Dr Fallon (00:02)
Misinformation about sleep is everywhere on social media. We've had a follower send us an email feeling really concerned because they saw something online that suggested that gently settling your baby in their cot could cause harm. And they wanted some clarification about whether it was true or not. Today we're going to talk about this piece of misinformation and unpick what it's all really about.
Welcome back to Brand New Little People, the podcast where we talk about all things early parenting with a particular focus on sleep and settling during those
few years. I'm Dr. Fallon Cook and I'm here with Dr. Laura Conway. How are you going, Laura?
Dr Laura (00:45)
Yeah, I'm good. Thanks, Fallon. How are you?
Dr Fallon (00:47)
Yeah, really, really good. I love these episodes where we, you know, pick apart misinformation because this one was a particularly gross one. I think we both looked at this particular post this person sent us and were horrified by how it would be making parents feel and just how very, very misguided it was. And I'm so glad that we've got you here too.
Dr Laura (00:57)
Yeah.
Hmm.
Mmm.
you
Dr Fallon (01:17)
help pick this one because this is kind of the area that your PhD focused on. It's all about sort of parent -infant interactions and the importance of those interactions during those first few years. So tell us about the post that we saw.
Dr Laura (01:26)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, so the post was drawing on some seminal research that was done in the 1970s, which is called the still face paradigm. And this was done by somebody called Tronich. And he was doing some it was really purely for research purposes, to see whether babies
interact with their parents and whether the parents interactions with their babies have an effect on the babies. So this is quite a long time ago and up until that point, it really wasn't well understood that parent -child interaction is super important. It wasn't as well understood as it is now. And I was just describing to you Fallon earlier that when I was doing my PhD on parent -child interaction, this research would be always kind of like the starting point of every
Dr Fallon (02:21)
Hmm.
Dr Laura (02:31)
academic paper I wrote or any piece of a blog post that I had written where I'd say, research into parent -child interaction has been ongoing since the 1970s when the still -phase paradigm came about. And then we'd move on to all of the years and years years of research that has happened since then about how important interactions are between children and their caregivers.
Dr Fallon (02:34)
Hmm.
Mmm.
Hmm. It's so interesting. Isn't it that for like hundreds of years, if not millennia, you know, we've just humans just thought babies were just babies and that, you know, you keep them alive, give them some food, you make sure they're warm. You get them some sleep. it's a pretty recent thing that we've realized that actually babies have mental health and how we treat them is actually, of course, really important. sounds silly to even say that now, you know, we know it very, very well. tell.
Dr Laura (03:24)
Yes.
Dr Fallon (03:26)
Tell us more about what the still face paradigm is. So was a pretty, interesting experiment, but also a kind of horrific one. It always freaks me out hearing about this, cause I'm not a fan of staring faces.
Dr Laura (03:32)
Yeah.
Ha ha ha!
No. So it's actually been replicated multiple times and in babies of different ages and into toddlerhood. what the paradigm is, the very first one happened in lab conditions and a lab just means it's not like where you've got pipettes and chemicals, but just in a controlled environment in a university. And the baby was sat in a chair opposite the mother.
and they had two to three minutes of usual interaction. So, mother playing with the baby and smiling and laughing and just interacting as normal. Then the mother turns away for a moment and when she turns back, she maintains eye contact with her baby but keeps her face completely neutral. And is just staring at her baby for two minutes.
Dr Fallon (04:28)
Mm.
And any talking or just silent.
Dr Laura (04:33)
Just silence, yeah. And then at the end of that two minutes, the mum turns away her face away again and turns back and then resumes interacting like normal. And what the researchers saw in that instance is that during the first phase of the two or three minutes of normal interaction, baby is happy, content, interacting as normal. Then what happens is when the mother's face goes really still, hence still face,
is the baby goes into overdrive doing everything he or she can to try to get mum to engage again. So doing all of those behaviors that previously the baby has learnt normally involves mum then engaging. And when the mother is just staying completely still and but just staring at the child in the eyes, then what happens is that the baby becomes really distressed because they're
what they're used to doing, the expectations are not being met. And in fact, the mum is just staring at them, which would be somewhat disconcerting. So the baby then becomes more and more distressed and then eventually starts to withdraw, goes quiet, even starts to turn his or her body away from mum. When the mum then re -engages as normal, the distress
behavior from the child continues for a little while. And then so the baby's a little bit wary, like, what was that? And then they start interacting like normal again. And by the end of the experiment, they're back on an even keel. So that is the still face paradigm in a nutshell.
Dr Fallon (06:07)
Hmm.
Hmm.
Yeah, it's such an interesting one. I've watched footage of the experiment and I always find it really unnerving because I just think even as an adult, if you're having a chat with someone and all of a sudden they go silent and they just stare you down for two or three minutes, I would run away. I'm not surprised those babies are turning away because they're thinking what is going on? It's pretty intimidating. Anyway, so it's
Dr Laura (06:40)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (06:44)
It's a really interesting experiment. don't know how they get ethical approval to do it these days, because I think it is pretty tough on the poor little babies. But what has really bothered me is that every now and then the anti -cot settling brigade will use that study to say this is why you shouldn't be even using really gentle methods to settle a baby in the cot if they don't want to be there.
Dr Laura (06:46)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (07:09)
and they have some really compelling kind of arguments, but there's not a lot of actual science behind them. And it's just, it just annoys me by like really the arguments really lack nuance. So if we think about, you know, the still face paradigm, you've got a parent who was previously smiling and interacting suddenly just going dead pan and staring at a baby without moving for two or three minutes. That is so different to.
Dr Laura (07:16)
Mm. Yeah.
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (07:38)
gentle cot settling where parents beside the cot, they could be looking at the baby, stroking the baby and saying things like, I love you darling, it's time for sleep now. It can be very, very interactive. Absolutely not the same thing. It's just not the same thing. And it's so bizarre to compare these two experiences. And even if you've got a baby who is,
Dr Laura (07:39)
Hmm.
Mm.
No.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (08:04)
you know, really stimulated by you talking to them constantly if they're trying to go to fall, you know, and fall asleep, which is understandable as an adult. If someone was talking to me constantly, I mean, that'd have to be pretty boring for me to fall asleep. but you know, if you've got a baby where you're like, okay, I, I know that if I'm right up in their face, they don't fall asleep. And if I just hop out of their space, they calm down quicker. That is still very, very different to staring at your baby without breaking eye contact and just doing nothing.
Dr Laura (08:17)
Ha
Mmm.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (08:34)
you're actually then respecting the fact that your baby needs a little bit of space to calm down and get off to sleep. It's a really bizarre thing to compare the two, but it's being used to suggest that, with the still face paradigm, these babies get very upset, you know, and takes them a few minutes to recover. Therefore, settling a baby in the cot is somehow causing permanent harm. I mean, I laugh because it is just such a ridiculous comparison to make.
