Dr Fallon (00:00)
Welcoming your own little baby to the fold is usually a pretty exciting and thrilling moment. Whilst the majority of new parents experience a lot of joy during this time, for some the transition to parenthood is lined with trepidation. This is because we don't begin our parenting journey from a clean slate. We all arrive in parenting with our baggage, from our own experiences being parented as children,
from the experiences we have birthing our children, and from the expectations set upon us by the societies and cultures that we live within. In this week's episode, we're going to explore how your experiences can shape how you approach parenting your little one. If this episode raises any uncomfortable feelings for you, please reach out to your family doctor for support or call Lifeline. The phone number is in the show
Welcome back to Brand New Little People, the podcast companion to the Sombelle pediatric sleep programs created by us. I'm Dr. Fallon Cook and I'm here with Dr. Laura Conway. We're the co-directors of Infant Sleep Australia. Laura, we are up to our 70th episode of this podcast. Can you believe it?
Dr Laura (01:53)
I cannot believe it. I can just remember as clear as day, us hitting record on our very first podcast when we had rented that little place where we were recording the content for Sombelle. And I remember us sitting there on the sofas and just going, come on, we can do it. We can do it.
Dr Fallon (02:02)
Yes.
Yeah. And we were so nervous, like really, really nervous. Someone emailed us the other day saying, I've listened to every single episode. And I was thinking, my gosh, even the first few, like I'm sure if I heard them now, I'd be like really embarrassed. anyway, no, it's been amazing. Yeah.
Dr Laura (02:25)
Yes!
Yes. That's a great achievement. Yeah, and it so much fun. I really enjoy it on our Monday mornings, knowing that we can have a bit of a chat then we record the podcast answer all our lovely customers questions. Yeah, it's a really nice way to start the week. Now I know that we have had quite a few lovely emails from said lovely clients.
Dr Fallon (02:38)
Yeah.
Yeah, it is really lovely.
Dr Laura (02:57)
in response to our podcast last week where we told everyone about you undergoing some surgery. just on behalf of all of those people and all of the listeners, Fallon, how are you getting on?
Dr Fallon (03:06)
Hmm
I'm really good. Actually the last week recovering from the surgery was so much easier than I thought it would be. I was really worried because the sort of initial procedure I had done was really painful, like heaps of pain in my head. but this has actually been really smooth sailing. So I've had to have a few quiet days.
Dr Laura (03:21)
Mmm.
Dr Fallon (03:34)
but it was back to seeing clients on Friday who all were very lovely checking in on me, which was really nice. One of them said, are you sure you're okay? And I said, well, look, you tell me by the end of the appointment, if you think I haven't done so well, just let me know and I'll take more time off. But no, I'm going really well. I don't find out, the results of, of the surgery, for a bit over a week. So still waiting to find out more about what it even was.
Dr Laura (03:40)
Ugh.
Okay.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (04:02)
But yeah, thank you so much to everyone for being so concerned. It was really, really lovely.
Dr Laura (04:06)
Yeah, good. well, I for one am very, pleased and was pleased last week when you reported back that you were feeling better and it wasn't as painful because that's not what any of us want to think about you in pain. It would be affecting your sleep and your work and everything and your parenting.
Dr Fallon (04:17)
Hmmmm
Yeah. it still is a bit, every time I go to rollover, I have to like sit up to change sides. So all those normal wakeups in the night that we usually forget, I now remember them all because I have to sort of wake up, turn around, get comfy. But, look, it's nothing compared to some surgeries. Like I know it's relatively minor.
Dr Laura (04:38)
Ouch.
Dr Fallon (04:44)
And if I'm totally honest, I have loved having it's, it's actually revolting. Isn't it that mums are like this, but we're like, gave me a reason to not do much, which was really nice. But it kind of was because it's guilt free rest time. so I spent a lot of time in the backyard watching our little three pet ducks waddling around and swimming in their water. And it was so nice just sitting there thinking, well, I have to rest. So yeah, guilt free rest. was lovely.
Dr Laura (04:44)
Hmm.
Yes.
Dr Fallon (05:12)
And, I wish it didn't take surgery for that to happen, but that's something I'll just have to keep working on.
Dr Laura (05:17)
Yeah, you and all of us mums, I think. Yeah. Well, that's great. I'm delighted you're doing you're doing much better. And we will let everybody know what the results are when they come through. So we will keep you all informed. So yeah, thank you for your support of Fallon
Dr Fallon (05:21)
Yeah, yeah, I think you're right.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It has been so lovely. Wow. I guess changing tack a bit now let's dive into the sort of the content we have planned for this week's episode where we wanted to go into something that is a little bit heavy. so, you know, you would have heard the intro if you feel like this episode might be a little bit hard on you. It's totally fine to skip this one. but we wanted to talk about the ways that the traumas we carry as parents can influence that.
Dr Laura (05:48)
Mm.
Dr Fallon (06:05)
transition into parenthood because it's something we see all the time in the sleep clinic is so often parents are dealing with. I guess it's one of those things, you know, we, probably expect we're just going to start parenting. We'll have a baby. We'll start parenting clean slate. It's a brand new baby. I've never met them. And we think it's sort of all going to go, you know, in one sort of way. And then often we're handed a baby and suddenly we're thinking about.
Dr Laura (06:11)
Mm.
Yes.
Dr Fallon (06:33)
our own childhood and how we were raised and all the expectations that people have of us, you know, in our roles as a mother or a parent. and that can be, you know, it can give you whiplash. It's so unexpected. and it can really influence, how you parent and your experiences as a parent. And so some parents will say, was blindsided by it, but suddenly I was hit by all of these traumatic memories.
Dr Laura (06:35)
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Dr Fallon (07:01)
and I was in a really emotionally vulnerable place on top of just the regular adjustment to a newborn. it can be so hard for some, Laura, I know in the clinic there's, you know, some common things that parents who have a trauma history will, will talk about with us. Obviously we're not psychologists, so we're not going into all the traumas, but often part of the sleep problem is to do with where they're at themselves. can you maybe tell us, tell the listeners a bit more about.
Dr Laura (07:07)
Mm-hmm.
No.
Mmm.
Dr Fallon (07:30)
some of the difficulties those parents are having.
Dr Laura (07:33)
Yeah. And what we see quite a lot in clinic is parents who find it very hard to listen to any degree of crying from their baby or toddler. They have a very low tolerance to crying and they will often believe that if their baby or toddler is crying, it must mean that something terrible is happening for their baby or toddler.
