Dr Fallon (00:02)
The amount of conflicting information circulating about baby and toddler sleep is wildly out of control. Just this morning, a client emailed our podcast to say, I've unfollowed so many sleep accounts on Instagram and I've never felt better. When you're sleep deprived and searching for a solution, it's really easy to fall down the rabbit hole of emotionally charged misinformation. And this can be dangerous.
A parent who's on the brink of a major mental breakdown due to exhaustion needs support and effective sleep strategies. Not a guilt trip, not misinformation, and certainly not dangerous advice that could actually worsen their sleep. In today's episode, we're going to teach you how to recognize the red flags so you can identify and avoid the dodgy sleep advice.
Welcome back to Brand New Little People, the podcast companion to the Sombelle pediatric sleep programs created by us. I'm Dr. Falon Cook and I'm here with Dr. Laura Conway. We are PhDs and sleep practitioners and co-directors of Infant Sleep Australia. How are you going Laura?
Dr Laura (01:19)
I'm good, thanks Fallon. How are you?
Dr Fallon (01:21)
Yeah, really good. I disappeared down a rabbit hole of internet searches and Instagram doom scrolling through sleep accounts the other day. And you know, I do this every now and then as our listeners will know, like we try to stay across what kind of misinformation is being pumped out there. And it's just kind of horrifying. There's always something new isn't there?
Dr Laura (01:45)
Yeah, there really is. just at the moment with the state of the world in general, there's doom scrolling is, it's an endless, endless ocean of doom out there. And you can to some degree, stop looking at what's happening in America, for example, or, you know, take a pause from looking at what's happening with climate disasters.
Dr Fallon (01:52)
Hmm.
Dr Laura (02:13)
But if you're in the trenches with your baby or toddler not sleeping, you of course are going to be looking for help because you want that to resolve. So it's not so easy to just stop looking and to switch off. And then when you are sleep deprived, your ability to logically sift through what's presented to you is really depleted.
Dr Fallon (02:22)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (02:38)
And then therefore you just cannot, you can't have that filter on today. Do you think that this is sensible advice or is this actually a little bit out there and I should disregard it? And so a lot of the families just with young children with sleep problems just do not have the luxury of not falling down that rabbit hole.
Dr Fallon (02:45)
Mmm.
Yes, so true. When I was kind of scrolling through looking at baby sleep stuff, I just about had whiplash from like the conflicting views and they're all claiming that they're grounded in evidence or sleep science. And it's just, how do I look at it? And I think sometimes I actually think to myself, is there a reference for that? Like do I need, and this morning I actually did go, what was I looking at? I was looking at the,
Dr Laura (03:18)
Yeah.
Guess!
Dr Fallon (03:30)
Yeah, a lot of people and a lot of good sleep people will say, night terrors are often due to a lack of sleep, a child not getting enough sleep. And I thought, I keep hearing this, but like, there must be papers out there, you know, really supporting this and look, they're pro they could be, I didn't do like some incredibly thorough search, but I had a bit of a look on PubMed and in the few results I had time to quickly look through. It's, just something that everyone is saying, but I was like, but where's the data? I actually want to see who has measured.
Dr Laura (03:49)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (03:59)
this and has shown that those with a lower sleep duration are having more night terrors. So anyway, the search continues on that one. And I will report back on what I find.
Dr Laura (04:04)
Mmm.
Yes. Yeah, I think that there may be some research on that for older children. So some PD I've been doing recently on sleep in the neurodiverse populations. They did look to see how children's sleep changed after using a behavioral sleep intervention. This is for primary school and early adolescent age children. And they did find that
Dr Fallon (04:15)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (04:36)
about 12 weeks after implementing a sleep program that the number of parasomnias of which sleep terrors is one did decrease for some of the children. And they speculated that perhaps that's because the quality of the sleep overall improved for these children. So it took them less time to fall asleep and then they woke less overnight. And so...
Dr Fallon (04:56)
Hmm.
Dr Laura (05:00)
then they thought, well, maybe that would explain why the number of parasomnias decreased. But again, it's still, and this was in a very good study that was done relatively recently, it was just speculation. there isn't even in this population, doesn't seem to be the research that says if sleep is poor, you're not getting enough sleep, then the parasomnias are higher.
Dr Fallon (05:15)
Yeah.
Mmm.
Dr Laura (05:26)
But we will carry on looking. So that's what we're all about, just continually staying on top of the research, aren't we, Fallon? And looking to see where is the good quality evidence. And then we will adjust our practice based on that.
Dr Fallon (05:27)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely. And always looking for the actual data. You know, where is the data for some of these things that people are saying? It's so important. Well, let's dive into some of the things that, so when we were kind of going through social media, we were looking for like, what are the red flags? The little terms that might be used that would indicate that maybe it's not a great source, know, a great place to be getting your information from.
Dr Laura (05:47)
Yeah.
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (06:12)
And there were a few things that jumped out. I think one of the first ones that really always irks me Laura is these accounts that talk about the sleep training industry. It really annoys me because I think by coining it.
the sleep training industry, it's, it's designed to make parents think, it must be suspicious. It's some kind of big money making scheme or a scam that's trying to suck parents in. yeah. It's really, really gross. And I think when you've just got to question what the intention is when people are trying to deliberately use a term that's going to make
Dr Laura (06:39)
Yes.
selling snake oil. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (06:56)
people suspicious. So that's one of the ones that my pet peeves I've never seen the sleep training industry as a phrase used by somebody reputable. yeah.
Dr Laura (06:57)
Mmm.
No, I agree. Yeah, there is something a bit. Yeah, it's just setting up a bit of a straw man, as we're all against this industry. Like there's a, yeah, it's like an oil and gas company that you're having big conferences to work out how we can help people. Yeah, yeah, nuts.
