really important to just go, you know, as a parent, your gut tells you some things sometimes and it's right. Like, and it's okay to, you're the parent, you're the advocate for your child. So keep looking into your founder center that does feel really warm and welcoming and where you really feel like your child is going to get something out of their time there and where you, you really connect with the carers as well.
Dr Laura (05:43)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah.
Mm
Mm.
Dr Fallon (06:06)
in terms of sleep at childcare, mine always did pretty well. but they needed to have something with them that was familiar from home. so think one of them took a blanket. The others had like, not their super special Teddy, the, you know, the one from hospital that they've always loved. They would take another toy to take and cuddle there. cause they want to keep their special Teddy at home and safe. and I was very happy with that. I was always having nightmares that we would lose these special Teddy's. Thankfully we never did.
Dr Laura (06:14)
Yes.
You
Dr Fallon (06:34)
but that really helped them to just settle down for sleep really well at childcare just with something familiar and something that smells like home. Did yours take something like that with them?
Dr Laura (06:39)
Yeah.
Yeah, I when they were smaller, they took sleeping bags from home. And of course, a comforter and one of them used dummies. So he had his favorite brand of dummies at daycare. And yeah, I think that really helped a lot. I remember at the very beginning, the centers also asked us to bring bedding.
Dr Fallon (06:47)
Yeah.
Mm.
Mmm.
Dr Laura (07:10)
So the sheets for the cots. And I think that was a really wise move from the daycare centers. At the time I thought, it's because they're skimping on costs. But actually, I think it's not that at all. It's about having the familiar feel and smell. So that even though they're in a new environment, the bedding is the same, the sleeping sack is the same, they've got the same.
Dr Fallon (07:19)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dr Laura (07:38)
comforter or dummy if that's what they're using. And it really did help with the adjustment. And that's one of the things we always tell families, isn't it Fallon, reaching out to us because they're just looking to have this transition to putting their child into daycare and what are the things that they can do to make it easier. And that's one of the biggies is to make sure that you're packing the bedtime paraphernalia.
Dr Fallon (07:48)
Yeah.
Mm.
Dr Laura (08:07)
into their bag so that they can have that at daycare and it helps it feel a little bit more familiar to them.
Dr Fallon (08:08)
Hmm.
It's such a good idea. And I think as a parent, you know what your child needs. So don't be embarrassed to say to them, look, I know we didn't need to bring a sheet, but we kind of wanted to anyway. Just do it because those childcare, the early childcare, I'm completely mincing my words today, the early childhood educators, that's what I'm trying to say. You know, they want what's best for your child as well. And trust me, they want the kids to go to sleep.
Dr Laura (08:30)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (08:39)
easily. So if you say I've bought this cot sheet just while they're settling in, you know, it might help. I think that'd be pretty cool with that actually. But yeah, I think, you know, if you're a family who's had difficulties with sleep and settling with your child, you're gonna feel
Dr Laura (08:48)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (08:56)
probably a bit more stressed out about childcare. Maybe they're already at childcare and you've been hitting some hurdles. So, and I think a lot of parents requested an episode on this as well. We wanted to sort of talk through what are the tips, the things that you can be thinking about to try and get, I guess we want a really good balance between sleep at childcare and sleep at home. We want some predictability because for most babies, toddlers, preschoolers,
Dr Laura (09:17)
you
Dr Fallon (09:21)
They don't do well if their daily rhythm is wildly changing from day to day. Of course there are exceptions to that rule. But you know, this podcast isn't for them. So we'll just talk to the poor ones who are a bit worried about these things. So I think first and foremost, always go into a childcare center thinking about being really collaborative. Like you really want to.
Dr Laura (09:28)
Mm
No, no.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (09:47)
you know, I think when everyone goes into these things, trying to understand each other's positions, it all just works out so much better. The educators want your child to get good sleep. They want to, they will be wanting to follow the same sort of patterns that you follow at home. It's not always going to be possible though. So hearing from them why they might not be able to do exactly what you're asking them to do is a good idea. You want to be thinking from their perspective as well. And
hopefully they're really willing to come to the table and have some discussions with you around things like how they're settling for sleep. I think this is a big one. Sometimes parents think, well, I always rock my baby to sleep and I want my baby to be rocked to sleep at childcare, but that's not always plausible. I think having that conversation with them, how would you settle my baby? And if they're saying, well, we just put them down in the cot and see what happens. You might say, well, if they're used to being rocked, could we do some patting or what will you do if they don't settle?
Dr Laura (10:29)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (10:42)
find out what their processes are and what they tend to do. Some centers will say, no, that's fine. We rock some of the babies to sleep. We just stagger their nap times.
Dr Laura (10:45)
Yeah.
Yeah, I think having that conversation during that orientation time would be a really wise thing to do because one of the things that the daycare centre might be able to tell you is how perhaps they have a chair that they put beside the cots and maybe they have a, I can remember at my daycare centre, there'll be one educator in the middle and then patting the babies on either side in two different cots. And if that's how they settle the babies,
Dr Fallon (11:13)
Hmm.
Dr Laura (11:22)
at daycare, you could just have a little try at home just to see if I was to do the same thing. Let's just so that I know if they're going to really crack it or if they're going to go, this isn't too bad, just to give them the exposure to what it might be like to be patted if you'd ordinarily rock your child to sleep, for example. But that's not to say that if the daycare centre settles your baby in a different way,
Dr Fallon (11:26)
Yeah.
Mmm.