Dr Fallon (07:57)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (07:58)
and their job as a parent is to make that stop. And that's, so they will often have that thought about how it might be harmful for the child, but they also themselves feel very, very distressed by that crying. So what often is happening is that their feeling of distress, which is because of some memories being triggered perhaps from the trauma that they experienced in their earlier life.
they're projecting that onto their child. And so the child may just be having normal crying episodes and normal childhood behaviors, which are not due to trauma and not because they're feeling really distressed, but because the parent is feeling that they project it onto the child. And then thinking, my goodness, I must soothe the child. Cause in a way they're trying to soothe themselves from what they experienced when they were younger.
Dr Fallon (08:58)
Yes. And it's so amplified, isn't it? Like it's any parent, know, parents who don't bring a trauma history to parenting. We all feel that like, they're crying. I wonder why I want to try and fix it for them. You know, what's bothering them. Let's try and find a solution. but for some parents with a trauma history that is hugely, hugely amplified. So when we think about babies behavior, they're supposed to cry. Like crying is how they try to communicate. I need this. need that.
Dr Laura (09:01)
Hmm.
Hmm.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (09:28)
it is completely normal for babies to cry. but imagine if every time you hear that cry, instead of going, I wonder what's up with them. You're going something's harming them. They're being damaged. You know, you've got these negative thoughts around, you're interpreting that crying in a way that, is possibly quite inaccurate. but the emotional result on the parent is, you know, really it's heavy. It's tough.
Dr Laura (09:31)
Yeah.
Mmm.
Mmm.
Yeah. Yeah. And that we know that crying babies and toddlers do it very well. It is a behavior that as a species we have developed in order to get our needs and later wants met. And it is meant to trigger a response in the caregivers. So the crying is meant to trigger the response. But if that response that is being triggered is kind of misplaced.
Dr Fallon (10:12)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Dr Laura (10:26)
then it's very, very hard for the caregiver to then deliver the care back to the child that the child needs. So it's really important, can be a really important part of your own parenting journey to think about how you are responding to your child's cries and challenging behavior and thinking through what is this bringing up for you?
Dr Fallon (10:38)
Yes.
Dr Laura (10:56)
And whether perhaps even when you're in conversations with your partner or your mother's group about how you're responding to the cries, know, anybody's kind of raising their eyebrows and thinking, that's a strong response. Having a think to yourself about, is there something else going on here for me? And do I need to seek any support about the emotions that are being triggered in me by my child's behaviors?
Dr Fallon (11:17)
Hmm.
Dr Laura (11:25)
And that might be thinking through whether you have a counselor or a psychologist or at least speaking to your GP so that you can do a little bit of unpacking of that trauma history that you may be having and that will be coming to the front when or coming to the fore, sorry, when you have become a new parent so that you can address those.
Dr Fallon (11:25)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (11:52)
challenges that you had in the past and then learn to reflect on them and heal so that you can continue to be the parent that you want to be for the next, well, for the rest of your life, your parent forevermore.
Dr Fallon (12:04)
Yes, yeah and you can develop some really handy skills for coping with crying because we know that not all crying can be prevented but having some skills you can use it might be a task or an activity that your psychologist sets you up with that helps you to keep in a calm place when you're dealing with really full-on baby or toddler behavior. I think one of the big challenges really for every single parent is that
babies crying gradually shifts from the early days, it's all, I need something, I'm crying because I need something changed or done or I have something that needs to be met. And as they get older, there's always gonna be crying because they need something, but there's also gonna be a lot of crying because they want something. And the crying about the wants can be just as severe, sometimes worse than the crying about the needs.
Dr Laura (12:51)
Yes.
Yes.
Dr Fallon (13:00)
I mean, to put it very simplistically, we think about, you know, the toddler who wanted their sandwich cut into triangles and not squares and they are howling. They're on the floor, they're beating their fists and kicking their legs and they spend an hour in that really worked up state. There's nothing wrong with that child. They're just, you know, they're just mad as hell and they're working through some big feelings, but it's so hard for parents to go, okay,
Dr Laura (13:12)
you
Yes. Yes.
Dr Fallon (13:27)
Now we're starting to see some crying because my baby or my toddler wants something different. And yeah, knowing the difference between those can be really hard. But of course, we also want to have some skills in how to cope with our children's big emotions before their two year old screaming on the floor about the sandwiches that are the wrong shape. And not to minimise that upset either, there are some children who just really struggle to cope with those sort of unexpected changes and they need support through that as well.
Dr Laura (13:56)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (13:56)
but I think, yeah, building in some skills for parents is so important. And I think if we think specifically about the context of sleep and settling, you know, if you've got, for example, you know, you've got a baby who has to be bounced on a fit ball to sleep and you're getting up five or six times per night to get the fit ball out, to bounce them back to sleep. You know, maybe they're 10 months old, you're exhausted, your back is shot. I mean, I'm just pulling an example out of thin air here.
Dr Laura (14:23)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (14:24)
you know, you know that you need to start settling them in the cot because it's breaking your sleep. It's not great for their sleep either. But if you interpret their cries as being them in danger or at risk of harm when you're just trying to settle them in a perfectly safe cot, it's going to be so hard to make progress. And that's what I see a lot is parents who are so convinced that if their child is upset about a change, that it's going to cause permanent and lasting harm.
Dr Laura (14:30)
Mm-hmm.
Hmm.
Hmm.
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (14:53)
which absolutely won't. But if that's the thought process of the parent, then they will be on that fitball for years or engaging in activities to help their child sleep that basically destroy their own sleep, make their own mental health worse and can cause any trauma symptoms to also worsen as well. So it can be just such a tough cycle, much easier to get onto it in the early days, have some strategies in place.
Dr Laura (15:02)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (15:20)
so that you can cope a little bit better when you do need to make changes that your child might not be thrilled about at first.
Dr Laura (15:20)
Mmm.
Yes. Yeah, but you will not be in turn inflicting any trauma on your child by changing how they go to sleep. Fallon, you did your whole PhD was looking at trauma in childhood. And we know that doing some cot settling or bed settling for toddlers, it just comes nowhere close to what actually trauma.
Dr Fallon (15:35)
Hmm.
Mmm.
Yeah, it's not trauma. Falling asleep somewhere different is not trauma. Otherwise, every time we had to sleep on a long haul flight, what are we getting off the plane traumatized? Now I say it, it does feel a little traumatizing. gosh. Yeah, no, it's changing the way you sleep, how you fall asleep. It might be upsetting to you. Like I hate sleeping in a hotel if the pillow is too low and the mattress is too hard.
Dr Laura (15:59)
Yeah, think that's not such a example.
Dr Fallon (16:17)
I'm cranky about it. I'll probably have a good whinge about it. And if I was a baby, I'd be crying about it. But I'm not traumatized by it. I'm just annoyed that it's different. And yeah, our role as parents is just to help them through those changes. They can all adapt and it's often well worth it for family functioning and wellbeing. Laura, the other week you did an amazing presentation for the, I'm going to read it out because I always forget it, Antinatal and Postnatal Psychology Network.