Dr Fallon (07:17)
Hmm.
Hahaha
How do we make them use more fuel?
Dr Laura (07:31)
Yes, I don't like that one either, Fallon. I think that's a good one. So if you do see that being used by people that you're following, have your antenna up and think about, what are these, who are they, they're trying to set themselves up against sleep training industry and what are they, what snake oil are they selling to replace whatever this sleep training industry is apparently selling.
Dr Fallon (07:53)
Mmm.
Another one that really gets me and I think this is still so prevalent, people really pushing for rigid age-based schedules. Just when I think maybe things are getting a little easier on parents, it just keeps coming back again. And I think that's why we have to do so much work around looking at baby and toddlers' unique sleep needs is that parents are still getting this message that
Dr Laura (08:14)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (08:22)
you know, your baby can only be awake a maximum of this amount of time, or they have to have this huge amount of day sleep. So often those rigid age-based schedules are
Dr Laura (08:31)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (08:34)
suggesting that your child has quite an absurd amount of sleep for their age, so drastically overestimating their sleep need. And then we're still just seeing all these parents who are saying, I know they have to have a two hour nap at exactly this time, but they refuse it. And they're tying themselves up in knots. And actually a lot of the parents who emailed in this week with questions mentioned that in the past, they had been trying to follow this age based schedule and was spending hours trying to settle a really cranky baby who just did not want to sleep.
Dr Laura (08:40)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (09:04)
so yeah, if you're seeing that kind of, you know, rigid schedule pushed or schedules where you think, my gosh, that sounds amazing. Like if it sounds a bit unrealistic, then probably is.
Dr Laura (09:18)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (09:18)
but I do think I like to think the best of people. think a lot of people who say these things, their hearts in the right place. They want to help parents. but there is that little grain of doubt in my mind where I sometimes think, are they trying to sell a dream? You know, come and spend money on my guide or my appointments or whatever it is, because I can make your baby do, you know, 16 hours of sleep every day. so maybe that's kind of creating a bit of false hope there.
Dr Laura (09:24)
Mmm
Yes.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. There's other posts that we see, which the posters will claim that they're evidence-based, but then they'll be encouraging sleep activities that are not evidence-based at all as well, Fallon, aren't there? for example, that really
encourage parents to start co-sleeping because that's the natural thing to do with very little babies or to say, it doesn't matter if your baby needs to feed eight times a night, that's okay, just suck it up. It doesn't matter if you also have a toddler and a primary school aged child and you're working full time. you just you have to feed them any number of feeds overnight.
Dr Fallon (10:34)
Yes.
Dr Laura (10:39)
is okay. So those type of posts that really undermine the parents want and need to instill some sleep health in their baby or toddler's sleep. They just tend to have that little sprinkling of guilt on the top that if you don't want to go sleep or you
Dr Fallon (10:58)
Mmm.
Mmm.
Dr Laura (11:06)
don't want to be up multiple times a night feeding, that's not evidence-based and you're doing something wrong. That's why I really dislike those type of posts.
Dr Fallon (11:15)
Hmm. Yes. And it's the pairing of evidence-based with just random nonsense. that's what really gets me. Anyone can say, I'm evidence-based. And then I think a lot of parents go, good. Yeah, of course. I want advice that's based on evidence. And I think most parents know that means that it's based on data from thousands of families. It's solidly observed thing, you know, in a lot of families. but then.
Dr Laura (11:23)
Yes! Yes! So you can't tell!
Mm-hmm
Dr Fallon (11:44)
If in the next breath they're saying, you know, every parent should be co-sleeping and they're encouraging that. Well, there's a big mismatch there because the data on co-sleeping is pretty clear about the risks that it has. So, evidence-based? Are you really? Yeah. And we know that...
Dr Laura (11:57)
Yes. Yeah, that's right. And the evidence shows that the children who co-sleep don't have better sleep than children who don't co-sleep as well. if that you're seeing is and they don't have better attachment either. Yes. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (12:09)
Yeah. And don't have better attachment. And that's the other thing parents ask me all the time. Yeah. Like if I stop co-sleeping, or they'll frame it the other way, they'll say, should I start co-sleeping? Because I do want the benefits of a better attachment with my child. And I'm like, no, that's not a thing. I don't know who told you that, but babies have the same great attachment generally with their parents, no matter where they sleep or how they're settled. yeah.
Dr Laura (12:26)
No, it's-
Dr Fallon (12:37)
Yeah, it's a really big one, isn't it? The other thing that's still rattling around everywhere is this idea of regressions and leaps and that they are time locked and happen at particular times. The only one I'm willing to have some wiggle room with, I suppose, is the four month regression that happens. Like we know at four months sleep often becomes really tricky for a bunch of different reasons. But generally, aside from that, there's no other particular time where your baby is likely to have
Dr Laura (12:39)
Mmm.
Mm.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (13:05)
poor sleep. It's just, yeah. And the whole idea around leaps, I often say to parents, it was based on a small study. It was at 11 or 12 babies they looked at and no one's ever been able to replicate their findings again. So there is no set time where sleep plummets for all babies at certain ages. What we know is that sleep goes up and down a little bit for every single baby at any old time they feel like it. So, yeah.
Dr Laura (13:07)
No.
Yes.
Yes!
Yes, that's right. And we had a whole episode on that, didn't we, Fallon, about how those things are not real things. And I revisited one of the... Sorry, you go.
Dr Fallon (13:37)
Mmm.
But it's...