Dr Laura (08:40)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Dr Fallon (09:02)
They're nothing alike. And I think it really shows that when parents, parents, when supposed experts are saying that, you know, these things are the same. mean, it really makes me question the ability to actually read and understand research because they're just nothing alike. Yeah.
Dr Laura (09:19)
Yeah, they're not the same. And the still face paradigm is used in the middle of the day when a baby is expecting to be interacting with their caregiver. They're awake and alert. Yeah, yeah, that's right. And parents are there and ready to interact with their babies. And we know that everyone who's listening to our podcast and the vast majority of parents
Dr Fallon (09:29)
Mmm.
They're awake and alert. Yeah, yeah. They're ready to interact.
Dr Laura (09:47)
loving parents invested in their child's development. And during the day, they will be as responsive as they can be. We of course have to answer phone calls, cook dinner, turn away from our babies to do life. But during the day, your baby will be expecting to interact. At bedtime, your child...
Dr Fallon (09:52)
Mmm.
Hmm.
Dr Laura (10:13)
will not be expecting to interact, or if they are expecting to be interacting, they will soon learn that no bedtime is for sleeping. And that's an appropriate thing to learn. You're not doing anything wrong by winding down what interaction you're doing at bedtime. so when you're popping your baby into their cot, either when they're, if you're doing cot settling, either when they're very drowsy or whilst they're, they might be at the point where they're not.
Dr Fallon (10:23)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (10:42)
quite drowsy, but they're ready for sleep, they need to disengage cognitively. And so it's a very different point time of day, and it has different meanings for what interactions are appropriate. And so when you're popping your baby down at night and shushing them or humming and gently patting them or stroking their face, like you're saying, Fallon, that is appropriate because this is not the time to be
Dr Fallon (10:49)
Mmm.
Mmm.
Mmm.
Dr Laura (11:10)
making eye contact, smiling and laughing. This is the time for the whole family to be quieter, to be calmer, for everything to be less stimulating so that your baby can disengage cognitively from you, so that they can start to let go, so that they can begin to drift off. And if you're trying to make eye contact and
you're feeling that you have to be doing everything that your baby wants you to be doing at that point, then that's not going to help your baby go off to sleep. So again, I am struggling like you are, Fallon, to try to, it's such a long bow to be drawn between interactions during the day and interactions at night time when you're settling your baby to sleep or during the day for naps, that it is, I keep kind of losing the thread.
Dr Fallon (11:47)
Hmm.
Mmm.
Dr Laura (12:06)
as I'm talking because it's so tenuous, but I'm hard and I hope that that is in some way, that is information in itself for our listeners, that it's so hard to fully follow the logic because there isn't logic.
Dr Fallon (12:06)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. The logic that they're trying to present just is so full of holes that yeah. And even trying to explain how it is full of holes, it's challenging to do. I think a really good comparison is, know, if we're going to say that a parent, not being responsive to their child for a moment is going to cause harm, then are we actually, you know, I mean, I'm not, but are they actually suggesting that then
Dr Laura (12:27)
Yeah.
Mmm.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (12:51)
putting your child in the high chair while you turn around and cook dinner at the stove or putting them in a car seat and then getting in the driver's seat so you're not looking at them and you're not able to interact with them or even putting them in the pram if they're facing forwards and you're pushing it along. I mean, like no reasonable person is going to suggest that that is going to harm mental health or harm attachment or make you a terrible parent. But for some reason sleep has become
Dr Laura (13:16)
No.
Dr Fallon (13:21)
just outrageously, what's the word I'm weaponized. That's the word I'm looking for. Yeah. Yeah. It really has. And it's just, it's gone so far beyond logic now, that it's, it's wild. And I think it's important for parents to know too, that this is a, a more Australian problem than it is in other countries. I mean, I obviously haven't closely studied every other country, but it amazes me that
Dr Laura (13:25)
You know, it's been weaponized. I feel like it's been weaponized. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (13:48)
American parents, for example, or British parents can go online and talk about the difficulties they're having with cot settling and get far fewer people jumping on and going, no, that's terrible. You're an awful parent. Ra -da -ra. but in Australia, there's like this huge community of people who, who think that because they don't want to approach parenting that way and because they don't want to do cot settling for their baby, that they feel they have the right to tell everybody else, well, you shouldn't do this either. It's harmful.
Dr Laura (14:01)
Mm -hmm.
Dr Fallon (14:19)
It's not harmful. and at the end of the day, do you know what, Laura? I could not care less if parents settle their babies in a cot or not. Like, it's not like I'm out here or you're out here with this idea of we must make every parent, you know, settle their baby in the cart. And it's the only way to do it. Anyone who's good at what they're doing knows that it's an entirely personal decision. Like if you don't want to settle your baby in their cot, okay, sure.
Dr Laura (14:28)
Mm
No.
Dr Fallon (14:48)
go for it. But then there will be parents that for a million different reasons really, really need their baby to settle in the cot or just really want them to. And they shouldn't be feeling shame and guilt. And they should not have to put up with random people on the internet saying, well, that's the same as you're breaking their attachment or you're pulling up studies from the seventies.
Dr Laura (14:50)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (15:16)
have never been looked at in the context of sleep and settling anyway. It's so outrageously unprofessional and unethical to do that because it does cause distress and harm to parents when they're hearing those things. I feel so sorry for today's parents, especially Australian parents who cop this constant barrage of you're not doing things right and you should be doing things differently.
Dr Laura (15:16)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (15:45)
And I can't even imagine how these sorts of arguments must impact parents of multiples where you cannot be constantly smiling and laughing and talking to all of your babies at one time. Or even just like third or fourth borns where they're competing with siblings for attention. You we're not seeing in studies that third and fourth borns or more or
Dr Laura (15:46)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (16:09)
babies who are multiples having all of these difficulties with attachment at all. but seeing, you know, this misinformation of people, you know, some of them do have impressive sounding titles, but actually don't have a background in infant sleep research, or they're not currently in infant sleep research or their background is in something so unrelated. but to a parent who doesn't understand, you know, not everybody's trained in science.
Dr Laura (16:14)
No.
Mm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (16:39)
it looks really legitimate when it's not, and it's, it's causing harm. So if anybody, think sometimes I think, what do we tell parents so that they can. Detect good information. And it's so hard to narrow it down to sort of a set of criteria, but I think probably the biggest red flag is if you are seeing social media channels that are my way or the highway.
Dr Laura (16:44)
Yeah.