Dr Laura (16:17)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mm.
Dr Fallon (16:47)
which is a network of perinatal psychologists across Australia. They have a conference each year and you were invited to go along and talk about sleep. And I think they are such an incredible resource for parents who might be struggling with that transition to parenthood. Tell me a bit more about what they do.
Dr Laura (16:56)
Mmm.
Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, they are a network of psychologists. I think the majority of them are based in Victoria at the moment, but they seem to be expanding. And they are a wonderful group of trained professionals, whose in the interest of all of these psychologists is in the perinatal period, which is from
pregnancy through to early, they actually do perinatal is actually pregnancy through to 12 months, but this group goes through early parenting as well. So, toddlers and, young children. and, they work with both mothers and fathers, and individually or as a couple. and the thing that I really love about them is they do, do, professional development as a group.
So they're always ensuring that they're keeping up to date with the latest research around areas that are important to the families that they see. So of course, for you and me, we're like tick, tick, that's awesome. We love evidence-based practice. So they're a really thoughtful, experienced group of professionals.
Dr Fallon (18:07)
Love it.
Yes.
Dr Laura (18:27)
and we'll put a link in the show notes. So you can go online, have a look at their website. You can download a list of psychologists if you are feeling that you would benefit from seeing a psychologist, if you do have some trauma history. And even if you don't have trauma history, but you are just struggling with the adjustment to parenthood because let's face it, it is a massive life change.
And then you can contact those psychologists to see if they're taking on new families and see about making an appointment with a GP to get a mental health plan where you can get some subsidized visits for a 12 month period.
Dr Fallon (19:08)
Hmm.
And how wonderful that all of those psychologists in that network have worked with you, Laura. So they understand our approaches. If you talk about sombrero and the changes you're making to sleep, they're going to understand what you're talking about. And I think that really helps because you've got your healthcare team kind of on board with what you're doing. Yeah, that's absolutely awesome. yeah, we'll pop a link in the show notes. So anyone who's looking for a psychologist can easily find one.
Dr Laura (19:23)
Yes.
Mmm.
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (19:38)
Amazing. I think that was such a valuable discussion. Maybe we let's talk through some of the parent questions this week. We've got quite a few to get through and there's some really, really good ones that we get asked about quite a lot. So maybe I'll start with reading out Asha's question, Laura.
Dr Laura (19:44)
Hmm.
Yes.
Yeah, okay.
Dr Fallon (19:56)
Ash wrote in, says, thank you for the podcast and song bell program. I've been regularly listening to episodes as I push my four month old around the tan in Melbourne. So for those who don't know the tan is a track that goes around the botanical gardens. and it's beautiful. she says I've recently worked out my baby's sleep needs and I'm now trying to determine the number of naps best suited to my little nap rascal.
Dr Laura (20:06)
You
yeah, me too.
Dr Fallon (20:23)
She says the rascalling question only ever naps for 25 to 40 minutes in her bassinet at home. Once she's yawning, rubbing her eyes, or sometimes even shouting at me, I'll take her to our dark room and try to settle her for a nap. It takes bouncing, patting, shushing, and sometimes feeding to get her down for a sleep. When she wakes, she's often alert but quiet, playing with her hands or waving her legs in the air.
Dr Laura (20:35)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (20:53)
And Ash says when she wakes, she's often, hang on, I'm reading that bit again. She says, when I go into her, she'll look at me, when I pick her up, she'll sometimes smile or babble, but she won't go back to sleep. So Ash gets her up. She says, however, about an hour into the wake time, she does a few sneaky yawns and starts to get red eyebrows.
Dr Laura (20:58)
Hey.
Dr Fallon (21:14)
She says, I'm confused. Am I misjudging her as a catnapper? And is there hope for us to learn cot settling when she's so tricky to settle and resettle for naps?
Dr Laura (21:25)
Ash, look, would say, given your description, it may be that when she's showing those early tired signs, and you're taking her into the bedroom to settle her, she's probably now just not quite ready to go down to sleep. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (21:40)
Yeah, that's what I thought too. Like she's needing so much help to get to sleep. She's probably not ready. And I think it's not interesting. Like in the first couple of months, we're like, if you notice a tide sign, quick, get them down in their cot because they can quickly become over tired. But by about four months of age, we don't want to move on the very early tide signs. We want to wait a little bit until there's sort of this consistent grizzly behavior where they're not sort of easily distracted.
Dr Laura (21:47)
Yeah.
Yes.
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (22:09)
So actually it could even just be pushing nap time. Like once you notice those early tide signs, then going, okay, well, you know, if it takes, how long did she say it takes her to settle? I've forgotten now, like about 20 minutes or something, was it?
Dr Laura (22:21)
She just does, no, she just says bouncing, patting, shushing and feeding to get her down. Yeah. But if it is, yeah, taking 20 or 30 minutes for her to actually go to sleep, then move nap time to around that time. Is that what you were about to say, Val and sorry, I just jumped in over you.
Dr Fallon (22:25)
Yep. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's exactly what I was going to say. No, no, jumped in over you. Yeah. So yeah, like just push it a bit later. And often I'll say to parents, like when you notice those signs, when you normally settle them, it might be that you go, okay, I'm going to look at the clock and I'm going to wait 10 minutes or 15 minutes. and do that for a few days and see if the settling gets a bit easier. Because if you can start putting her down right when that sleep pressure is really high and she's really ready for a nap.
Dr Laura (22:40)
you
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (23:01)
She'll start to settle more quickly at that time and then it opens the door to being able to work on cot settling. She might still get cranky when you put her down in the cot, but if she's right on the cusp of sleep, she won't be cranky for very long. And that'll really help.
Dr Laura (23:07)
Yeah.
Yeah, I also think that perhaps she'll start to link her cycles then. You know, you're moving from, actually, I don't know how many, excuse me, don't know how many naps your four month old is having, but let's say she's having four naps and you're moving to three or if it was five and you're moving to four, you'll probably find that with a little bit higher sleep pressure,
Dr Fallon (23:21)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (23:41)
When you go to put her down, she'll settle more easily and then there's more chance that she might link a sleep cycle. So you might start to get at least one longer nap out of her. And of course then as the number of naps that she has decreases as she ages in that first year, you might find that perhaps she has two longer naps a day, for example, when she's on two naps.
Dr Fallon (23:47)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (24:03)
So there certainly is hope for you to be able to start to use some cot settling techniques for your baby. But first of all, just work on, like Fallon was saying, just an extra 10 or 15 minutes before you put her down once she's showing those tired signs. And just try to establish that new number of naps, a new daily rhythm for a few days first. And then you can pick whichever settling approach you like the sound of. Good luck. Let us know how you get on.
Dr Fallon (24:08)
Hmm.
Yeah, that's good advice. Yeah. Yep.