I was just going to say it's sort of packaged up to parents as like this solution, isn't it? Like, come and learn all about these regressions and leaps, and then you'll know what to expect. And of course every parent wants to know what to expect. And there will be some little hiccup with sleep at around about the time at, you know, some apparent leap or regression is supposed to happen. so parents kind of go, well, it must be, must be because of this. but yeah, it's just another way to separate parents from cash.
Dr Laura (14:07)
Yeah, and it's not at all. And yes, that's right. And we know that, know, Jodie Mindell did the study where she looked at sleep across the first, I can't remember if it was a year or two, and with thousands of families who had to log their child's sleep. And if you ask any parent at any particular age, whether they were experiencing difficulties with their baby's sleep.
It was the same proportion every single month across the first year or two of life that were having sleep difficulties. So it's not that there was a big peak at four months and a big peak at eight months and a big peak at 12 months. No, actually it's just exactly the same. Any one month of age that your child is, there is the same chance that they're going to have a sleep difficulty at that point than at any other point.
Dr Fallon (14:37)
Mmm.
Mmm.
Yes. So hold on to your pennies. Don't, don't go investing in all of that idea because it's unlikely to actually be helpful. the other big one, which everyone will be like, yeah, she never stops talking about this, but he's that damn over tiredness. just constantly having this conversation with so many parents.
Dr Laura (15:03)
Yeah. Yeah, hold on to your pennies. Yeah.
Ugh... God.
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (15:28)
So if they're under 12 weeks of age, they're not producing their own sleep hormones yet. They can get very tired and overwrought and be harder to settle. Not gonna negotiate with that. Like that happens, we know it happens and that's fine. But after 12 weeks of age, you don't have to worry so much about overtiredness because they do create sleep hormones and the longer they're awake, the more those build up.
The other thing, this is something I do hear from some reputable sleep people. They'll still talk about how if your baby's getting over tired, their nights could be more fragmented and have more wakes. But show me the data. Just show me that. I just want to see the data. How did you measure over tiredness? It's not actually a, you're often with concepts in psychology or sleep. There are parameters around, you know, this is how we would.
Dr Laura (16:04)
Mm.
Dr Fallon (16:17)
classify something like colic, for example, they set criteria to classify it and define it. There's no way of defining overtiredness, which means it's been pretty much impossible to study. And yeah, but we just keep seeing the same information cycled through over and over again. So if there's a lot of emphasis on, you're eight month old, who's waking four times must be overtired, give them more day sleep, big alarm bells, because that's not how sleep works. It's everywhere though.
Dr Laura (16:20)
Mm-hmm
Mmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. No, that's right. Or you're you're eight month old who is taking 45 minutes to an hour to go to sleep, then move their bedtime earlier to 530, for example. It never ends well, never ends well. So if you are seeing advice like that, put your baby to bed at half five or five.
Dr Fallon (16:56)
Hehehehehe
Yeah.
Dr Laura (17:09)
because they're overtired and they need more sleep at night, then just be thinking, that probably isn't the true story. If you have a baby that has a 16 or 17 hour sleep need, they may well need to have a really early bedtime because they have to fit all of that sleep in across the 24 hour period. So they are going to need to go to bed early. But if you have a baby that is sleeping the average amount,
Dr Fallon (17:10)
Hmm
Yeah.
Hmm.
Dr Laura (17:38)
for their age or below average, then those super early bedtimes, very unlikely to resolve overnight wakes. And the overnight wakes are very unlikely to be due to overtiredness. And I think that's a wonderful point that you raised there, Fallon, for parents to hear that when we are measuring things in psychological science, we do need parameters, clear definitions and criteria so that we can measure them.
And that does not exist for overtiredness. So therefore it cannot at the moment be measured in any objective way.
Dr Fallon (18:15)
Mm. Yeah, exactly. And look, the other thing that really I just find massively triggering, it really makes me cross, is that there are people suggesting that trying to change how or where your baby settles for sleep is going to cause some sort of neurodevelopmental harm. And there are some shockingly horrible articles on the internet claiming that
Dr Laura (18:36)
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (18:42)
Diagnoses of autism, ADHD, other forms of neurodiversity are due to parents not responding enough to their babies or due to parents trying to improve their baby's sleep. There is no evidence for that whatsoever. It's revolting. It makes me so furious.
Dr Laura (18:55)
Yeah.
Mm.
Dr Fallon (19:06)
it really drives me crazy. there's just no evidence for that at all. It's so irresponsible. So if you're seeing people saying that it's going to be damaging or potentially cause, issues, it's just, yeah, it's horrible. I think that's a really clear red flag. that yeah, unfollow definitely. and I think that ties in neatly to the final red flag to look out for, which is where
Dr Laura (19:06)
Yeah.
Yeah, unfollow. Unfollow. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (19:34)
If somebody's claiming that they're all about the sleep science and looking at the data and you know, this is what science actually tells us about baby sleep, but they are disregarding the data from over 30,000 babies in favor of a handful of theoretical papers, which means it's just somebody with some ideas and they could be a professor, but they are just talking about their own ideas on a topic. I mean,
papers that contain actual data that much more informative and valid than those that are just full of theories and thoughts, no matter how qualified that person is offering those theories and thoughts, if they don't have data to back up what they're saying, then what they're saying should not be influencing practice. So there is data from over 30,000 babies and a total of, think it's about 75 studies showing that when you,
Dr Laura (20:14)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Dr Fallon (20:30)
sleep train and I use that term really loosely because it means any approach to try and improve your baby's If you're trying to improve your baby's sleep 30,000 babies have been studied showing that it's safe. There are so many different ways to do it and yeah overall they're safe and effective. So anybody who is refusing to talk about this huge amount of really high quality data in favor of theoretical papers
such a massive red flag. Why are they scared of the actual data? Why won't they talk about it? It's, you know, pretty big elephant in the room that they're just choosing to ignore. And I think that's really irresponsible. Yeah. so yes, there's some red flags. I think to just really briefly recap, you're going to be looking out for people talking about the sleep training industry. You're going to be looking out for people who are suggesting really rigid age-based schedules.