Hmm.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (17:05)
They're like, this thing is really bad and this is the only good way to do it. Nothing is that black and white. There's just nothing. Think of other aspects of child development. There's nothing that black and white. You go to give your baby solids. There's different ways of doing it. There's no clear right or wrong. I just think keep that in mind. And if you're thinking, this is actually making me feel like crap as a parent, turn it off. You just don't need it.
Dr Laura (17:11)
No.
Mm -hmm. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, there's a couple of things I wanted to add Fallon. One is that of course there are a handful of handful of sleep behaviors that you should try to avoid such as falling asleep on the couch with your baby lying on top of you. And, you know, there's a risk of sleep accidents, your baby's the baby falling off you or the baby overheating getting the
Dr Fallon (17:48)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (17:57)
body heat from you and if you've got a blanket over the top of your baby, then the blanket also is the heat, the heat's coming both ways for the baby or the baby rolling off you and onto getting smothered, getting caught between the cushion and you. So of course there are some things like that, which I would hope that all people working in the sleep space would agree on. But again, if you're following people who were saying that that's okay.
Dr Fallon (18:19)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (18:23)
then that red flag, that's, that's not okay because we really have to keep, you safe and, your, and your baby safe. the other thing I wanted to highlight is that, when we, as humans, are sleep deprived, we know it has a range of negative effects, both physical for your physical health and for your mental health. But also we know that it impacts parent child interaction.
Dr Fallon (18:24)
Red flag. Yeah.
you
Dr Laura (18:51)
So when you have a baby who is not sleeping well and who is up multiple times a night and that you're up needing to resettle for, you sometimes we see parents who are up for hours at a time overnight, don't we? And we also see families and our members who are up 10 times a night with their babies. So mom and dad haven't had a good night's sleep in months. What we know is that people who are sleep deprived tend to use
more monotone when they're speaking, they have flatter effect, they're less likely to notice positive things happening around them, there's a greater focus on negative things happening around you and a greater memory for negative things happening around you. Also response times tend to be much lower when you're really sleep deprived. So and a range of other things, which the list goes on and on and on. But when we're thinking about
Dr Fallon (19:48)
Hmm.
Dr Laura (19:50)
parent -child interaction, which essentially is what that tronic experiment was starting to look at with the importance of parent -child interactions. We're looking at the quality of the interactions that you are having, not only the quantity, but actually the quality of those interactions. So if you are so, your baby's sleep issues are so great that you are shattered because it's been going on for weeks and months and sometimes years and you've got older babies, older toddlers, of course, that
Dr Fallon (20:06)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (20:19)
it's really taking a toll on you and don't and you want to change something about how your baby goes to sleep. Don't be so scared or it mustn't do it because I've read this thing about how this is going to damage the attachment because if you're so sleep deprived there's a good chance that your interactions with everyone around you are going to be lower quality because you were sleep deprived and we know that's one of the things that sleep deprivation does.
Dr Fallon (20:32)
Mmm.
Mmm.
Yeah
Dr Laura (20:47)
So it may be that you're not able to fully enjoy the interactions that you're having with your baby or toddler during the day. And the quality of those interactions is a bit lower than it would be if you spend a few days doing some gentle cot settling to help improve your child's sleep overnight. it's, yeah, there's just that. I can't, I can't find the words, Fel and I just.
Dr Fallon (20:58)
Mmm.
Yes.
Yeah.
No, it's so important though, isn't it? Cause what you're saying is that if you're chronically sleep deprived over months and months, because maybe you think I can't change this. I can't change how my baby settles. Maybe you've drunk the Kool -Aid from some of these approaches and you won't be the first parent. but then you're running the risk of yet not, we're all as parents, every single one of us, we have moments where we're so tired. just trying to play with a baby or a child and you're thinking, I'm so not into this.
Like I'm not, I'm too tired to really engage in this effectively. And usually those moments pass quickly. had a really rough night. It's a tricky day. The next day is fine. And you know, you're fine. But if every single day of your parenting is like that, where you just thinking, I hate engaging with my baby or I'm finding it really hard to smile and interact. That could be months and months and months of a baby not getting that really high quality interaction. And I don't want to make any parents panic because
Dr Laura (21:40)
Yeah.
Hmm.
Hi.
Dr Fallon (22:09)
There are a few parents that end up in that position, but you have every reason if you're struggling with sleep and you think I really need them to settle in their cot because I know they're springing away constantly because maybe they're falling asleep in your arms and then you put them in the cot. if you know that cot settling is going to help resolve those problems, you can do it without guilt. There are so many gentle ways to do it. And I think what's really important in this whole silly
sleep debate that just keeps going on is that so often sleep training is sort of this term given to any approach for settling a baby in their cot. They just go, that's sleep training. But do know what else is equated with sleep training? Things like extinction and cry it out and cry it out or extinction means that you put your baby down at bedtime and you do not go back to them at all until the morning. Right.
Dr Laura (23:03)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (23:04)
We would never suggest that. I mean, like, it's just so rare that anything like that is needed. Right. But the people who don't want you caught settling your baby will try and make out like any sleep training approach. It means that you're doing these really, really tough approaches that no one's really suggesting anybody does these days. so I guess just be careful around that as well, that a lot of, you know, if we,
Dr Laura (23:21)
Mm
Mm -hmm.
Dr Fallon (23:32)
I suppose to think about the different approaches that could fall under that sleep training heading. You've got extinction and cry it out, which no, we're not going to be suggesting that you do. But then people would also throw under that same label approaches where you are stroking your babies forward and speaking to them lovingly and helping them with the hands on support and constant presence until they fall asleep. I mean, these are such wildly different things. They're just so wildly different. So.
Dr Laura (23:56)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (24:00)
Know that if you are struggling and you think, yeah, that's me, actually, I'm really struggling to interact with my baby. I'm so exhausted. It's been going on for months. You can use really gentle approaches that support them, that support their mental health, that will not harm attachment. You can have the best of both worlds. You can have a baby who sleeps better and you can have your own mental health and your own good rest and your baby can have their mental health as well. It's absolutely possible.
Dr Laura (24:18)
Mm
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (24:28)
I know some people say like, how are we even still having this debate? We've got such great research evidence that this is safe and effective. We keep having this debate because there are people who feel they know better than everyone else and they want everybody else to settle their babies the way they settled their baby. And yeah, I would just say that that is, it's really unfair to be putting that kind of pressure on parents.
Dr Laura (24:46)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (24:56)
Well, that will might just have to be our light touch on what is a hugely complex and contentious area. But we do have quite a lot of parent questions to get through. I hope these discussions are helpful for listeners. You know, let me know if let us know, send us an email and tell us what you think. And I mean, I don't want to be flooded with all the misinformation out there on the internet. But if you do see something you think, whoa, that's a horrendous thing to be telling parents.