Dr Laura (24:35)
All right now we have our next question from Jess and Jess has said that she has a six month old baby boy who self settles fine at nap time and bedtime and who was only waking once overnight to feed since he was four and a half months old. However recently he started to wake twice overnight and won't resettle without a feed and even if he is given a feed and put back down in his cot
he can still take up to an hour and a half to fall back asleep. Jess, you must be tired. Jess doesn't think he actually needs to feed because he doesn't seem very hungry when he wakes. After the night feeds, he's awake and babbling and practicing his rolling until he drifts off to sleep again. I'm seeing some comparisons with the last question.
Dr Fallon (25:08)
Hmm.
You
Dr Laura (25:30)
Jess worries about trimming some day sleep from his daily rhythm because he might not manage it and wonders if a different approach is needed. She's been using the supported accelerated approach. What do reckon Fallon?
Dr Fallon (25:44)
yeah, I'm so glad Jess wrote in cause I think this is such a common problem. You don't need a different approach. The approach is totally fine. I reckon Jess actually knows that it's a bit of a timing issue. Sleep pressure is low overnight. If they're awake that long, they're babbling and rolling around. then they're really happily awake. So they just don't have that sleep drive there to go back to sleep.
Dr Laura (25:49)
No.
Hmm.
Yeah.
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (26:07)
But I think this baby's caught in that cycle where they have a couple of long wakeups overnight. So then they wake up in the morning, having not had a great night. then think, gosh, I'm tired. I'm going to have a whole lot of day sleep. so often they kind of, have a bad night. So they catch up with day sleep, then of course they've caught up on day sleep. They have a bad night. And it's just this cycle that keeps going. was saying to the client the other day, I feel like we need to have a name for that cycle because I'm talking about it all the time. And it'd be really handy to say, you're stuck in the.
Dr Laura (26:27)
Yes.
Dr Fallon (26:37)
the Laura Conway cycle or something. Well, we could be like mediocre white men who like to give their surnames to, you know, be the cook Conway cycle or something. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah. Yes. So I think you're stuck in that cycle. So what I often say to parents is even though it seems really counterintuitive to dial back.
Dr Laura (26:47)
Yeah, yeah, the cook conway conundrum, maybe.
yes, this is the triple C. Yeah, anyway. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (27:07)
day's sleep. It's important because we want the nights to improve. So if you dial back on day's sleep, might take a few days but then the night's sleep will increase because our bodies are very good at making sure we meet our sleep needs and with less day's sleep your baby's circadian rhythm is going to be like okay hang on we're getting less day's sleep let's catch up at night time and when nights improve he'll wake up more refreshed and he should get through the day a bit more easily on less sleep.
Dr Laura (27:30)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (27:32)
So that's what I would really be thinking about is how much sleep is he averaging, working out a good daily rhythm that fits that and just being really brave, even though it feels a bit counterintuitive. So many parents will say, gosh, I really didn't think I needed to adjust the daily rhythm, but when I did, it all came together, you know, really quickly. So good luck, Jess.
Dr Laura (27:49)
Yeah. And then you may find that he goes back to just the one feed overnight, or if he continues to have two for a while, which isn't unheard of at his age, he should be resettling pretty quickly and not being up for an hour and a half after that feed. But I suspect what you will see is that he will move back to just having one wake for a feed, because you're describing that they're not too big feeds that he's having overnight.
Dr Fallon (28:03)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (28:15)
So hopefully things will get back in track in another week or so, Jess. So good luck.
Dr Fallon (28:15)
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely. Yulin emailed in again with some more questions. So she says, our seven and a half month old has responded really well to the quick fade approach and we've transitioned her to her own bedroom. She's waking once overnight to feed. Lovely. Yulin says, recently we had a couple of back to back colds from daycare, plus the daylight savings changes, plus a couple of weekends away.
Dr Laura (28:34)
Great.
You
Dr Fallon (28:48)
and Yulin says, I've noticed a lot more crying at the start of the bedtime settle. It can take anywhere from three to 20 minutes for her to fall asleep, but there's always distressed crying for between 10 to 30 seconds when she's put down. Sometimes she has a power nap on the boob an hour before bed, if the naps at daycare were shorter than usual, but she still goes down for sleep at the same time. Yulin would like to know why she has this brief period of distressed crying.
Is it because she's sometimes awake for a long time before bed, or is it due to the reduced sleep pressure from her boob nap in the evening? She wonders, should she try to keep her awake during the breastfeed, even though she's very grumpy? And Yulin notes that they've been really consistent with the quick fade approach, but during the distress crying, they're padding her and she wonders if they should be trying to phase this out again. And Yulin also says, whilst the crying is only brief, it is emotionally heavy. And I get that.
I totally get it. It's brief crying, but it can feel tough. What do you think, Laura?
Dr Laura (29:48)
Yeah.
Yeah, certainly can. Well done, Yulin. You've done a really awesome job. Look, would think thinking about how long it's taking your baby to fall asleep. It's within the normal range. So it is a little bit variable three to 20 minutes. Anything more than 20 minutes we're generally starting to think of as bit of delayed sleep onset and needing to maybe move that bedtime a bit later. But in this instance, I think that's probably not quite the case.
I think that the time is probably okay. I think at seven and a half months old, if you can do your best to try and keep her awake during that breastfeed, even when she is grumpy, you might find that that helps a little bit. But otherwise, I just think 10 to 30 seconds of loud crying can just be quite normal.
Dr Fallon (30:48)
Yeah.
Dr Laura (30:48)
And it's, I completely hear what you're saying, that it is emotionally heavy, but what I'd be challenging myself to do if I was in your shoes, Yulin, is reframing it rather than thinking this is distressed crying, that this is kind of irritated crying or, you know, putting, assigning an emotion to it that is less emotionally heavy. Maybe your baby just does not want to go to bed.
Dr Fallon (31:13)
Mm. Doesn't want to go to bed. Yeah.
Dr Laura (31:18)
when you're seven and a half month old is two and a half they may be, I think it's a little girl, she may be saying I don't want to go to bed and it may be 10 to 30 seconds of protesting and she's using her language but at the moment you're seven and a half months old her language is that crying and she may just be saying to you not this again but then yeah.
Dr Fallon (31:29)
Hmm.
Yeah. I don't want to go to bed right now. So in a way, yeah, in a way it creates this golden opportunity for Yuling to be like your sailor. love the idea of just thinking about it in different language. Like it's, it might sound really full on, but you know that she's okay and she is ready for sleep because she is falling asleep quite quickly. so that kind of reframe I think is really important, but it also provides this really great opportunity to start to.