Dr Laura (21:01)
you
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (21:25)
You're to be looking out for people saying they're evidence-based, but then suggesting things that clearly are not grounded in evidence. Regressions and leaps, chuck those in the bin. People who are putting a lot of emphasis on overtiredness in babies over 12 weeks of age. Those who are talking about neurodevelopmental harm being caused by changing how your baby sleeps. And those that don't talk about the actual data. That's like seven things. You're all going to be very busy.
Dr Laura (21:34)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (21:54)
But get out there and if, you know, like the parent who emailed us in, said, I've unfollowed all these accounts and I've never felt better. that's awesome. If you're just being confused and feeling really conflicted, go and unfollow accounts that just don't seem to be, you know, in your best interests. think that's just a really sensible thing to do.
Dr Laura (22:02)
Yeah.
Yeah, definitely. And we know that parents are out there looking for good quality information to follow because anyone who's listening to our podcast and as some Bell members are parents who want to do the best for their children. Almost all parents do want to do the best for their children. And it's really awesome that we can now use social media to get all this information that previously was gate key, gate kept.
You just couldn't get this information easily, now you can, but it does mean that you are also then just being buffeted by a lot of misinformation out there. So hope this really helps you work out where is, how to sift the wheat from the chaff when you're looking for sleep information out there, because we know there is some awesome information out there. We follow some really wonderful people.
Dr Fallon (22:43)
Mm.
Mmm.
Mmm.
Dr Laura (23:11)
who are doing great work. So we don't want to stop that. We don't want parents to stop looking for help. We're all about parents seeking help, being proactive to improve things for themselves and their little ones. And this will just help you do that in a safer way, we hope.
Dr Fallon (23:11)
Mmm.
Yeah, absolutely. And when we post about this podcast episode on social media, we will tag a few of our favorite sleep accounts, the ones that we really trust. if you're following them, you're not going to get dodgy advice. and we're always monitoring them too. Just to say, we're always watching what they're posting. Like, Hmm, do we agree with that? But, yeah, no, there are definitely some out there that are doing a really good job. All right. Well, we've got a few parent questions to get through. Do you want to read out the first one, Laura?
Dr Laura (23:39)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Bye.
Yeah.
Yeah, awesome.
Hmm.
Yeah, so we have our first question is from Shanna and Shanna has a five month old whose sleep has worsened since the dreaded four month mark. He's being held and rocked to sleep, falls asleep easily in Shanna's arms and is then transferred to his cot where he wakes up to every sleep cycle expecting to be rocked back to sleep again. Shanna, that's rough. Shanna and her husband are using the slow fade approach and they're working on step one, adding in new sleep associations.
Dr Fallon (24:08)
Ugh.
Dr Laura (24:29)
They've made several unsuccessful attempts to move to step two and begin settling him in his cot, but these attempts haven't worked out. One recent try took an hour and a half for him to fall asleep in his cot. gosh, that's a long time. Shanna would like to know how long they should try to settle him in the cot if his new sleep associations aren't working. What do you reckon, Fallon?
Dr Fallon (24:54)
Mmm. There's a couple of things that pop into my head. An hour and a half to fall asleep, even with constant hands-on support.
I mean, it's okay. Sometimes settles are just going to be rough at first. But it does make me go, it's a fairly long time. Make sure you've addressed their daily rhythm and that you're only putting them down when sleep pressure is high enough. So often in the clinic we'll say to families, work on your new daily rhythm for at least three or four days so that you really know you've got them in a groove and you're only settling them when they're very, very tired and ready for it. So definitely address that.
Dr Laura (25:25)
Mm.
Dr Fallon (25:28)
And then once you commit to making that change, to just settling in the cot with all that hands-on support that you're doing Shanna, I would absolutely stick to it so that your baby can learn more easily that this is just where I fall asleep now. You know that they're okay because you're right there with them giving them literally constant, constant reassurance. So you know your baby's not feeling frightened or worried or anything like that.
Dr Laura (25:39)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (25:54)
They're just mad as hell. They're like, what are you doing? This is not how I want to fall asleep. And it's really tough. I really acknowledge that as a parent, it's a tough thing to go through, but chances are at that age, it might be, you know, if sleep pressure is pretty good, it might be two or three tricky settles and then it will start to come together really quickly and your baby would have adjusted. So yeah, I would definitely.
Dr Laura (26:12)
Mm-hmm.
Dr Fallon (26:19)
just be really ready to dive in and just stick to it. Cause at that age they so often do it just quickly.
Dr Laura (26:24)
Yeah, absolutely. And Shanna, you've chosen the most gradual approach. So even step two is still very, very hands on. So once you have made that change to step two, really just stick to step two. Don't go back to step one. You've made that decision. You've done the groundwork. You've been working on slow fade for a while. It's OK. It's all right to go on to step two.
Dr Fallon (26:41)
Mmm.
Mm. Yeah. And if it's a really long saddle, you can see in the steps for that approach, you can take some breaks along the way as well. Do a little reset and then keep going. Mm.
Dr Laura (27:00)
Yeah.
Shanna also asks, she wants some more information about how to manage unswaddling her baby. This is actually covered in the Sommbell lesson, weaning off the swaddle and that's in the sleep environment chapter, Shanna. So have a read through that because that gives you step-by-step guide for how to do that and some hints and tips to help your baby get used to that more easily.