Dr Laura (25:02)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mm.
You
Dr Fallon (25:26)
send it to us because if we've got time, we will, yeah, definitely try and unpack some of these things. Yeah. Awesome. All right. Well, let's dive into some parent questions. Laura, do you want to start with Louise perhaps?
Dr Laura (25:31)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. So Louise has emailed saying, last week on your podcast answer, you talked about considering cutting back on day sleep. We currently do 30 or 45 minute morning nap and an hour and a half afternoon nap. You talked about dropping one sleep cycle. Does that mean that the number of sleep cycles is just as important as total day sleep duration? For example,
Would it be better to keep 45 minutes in the morning and do 45 minutes in the afternoon instead of 30 minutes in the morning and an hour in the afternoon?
Dr Fallon (26:17)
good question Louise. Look, I would say it's about how long your child's sleep cycle is. So if they've got a 45 minute sleep cycle and you wake them up after 30 minutes or an hour and an hour and a half would still fit two 45 minute sleep cycles in. So if they've 45 minute sleep cycle, you're waking them up at 30 minutes, they're probably going to be really cranky being woken because they're still in the deepest stages of sleep and they haven't come up into light sleep yet.
Dr Laura (26:32)
Yeah.
Mm
Dr Fallon (26:44)
Whereas if they've got a 30 minute sleep cycle, that could work perfectly fine. They'll probably wake up quite easily at the 30 minute mark. And in either case with an hour and a half afternoon nap, it's either going to be three 30 minute cycles or two 45 minute cycles. So it could fit either of those scenarios. I would generally just say to try to wake your, if you are having to wake your baby to keep their nights on track, try to wake them at the end of a sleep cycle.
if you can and work out their total day sleep based around the length of that cycle. Just because their mood is better. We all know what it's like as parents to be dragged out of the deepest stages of sleep and you feel terrible. And it's similar for babies as well.
Dr Laura (27:12)
Mm
Yeah. Yeah. There's no damage done, but it doesn't feel very nice. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (27:28)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Good. Kelsey also emailed us. She has a five month old boy and has used the quick fade approach to support him to settle in his cot. By the end of the first week, he was going to sleep with only a few pats and then taking himself off to sleep. Well done, Kelsey. What a great example of such a gentle approach to cot settling and the baby has done really well with it.
Dr Laura (27:33)
Mm
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (27:56)
Kelsey says, the start of the second week, he's a bit congested and teething. I can see his bottom two teeth have just about poked through. Since this, he has been fighting going to sleep in his cot unless he has another short feed. He will cry and cry and will not settle until I pop him on the boob just for a couple of minutes and then I pop his dummy in and off he goes to sleep. So Kelsey's question is, will this turn into a new sleep association for him?
Dr Laura (28:05)
Mm
Dr Fallon (28:25)
Or is it normal when teething to want to feed more for comfort?
Dr Laura (28:28)
Hmm. Kelsey, well done for using the quick fade approach. It sounds like you had a lot of success. Yes, I would caution you from continuing offering a feed once the teething is over, just because it could well become a sleep association again. And you've already worked really hard to help him go to sleep with just the patting in the cot.
Dr Fallon (28:53)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (28:59)
so, if those two teeth have popped through, then I would just be going back to, popping the dummy in when you put him into the cot, because it sounds like he does quite like the sucking, behavior in order to go off to sleep. And that's very usual for that to be a self soothing behavior, sucking on the dummy. so yeah, I'll be popping him down into the cot. and, of course giving him any pain relief that he needs, as well.
Dr Fallon (29:26)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (29:27)
so that you know that he's not in pain when you're popping him in the cot and then give him the dummy and go back to using the patting. And it may be that you just, it sounds like you've got to the point where you could give him a few pats and then he would go off to sleep. It might be that you just have to take a tiny little step back and pat him all the way off to sleep again with the dummy in and then start to wean off the patting again.
Dr Fallon (29:51)
Mm, I reckon giving pain relief would be a great way to kind of test the theory of is he, is he in pain and he wants some comfort with that little mini feed? Or is he thinking, I know that I can probably get a little bit more of a feed here because it might not be, I don't, I he's probably not hungry. He's just had a feed recently. So it would help you kind of work out what's going on here. Is he having a preference for having a little extra feed or is it more about pain?
Dr Laura (30:12)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (30:20)
Yeah, it's really tough when they're unwell or teething. It can be really hard to know what's what. But you've made great progress, Kelsey. I would say keep going. He'll get through this little tricky patch. Yeah.
Dr Laura (30:22)
Hmm.
Mm.
Yeah. All right. And Erica's written, she says, my toddler is 13 months old. She has a 10 and a half hour sleep need. gosh. Yeah, that's a low one, Erica. So Erica says, she sleeps through most of the night. However, recently she's been waking up briefly in the night, but is able to resettle herself. She does this two to three times a night. Lately, it's also been extremely difficult to wake her in the morning.
Dr Fallon (30:43)
Hmm.
Good.
Dr Laura (30:59)
She's also in daycare, so she gets sick a lot. So it's hard to tell if that's her correct sleep need. She's mostly happy throughout the day. She's currently on one nap plus a power nap because I find if she has a full sleep cycle on the second nap, she's super cranky. I've tried putting her on one nap, but she gets too tired and can't make it to bedtime without the power nap, but it's sometimes difficult to put to bed when she does have the power nap. gosh, it's such a conundrum, Erica.
So Erica says, is the night waking something I should be concerned about or a sign I should go to one nap? Do I continue to try for one nap or is she not ready for one nap yet? And should I give her two naps? Is it okay for the second nap to be a power nap? Does she need more sleep because she's difficult to wake up? And finally, can her sleep needs increase? There's a few questions in there, Fallon.
Dr Fallon (31:55)
Yeah, yeah, I think it's a great question, Erica. For starters, I would say, yeah, you mentioned that she is, I think you did mention in there, she's mostly pretty happy during the daytime, which is fantastic. I think you are right on the cusp of moving from two naps to one nap. And it can be a tricky month, sometimes even two months where they're kind of not ready for one, but they kind of need to, you're doing the exact right thing, just keeping that second nap to a power nap.