Dr Laura (31:48)
I don't
Dr Fallon (32:13)
get a little bit more comfortable with some of the crying about the wants, not the needs. So this is a cry that's about a want. I don't want to go to bed. it's not, don't need to go to bed because we know this child needs to go to bed and they fall asleep really quickly. so I'd be thinking about what you can do in those 10 to 30 seconds. And it might be that you, do a little mindfulness meditation, or maybe you have some positive self-talk. Maybe you put some headphones on.
Dr Laura (32:19)
Mmm.
Yeah. Yes.
Mm.
Dr Fallon (32:41)
and listen to calming music or you focus on your breath and you just really focus on trying to keep your heart rate low, your breathing slow and steady. And that could be just wonderful practice for, you know, as they get older, I mean, certainly when they become toddlers, they have a lot of wants, you know, and the emotions can get really full on. So this is a great chance to just practice keeping yourself in a really calm place and learning to cope for these brief, very brief episodes of crying that are really, really normal.
Dr Laura (32:58)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Mm.
Dr Fallon (33:10)
so I hope that helps you, Lynn. you know, and I think it's important to remember, yeah, your baby's okay. They're definitely ready for sleep. and it's okay to, to not be too stressed about, that little bit of crying as hard as it can be.
Dr Laura (33:19)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, I think so. just finally, Yulin, you ask, you mentioned that you're patting her during that distress crying and I'm assuming if you're using the quick fade and she's responded well to it, perhaps you're now just doing a few pats and then just shushing or humming, for example. So I would just be, I think as you have said, Yulin, I'd be looking at just phasing out that patting. If you are
Dr Fallon (33:44)
Yeah.
Hmm.
Dr Laura (33:53)
doing something slightly different with that different type of crying, which is only very short. It's sometimes what we sometimes see is then that crying might start to extend just because your baby is learning, well, if I do that for a little bit longer, that keeps mum here a little bit longer. Whereas we know she's actually adapted really well to the quick fade approach.
Dr Fallon (34:12)
Yeah.
Dr Laura (34:17)
So I would just would be doing exactly the same thing, even when she's doing that very intense crying, that's her just going, I don't want to do this, but okay. So listening to that mindfulness track or something that's distracting you, Yulin, will just help you and her get through that.
Dr Fallon (34:27)
Yeah.
Yeah, I think that's great advice, Laura.
Dr Laura (34:39)
All right, so let's go on to Karen's question. So Karen wrote in with two questions, which we'll answer one at a time, think, Fallon. So Karen has also been using the quick fade approach like Eulin has, but with her 16 month old toddler. And it's been going better than expected. We're already starting to phase out patting and just continuing to sing his favourite bedtime song. The settling at the start of the night has been relatively easy.
Dr Fallon (34:47)
Yeah.
Excellent.
Dr Laura (35:08)
However, in the middle of the night, the settles are tough and we've continued to resort to bed sharing for survival's sake. In fact, he's been waking pretty much hourly the last four nights, but that may be linked to him getting a bit congested at the moment. I now plan to set up a mattress in his room to make overnight settling easier and to get him used to not being in bed with me.
However, would he then become reliant on me being in the room with him to resettle to sleep overnight? How would I then work on not being in his room overnight?
Dr Fallon (35:47)
This is really, really great question.
Dr Laura (35:49)
Mmm.
Dr Fallon (35:50)
so I would say definitely Karen, sounds like he falls asleep with you in his room singing. And then when he wakes up after a sleep cycle, does that systems check and he goes, mom's gone and I can't hear the singing. And that causes him to get really upset. it's a bit of a shock to find you're not there. and then that can make it really hard for a toddler to get back to sleep. Cause I've had this little dose of adrenaline of something's changed. and that might be why it's just so tough and you're feeling like you
Dr Laura (36:04)
Mmm.
Mm.
Mm.
Dr Fallon (36:20)
to bring him into your bed and when he's in your bed he's just thinking great I'm here and I can keep an eye on mum now make sure she doesn't disappear. I really love the idea of setting up a bed beside the cot in his room so that your bed is out of sight as well. If they're moving away from co-sleeping we don't want them to be able to see your bed we want it out of sight and out of mind. What I would be thinking about is if you have a partner they need to be the one in there.
Dr Laura (36:31)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
No.
Dr Fallon (36:47)
on that mattress and doing that quick fade approach all through the night, because it can really help when the parent they're used to going into bed with is just not visible. If it's another parent who's persisting with one thing, it can make for an easier time of things. But I hear what you're saying, know, is he then going to become reliant on having a parent in the room when he falls asleep? Probably. He'll keep waking up and checking, is that parent still there? One of the best approaches for working through this is the process called parental fading.
Dr Laura (36:57)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Dr Fallon (37:17)
And in the Sombelle Toddler program, it's actually in the chapter that's about settling in a bed. So I think for some parents who are settling in a cot often don't sort of come across that part in the bed settling section. So have a look for the parental fading approach. What that can mean is, you know, as simple as just leaving the room very briefly to get something and coming back in before he falls asleep. So you're building up a little bit of
Dr Laura (37:28)
Mmm.
Dr Fallon (37:43)
experience for him, knowing that sometimes you might leave the room, but you do come back again. Or a lot of parents, excuse me, a lot of parents will just gradually move their bed further and further away or replace the bed with a chair and gradually phase that out. So they're getting a bit more comfortable with you being a little bit further away. So that can be, yeah, a really good way to do it. And of course, if you're really exhausted, you've got that option of just going straight to sitting in a chair in his room when he falls asleep.
Dr Laura (37:47)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Dr Fallon (38:12)
You could apply a process like the advanced accelerated approach, you know, if you think that that's an easier option. But yeah, to anyone out there who thinks, they're only going to get used to me being in the room. It's generally not too hard to phase out your presence and the parental fading process in Sunbell is a really nice way to do it.
Dr Laura (38:15)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah. And Fallon, I would just, the only thing I would add to that is that at the moment, Karen, when your son is waking up overnight and he is calling out to you, you're then resettling him going back to your own bed and then he's waking up again an hour later and you're not there. So for toddlers, what can happen is that they just, as soon as they wake up, because in all likelihood, you're not going to be there, they're looking like, she's gone. She's gone. She's definitely gone.
and when you have a week or two of just sleeping in the room overnight, that kind of hypervigilance just starts to, decrease. So he'll be so, he'll become so confident in the knowledge that you were there, that that waking up and double checking for you and having that burst of adrenaline is actually going to fall away. So sometimes actually what we see is just by having you in the bedroom overnight, that in itself.
Dr Fallon (39:00)
Hmm.
Dr Laura (39:29)
brings down that vigilant behavior that toddlers have in the night because they're like, mum's definitely here or dad's definitely here all night long. And then that makes it easier to then start to use that parental fading to get you out of the room.
Dr Fallon (39:33)
Hmm.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. think that's great advice.