Dr Fallon (27:28)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (27:31)
can be a bit rough, not gonna lie. But at five months old, I suspect the reason you're asking is your baby perhaps has started to roll and therefore it's a safety issue and it does need to be done. So grit your teeth and just know you're doing the right thing that's safe for your baby, Shanna.
Dr Fallon (27:48)
Yeah.
Yeah, it's a tough phase, but we all get through it eventually. Naomi wrote in, she has a one year old who has dropped down to just one nap of around two hours duration. Naomi says she tries to push the nap later in the morning because he was getting very tired by bedtime if it was any earlier. But sometimes he's needed a 15 minute power nap just to get him through to bedtime.
Dr Laura (27:55)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Dr Fallon (28:19)
because he continues to wake at 5 to 5 30 a.m. and a couple of times even 4 a.m. Okay, so if he starts the day early, yeah, he's struggling to get through to bedtime the next night. Naomi says he currently wakes a lot overnight between 10 p.m. and 1 a.m. almost every 20 minutes. Naomi suspects this is a self-settling issue because he is padded to sleep and he's caught.
Dr Laura (28:28)
Yes.
Dr Fallon (28:43)
However, when she's tried to reduce the padding, he becomes even more wide awake and thinks it's time to start the day. it's exhausting.
Dr Laura (28:50)
God, Naomi, that is exhausting. Look, I think you're on the money, Naomi. Your one-year-old likes to go to sleep with patting. He's doing his nice long stretch of deep sleep at the start of the night. And then he's heading into the lighter phases of sleep in the second half of the night and is then finding it a little bit hard to link his sleep cycles and maintain his sleep.
without you coming back and patting him to sleep. So I would be looking through the settling approaches, picking which one suits you best and weaning off that patting so that he starts to be able to go to sleep at the start of the night without your hands on him, which means that then in the middle of the night when he comes up into light sleep as he's moving between those sleep cycles, he's more likely to go, okay, nothing's changed.
and go back to sleep without needing you to pat him again. Yeah, what would you add, Fallon?
Dr Fallon (29:54)
Hmm. Yeah. I would only add to look at the daily rhythm because I think there's something off with the timing and there's some pretty early wake ups there. it might be that his circadian rhythm thinks, yeah, sure. I can get up at 4 AM some days because I know I can have a power nap later. So it might be a case of just really avoiding that power nap even after an early wake up.
Dr Laura (30:04)
Mmm.
Mmm.
Dr Fallon (30:18)
We just want to teach you circadian rhythm that you can't get up that early because we're not playing catch up with an extra nap. And then it could even be that, I mean, it'll depend on sleep needs and, you know, definitely work through the unique sleep needs chapter, Naomi, but it might even be that we trim down that day nap to maybe an hour and a half and see if that helps him to have some better nights. And then that can sometimes make working on self settling that much easier as well.
Dr Laura (30:24)
Yes.
Mm, yeah, definitely good points.
Dr Fallon (30:47)
Yeah, we also had Katie email in. Do you want to read this one out Laura?
Dr Laura (30:52)
Yep, so Katie says, thanks to some Bell, my son has been sleeping through the night since he was five and a half months old. that's great, Katie. Well done. We went through some rough months prior to some Bell of five to six wakes per night, settling with breastfeeding back to sleep. His day naps were also all contact naps as he hated the cot and cried so much when I tried to put him in. Now his day naps are all in the cot.
Dr Fallon (31:01)
Excellent.
Dr Laura (31:20)
And all it takes is for me to hum on my way out of the room and close the door. I still wake up every morning in amazement of how it can be possible to be where we are today. Katie, that is wonderful. And I think that that will probably be really heartening for Naomi and Shanna to hear because they are hearing the words of somebody who's come out the other side.
Dr Fallon (31:31)
Hmm
Yeah
Dr Laura (31:46)
and who has been where Naomi and Katie are right now, finding it really hard to move on to consistent cot settling. But it does work guys and Katie is proof of that. Yeah, so on to Katie's question. So Katie says, the problem is now I feel like I'm going to spoil it all as we are going overseas for a holiday.
Dr Fallon (31:46)
Hmm
Yes, well done Katie.
Dr Laura (32:12)
For more than half of our three week trip, the accommodation we'll be staying in does not offer cots, so I will have to co-sleep with my baby, which I've never done before. My husband will be on a separate bed as we feel this will be the safest option. I have purchased a blow up guard which will be placed on the edge of the bed. I have no idea how effective it's going to be. I'm happy to do whatever I need to do whilst on holiday.
I imagine that I will not be able to sleep well knowing that I'm sharing the bed with my son. My biggest worry is that we will come home and all our progress will be lost. Do you have any tips for what I can do to avoid having my son fall in love with co-sleeping?
Dr Fallon (32:55)
It's such a good question. And I had this same fear a few years back now, traveling when my daughter was a toddler and had to troubleshoot this as well. I would say, Katie, probably the best way to ensure you get good sleep and that your baby gets good sleep as well, because your baby might find it very entertaining being in your bed and their sleep could also deteriorate.
Dr Laura (32:56)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (33:19)
I would be very tempted when you arrive at your destination to purchase a portico. I know it like a lot of people don't go overseas with their portico because it's bulky and annoying. but I ended up doing that. I bought a cheap portico, a safe one, and just use that as I needed to. And then I dropped it at an op shop type place, before we flew out and it just meant everybody slept well. We all had the best holiday.
Dr Laura (33:30)
Mm.
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (33:46)
And it was just, I don't know, it was probably like $45, $50 or something. I think we're in America or something. And for me, that was just worth spending that money and protecting everyone's sleep. And then I didn't have that stress of like having a toddler who suddenly loves go sleeping when we get back home again. So that's definitely an option. Is there anything you'd add to that, Laura?