Dr Laura (11:49)
then you do at home that they're never going to sleep at daycare or alternatively that they then develop a preference for the way that the educators are settling them at daycare and then they stop sleeping for you at home. Normally babies and toddlers pretty quickly learn that there are different things happening in different environments. And so if the daycare educators do pack them to sleep or rock them to sleep or do something different to what you do,
Dr Fallon (12:10)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (12:17)
ordinarily it won't throw things off at home. But we're just talking about at the moment what you might do to just ease the way if you've got a little bit of nervousness and anxiety about how sleep is going to go when you're new to daycare. So if they are going to be patting to sleep then you can just give it a go at home just so that you know what how your child might respond and then you can use that information and feed it back to the educators and say do you know what I gave it a go.
Dr Fallon (12:21)
Hmm.
Hmm.
Dr Laura (12:45)
for the last week just to see how it would, how my baby would respond to it. And they really surprised me and they settled five days out of seven in that way for their nap.
Dr Fallon (12:56)
Hmm. Yeah. Or they didn't settle. So what the heck are we going to do? But in that case, it's about then saying to them, okay, so if you try and pack my baby to sleep for 20 minutes and they're having none of it, what would you do at that point? And find out, because it'll be massively reassuring for you. Majority of educators will say, yeah, we would pick them up and cuddle them to sleep at that point. so that that's reassuring for parents to hear that. But what's really interesting is that.
Dr Laura (13:02)
Yes.
Dr Fallon (13:24)
The majority of babies, even the ones who have only ever fed to sleep, like they're breastfed to sleep every single sleep their entire life. And they're now eight months old and heading off to childcare the first day. So often they get put down in that cot and they just go to sleep. just, and it's because it's a new environment and they don't have the expectations around how they should fall asleep there.
Dr Laura (13:41)
Yes.
Dr Fallon (13:48)
And if they're looking around and seeing all these other babies are sleeping cots, just so often we'll just go, okay, that's what I'm doing here then. so yeah, you might be really surprised how well they do. And often for a lot of parents going to daycare is it sort of opens the door to their child developing more independent self -settling skills because they start to practice it at daycare, you know, without even a tear, they're they're totally fine with it there. so that then when you do go to try that at home and there might still be some tears and
Dr Laura (14:06)
Mmm.
Yes.
Dr Fallon (14:18)
from them because they're thinking, what are you doing? I don't do that here. This is a childcare only event. Thank you very much. But you're going to have that confidence going, well, no, I know they actually can. So I'll settle in their cot. They do it at childcare. And often that just gives parents a bit more confidence to persist with cot settling at that point. Anyway, I guess the next thing to think about is, you know, so many parents say, you know, my child goes to childcare.
Dr Laura (14:24)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (14:45)
they, and this is particularly, I think, more prevalent in toddlers. These parents will say, my toddler gets way too much day sleep, comes home and has the most hideous nights. And often parents will say, I've spoken to childcare, they refuse to wake him up or they refuse to only give him one nap because they have these policies. Like if the child goes and tries to have a nap, we have to let them, or if a child is asleep,
we never ever wake them. And so they might be getting three or four hours total day sleep at childcare. And so often parents will say on the daycare days or childcare days, they don't go to sleep until 11 PM or they go to sleep at their normal bedtime, but they wake up 10 times or something horrible overnight. And what's really challenging there is that the childcare centers don't understand what's happening overnight. And that's
Dr Laura (15:18)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Mm
Dr Fallon (15:43)
really tough because from their perspective they're thinking, but this kid's tired. Like they obviously need to sleep. They're sleeping a really long time, not realizing that that child will then compensate by being awake half of the night. So I think it's about, I mean, as parents, we can only do our best. think having a conversation with them to say on childcare days, when he has, you know, three hours of sleep that night. So you're going to talk about what the impact is that night. He's up till 11 PM or he wakes five times or whatever.
Dr Laura (15:55)
Yes.
Mm
Dr Fallon (16:14)
And then explain the impact that that's having on you. So you're identifying what's happening. He's having too much sleep. The impact on the nights and then the impact on you and your family unit. It might be, you know, I'm really struggling to cope. My mental health is going down the toilet because I can't cope with these nights that are so interrupted. And then you're making your request. Look, can you please support us in keeping his sleep to just this maximum amount when he's in your care?
Dr Laura (16:17)
Mm
Mm
you
Dr Fallon (16:43)
So then we're kind of giving them all the information. It's a reasonable request. And we're being really clear about what the actual impact of those NAPs are. I guess I think that's the best way to approach it because yeah, these educators, they just don't have any idea what the nights are like. And it's really up to us to paint that picture for them and explain how difficult it is.
Dr Laura (16:53)
Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Yeah, yeah, I completely agree, Fallon. When from the educators point of view, they've got a child coming into the their care, who seems really tired, is taking long naps, maybe wanting one more nap a day than their parents are saying that they need. And so for an educator looking at that child is thinking, well, surely they need that sleep. They're very tired. And so
Dr Fallon (17:34)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (17:37)
then they are going, right, well, it's the child's right to have the sleep. We're not going to stop it. We're not going to wake them from having a long nap because sleeper gets sleep, you know, this kind of misinformation. And they're not the ones at home at nine o 'clock at night with a toddler who's bouncing off the walls, running around the house, unable to go to sleep. And they're not the ones who are then up six times a night.
or starting the day from four. And what they see is the impacts of that really broken night the next day. And it just perpetuates, I'm tripping over my words. Yes.
Dr Fallon (18:06)
Mm.
Mmm.
Yeah, too much day sleep, terrible night. So they need more day sleep and then they have another terrible night. Yeah. And it just keeps cycling.
Dr Laura (18:26)
That's right. And it goes round and round in a circle. so parents are tearing their hair out. Educators are saying, but we're doing what the child needs. And it's just feeding each other. So I think that Fallon, we were talking just before we started recording how sometimes you have suggested to families that they actually log.
Dr Fallon (18:37)
Mmm.
Hmm.