Dr Laura (39:49)
Karen's second question was, my boy has a swim school once a week at 11am. However, his normal nap time is at about 12. He's on one nap. So Karen says, is it okay to give him a short nap before class to get him through and then another slightly longer nap afterwards, so long as his total day sleep stays the same? She asks, should his last wake window before bed remain the same?
And is it okay that his nap routine varies like this once or twice a week? Thank you so much again. I really appreciate your evidence-based gentle and reasonable approaches. I've been obsessed with your podcast too, and have even finished all the episodes and re-listened to some multiple times. Karen, that's lovely.
Dr Fallon (40:34)
Karen's like a mega fan. We need to send her a special badge or something, I reckon. Most episodes listen to. I like this question as well. I think this comes up a lot for parents. You need to experiment. You really just need to do a bit of trial and error. And I love that Karen's thinking, okay, I'm going to keep the same amount of total day sleep, but maybe it's about splitting it up. So yeah, if he's not coping waiting till after the swim lesson for his nap.
Dr Laura (40:38)
Yeah! Yeah!
Mm-hmm
Dr Fallon (41:01)
I would go, yep, little short nap before class if you'll take it and then have the rest of the nap later on. See how it goes. And if you're finding that night is a disaster, like really just so hard, you know, seems to be throwing things around too much. Then you'll just drop it and you'll just work on pushing him through that stimulus. And, and look, he's at an age where pretty soon you won't even be able to get him to have that brief nap in the morning anyway.
Dr Laura (41:09)
Mm-hmm.
No.
Dr Fallon (41:26)
And it doesn't matter if the wake window before bed varies a little bit when they're on sort of one nap, as long as that second nap when you offer it isn't really late in the day, it should be, should be okay. So yeah, do a little bit of experimenting one week, try it one way, have a think about how it went, change it again the next week. Cause every toddler is different. there is no, what works for one doesn't work for the next. So it's okay to, to, yeah, have an experiment and see how things go.
Dr Laura (41:32)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Dr Fallon (41:53)
Excellent. On a similar vein, actually, Sophie emailed in with a question about sneaky car naps in her low sleep needs baby. And this is another one I get all the time in clinic too. She says, until now I've avoided anything but the shortest drives during awake time and I've timed trips to coincide with nap times. But now on two naps, that's becoming a bit difficult. She says, I give toys, I talk, I sing, but often she'll fall asleep within 10 or 15 minutes regardless.
If this happens occasionally, it's not too bad. A late nap, maybe a false start at bedtime. But Sophie says, I'd like to be able to drive 20 minutes or so in the afternoon, after nap too, a few times a week. And I'm concerned this would start to eat into her sleep pressure in a more meaningful way. So she wonders, should I cap day sleep on the shorter side if I know she's likely to have a car sleep? And will she grow out of this in any way?
Dr Laura (42:51)
Hmm, yeah, that's a good question. And I think there is similarities in what we're going to say for answer with what you just said for Karen Fallon. I think that it really varies so much from baby to baby. And I think Sophie, you probably need to do a little bit of experimentation. So you have been avoiding
Dr Fallon (43:05)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (43:19)
anything but the shortest drives until recently. So I think you might now find that since she is just on two naps, that she can actually tolerate staying awake for longer on those car drives than she used to. When she was smaller, her sleep pressure would have built much more quickly during the day. And then it's quite hard for babies to stay awake.
when their sleep pressure builds so quickly, if they're on three or four naps a day, just they sniff the car and they're asleep. And now you might find that she's having two nice naps a day. She actually can just tolerate staying awake for a bit longer in the car. However, if you find that that's not the case, so give it a go. You know, over this next week, do some drives probably straight after her second nap.
so that the sleep pressure has really been relieved and see if she can stay awake and to see what she's like on the way home from wherever you've been. And then if she doesn't fall asleep, awesome, there's your question answered. She's getting older and it's not a problem. But if she does fall asleep, then just keep a note on what happens at bedtime. If she is taking much longer to fall asleep or is having those false starts, then I'd be thinking about moving bedtime a little bit later.
on those nights, you know, maybe even just 20 minutes later and see if that helps. And then if that doesn't, then yeah, I'd be looking at your, the other option that you suggest, which is capping the day sleeps on the shorter side. So again, thinking about what the total overall sleep daytime sleep allowances, and then knowing that she's definitely going to have a sleep cycle in the car. Well, that means on those days, she has three naps.
Dr Fallon (44:55)
Hmm.
Dr Laura (45:08)
for example, because she'll have two short naps at home and then one in the car, for example. And do that for a week or so and then try again to see. Because at this point, when she's on two naps, I'm suspecting she's probably about seven or eight months, you've probably got about five or six months left of her having two naps and then she's going to move to just one nap. And everything changes again. Would you suggest anything different, Fallon?
Dr Fallon (45:19)
Hmm.
Yeah. Yeah. Only if she's on two naps and she's sort of an older baby, like if she's eight months or more, I would say try to keep to two naps rather than adding the third, even if it means having a short morning nap, because you know, you're to be in the car for an hour and a half later or something. I think that's totally fine just to keep, yeah. Cause usually we know when we're going to go out in the afternoon. So you can keep that morning that quite brief kind of knowing that you. Yeah.
She can sleep a lot longer in the afternoon. I just think it's so important. Like I had a family in clinic the other day who had a toddler and they had just avoided having, you know, having a life, you know, that were really leaving the house because, their toddler is so sensitive to getting too much day sleep. And so we're talking about how their needs and wellbeing is really important as well. They need to be able to leave the house and sort of came up with a plan for how they could structure the day sleep. If they know they're going to be in the car.
Dr Laura (46:01)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Mm.
Dr Fallon (46:30)
And how it's okay on those some nights. Yep, you might push bedtime a whole hour later But if it's not happening, you know most days of the week It's probably gonna be fine. And yes, it makes your evenings a little bit more tricky But if it means you're able to get out of the house and go to the zoo and go to the movies and like do all these really important family activities Then yeah, it's worth it Yeah, good. All right, let's talk about Lauren's questions. So Lauren wrote in and said
Dr Laura (46:35)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (46:58)
Since starting SunBowl a couple of months ago, we went from eight to nine wakeups a night. my gosh, down to two to four. That's brilliant. She says, this has been an amazing change, but I'm hopeful we can make it even better. Yes, let's make it better. Right. I'm like ready for this one. Okay. I think, so Lauren mentioned she's got an eight month old. So two to four wakes for an eight month old. It's a fair amount. Like that, that's tough. So we can definitely make that better.
Dr Laura (47:07)
Yeah.
Yes!
Yeah, that is. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (47:27)
And so Lauren says her eight month old self settles in his cot with no padding or shushing and just a parent sitting nearby. She says he needs around 12 hours of sleep per day, having around two hours of day sleep and 11 hours overnight to allow for his two night feeds. He is very difficult to resettle at night if he wakes up near a usual feed time and we don't feed him.