Dr Laura (33:49)
Hmm.
Hmm.
Yeah.
Only that in some places that I know when I went to Bali when mine were babies, there was a place that you could hire baby equipment from. So depending on where you're going, Katie, if it is a tourist destination, there are probably some kind of baby hire places. So do consider hiring a portico. I'll just be a little bit wary about that blow up guard from a safety point of view. And without having seen it.
Dr Fallon (34:17)
yeah.
Mmm.
Dr Laura (34:37)
and we're not experts in sleep props, but I would just be careful that it doesn't deflate in any way during the night and make a space for your baby to then roll down between the guard and the bed. So just make sure that you feel confident. And if you don't feel confident using it, then it would actually probably be safe and not to use a guard because of suffocation risks involved with that.
Dr Fallon (34:56)
Hmm.
Mmm.
Yeah, and you could check out the Red Nose site has a guide on how to make co-sleeping as safe as possible. We can't entirely remove risk, but there are a few things they suggest doing to reduce the risk. But have a great holiday. Try not to stress too much. So often these things actually all work out okay. Worst case scenario, if you come home with a co-sleeper.
Dr Laura (35:21)
Mm. Yeah. Yes.
Yes.
Dr Fallon (35:32)
you can dive back into Sombelle and you know that your child responds really well. You've already done it before. So you will get back on track again.
Dr Laura (35:38)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (35:43)
Good, all right, we've got a question from Gracie. Gracie says, our four month old has started waking up 40 to 60 minutes after being put down for the night in his bassinet. I feed him to sleep. She says, I tried the slow fade approach, but realized we are not yet ready to face the screaming that not feeding to sleep involved. So.
Dr Laura (35:44)
All right.
Mm-hmm.
Dr Fallon (36:07)
Gracie feeds him to sleep and then transfers him to the bassinet at about 7 45 p.m. In the past he would then usually sleep until about midnight. I heard a similar question asked on another podcast episode and apparently we thought it was probably a sleep pressure issue. So we suggested stretching out the time as much as possible before going to bed.
Dr Laura (36:30)
Mm-hmm.
Dr Fallon (36:30)
And Gracie says it's made no difference changing from two hours to two and a half hours or sometimes even three hours a week before bed. She says his current rhythm is bedtime at 7.30 p.m. and getting up at around 7 to 7.30 a.m. So about a 12-hour window overnight and three naps during the day that are between 45 minutes to an hour and a half each with the last one usually ending between 4.30 and 5 p.m.
Dr Laura (36:48)
Mm-hmm.
Okay, so Gracie, you are in that one period of time where the Fallon was mentioning earlier that the one regression that we might give some heat to, we don't use the word regression, yeah, is that four? Yeah. So regression, not regression, but the one rough age where things can change is around that four month mark. And that's
Dr Fallon (37:11)
I still shudder at that word. Shiva goes down my back.
Dr Laura (37:25)
because the circadian rhythm system is maturing. It's coming online. When babies are born, they are born with their sleep pressure system, but not with the mature circadian rhythm system. That doesn't really mature until after the 12 weeks of age, and then it strengthens, and then babies begin to be much more alert and aware of their surroundings. And that's why we start to see for babies who like Gracie's
baby used to be able to be fed to sleep and then would maintain their sleep all night because they don't care one way or the other what happens. They can go to sleep in one place, they wake up somewhere else and it doesn't bother them at all. But once all these changes happen at around four months, that is when we can start to find that babies become more wakeful. So I would probably, Gracie, be looking at the range of cot settling.
that you previously felt were a bit too much in the past and perhaps you felt they were too much because there was no point doing it because he was sleeping all night anyway, or not all night, but doing big long stretches. So there wasn't really the impetus to do it. Now that's changed because his sleep is maturing and his preferences are changing and becoming very alive. And now there probably is the impetus to actually
Dr Fallon (38:42)
Hmm.
Dr Laura (38:47)
start to change how you settle him to sleep because you must be shattered, Gracie. He is waking up every sleep cycle all through the night. you know, you just have, even after one week of disturbed nights, even after one night of disturbed sleep, it has effects on your functioning and there it's just very well studied. So this potentially may carry on and on and on, Gracie. So I would be thinking.
Dr Fallon (38:52)
Mmm... Yes.
Hmm.
Dr Laura (39:16)
Do you know what, let's make some changes now because it's also impacting his ability to have long stretches of sleep. Every 40 minutes, if he's waking, that is a lot. And we want him to be having longer stretches than that at his age. So I'd probably be, don't be too shy about making that very last wake window closer to, you're mentioning you're changing it to two hours, between two and three hours.
Dr Fallon (39:29)
Yeah.
Hmm.
Dr Laura (39:46)
At four months old, don't be too shy, depending on what his sleep need is to do two and a half to three hours awake before bed. And then I'll be, once you've got that established, slightly longer awake time before bed, then definitely come in and work on that, changing the settling approach and just be brave. You're going to be okay. And you'll see some improvements. Anything that your dad, Fallon?
Dr Fallon (40:07)
Hmm.
You know, Laura, it's, it's made me think about an eighth red flag actually, because I know there's a lot of people out there. This is something I saw on Instagram as well, who are claiming that it doesn't matter how your baby falls asleep, that sleep associations aren't real. I mean, if you hear that, you need to unfollow, unfollow, like it's sleep associations. I can assure you are very, very real.