Dr Laura (18:53)
their child's sleep, they take that sleep diary and show the daycare educators the actual data of what's happening. on these days, when they say they're at the daycare three days a week and they have three or four hours sleep, you thinking about a two year old perhaps, who's having massive sleep, then you can see that they don't go to sleep until 11 o 'clock at night or they're up all night, blah, blah, blah. And then a couple of days
Dr Fallon (18:58)
Hmm.
Mmm.
Dr Laura (19:22)
after they have, you know, on the days that they're not at daycare, you can see that the bedtime starts to creep earlier, the nighttime wakes are fewer, they sleep a bit longer in the morning, and then it just resets and you can show this pattern. And I think that's, yeah.
Dr Fallon (19:36)
Yes, I think that's so valuable just showing the actual data. It's not that you're just saying stuff like here's the data to support it. And that feeds into another strategy. Not everyone has the luxury to be able to do this. But for some families, we suggest taking a week or two off childcare to really work on whatever the daily rhythm is that your child does well on work on that daily rhythm. So for two reasons in one, we have one one reason is that
Sometimes their circadian rhythm gets into a really good groove. just falls into this great pattern. And then when they go back to childcare, it doesn't matter if they go to let them sleep longer, because your child now just wakes up after an hour and a half or a nap or whatever it is that they're usually doing at home. That's kind of what their body is expecting. And they'll just do that regardless. you know, we're home and host. It's all good. It's worked out. But also during those couple of weeks when they're at home,
You can get that great data in your sleep diary showing that, look at this when the day naps captain an hour and a half, whatever it is, we're having these beautiful, beautiful nights. This is what the data used to look like when he was at childcare and over sleeping. can then really contrast show them the contrast in the sleep diary. you know, of the difference to really reassure them that if the child doesn't have, you know, if the, we kept the child's sleep at daycare.
Dr Laura (20:47)
Yes.
Dr Fallon (20:57)
then they do make up for it overnight and they're okay. They're having beautiful nights. They're definitely getting enough sleep. So that can be really reassuring to early childhood educators as well. But it is really hard. I know a lot of parents just complain to us that they get so much opposition that even just trying to broach the topic of trying to get a daily rhythm that is consistent at home and at childcare, they're just met with so much force and resistance. And I think
Dr Laura (21:04)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (21:26)
Obviously, look, there are a lot of babies and toddlers out there where their sleep's overall pretty good and it's not going to matter too much if there's some variability and a lot of children are really resilient to that. But if you're one of the few percent that has really sleep problems that are just, not sleep problems that are ingrained, but it's like the ones who just, their sleep so easily slips out of whack and ends up very messy and difficult. If you were in those few percent,
Dr Laura (21:49)
Yes.
Dr Fallon (21:54)
then having a really consistent daily rhythm, whether it's at home or at childcare is so important, or you're just constantly going to have a child who's got sleep difficulties. That's going to impact the whole family and it can impact the child. If they're having really interrupted nights all the time, we know that they don't feel great during the day. It makes it a lot harder for them to cope at childcare and they're trying to do all this learning and everything. So I would argue that it's very important for the child and the family's wellbeing that sleep is going okay.
Dr Laura (22:05)
Mm.
Mm.
Dr Fallon (22:22)
there sometimes comes a point where parents just say, I need to find a center that actually values our sleep, where they are going to be really respectful of the fact that we need good nighttime sleep as a family. So does our child. And they do go looking at other centers and asking those, the managers of those centers, what's your policy here, know, explaining the history of what's happened at other childcare centers. Because if you can find a center that is
Dr Laura (22:41)
Mmm.
Dr Fallon (22:51)
really willing to be on board and to listen to you and who really cares about your child's sleep. I mean, it just flows into everything, doesn't it? It's it's so important.
Dr Laura (23:00)
Yeah, it really does. So if your childcare centre is, know, most, all childcare centres need to have a policy around sleep. And if they have some guidelines about what to include in the policy and what everybody's responsibility is, in turn, like the owner of the childcare centre has to provide safe sleep space.
the educators and the supervisors of the rooms have different responsibilities and your responsibility as a parent is to be having regular catch -ups with the educators to let them know what your child's sleep needs are and their responsibility is to listen to that and try to cater to those needs as much as is practical. If they have additional elements of their policy which say things like
we will not wake a sleeping child or we will not stop a child from sleeping who seems tired. And that's causing a problem for you because your child has a lower sleep need or for the reasons that we've just talked about. Then when you are looking to, the situation that you're in, geographical situation is such that there are other options for you to consider for your child.
daycare needs, I would be asking to see the policy of the centre has around sleep to look out for any points that say we won't wake a child and we won't stop a child from sleeping if they are showing any tired signs. I'd be looking out for those points and then just asking a bit more about that. What does that mean?
Dr Fallon (24:29)
Hmm.
Dr Laura (24:53)
Does that mean if my child wants to sleep for four hours, that you would just leave them to sleep for four hours? And if that's the case, what happens to where all the other children when they wake up from shorter naps, how will you protect the safety of my child if there's other children running around? Again, talking about older children. And is there any leeway in this? There'll be variation from room to room. so
Dr Fallon (24:56)
You
Mm.
Hmm.
Dr Laura (25:20)
Maybe the baby's rooms are a bit stricter about it, but the three or four year old kinder rooms are a little bit more lax about it. And it just be asking really clear succinct questions. What exactly does this mean? My child actually only needs two naps a day. And if he has more than an hour and a half, nighttime is thrown out and it's really important that you wake them. Will you be able to do that? And if not, okay, well, maybe this isn't the center.
for us, we'll go and have a look at a different one. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (25:51)
Hmm.