Dr Laura (32:07)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.
you
Dr Fallon (32:24)
keep an eye on how tricky that bedtime is becoming. If it's still manageable, that's great. Those night wakes are nothing to worry about. What I think you're hearing is that she's waking up in the night and she has lower sleep pressure than she needs because she's having that second power nap. So she's having to work harder to resettle herself. She's making more noise doing it. And that's really normal for a toddler. they often have a whole big grizzle and grumble, and then they get themselves back off to sleep again.
so I think you're on that really delicate kind of, nearly, nearly needs one nap, not quite there. is it something to be concerned about? No, I think it's really, really normal. Erica wants to know if she should continue trying for one nap. Look, I would say, I'd say keep going with the power nap maybe for another couple of weeks and in two weeks time, maybe then just try going to one day nap.
If it doesn't work out after, look, I try it for four days or so, or even a week, just to really know. Cause sometimes we really just have to consistently drop the power nap for their circadian rhythm to realize, okay, I can't kind of catch up with a bit of extra sleep in the afternoon. And once they realize that the nights extend, they wake up more refreshed and then they're better able to get through the day on just the one nap. So hopefully that helps. In terms of can her sleep needs increase,
Dr Laura (33:35)
Mmm.
Dr Fallon (33:48)
Sometimes, but it's on the rare side. Generally, sleep needs are gradually declining over time. But, and we've seen this, I can't think of the paper now. There is a great paper and it has a chart showing the trajectories of sleep duration for babies across the first year or two. And it's really interesting because there was a small group who started out low sleep needs and it gradually increased a little bit.
some, some babies seem to be able to do it. We don't know why. I suspect they could be the ones that had a medical factor impacting their sleep early on. And as that resolves their sleep need goes up. but it's sometimes if they are getting really good at self settling and sleep pressures a little lower, they can still manage to get maybe one extra sleep cycle in there.
Dr Laura (34:20)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (34:36)
But I would say Erica, you're doing the right thing. You've got a great daily rhythm by the sounds of it. I'd probably leave things be for a couple of weeks, then try one nap again and she might be ready for it at that point. Would you add anything to that one, Laura?
Dr Laura (34:46)
Yeah.
the only thing I was pondering, Fallon, as you were talking then is about the fact that she's extremely difficult to wake up in the morning. and so it can be, tricky to understand what's going on in that case. because she's starting to wake a bit more overnight, which as Fallon has said, isn't anything to worry about, but it does suggest she's having to work a little bit harder to get into the next sleep cycle.
Dr Fallon (34:57)
Hmm.
Dr Laura (35:18)
And so we don't necessarily want to be tinkering too much around the edges when it sounds like that her mood is generally good. One thing you could contemplate doing is just to give her maybe an extra 10 or 15 minutes in the morning, just to see if just a tiny bit extra in the morning just helps her wake a little bit more easily. She might not want the power nap.
Dr Fallon (35:43)
And then she might not want the power nap at all, might not need it. Yeah, it's a really good point. That could be a good way to trial dropping to one nap when you're ready, Erica. Yeah, let there be a 15 minute longer sleep in, drop the power nap and see if that helps. Excellent. Great. Yeah. And next one. Yeah. Do want me to read out this one? It's, yeah, this is an unusual one because we have Penny, who's a grandma.
Dr Laura (35:48)
Yeah.
Mmm.
Yeah.
All right, so yeah, yeah, off you go, yep.
Dr Fallon (36:11)
and Georgina, who's the mum of this baby. And I think from memory, Penny purchased the Sombelle membership for Georgina, which is so, so lovely. I love it when grandparents and parents are working together. It's beautiful. So Penny and Georgina wrote in about Georgina's 10 month old baby girl. Georgina and her baby have traveled across the country to stay with Penny. That was a four or so hour flight.
Dr Laura (36:23)
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (36:38)
Her baby was sleeping through the night for two weeks before the travel, but while staying at Penny's house the baby has been waking at night and spending some of the night co -sleeping with Georgina. Georgina is worried she might not go back to sleeping through the night once they return home and Georgina has to return to work soon. Georgina thinks her baby is waking up at night potentially thirsty because she's currently weaning yet isn't taking much water from a sippy cup.
Dr Laura (36:57)
you
Dr Fallon (37:07)
So Penny wonders if it's okay to give water in a bottle to a 10 month old breastfed baby. So I think maybe Laura, do you wanna start with picking apart the co -sleeping during travel side of things and then we could talk about the water.
Dr Laura (37:23)
Yeah, but as a general rule of thumb, when you go away with your baby, it's best to try to stick to a similar routine and a similar sleep environment as much as possible. So if your baby, like in this case, Georgina's baby was sleeping through the night in an ideal world, whilst you're at grandmother's house, your baby would sleep in a porter cot or a cot.
all through the night and you wouldn't introduce something different. However, that's in an ideal world. And I'm always, but we're both always very cautious to say, well, we know we don't live in an ideal world and we have to be pragmatic about things. And when you are away, sometimes you just want to enjoy your time away. And if your baby started waking overnight again, because they're in a slightly unfamiliar situation and then you have wanted to keep things a little bit
Dr Fallon (38:02)
Hmm.
Dr Laura (38:22)
quiet because you're sleeping in somebody else's house or you're in a hotel and that you go, you revert to co -sleeping and you do that just so that you can enjoy your time away. Then so be it. What would then be important is when you do go back home, Georgina, that you do say, okay, now we're back in our own usual sleep environment and now it's back to the rules that we have at home, which is sleeping in your room all night long or in your cot all night long.
So I would try not to be worried Georgina about what's going to happen when you do get home. Read through the approach that you previously have used to help your baby to go sleep through the night and then be all ready when you get back home to use that approach again. And remember that your baby may well push back quite hard in the night when she wakes up and wants to come into bed with you. You will be all
cognitively prepared to be doing the whole night of your baby sleeping in her cot, but she won't be. So she's going to wake up in the night and go, what, when you are settling her again, because she, she won't understand that there's that difference. so although she will probably push back, just know that she's safe and warm and loved. and you've supported her before to sleep through the night in her cot and you can do it again. Is there anything that you would say different Fallon?
Dr Fallon (39:28)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, no, I think that's great advice. think go back to whatever approach you used initially Georgina, it will be really familiar to your baby. And hopefully once she detects, okay, mum's doing that same old thing again, she'll know that, yep, yeah, we're back to the usual. So yeah, you might have a few tricky settles in there, but if you're back to work soon, it's gonna be really important to just really stick with the one approach and help her make a quick adjustment.
Dr Laura (40:14)
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (40:17)
In terms of waking at night, wondering if she's waking at night because she's thirsty, because she's currently weaning yet isn't taking much water from a sippy cup. Is it okay to give water in a bottle to a 10 month old breastfed baby? Yeah, it's okay. I mean, ideally you'd give a sippy cup of water just because they're old enough to start learning how to drink through a sippy cup.