Dr Laura (40:18)
yeah.
red flag. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (40:40)
But yes, there are people saying that doesn't matter about sleep associations. If your baby's sleep pressure is high enough, they'll fall asleep. So the idea is that you can just keep engineering sleep pressure and not ever do work on independent settling and somehow have a baby who's sleeping through the night. That's not the case. I mean, there probably are a few rare babies where it might be, but...
vast majority need to both have high sleep pressure and also not be waking constantly startled like how on earth did I get back in my cot again? Because last thing I remember I was in mum or dad's arms. And that's very unsettling for a baby. They're starting to think, I don't know where I'm going to wake up. I don't know if I can trust that I'm still going to be in mum or dad's arms, you know, during the night. That's an unpleasant thing as well. So yes, we do definitely have to work on both of those in combination.
Dr Laura (41:12)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (41:30)
And the only thing I'd add in Gracie's situation is that at four months of age, babies adapt really, really quickly. So if you think you've got it in you to manage, like it might be one or two nights where there are some tricky settles, but then everything's great and your baby settles in their cot. Well, I would just go for it because it's easier to do it now than it is at eight months, 10 months, 12 months when they're crawling and walking. And yeah, it gets a bit more challenging then. So good luck, Gracie.
Dr Laura (41:54)
Yeah.
Definitely.
Dr Fallon (42:00)
Yeah. Let us know how you get on.
Dr Laura (42:01)
Yeah, let us know. Absolutely. Okay, we had an email from Sarah. Sarah has a five month old baby and she thinks her sleep needs have dropped as she started waking earlier and earlier each day. Sarah has a couple of questions about the daily rhythm. Her first question is, when I reassess her sleep needs, do I continue the old daily rhythm or do I let her sleep as long as she would go for naps and night sleeps and chart that as her new sleep need?
Dr Fallon (42:28)
Quick answer for this one. I would say no, keep doing what you're doing. Just keep things steady.
Dr Laura (42:33)
Yeah. And her second question is, find it challenging sticking to her nap times if we are out. I've been working on just having a daily nap budget and working with that to keep her overall sleep need at what I've charted it to be. Is that an appropriate way to manage a day out? And I'll just come and say, yes. Perfect. Perfect. You're doing well. Yeah. Yeah. Well done, Sarah.
Dr Fallon (42:50)
Yeah, it's perfect. Yeah. Yep. Love it. Yeah. And there'll be some parents who say, I wish I could do that, but my baby's really sensitive to the naps all being different and that's valid as well. But if it's working for you, keeping to that nap budget, I love it. Just, yeah, keep doing it. Good job, Sarah. Sophie wrote in with a couple of questions. She says, my daughter's eight months old, has night weaned and is usually sleeping through the night.
She's on two naps with an 11 and a half to 12 hour sleep need bedtime 7 45 PM and she wakes up around 6 AM and her nap goes for about an hour to an hour and a half, which Sophie will cap because otherwise she starts to wake very early. So it sounds awesome, Sophie. Well done. Sophie's first question is how does the daily rhythm change over the next two months on two naps? She has already shifted nap to back.
Dr Laura (43:33)
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (43:47)
So I think that means pushing, she's pushing up to quite late in the day, but nap one is pretty firmly at nine AM, which is making her last awake period almost shorter than the middle one. Okay. So I think Sophie's thinking about how we generally say the last wake window should be the longest. but that's just a should. It isn't always. What do you think, Laura?
Dr Laura (43:58)
Mmm.
Hmm.
Yeah, look, if it's working for you, Sophie, and it sounds like she's doing really well, then I wouldn't worry about it. You're listening to what is working for your daughter's body. And if that is working, then so be it. The only thing I would say if you're finding it's not working, and she is beginning to take longer to fall asleep at the start of the night, waking more overnight again, or starting the day early, then I'll be thinking about
looking to her first nap being the longer one, if that's not already the case, and the second nap being the short one. Because if we think about how sleep pressure builds throughout the day, that means that the edge isn't coming off as much with a shorter second nap as it does if you have a longer second nap. And then each day looking to perhaps just stretch her
it wouldn't even be each day, it might be every couple of days, two or three days, looking to push that first nap a little bit later. So it might be at five or 10 past nine, see if she can manage that for a few days and then push it when she's got used to that, then push it five or 10 minutes later, again. And as she gets a little bit older, she'll start to manage having a longer stretch of weight before she goes down for that first nap.
And then you're going to start to find as she gets closer to dropping down to one nap altogether, that she's actually going to be taking a bit longer to fall asleep for that first nap and it's going to be, she won't be going down for until closer to 10, for example, 10.30. And then it's going to be hard to fit that second nap in. And you'll then be going, okay, getting close to just moving to the one nap now. But just in summary, if it's working okay for you now, so if you don't worry about it.
Dr Fallon (45:52)
Mm. Yeah.
Dr Laura (45:57)
It's, you don't need to change anything that she's coping well with it. And those other things, the other options I spoke about are just if it's, is actually a problem.
Dr Fallon (45:59)
Yeah.
Yeah, good answer. Sophie also asks, with Christmas coming up and also extended family visiting from overseas, we will be wanting to go out around dinner time. What are some strategies to deal with bedtime? For example, we will celebrate Christmas Eve at my parents' house where we have a full setup with a cot.
Dr Laura (46:27)
Mm-hmm.
Dr Fallon (46:27)
Could we just put her to bed there and hope that we can transfer her to the car and home when we're done? And if we're out and need to drive home at bedtime, should we do the milk feed before or after the drive?
Dr Laura (46:38)
yeah, gosh. I wish there were some hard and fast rules, Sophie, about what the best things are. I think a lot of this comes down to what your baby's temperament is like and how sensitive or resilient your baby is around sleep time. So some babies that are just really quite resilient, cope really well being popped down to sleep at
Dr Fallon (46:44)
Hmm
Hmm.