Yeah, absolutely. I think that's really, really good advice. We are our children's advocates, so we need to make sure all of their needs are being met. Sometimes we're going to bend a little bit on minor things, but when it's something as important as sleep, think, be, you know, know that it's okay to go in and ask the tricky questions. I think we all start out with our firstborns in childcare feeling like, I didn't really know what the goal is and, they probably know better than me.
I mean, there's some things they probably do know better than you, but there's also a lot you know about your child that they don't know. so yeah, it's okay to have those conversations, ask the tricky questions and make sure you're satisfied with the answers.
Dr Laura (26:24)
Yeah.
Mm hmm. Yeah, look, if you do have, I just wanted to jump in, I know we need to move on to the questions, Fallon. I just feel quite passionately about this. We do know that almost all, let's just assume all childcare centres want the best for your child in the same way you want the best for your child. If for whatever reason, you can't change centres and their policy is really strict.
And of course you need to use that daycare centre. What can you do? So if you know on the days that your child goes to the daycare facility that they're going to have one more nap a day than they normally have at home, or they're going to have more sleep than they normally would, then think about what's in your control. And what is in your control is what happens when they get home from daycare and thinking about moving bedtime a bit later on those days.
Dr Fallon (27:08)
Mm.
Hmm.
Dr Laura (27:31)
So that we always want to be keeping wake up time roughly similar. So that's not the thing that you want to be toying with. But it may be that on the days that they're in daycare, when you know they're going to have more day sleep than they ordinarily need, and it's not something you can change, just move bedtime a bit later, think about having some, extended bath time with some special bath time toys that you have just on the evenings that they come home from daycare.
just so that you can distract them and yourself from those longer evenings that you're going to have on those days.
Dr Fallon (28:06)
Hmm. It's a really good point, Laura. And I think sometimes it's, you know, for some families, I'll say, yeah, three days per week, they go to daycare and then they don't go to sleep until 10pm. But actually it's fine. Like the days are home with us to have less sleep, they go to bed earlier. And that's not a problem. It's if it is a problem where, you know, it's it's just creating absolute havoc. Look for some families, it's about saying, well, you know what, they've got six months left in this particular room before they move up to the next one where the rules are different.
Maybe we are going to try and have, you know, three hours of day sleep at home. And we're just going to accept a 10 PM bedtime every day for the next six months, knowing it's not forever, but that's the best that we can make of this situation. and it might not be what you want to do at all, but if it just means that that's the easiest way to keep sleep on an even keel, then you know, you go with that. So yeah, no, I think that's really important, Laura. I'm glad you bought that up. Excellent. All right. So we've got quite a few questions to get through. let's.
Dr Laura (28:44)
Yes, yeah.
Mm -hmm.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (29:03)
Let's try and move through these pretty quickly. So we had Abby email us who has had a rocky time with her six month old, who after becoming very unwell, his sleep deteriorated to the point where Abby had to attend a sleep school with him. She says this helped a lot.
Dr Laura (29:20)
Mm
Dr Fallon (29:22)
and sleep was going okay for a couple of months until his nights started to worsen. So Abby used the Sunbell program to work out that he needed a little less day sleep and this helped his nights improve. So he now has around about a 12 hour window overnight for sleep. Abby says the first challenge is that around half of the time he wakes 45 minutes after going to sleep relatively easily and wakes a lot.
and takes a lot of hands -on cot settling and sometimes rocking to calm down for sleep. His last awake window is about two to two and a quarter hours and he has three naps a day totaling three to four hours. She says, I'm having trouble thinking through the causes and I was hoping you could outline some of the reasons this happens and how to tweak things to prevent this happening.
Dr Laura (30:12)
Okay, so with 12 hours overnight, and then three to four hours of sleep during the day. Abby, that's about 16, yeah, 15 to 16 hours of sleep opportunity a day for your six month old. So obviously, we don't have his sleep diary, and we don't know if that's what his sleep needs are. It sounds like it's
Dr Fallon (30:25)
15 to 16 hours, isn't it?
Dr Laura (30:41)
Right up the upper end of sleep needs for a six month old Yeah
Dr Fallon (30:44)
Yeah, it's a lot, isn't it? Like it's sort of more like what a newborn might have 15 or 16, but by six months, there aren't many that actually need that amount of sleep.
Dr Laura (30:51)
Yeah.
No. So it could be that he does, but it would be, yeah, he'd be in the minority. And given that it sounds like he's having that wake up after 45 minutes at the start of the night, that often is a bit of an indicator that sleep pressure is not quite high enough. At the start of the night. And that last period of time awake, sometimes there's only two hours or two hours, 15 minutes.
Dr Fallon (31:13)
Hmm.
Dr Laura (31:22)
Again, what I'd be thinking of is for that sleep pressure to get nice and high for him to be able to go down easily, which it sounds like he's doing, but actually maintain his sleep, which he's not doing. We really want to help give him a little bit longer awake and two hours awake before bedtime at six months, maybe just not quite enough for your son.
Dr Fallon (31:33)
Hmm.
Mmm.
Dr Laura (31:47)
I would probably be looking at maybe trimming the last nap so that it's more like two and a half to three hours, if not a little bit more, depending on what his sleep needs are, just to help him be able to go to sleep and maintain his sleep at the start of the night. What do you think, Fallon?
Dr Fallon (31:59)
Hmm.
Hmm. Yeah, I agree with that. I would definitely be looking at the sleep diary, tracking his sleep for a week and looking at how much sleep is actually averaging. Hopefully he does have a high sleep need. You'll be very lucky, Abby. You get lots of day sleep and still some really good nights. But that will really guide how to structure the day and the night so that yeah, he's not having the false starts. Cause false starts just always mean that yeah, they're just not quite tight enough to get into the deep.