Dr Laura (40:40)
Mm
Dr Fallon (40:45)
I'm just more confused around weaning a 10 month old baby. I'm assuming they're not weaning the baby entirely off the breast because they're a little bit young to do that. I'm a little bit confused because if they're having some bottles of formula instead of breast milk, yeah, I mean the bottle's familiar to them. You could put some water in it. I guess what we don't want is sometimes very rarely, but sometimes parents come to us with toddlers who they've weaned off having night feeds of milk.
Dr Laura (40:55)
Mmm.
Dr Fallon (41:14)
But now they're having these big bottles of water in the night. and there's, they wanting, they're waking up multiple times to have more water. I once had a toddler who was having like a liter of water or something overnight. It was really just, it had gotten a little out of control. so I would just say, keep offering the sippy cup of water in the day as often as you can. she'll get better and better at it. yeah. Would you add anything to that, Laura?
Dr Laura (41:17)
Yes.
Mm
Just depending on where Penny lives, know, if it's in a much warmer state than Georgina lives, perhaps it is the house hotter. Is that why you think she's thirsty overnight? If you have gone to a warmer state, then it may be that your baby is waking up thirsty overnight. And so of course it's appropriate to give water. If you yourself are waking up
Dr Fallon (41:58)
Hmm.
Dr Laura (42:11)
thirsty overnight Georgina, then it you'll because you're somewhere hotter, maybe that's the same for your baby. So if you do ever have any doubt that your baby is thirsty, then of course you give them a drink. And yeah, I think I wouldn't add anything more actually, to what you have said Fallon, just yeah, it's fine for it to be in a bottle, but just keep practicing the sippy cup during the day for water. mean, Yeah.
Dr Fallon (42:25)
Hmm.
Yeah
Yeah, because if they're really thirsty, they'll take the sippy cup. They'll want that water. Yeah. Yep. Good plan.
Dr Laura (42:42)
All right, we've had another question from Angela. Angela has a 10 week old. congratulations, Angela. And she says, I'm having trouble doing the sleep needs chart for my 10 week old. Do I consider feeding non -sleep overnight? Okay, so when her baby is feeding overnight, I think Angela is a bit unclear about whether she's actually asleep or not for some of the feed.
Dr Fallon (42:50)
Mmm tiny one.
Hmm.
Dr Laura (43:08)
And she's also said, and I do this for a week as the past few days, his naps have been irregular and shorter. Is that normal?
Dr Fallon (43:17)
Yes, for his age, there's going to be lots of unpredictability. Days are going to be really different. Totally fine. Just keep tracking his sleep. If he's feeding, actually, I don't know if it's a he, but if your baby is feeding overnight and you think they're asleep, track it as sleep. That would definitely be the priority over entering it as feeding and not sleeping. We want to make sure every little bit of sleep is tracked in that diary.
Dr Laura (43:37)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (43:47)
that's a question we get quite a lot actually. What do we do when they're feeding and sleeping? Just track it as sleep because at the moment I'm imagining Angela's trying to establish what the, baby's sleep needs are looking like. it's a big phase of development at this age, but it can help to get a bit of a finger on the pulse of, you know, how much sleep is my baby averaging? yeah, so I would definitely count the, the feeding sleeps as sleeps. Yeah.
Dr Laura (43:47)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Mm
Hmm.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (44:14)
we also had an email from why, why is a GP who emailed us to say how much she loves the Sombelle program. She's lovely. She says it's been so good for my confidence around sleep as an adult doctor. I've been recommending it to my fellow medical moms and also my colleague who is a GP to recommend to her patients. Absolutely love that. Yeah. It's really lovely.
Dr Laura (44:23)
No.
thank you. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (44:39)
Y used the quick fade approach to help her six month old adjust to falling asleep in her cot and it went really well. She did a five hour stretch one night, a nine hour stretch of sleep the next and had a couple of nights with four wakes but she easily resettled herself all with her dad patting her for five minutes. And one night she had longer crying so on night five Y says she persisted with with padding
and she eventually went to sleep. took about 15 minutes that night, which is still a pretty quick settle actually. That's great. Why says last night she did 8 .30 PM all the way through to 6 .10 AM. That is amazing. Well done. Yeah. and why says I was just curious about night five. Was it just a blip or is this a usual sticking point when transitioning to a new way of settling?
Dr Laura (45:14)
Yeah, that is.
So good, well done, Y.
Hmm, good question, why? Look, we're working with families who are doing quicker approaches, like the supported accelerated approach, for example, there often can be a little bit of a rough patch about a week or so after starting the settling approach. With more gradual approaches, it's not always something that we see. So I'm thinking it could just have been a blip.
Fallon. I'm not thinking that it's, it's not something that I hear repeatedly from parents. What are your thoughts?
Dr Fallon (46:11)
Yeah.
I think it's, yeah, I think it's really normal that at some point a baby might just, I mean, it could be illness, it be teen, it could be any number of things. But sometimes they just think, well, I'm just gonna see. Like if I really get worked up, will they go back to what they used to do? Like they're just, they're like little scientists. I say it all the time. They're kind of testing out their theories. What happens if I do this? And what happens if I try this other thing? But you did a great job, Wyatt, of just being present.
Dr Laura (46:22)
Mm
Dr Fallon (46:41)
padding, giving reassurance and your baby resettled in 15 minutes, which is brilliant. So yeah, well done. And I think just for parents who are listening, just know it's really normal, even for the best sleepers. Sometimes you just have this weird settle that's really tricky and then they move past it and just being really calm and consistent and there for your baby is the best thing to do. Yeah, well done, Y. Excellent. I love this next email, Laura. This one came in from Fiona who started with,
Dr Laura (46:46)
Yeah.
Mm
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (47:11)
Good morning, Auntie Fallon and Auntie Laura. I love it. And then I was thinking, I hope she means like Auntie to the baby and not to her, because I'm definitely too young to be Fiona's auntie. No, it's lovely. Fiona says, thank you for everything you continue to do. I'm so grateful for you and love our weekly dose of brand new little people. That's lovely. Thanks so much.
Dr Laura (47:16)
yes.
yeah absolutely so funny
Dr Fallon (47:39)
So Fiona has a five month old girl and Fiona describes her as being really happy. She only cries when she's super tired or hungry or having trouble falling asleep. Fiona says our diary shows around about a 13 and a half hours sleep need. She sleeps for about 10 and a half hours overnight in a bedside bassinet from 7 .30 p to 6 a with one brief feed and goes to sleep easily each time.
The tricky part comes during the day when she usually only naps for one sleep cycle at a time. And it's either a contact nap or a pram nap. says, I'd love her to have naps in the cot in the nursery, but no matter what state I put her down in, she's awake within 10 minutes and having a good old chat. Her tired signs are all there. She's rubbing her eyes, looking away and eventually has less of the sort of smooth motor movements.