Because of the feeding, he often doesn't sleep longer than three and a half hours at a time overnight. Lauren's got several questions and I thought we'll go through them one at a time. So Laura, the first one is, is three and a half hours a long enough stretch of sleep to be restorative? We would like this to be longer if possible. Is the only way to do this to try and wean him off one of the night feeds?
Dr Laura (48:16)
What you're probably seeing, Lauren, is that your baby is getting in the first three and a half hours at the start of the night, the nice deep sleep. The deep stages of sleep tend to happen in the first three hours or so overnight. And then after that, tends to be lighter sleep and more REM sleep. So often it's quite common for us to see with sleep diaries,
a nice long stretch of deep sleep at the start of the night and then the wakes start to come after that. So you would know that your baby is getting the nice restorative deep sleep at the start of the night. And then when he's moving into those lighter phases, he's waking up out of each of those sleep cycles. That's probably when the majority of them are happening. So each of the cycles will be a complete cycle.
but it's the length of time he's then awake before he's able to go back into his next sleep cycle, which may just be starting to eat into the rest that we would like him to be having. if you're describing that he's hard to resettle, and that he'll be using up energy, and we really want him to be calm and able to link those cycles himself.
So look, I think that he is getting good restorative sleep, but we definitely want to help him learn to have those, ability to be able to come up into light sleep, see nothing has changed and go back to sleep without needing a lot of input from you so that he's not having four wakes or, you know, sometimes a few less than that overnight.
And when we are thinking about that, then we're thinking about what is he experiencing when he comes up into those natural wakes overnight. And what I suspect he is seeing is one, you're not sitting there anymore. And that's what he is used to you. He's used to you sitting, being sat there as he goes off to sleep. So that's one thing we can work on reducing, starting to get you to be
Dr Fallon (49:57)
Hmm.
Dr Laura (50:25)
just wandering around his room and out of the door as he's falling asleep. So he starts to get that experience of you not being in the seat when he goes off to sleep. Cause you've already done great work getting him to go to sleep without any hands-on support. And then the other thing is just thinking about what is his weight gain like? How's he going with the solids during the day?
so he is eight months old. I'm assuming that his he's established on solids, having three meals a day. and if that is the case, then, I'd be having a think about, yeah, maybe we do, we could be thinking about moving down to just the one feed overnight, which may start to help him, be able to maintain his sleep for, a little bit longer.
Dr Fallon (51:09)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (51:17)
And then when you're feeling ready, drop that final feed overnight.
Dr Fallon (51:21)
Hmm. Yeah. The thing I would add to that is if you know that, you know, they're waking up to have a feed that they're probably not needing because they're having plenty of solid foods, weight gains. Okay. Stop allowing time for nighttime feeds. So Lauren mentions that they allow an extra hour overnight because he has two feeds. If you want to get rid of the feeds, just don't allow that extra time. And it drives up their sleep pressure. And then when you go to resettle them without a feed, they're like, yeah, actually I'm not.
Dr Laura (51:36)
Mm-hmm.
Mmm.
Yes.
Dr Fallon (51:50)
I'm not that hungry and I'm actually really tired. so that can be really key. Like when you want to drop the night feeds, just don't allow the time for them kind of in that daily rhythm anymore. It makes a huge difference. Laura, I think you answered her second question, which was some of the wakeups likely due to them not being in the room when he does these systems check. I love that Lauren knows the lingo. so yeah, you're spot on. I would just experiment. Yeah. Leaving his room when he falls asleep. it's every chance that he'll
Dr Laura (51:51)
Yes!
Yes.
Mmm.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (52:19)
do quite well with you leaving the room. It might be a couple of tricky settles and then he'll get used to that and that will definitely contribute to things. And then she asks, we almost always have to wake him up to keep his afternoon nap to one cycle. Sometimes he can be pretty cranky and tired for his final wake window. We've experimented with letting him sleep for longer in the afternoon, but this generally results in more night wakings.
Dr Laura (52:20)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Dr Fallon (52:44)
Is it better to just get him used to the shorter nap or should we look at shifting bedtime so that he can have that little bit more day sleep? Well, I'd say no, I'd keep bedtime the same. What would you say, Laura?
Dr Laura (52:52)
Yeah. Yeah, well, I think that you'll probably start to find that once he wakes fewer times overnight, that he is much better able to manage that long wake time, or his longest wake time before bed. At the moment, he is even though his sleep has improved dramatically from eight to nine wakes overnight, so just two to four, he's still waking two to four times overnight, and is hard to resettle some of those times.
Dr Fallon (53:06)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (53:21)
which means then that towards the end of the day, he's just showing us that experience that he's a bit cranky, he's finding it a bit hard, he's not at his best. Once he starts to be able to link his cycles more readily all through the night, then he's going to cope much better. So I would be looking at reducing that extra allowance that you're giving for feeds overnight from an hour, maybe down to half an hour, move to one.
Dr Fallon (53:21)
Hmm.
Yeah
Dr Laura (53:50)
feed. And yeah, and I wouldn't be adding any extra sleep at this stage.
Dr Fallon (53:58)
Hmm. And that kind of taps into the fourth question that Lauren sent him, which is around how he's so warm and cozy in the car that even if he's happy and well rested, he'll not off quite easily. And she wanted some tips on, how to kind of keep him awake in the car so it doesn't throw out his naps and then throw out his nights. And I would say when you work on a new daily rhythm, where you're allowing less overall time overnight for sleep. you're working on dropping night feeds and moving out of his room.
Dr Laura (54:01)
Mm.
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (54:27)
that would be the time to really be thinking about avoiding, it might even just be like a few days where you try not to be in the car or you just plan to be in the car at nap time so he has the naps in the car. Just because once those nights improve again he'll be more wakeful, a bit less likely to nap in the car on the go. So I think to summarize Lauren since we've now decided we're going to get get your sleep on track so you are going to
Dr Laura (54:38)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Dr Fallon (54:54)
Really limit that daily rhythm to that 12 hour sleep need. If we're looking at dropping the night feeds, come up with a 12 hour daily rhythm, to keep that sleep pressure nice and high at night. Practice leaving his room before he falls asleep. you know, wander in and out every now and then, or just try just not being there and see how he goes. So he's not getting, doing that systems check and going, my gosh, where's mom, where's dad? and yeah, I think keeping the naps on track with where they are is a really sensible idea.
Dr Laura (55:17)
Mm-hmm.
Dr Fallon (55:24)
good luck, Lauren. think Lauren's done. This is the case with so many of the Sunbell families. And I say this all the time in coaching calls, you've actually done the hardest work already. It's just little tweaks now, just little tweaks that will make a huge difference. so Lauren, would say within a couple of weeks, he's going to be sleeping a whole lot better. but as for any of our families, if you're not quite getting things to pull together, you can always book a coaching call and we can have a chat through things. Good. And one last one.