Dr Laura (32:19)
Hmm. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (32:35)
deep stretch of sleep at the beginning of the night. Yeah. So Abby also says, the second and more pressing challenge for me is that he takes full feeds every three to three and a half hours overnight. So around about 10 .30 PM, 2 AM and 5 .30 AM he's having a feed. She says, he isn't hungry when he wakes in the morning. So I know if we could somehow shift the feeds to the daytime, he would sleep longer.
Dr Laura (32:38)
Mm.
Dr Fallon (33:01)
In the daytime, I can stretch his feeds to every four hours with my mum helping to distract him and he has some solids for lunch and dinner. I'm breastfeeding and the baby is a ferocious feeder, only taking five to 10 minutes to feed. So slowly reducing milk given overnight is quite challenging. because the feeds are so short. So she says I would like to remove a yet, like completely drop a feed at a time instead.
Dr Laura (33:14)
you
you
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (33:30)
So Abby's question is, how do you approach weaning off night feeds? My partner can tag team with me to do the settling, but I've lost the confidence I had teaching my baby to self -settle. I'm scared that he will need settling for three hours till the next feed is due. Isn't such a good example of why getting the sleep pressure at nighttime is so important. Because if we've got high enough sleep pressure,
Dr Laura (33:51)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (33:53)
a baby will not be awake for three hours in the middle of the night because they will just be too tired and they would get back to sleep. But anyway, I'll shut up and you actually answer the question,
Dr Laura (33:56)
No.
No, no, I don't think you're right. That's where I would have jumped in to say it's definitely important to get that sleep pressure nice and high. So think about the naps. If he stays on three, then just I'd be looking at reducing the duration of them. And the other thing to think about is he's six months old, often somewhere around six to seven and a half ish months, a baby will drop down to two naps. So either reducing the duration.
and keeping it on three or just moving him to two naps. Either of those things are gonna help to drive up sleep pressure at the start of the night, which means that then overnight, he's got higher sleep pressure for a bit longer. So when you do make the change to dropping the number of night feeds, he's not gonna be awake crying for three hours until the next feed.
Dr Fallon (34:52)
Hmm.
Dr Laura (34:54)
So I would be thinking given that those feeds are quite short, that does rule out some kind of milk reduction strategies that we might use where you'd like, if your baby feeds for 15 minutes, you might unlatch him after 13 minutes and then the next night after 12 minutes and then the next night, you know, go very gradually until you're ready to drop it. He's feeding really quickly. So that's quite hard to do. So I would be thinking about
Sleep pressure tends to be higher at the start of the night than later on in the night. So I'd be aiming to try to get support your little one to, you know, not having his first feed until around midnight. And then the next feed after that, because then when you're using the new settling approach at the start of the night, he's more likely to be able to respond more quickly to that. And
go back to sleep quite quickly later on in the night when the sleep pressure is getting a bit lower, then having a feed is just going to take the edge off a little bit and help him go back to sleep more easily. I think your partner doing the settle is a great idea, Abby, because your baby isn't going to expect a breastfeed from your partner. So I'd really be encouraging your partner to read whichever settling approach you're going to do so that he gets a really good idea of what to do.
Dr Fallon (36:00)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (36:19)
overnight so he knows exactly how to respond to your baby rather than giving him a feed and have confidence in your partner. And you know that you're not going to be offering him a feed when he wakes before midnight or you know, it be 11 .30, whatever time it is you decide you're happy to go with. And so you just try your best, listen to some music, put some earplugs in.
Dr Fallon (36:30)
Hmm.
Dr Laura (36:46)
know that your partner is a good dad, he can do the settles, have confidence in him, that will give him confidence in what he's doing. And as long as he's super consistent, it's very likely that your little one is going to go back to sleep without the feed. Next time he wakes up, it's going to be feed time. Then you can come in, give the feed, resettle after your baby's finished feeding. You can do one more feed before morning and then you basically do a similar thing.
then when you're ready to drop the next feed. Yeah, anything else that you'd add, Fallon?
Dr Fallon (37:19)
Hmm.
think that's really good. Yeah, definitely start with dropping that first feed and get yourself to bed early, Abby. So your partner can take on that first resettle of the night. And then by the time you get up to feed around midnight, you've had a good stretch of sleep yourself. Yeah, I think that's a good way to do it. And also as you drop that feed, your baby will take on more calories in the day to compensate after another few days. If you wanted to drop to just one feed, often say when they go to one feed aim for maybe like 2am or later for that feed.
you know, that's, that's perfectly fine. If you do drop one feet every few days, it just gives you baby time to compensate and catch up on calories in the daytime. yeah, you're doing a great job, Abby. Well done. Laura, we also had Sophie email. Sophie has a daughter who's five months old and is on the whole a great sleeper. she's waking once or occasionally not at all overnight. She settles independently 99 % of the time.
Dr Laura (38:00)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (38:19)
Naps, especially in the first part of the day, are also generally good with minimal padding needed. She's a catnapper with a sleep requirement that dropped to about 12 and a half hours over the last couple of weeks. She goes to bed at 7 .30 p Sophie says, however, we have been having some issues here and there that seem to be increasing. The first is early morning waking. For about a month, she has been waking at five or 5 .30 and cannot be resettled in the cot.
So she's been holding her to maintain a normal wake up time of around 6 .30am. If she feeds earlier in the night at around 3 or 4am, she doesn't feed her when she wakes at 5. But if it was the only wake up, the one at 5, then she would give her a feed. Sophie says, we dropped to three naps about two weeks ago and initially the wake up started to improve, but it's gone backwards.
She says, there are worse ways to start my morning than with the baby cuddles, but long -term I'd prefer we all stayed in bed a little longer. She's also concerned that the contact naps or feeding to sleep, hang on, yeah, so the cuddles in the morning and the feeding to sleep at that time might bleed into other areas of her sleep. The other difficulty is nap refusal. If she's not put down super tired, then she screams for 30 minutes.