And when we cuddle her she'll rest her head and we think we're winning and then she lifts her head up to start chatting again. That's a FOMO baby if ever I heard of one. That's a baby who'd much rather be talking to her parents than sleeping because sleep's boring. So Fiona says I've tried a daytime sleep suit of a lower tog, closing the blinds. She says it's not really dark but it's not bright. She does wonder if they need blackout blinds though.
Dr Laura (48:46)
my goodness.
Yes
Yes.
I would jump in there and say probably yes, since she's a FOMO baby. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (49:08)
she tried, yeah, I would too. Cause she's sleeping, she's self settling. She's sleeping beautifully at nighttime when it is pitch black. Sometimes we just put those blackout blinds on in the day and they go, yeah. When it's dark like this, I self settle in my cot. definitely worth a try. for any parent listening, if you've got a baby who sleeps well at night, struggles with naps, block out blinds are going to change your life.
Dr Laura (49:24)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (49:35)
So yeah, they've tried different settling techniques, feeding, contact naps and pram naps. Fiona says we do playtime in the morning or we go out and she is more likely to have a snooze after this, after being really busy. But lately she's been doing a lot of snooze feeds where she seems to be suckling and snoozing in quick succession back and forth. I'm so thankful we have good nights, but I don't think it's good for her to be awake pretty much for the other 13 hours in the day. How much of a problem are these feeding snoozes?
Fiona adds, I'm reluctant to use her night sleep suit and bedside bassinet during the day for fear of disrupting her great nights. What do you think?
Dr Laura (50:13)
Wow, Fiona, it sounds like you've done an awesome job and your baby is doing really well at night. So I can understand your reluctance to put your baby in the same sleep space during the day for fear that it's going to make nighttime sleep fall over. I think you'll probably find that's an unfounded fear. And it may well be that
Dr Fallon (50:17)
Mmm.
Mmm.
Dr Laura (50:40)
if you put your baby down in the space where she does sleep well at night, that's a really good firm sleep association that your baby has. And perhaps it's darker in that room as well than in the nursery during the day. So I wouldn't avoid putting her in the bassinet out of that fear that you have. But since your preference is for her to nap in the cot in the nursery,
then yeah, blackout blinds all the way. I guess, so what some parents do is when they know that the move from a bassinet into a cot is coming and it would be coming soon for you Fiona, because your daughter is five months old and she's likely to start rolling and then she needs to come out of the bassinet. So some parents do start to do naps in the cot just to familiarize their baby with the cot.
Dr Fallon (51:28)
Hmm.
Dr Laura (51:36)
during the day, first of all, before moving on to night time in the cot. Now, going on, so that was just a quick answer to your question about the, or your comment about being fearful of doing the naps in the bassinet during the day. Now, one thing that isn't included in that description of what's happening Fiona is how many naps your baby is having.
Now, so I've just tried to work out what might be going on. So because she's having about 10 and a half hours sleep overnight, she's in her cot for about 11 hours and then the feed is in there. So she's sleeping for 10 and a half hours, which would suggest then that she's having about three hours worth of daytime sleep. Now, if those are cat naps, I'm assuming then that perhaps your daughter is on four naps a day or possibly three.
Dr Fallon (52:28)
Hmm.
Dr Laura (52:31)
I don't also don't know how long did I miss it? I don't think I saw anything about how long the cat naps are. But I guess they might be 30 to 45 minutes. Well, she has said that she springs awake after 10 minutes when she puts her down in the cot. So it might be that those snooze feeds are taking the edge off. And it might be helpful to start trying to move your daughter into more a three nap schedule if you haven't already.
Dr Fallon (52:39)
No.
Yeah.
Hmm.
Dr Laura (53:00)
and try to move the feeds so that they're directly after waking up from a nap, like waking up in the morning and giving her a feed and then not giving her a feed again until she, a milk feed until she wakes up from the first nap, just so that we can start to limit the snoozes that she's having between her naps during the day.
Dr Fallon (53:10)
Yeah.
Mmm.
Dr Laura (53:26)
And then you might find that she starts to just have the three naps a day and maybe one of them will start to be a longer one because she has high enough sleep pressure to be able to link her cycles. We know she can link her sleep cycles overnight. And perhaps when she's not having those snooze feeds between her naps, her sleep pressure will build a bit quicker and get a bit higher for her naps, which means that she, she wants to, she will do
Dr Fallon (53:40)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (53:54)
two sleep cycles for one of the naps and it might be that the other two continue to be one sleep cycle for the time being.
Dr Fallon (54:01)
Yeah. Yeah. I think that's really good advice. I think too, don't be super worried about the length of her naps. Like some parents really freak out and think, they can't be getting enough sleep. It can't be good enough quality sleep if they're having these little tiny naps. But the evidence is in the baby. And Fiona says she's the happiest baby, you know? So she's coping really well, even though she's not having a great deal of day sleep. She's really happy and she's having
Dr Laura (54:23)
Yes.
Dr Fallon (54:30)
brilliant nights for her age. So just don't be tempted to fall into that trap where some parents will work so hard to resettle and get the maximum amount of day sleep in they possibly can and the nights completely fall over. So at the moment the balance is probably pretty good because the parents are going to be getting decent sleep overnight as well. So yeah see how you go Fiona. I think we've given you a whole bunch of sort of different answers and things to think about.
Dr Laura (54:32)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Dr Fallon (54:58)
I would definitely standardize like one place of sleep day and night, because I think even as an adult, if you go to have a day nap, you nap so much better in your bed than if you're on the couch in the living room. as humans just don't like having multiple sleep spaces. do much better when we have just the one space. and yeah, definitely making it nice and dark. and a bit of a feed play, sleep, repeat type pattern, you know, just gently start trying for that. And it might just, yeah, help move.
the feeds away from nap time as Laura's described. I think that's a really good idea.
Dr Laura (55:28)
Mm.
And on to our, should we go on to our last question Fallon? We've had heaps this week. So this has been a long episode. It's okay. I don't have the timer on my end so I can't see how long it's been going for. So, okay. Yeah. Fallon is the podcast queen people. So she's in charge of all the post -production. So let's go through Jade's question quickly. Jade, who has a five month old send us an
Dr Fallon (55:33)
Yeah. Yep. It's going to be our longest episode, I think.
we're getting close to an hour. Yeah.
I'm a terrible timekeeper though.
Yeah.
Dr Laura (55:57)
sent us an update after we answered her question last week. She says, thanks so much for your fabulous advice. We're back down to one overnight feed. Woohoo! She says all it really took was pushing bedtime 30 minutes later. So that's really great. Well done, Jade.