Dr Laura (47:07)
the house that you are at where you're having dinner, and then will happily be transferred into the car seat and then transferred into their cot once they get back home. Others just absolutely hate it. Or they'll treat that initial part of the sleep that they had at Nan's house as a nap, and then want to be up when you get back home. So it's probably going to come down to
Dr Fallon (47:21)
Hehehehe
Yeah.
Dr Laura (47:33)
really what your baby is like. Yeah, you could probably do a couple of dry runs, maybe, Sophie, and get a sense of what's going to happen so it doesn't ruin your Christmas so that you know what exactly is going to work for your baby. Maybe have some dinners over at your parents' house and see how she goes with that transfer. And then you can determine whether it is something that is a good idea to do on Christmas Eve.
Dr Fallon (47:37)
Mm. Yeah.
You
Hmm.
Dr Laura (48:01)
or whether in fact it would make more sense for you all to sleep in the same place, all have a sleepover at Nan's on Christmas Eve and her Christmas morning there together, or whether you look to just try and have your Christmas Eve dinner a little bit earlier so that you can get home in time for bedtime in your own sleep space.
Dr Fallon (48:23)
Yeah and I wouldn't sweat it too much.
Like it's Christmas, it's a bit of a one-off. And if the night doesn't go too well, I just wouldn't be too worried about it, you know, throwing around the daily rhythm too much. And if you've got a baby who's a bit of a FOMO baby, they might be a bit more excited about staying up late and spending time with the grandparents and the aunts and uncles, rather than sleeping. And that's totally fine too. You know, she might be way stretched past her normal bedtime and I just wouldn't worry about it doing any harm. It happens to all babies sometimes. And I think we've just got to make sure we
Dr Laura (48:42)
Hehehehe, yeah.
Dr Fallon (48:56)
have an amazing fun Christmas time with family sometimes. yeah, so yeah, you can just go with the flow with that one. Sophie, if it feels just too challenging to try and plan something specifically, yeah, you could play it by ear on the day. Awesome.
Dr Laura (49:00)
Yeah.
Yeah. Awesome. Okay. We have one final question from Angela. Angela has a five month old who sleeps really well. His sleep needs have recently shown an increase from 14 hours to 16 hours. And Angela wonders why this is. He has three and a half to four hours of day sleep, either in the cot, pram or car. And every day the length changes for each nap, depending on what we have on. He's extremely happy and content baby. So
Angela just says she'd like to be reassured that this variability in nap length and also in the sleep needs is okay.
Dr Fallon (49:49)
Yeah, it's perfectly fine. I think, you know, if, if it's working well, it's working well. there will be some babies, like I said earlier, who are really sensitive to changes in nap lengths. but if you've got one of those, you already know it. so it sounds like, yeah, just, having a bit of a, you know, you've got a cap for the total day sleep and each nap varies a little bit. If that's not causing any problems, it's totally fine. It means you've got really good flexibility day to day.
In terms of sleep needs increasing, it's not something we see very often, but it's exactly why we always say that when you work out your baby's sleep needs or your toddler's sleep needs and you work on that daily rhythm, if everything's going beautifully with their nights, then you really should test out adding a little bit more sleep back into that schedule. You might add 30 minutes more sleep for a week. Are they managing it okay? Or are the nights all fallen over? Test it out because there are a few rare babies who will have an increase.
Dr Laura (50:37)
Mm.
Dr Fallon (50:47)
increase in their total sleep need. So we always want to be sure we're giving babies enough opportunity to sleep. So I can't really say why that's happened, Angela, but it's great that you've picked up that that's been the case and yeah, now you're able to cater for that 16 hour need. It's a little unusual for a five month old to have that much sleep. So it could just be that they're a real high sleep needs baby. And you might notice that all of a sudden it drops off over the next few weeks and that would be completely fine too.
Dr Laura (51:09)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (51:15)
And I always say, you know, if a baby's having a lot of sleep and has high sleep needs, we just want to be thinking about, you know, are they well? So working through that physiological factors that can impact sleep, working through that chapter could be a really good idea in case there is something affecting sleep quality that's making them extra sleepy. Yeah, so that would just be something to be across, but we suggest all members are very familiar with that physiological factors.
chapter in the Sombelle program so that you can be aware of some of those different things that can impact sleep. Excellent. Wow. It's been another action packed podcast. There's been lots of content really jammed into this one. But it's just awesome to be answering so many really thought, parent questions, really well thought out. And like with every week, know, these parents are just doing the best job. They're really thinking of
Dr Laura (51:44)
Mm.
Hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (52:11)
of covering every base and I absolutely love it. Hopefully learning a bit about some of those little signs, little red flags that we've noticed on social media will help you to filter out the content that's going to be unhelpful. But you know what, if you see something and you think it's a red flag that you personally look out for, let us know because we could talk about it in next week's episode as well. Because there's certainly more than just the few red flags that we've mentioned.
Dr Laura (52:14)
Yeah.
Mm.
Yes.
Dr Fallon (52:39)
So in closing, if you have been tuning in and you enjoy the podcast, please leave us a rating, write a review, give us five stars. If you're needing help with your child's sleep, come and join Sombelle We're running a ridiculous sale at the moment. I don't think it's ever been more affordable time to join. So if you're needing that support, it's a great time to do it. And we could be answering your questions on the podcast next week.
Dr Laura (52:57)
Mm-hmm.
Dr Fallon (53:05)
And we always post about our podcasts on social media and lots of other information about sleep. So go and give us a follow, like our posts. Yeah, we'll post some links to those sleep accounts that we really trust. Excellent. So have a great week, everybody. You'll hear from us again next week.
Dr Laura (53:24)
Thanks everyone, bye bye.