Dr Laura (39:20)
You
you
Dr Fallon (39:45)
and Sophie is trying to avoid contact napping, so they've started to do that nap in the car. She says when this has happened in the past, it was always a sign she needed to drop a nap and it resolved the issues immediately. But as she's just dropped down to three naps and is definitely still too young for two naps, she's wondering, is this a daily rhythm issue or more of a settling issue? And what would we advise? It's a big one. What do you think, Laura?
Dr Laura (39:52)
Hmm.
Mm
Yeah. Sophie, it sounds like your daughter is doing really well. Five months old, generally a great sleeper. And I love that she settles independently 99 % of the time. So that tells me it's unlikely to be a settling issue, because we know that she can settle independently. I think we'll more be looking at what the daily rhythm is to help her be able to
Dr Fallon (40:29)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (40:38)
to maintain her sleep beyond that 5, 5 .30am start, is really, we've said a number of times before, anything that doesn't have a six in front of it is just really painful. So I agree, look at five months, we probably do still want her to be on the three naps. And you've only just moved her to three as well. So, you know, we'd expect her to be on three naps for, you know, a little bit longer yet.
Dr Fallon (40:46)
Hmm.
Yo.
Dr Laura (41:06)
You know, for children that have like a 10 hour sleep need at this age, might say that they drop me that those are rarer, just like a 16 hour sleep need and a six month old is rare, like in the last question we answered. And in those instances, we might say, you know what, five months, I just have to go to two naps, but probably so for your daughter can stay on three for now. Given that she's going to sleep at about 730 at night, and you're aiming for 630 in the morning.
Dr Fallon (41:14)
Hmm.
Mmm.
Dr Laura (41:36)
for a wake up, that's 11 hours. So, and she's only got a 12 and a half hour sleep need. So that's only leaving an hour and a half daytime sleep. So potentially that could be three 30 minute cat naps, but if she's having one longer nap, then we'd probably be needing to move bedtime a little bit later to encourage her to be able to maintain her sleep until morning.
Dr Fallon (42:03)
Hmm.
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing, Laura, when the daily rhythm sort of seems to be working, like Sophie's identified she's got to be quite tired and then she'll actually settle quite easily. I'd be like, it all sounds pretty good. It might just be a case of shuffling everything along a little bit. It could be making wake up time, nap time, bedtime 15 minutes later, every three or four days or so to see if that wake up time
Dr Laura (42:22)
Mm.
Dr Fallon (42:33)
shuffles along because you're describing that she's wide awake, like she's really, really wakeful and ready to start her day. So it's a good sign that she's met her sleep needs. She's just really wanting to get up and about. So yeah, you could definitely shuffle things along. Look, at some point, I think it's worth trying a few mornings of resettling her using whatever cot settling approach you're using.
Dr Laura (42:44)
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (42:59)
Keep trying that resettle. Sometimes I have a bit of a blip where they're up early and then a couple of weeks later they're sleeping in again. So it is also worth just trying when you feel ready. It might be that you persist with trying to resettle her in the cot for half an hour. And if you're just not getting anywhere, then get her up, but just try it a few days in a row and see if she might manage to link that cycle. Cause she might just be thinking, well, I know if I wake up nice and early, I get this lovely cuddle and there might be a feed and, and sometimes it's more about that.
Dr Laura (43:05)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (43:28)
preference and well if I look bright enough and awake enough, mind hold me here for a bit. Yeah, yeah, good luck, Sophie, you're doing a really good job and for either Sophie or Abby, if you want to have a chat, we can always have a coaching call if we want to sort of really look at the diary and work out next steps. That could be a good option too.
Dr Laura (43:31)
Hahaha!
Yeah.
All right, shall I read the next question from Jade Fallon? So Jade writes and she says that she has a five month old FOMO baby. we love FOMO babies. So her baby loves to cat nap and has a 13 hour sleep need. He has around two hours of daytime sleep across three naps. He goes to bed at 6 .30 PM and wakes up at 6 .30 AM.
Dr Fallon (43:54)
Yeah.
Hehehehe. Hehehehe.
Dr Laura (44:19)
and he self settles for every sleep. Up until last month, he would call out once overnight for a feed between two and four a However, in the last month, he's begun consistently calling out twice overnight at midnight and at four a Given he'd only ever called out because of hunger, Jade says she instinctively responded with a feed which he has been guzzling up.
After the feed he gets a nappy change and goes back into the cot awake and self -settles. So Jay's questions are do babies with good self -settling skills and an appropriate daily rhythm still call out overnight if it's not because of hunger? How do I know how to respond? He has been quite distracted during daytime feeds of late.
He'll often pop off the breast to have a good look around before relatching for a few sucks and popping off again. His daytime feeds are quick, under 10 minutes, but double the length overnight. Jade says, I'm wondering if he's consuming all of his calories overnight instead of during the day. And she'd like to shift the balance back to more daytime feeds and nighttime sleep. If it's appropriate to drop back to one feed, how should I do this?
Should I completely drop a feed or gradually reduce the length of one feed? If I drop the feed, how long should I try to settle before considering if the hunger is genuine and therefore offering a feed? lots of questions there. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (45:53)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a meaty one. all right. So where would we start with this? So first of all, in terms of Jade's question to babies with good self settling skills and an appropriate daily rhythm still call out overnight, even if they're not hungry. Yes, they can. if they've just got a preference or they understand that a feed might be offered, sometimes they just think, yeah, I'll have one of those. I often say to parents, it's like, if there's a bowl of lollies in front of you, you might not be hungry, but you know, if someone's offering you like,
I'll have one or a few. so yeah, they absolutely can do that. You know, in hearing about the daily rhythm, my first thought was we're offering 14 hours of sleep. it is 14, so 6 .30 PM to 6 .30 AM, two hours of day. So, so offering 14 hours of sleep with a 13 hour sleep need. And I think I'm guessing Jade's doing that because she's thinking, he feeds overnight.