Dr Fallon (56:07)
Woohoo!
Amazing. it really speaks to how important it is to look at that daily rhythm because some parents will battle trying to drop night feeds and all they have to do is tweak the daily schedule and it all comes together. And I think that's one of the best things about Sombelle is it teaches parents how to navigate that. But anyway, I won't let the episode go on too long. I'll just be quiet.
Dr Laura (56:24)
Yeah. Yes.
Yeah. So Jade says, I do have another question as I look over all the sleep data. My son was born in March in May. So when he was two months old, he slept for 16 hours in a 24 hour period. Then it was 15 hours in June when he was three months old, 14 hours in July when he was four months old, 13 hours in August at five months. And in the last week, he's averaging 12 and a half hours. She says,
Let's maybe laugh. If this trend continues by Christmas, he'll be needing less sleep than me. And so Jade's question is, does this reduction in sleep requirements sound normal? When is it anticipated that sleep needs plateau?
Dr Fallon (57:14)
I love this question. And Jade describes it beautifully. It's completely normal what you described Jade. Babies just have a gradual decline in their sleep needs and it can look exactly like you described. Some other babies have a bumpier ride where they go from 15 hours, you know, at three months, and then by four months they're down to 12. So it's like a really sudden drop off.
There's no right or wrong. I mean, it's a little bit like height, you know, we grow at different rates. Sometimes we have a growth spurt and then we slow down. There's variability and that's perfectly okay. By Christmas, I don't think you're going to have a baby that's sleeping, you know, six hours for 24 hours or anything terrible. As to when at plateaus, it does vary for different babies. So I feel like this is not based on science because I can't recall.
Dr Laura (57:52)
You
Dr Fallon (58:06)
figures from the various charts I've looked at over the years. But I feel like a lot of them, once they get to around that 12 and a half ish mark, tend to sit there and stay on around that amount. There will be some where it keeps declining a little bit. And then like we're talking about earlier, there are some rare cases that will add a little bit more sleep back in at some point. I would imagine it will stay fairly steady from now on. But if it does drop,
Dr Laura (58:15)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (58:32)
more and your baby's really happy. You know, they're obviously functioning fine in the daytime. it's nothing to worry about. It just means that you have to adjust, adjust expectations. Look at the sleep, daily sleep. what am I trying to spit out the daily rhythm charts for that lower sleep need, because as long as you're catering to their sleep need, you'll be able to keep them on in a fairly typical schedule. You can prioritize getting as much night sleep as you can.
Dr Laura (58:49)
totally rhythm, yeah.
Dr Fallon (59:00)
that tends to protect parents' sleep. So even if it does decrease, don't panic. It's manageable. You'll find a way to manage it. Yeah.
Dr Laura (59:04)
Yeah.
Yeah, Fallon I just pulled up the the gosh, I'm losing my words as well. It's because I know that we need to be wrapping up and now my brain is going no, I'm not going to help you find those words. I've just gone into a Jody Mindell is one of the gurus of of paediatric sleep. And I'm just looking at one of her tables where she looks at average sleep needs.
Dr Fallon (59:16)
You
Dr Laura (59:32)
And for naught to two month old, it's 14 .6 hours, but a really wide range of normal from nine to 20 hours. Then by three months, it's dropped down to 13 .6. So it goes quite quickly. So 14 .6 down to 13 .6. And at six months, it's 13 hours, 12 months, 13 hours, then between one and two, 12 and a half, then by four to five, 11 and a half, you know, then
Dr Fallon (59:32)
Mmm.
Wow
Hmm.
Dr Laura (1:00:02)
know, by the time they're in school, it's around nine. So it's just, it's normal. So don't worry, always looking at their mood and their behavior during the day. And don't panic when it has that rapid decline in the early months. That's nothing to worry about.
Dr Fallon (1:00:07)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. And it's one of the things I loved about how we design Sombelle is that it gives you those skills so that when your baby's sleep needs drop, you're not spending a month flailing around, panicking, having all these terrible settles. You'll just reassess their sleep needs, adjust their daily rhythm and carry on. And that's what I love. It's like giving parents those longer term skills so that you can apply them, you know, really right across childhood. I still think like this about my 13 year old.
Dr Laura (1:00:39)
Yeah.
Mmm!
Dr Fallon (1:00:50)
Yeah. Is he happy and settled during the daytime for a teenager? I mean, it's variable, but you know, if they're struggling to get out of bed in the morning and exhausted every day, then yeah, you adjust bedtime. You know, you'll do this. You probably do it with your own sleep. Once you start thinking like that, you do start to think about your own sleep and how to best structure your bedtime and your wake up time. so look, if you, you know, struggling with sleep or you think, yeah, I really want to know how to adjust, you know,
Dr Laura (1:00:57)
You
Mmm.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (1:01:20)
different sleep needs as my sleep needs for my baby changes. Absolutely come and join us in Sombelle We love welcoming new members and of course you can submit your own questions to the podcast as well. If you're not already following us on social media go and follow us because sometime this week when I get time we'll be doing a bit of a post unpacking more about the still face paradigm and thank you to that follower who flagged that problematic post for us as well. can't recall their name but really appreciate that.
What else do we have to say? That's probably about it. I don't think we've got any big news.
Dr Laura (1:01:53)
No big news. If you want a coaching call, then book in to see Fallon. And if you decide that you'd prefer a longer appointment and for us to do all the unpacking for you, then book in for a clinic appointment. If you're in Melbourne, you can come and see me in Hawthorn East. And if you're elsewhere or you prefer you are in Melbourne, but you prefer to stay in your pyjamas, that's okay to book in for a virtual.
clinic appointment instead.
Dr Fallon (1:02:24)
It's a really good point Laura. A few people have email saying, what's the difference between the clinic and the coaching calls? The coaching calls are a 25 minute appointment. So it's a shorter appointment because when you've done Sombelle you have the most amazing understanding of sleep and sleep needs. We simply don't need as much time with you because you get it already. Whereas with our clinic, we do much longer appointments. They're much more expensive. And that's because we have to do all the explaining so that you really understand your child's sleep.
Dr Laura (1:02:43)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (1:02:53)
So there are still some Sombelle members who book in for the clinic because they feel really lost and they really just want us to do all the thinking for them. And that's completely fine. but the majority, excuse me, the majority of Sombelle members, do really well with a coaching call every now and then someone will come back for two or three, just to really make sure they've ironed out their sleep difficulties. So yeah, the support there if you need it. Well, thanks everyone for tuning in. It was another great episode and we'll be back again next week. Have a great week.
Dr Laura (1:03:13)
Mm
Thanks everyone, bye bye.