Dr Laura (55:24)
Yeah.
Yes. Yeah.
Yes.
Mmm.
Yeah. Our final question is... sorry, Fallon.
Dr Fallon (55:54)
No, no, I was just saying one last question. You can read it out.
Dr Laura (55:56)
Yeah okay so it's from Sammy and Sammy has a seven and a half month old baby boy who has a 13 hour sleep need. He was sleeping fairly well only waking a couple of times for his dummy to be put back in and having one night feed. He's recently started waking more often for his dummy to be replaced and he feeds once or twice. He might fall back to sleep or he might need shushing and back rubbing to get him back to sleep.
If he doesn't settle, Sammy brings him into their bed where he sleeps fine until morning. Sammy has made some tweaks, including dropping to two naps per day and capping his day's sleep at two hours total. He goes to bed at seven and gets up at six, so that's 11 hours overnight. And for naps and at bedtime, he falls asleep quickly and easily, but overnights are much harder.
Sami would like our insight on how to reduce the night waking.
Dr Fallon (56:54)
Yeah, it's gonna be one of these situations where there's two things that enter my mind. One is that sleep needs do gradually decline. So just check if that 13 hour sleep needs starting to be more like a 12 and a half hours. It might be that there's just a few little tweaks to make to the daily rhythm there. But I also think, you know, is the dummy helping or is it more of a hindrance?
Dr Laura (57:02)
Mm.
Hmm
Dr Fallon (57:18)
you know, if a lot of the time overnight, you're having to replace the dummy, I mean, he's at an age, seven and a half months, he could learn to replace it himself. you can read about how to do that in Sunbell, do lots of dummy replacement practice with him. So we can start to master it, scatter lots of dummies around the cot as well. and he might start to just put it back in himself, and go back to sleep. But if he's just not mastering that skill and it's interrupting his sleep too much, yeah, it could be worth actually getting rid of it.
Dr Laura (57:45)
Mm.
Dr Fallon (57:45)
I love what Sammy's doing. you know, really thinking about that daily rhythm and tweaking it. and yeah, I think if it's taking a while to get back to sleep, he's needing some hands on support. Yeah. I suspect it could just be tweaking the daily rhythm just slightly might be needed. And then it will take a real, push to just not bring him into your bed. you know, it could be some tricky nights where he's thinking he's going to go into your bed and then you're not taking him to your bed.
Dr Laura (57:50)
Mm-hmm.
Mmm.
Mm.
Dr Fallon (58:15)
If you've got a partner, Sammy, it would be great for them to take the lead on that. Since you've been doing the hard yards and co-sleeping and overnight settles, good time for your partner to come in and do some of that resettling because if your baby doesn't see you overnight, they're more likely to go, okay, maybe that's just not an option to go in and co-sleep with that parent. Would you add anything to that, Laura?
Dr Laura (58:33)
Yeah.
Just a kind of revision for people about the intermittent reward system. So when we're thinking about how we respond to our babies and toddlers overnight, if we're sometimes doing different things and our babies and toddlers prefer one way over another, and in this case, may be co-sleeping is the preference for this little baby, when they wake up overnight,
If even if it's nine times out of 10, they are put back to sleep in their cot, but just that one time out of 10, they're brought into bed, that's an intermittent reward. And then a baby or a toddler may continue to protest and escalate in the night because they're not sure if tonight is going to be the night where they come into bed with you. And if it's there on the table as an option, then they're going to
Dr Fallon (59:13)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (59:35)
try to get that. So, and it's just human nature. So when you and your partner, Sammy, are 100 % sure that you no longer want to do bed sharing, then make the decision so that you can be 10 out of 10, not bringing him into your bed overnight, then it's going to be much less confusing for your baby. He starts to understand that the only place that he sleeps is in his cot overnight.
Dr Fallon (59:40)
Yeah.
Dr Laura (1:00:02)
And then he's less likely to be escalating his crying in the night. Come on, it's tonight, the night.
Dr Fallon (1:00:09)
Yeah. Or is this the wake up where I'm going to get to go into my parents bed? Yes. I think that's such a good point, Laura. yeah, brilliant. I love all of these parents who email us in this week because I'm just consistently hearing about how much thought they're putting into.
Dr Laura (1:00:15)
Yes.
Dr Fallon (1:00:27)
Like applying what they've learned from Sombelle. They're really thinking about what they've learned and trying to apply it to their babies or their toddlers. And it is just, it's absolutely brilliant. I love it. So well done to everyone out there. If you've been struggling with something and you're a Sombelle member, please shoot through a question. We'd love to answer it on the podcast. And if you're not a member, don't because we won't answer it. We've had a few sneaky emails from people who aren't actually members.
Dr Laura (1:00:29)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Dr Fallon (1:00:53)
so yeah, if you are needing help with sleep and settling, the Sombelle program is a very affordable way to get access to really high quality, advice and support, via the podcast or via coaching calls, if you need them. all right. So to wrap up today, I just recently, just to make my workload a little bit more complicated, I have created a Instagram account for the brand new little people podcast.
Dr Laura (1:01:15)
Hahaha
Dr Fallon (1:01:23)
there's not much on there yet.
Dr Laura (1:01:23)
I tried to talk her out of it, people. I was thinking, you're recovering from surgery. Don't make more work for yourself. But Fallon is determined. And we're determined to spread the word and for us to find as many ways as possible to reach families in need of support. So yeah, she couldn't be stopped. So well done, Fallon, for not listening to me.
Dr Fallon (1:01:32)
Bye.
Yeah. Well, it's where we'll be publishing all the stuff about the podcast. We'll go there as well as to our infant sleep Australia account. So absolutely follow us at infant.sleep.australia because that's where we talk about all things, parenting, settling, sleep, everything. The brand new little people Instagram account will just be the stuff sort of about the podcast.
Dr Laura (1:01:53)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (1:02:10)
so go and follow both because we do put a lot of work into making those channels really interesting for everyone who follows along. we also have our competition still running where you can win a free Sombelle membership. plus a whole bunch of other awesome goodies. It's valued at over $950. It takes like 10 seconds to enter the links in our show notes. So go and click there. And, I think that's running for most of October might finish on.
27th or something like that. And yeah, if you've got feedback about Sombelle or the podcast or if there's like you think gosh I'd love them to do an episode on this thing or I wish they'd talk about more case studies or whatever it is you're thinking please tell us because we're often like what are we should we talk about a case study is that interesting we don't know so we love your feedback yeah please do email us in and let us know awesome thanks everyone for tuning in and you'll hear from us next week
Dr Laura (1:02:40)
Hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Thanks everyone, bye bye.