Dr Laura (46:24)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (46:52)
But if you want him to reduce those big long feeds overnight, often tightening up that daily rhythm really helps by just not allowing a lot of time for overnight feeds. Their sleep pressure is a bit higher. When we go to drop a feed, it tends to go a bit more easily. So it could even just be that you put into bed at 7pm, just reduce that overnight window by half an hour. When you do go to try and drop a feed that can really, really help.
Dr Laura (47:13)
Mm
Dr Fallon (47:17)
look, I guess he's only five months old and there's a lot of five month olds who will have two feeds at this age. So if you're listening and thinking, well, my five month old does two feeds. Is that terrible? Should I reduce it? The answer is no. it can be completely fine. So it's really is just personal preference. but the majority of five month olds, if they've got, you know, good weight gain, everything's on track. They usually can get through the night with just one night feed maximum.
Definitely, you know, if their bodies are expecting a lot of calories overnight, then they compensate and take on less during the day, which could be happening for Jade's baby. He's having big feeds overnight in the daytime. He's thinking, wow, there's lots to look at. I'll just have a little feeds. so a good way to get around that is look, I would say in regards to Jade's question, like, how do I drop a feed? Drop the first feed of the night. Like we described earlier, it's easy to drop a feed that's earlier on in the night. If you've got a partner, ask them to resettle him.
Dr Laura (47:56)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (48:13)
and what was I going to go? just, my thoughts have just flown out of my head.
Dr Laura (48:18)
Were you going to go to what to do during the day when he's really distracted and he's feeding? Yeah, we do.
Dr Fallon (48:23)
yes. Thank you, Laura. That's exactly what I was going to say. We know each other too well. We can read each other's minds at this point. I'm just so distracted because I've got two kids at home and I know that I can see them walking past my office window checking if I'm still recording the podcast. these little eyes peeping and I'm trying not to get distracted. It's very distracting. Anyway, yes. So when, when your baby wakes from a nap or in the morning, Jade, aim to feed him in a dark.
room so there's fewer distractions you're more likely to get a longer feed in and he'll start to take on more calories in the daytime. That tends to be a good way to do it just gives them time to kind of compensate in the daytime take on more calories if they need to and definitely dropping the earlier feed maybe just aiming for the other feed around 2amish or something or later for now.
Dr Laura (48:56)
Mm
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (49:13)
And then once they're six months of age, if they're eating solids well, weight gain's fine. You can absolutely think about dropping the final night feed at that point. Jade's question, Jade had a lot of questions and now I'm thinking, have I answered them all? Is there anything I've forgotten Laura, since you are my other spare brain?
Dr Laura (49:28)
Yeah. So, look, the only thing that I would say that could be a bit of nuance around is, Jade's question about should I drop one feed immediately or gradually reduce the length of one of the feeds? And there isn't a right answer for this. So the quickest way of doing it would be to say,
Dr Fallon (49:45)
Yeah.
Mmm.
Dr Laura (49:55)
We know that he's okay. We know that he has previously only had one feed a night and did that for a long time. And just recently he's having two feeds. So just move bedtime a bit later, just to drive up sleep pressure and just see if we can just move to the one feed the first time he wakes up after say 1am, for example. And before that, your partner goes in just like Fallon described. If you feel a bit nervous about doing that, like dropping the feed straight away,
Then the other thing you could do is still move bedtime a little bit later just to drive up sleep pressure. But if he wakes up before midnight, you could look at continuing to give him two feeds perhaps for a week. But each time you're feeding him, just reduce doing a bit of milk reduction strategy so that you would just be when you're feeding him that first time before midnight, you just reduce the duration of the feed by a couple of minutes every night or so.
and you're just unlatching him until it's down to, I don't think that Jade said how long the feeds are, but you know, might be down to just a five minute feed, that first one. And then you could go, all right, now I'm going to drop that feed entirely and keep just the one feed overnight. So there isn't a right or wrong, Jade, I'm sorry. And it's really just about deciding.
Dr Fallon (51:03)
Hmm.
Mmm.
Mmm.
Dr Laura (51:19)
what kind of time scale you're on. You're not going to do any damage if you go with the quicker approach and just saying bang from tonight it's going to be one feed. But equally depending on how many spoons you've got, you know I don't know if you've heard about that spoon theory Fallon, where everybody has a certain number of spoons every day, that's their resources, and then each time that they are asked to do something they're kind of giving away a spoon. So some people have loads of spoons.
Dr Fallon (51:21)
Yeah.
Mmm.
Yeah, right.
Dr Laura (51:46)
And they have got loads of resources and they can spread themselves thin because they've got so many spoons. Other people don't have so many spoons and it doesn't take much for the whole family system to fall over. So you can either go with a really quick approach or if you feel like I just spread way too thin at the moment, I don't think I can cope with a lot of pushback overnight with my baby.
me thinking perhaps my baby does need another feed, just going with that more gradual approach might suit you better just for a week as you reduce the duration of at least one of those feeds overnight and then make the decision to then okay from tonight a week on I'm to move to just the one feed.
Dr Fallon (52:26)
Hmm.
Yes, I love the nuance there. So important. You're thinking about what your baby's going to respond better to some cope much better with just not having a feed than having a shorter feed. but you're considering the mother as well. And I just think so often mothers are forgotten in this equation. Night feeding is exhausting. And if it's all landing on you, you've got to think about, know, like, yes, it's reasonable for a five month old to just have one night feed. And if that's something you just need to get done to protect yourself and your wellbeing, do it.
Dr Laura (52:37)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dr Fallon (52:57)
It's fine. You have our permission. We'll even write you a note. You know, it's, totally okay. We've got to think about the baby and the parent as well. Yeah. So important. so thank you so much, Jade, for your questions. think those answers will hopefully be helpful for lots of people. and just lastly, we have a question from Louise. So Louise says we recently night weaned our 10 month old. Thanks to the awesome advice we received on your podcast. that's lovely. Thanks Louise.
Dr Laura (52:58)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Aww.
Dr Fallon (53:26)
Louise says she was feeding once a night, but her husband would go in and jiggle the cot and managed to resettle her after five minutes or so. So since the night weaning, she says we're now facing the challenge of early wake ups as she's consistently waking between five and 530 each day. Well, this is a common theme this week. It's a different kind of awake to the overnights and the cot jiggle or the pick up.
Dr Laura (53:48)
Yeah it is.
Dr Fallon (53:55)
I'm just totally, where is my brain at today Laura? I barely, barely choke out a sentence. I'll try that again. It's a different kind of awake to the overnights and the cot jiggle or the pickup and cuddles won't work. So she's really awake at 5am in the morning. Louise says, I try to give her half a breastfeed and occasionally she'll go back to sleep with that, but generally not. She's ready to start the day.
Dr Laura (54:11)
Okay.
Dr Fallon (54:21)
When I charted her sleep needs a few months back, it was 13 hours. She currently has around two hours day sleep and goes to bed at around 7 .30 PM. Her room is very dark and temperature is appropriate. Okay, so two hours day, I'm just doing the maths quickly in my head. So with 13 hours sleep need, two hours of day sleep, probably going to have about 11 hours or so overnight going to bed at 7 .30. So we'd probably expect that baby to be able to get through.
to 6 .30 or so. I'm wondering if sleep needs have dropped. It's been a few months.
Dr Laura (54:51)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. There's two things I'm thinking. One is that when Louise last charted her baby's sleep needs, it was a few months back, her baby's now 10 months old. So in all likelihood, your child's sleep needs have dropped a little bit and maybe he only needs, sorry, he or she only needs 10 and a half hours overnight, for example. So it might be that an 8pm bedtime.
is better, or it might be that you could reduce the daytime nap duration by around half an hour or you know, one sleep cycle. The other thing that occurs to me and I'm just wondering because we have had a few people commenting on the early wakes is that the mornings are getting a bit lighter now, certainly in Victoria. So of course, we've got members all over Australia and all over the world. But just
Dr Fallon (55:27)
Mmm.
you
Dr Laura (55:54)
For those families who are in Victoria, thinking about, you have blackout blinds? Even if it's not really bright, if there's any light coming in around the edge of those curtains or blinds, it may be beginning to be enough to rouse your baby. So making sure that you do have blackout blinds or you put some foil or something on the windows just to stop the light.
Dr Fallon (56:00)
Hmm.
Dr Laura (56:23)
coming in from around the blinds, just to address those early morning wakes. I know, Louise, you say that your room is very dark, but I'm just kind of thinking for other listeners as well. And it just occurred to me then that we should probably mention that.
Dr Fallon (56:25)
Hmm.
Yeah
Yeah.
Yeah, I think it sounds mostly like since she's waking up wide awake and so ready to start the day. It's yeah, more of a timing issue and it's either going to be that we need to trim some day sleep to get that longer sleep in, or it might just be that the day needs to be shuffled along a little bit. Everything shuffled along like we described earlier. I love it when all the questions sort of,
Dr Laura (57:00)
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (57:02)
relevant to each other. Like, and that's what it's happened today. There's lots of answers here. I'm thinking, that's sort of like that other case that we just spoke about. and hopefully, yeah, that's been really helpful, despite Laura and I mincing our words and forgetting how to read at times. Yeah.
Dr Laura (57:04)
Yes.
Yes.
god, and we've both got kids sick home from school today, so we are, and I can feel my voice going, I feel like maybe I'm coming down with it as well, so we are living the juggle listeners as well. So we are with you in the trenches, our children might be a little bit older than some of yours, but yeah, the struggle is real.
Dr Fallon (57:30)
Yeah.
Yeah, the juggle is real. All right, well, thank you everyone for listening in and a huge welcome to our newest members. It's been another really big week welcoming lots of new families to Sombelle which is amazing. Thank you to everyone who has submitted questions. Just a little reminder when you do send through a question, if it's turning into lots and lots and lots of paragraphs.
Have a go at trying to shorten it down to just a few dot points if you can because it is just Laura and I who go through these questions. I'd love to tell you we've got some, you know, staff member who can do this for us, but not quite there yet. So it is just us on a Monday morning after doing school drop off frantically going through the questions and trying to condense them. So if you're able to dot point them, that would be fabulous. If it's a lot of paragraphs because you think this is really complicated.
Dr Laura (58:16)
Not yet.
Dr Fallon (58:29)
It's a really good sign that a coaching call is a better option. We're probably unlikely to be able to do it justice in the format of a podcast. So yeah, if it's a really long one, just consider a coaching call instead. It might be more helpful for you. Thank you so much to everybody who's written beautiful reviews. If you would like to write us one, please do because we absolutely love them and it helps other parents to find us. And we know there's a lot of parents in the trenches who are really looking for sensible, practical advice that works.
So, you we want them to be able to find us. I think that's about all we've got for the week. So maybe Laura and I will go and tend to our children. Mine are running around the backyard outside my window. So I better make sure they're OK.
Dr Laura (59:11)
Yes, mine's in bed so I will go in and top up the panadol I think. Poor little thing. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (59:16)
All right, I'll probably have to feed mine lunch or something. Anyway, have another great week everybody and we look forward to answering your questions again next week.
Dr Laura (59:26)
Thanks everyone, bye
