Dr Fallon (00:37)
Your baby is happily playing, but then lets out a yawn. What do you do? Do you drop everything and sprint for the nursery, keen to settle them for sleep before they become overtired? Or do you wait longer to see if a collection of tired signs shows up? It might surprise you to learn that yawning isn't a reliable tired sign in little babies. It might also surprise you to learn that the haste with which you settle your baby after spotting a tired sign
very much depends on their age. If you're confused, you're not alone. In this week's episode, we deliver a masterclass in knowing exactly what tired signs to look for in your newborn, your baby or your toddler.
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. have PhDs and sleep practitioners and co-directors of Infant Sleep Australia. Laura, how are you going? I haven't seen you in a couple of weeks.
Dr Laura (01:56)
I know. my goodness. I felt so out of whack last week when we didn't start the week with a podcast. I am a creature of habit and routine. And I felt discombobulated the whole week long. How did you go? How are you getting on? Have you fully recovered from COVID?
Dr Fallon (01:59)
You
Yeah.
You
yeah, I'm fine now, but it just kind of went through the house and, I was just, didn't have, knew what day it was. So thank you to everyone who was very, very patient waiting for this episode and thanks for all your well wishes as well. gosh, yeah, COVID is just horrible. It's just absolutely horrible, but we all got through it. thankfully, yeah, all good.
Dr Laura (02:21)
Yeah.
Yeah, good. And you had a better weekend this weekend decorating the house, getting all ready for Christmas.
Dr Fallon (02:38)
Yes. Yes. Yes. my gosh. It's so fun. I love Christmas. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but I really love it. I love making it special for the kids. And yeah, last night we put up all of our Christmas lights on the front of our house, which we've never really done before, but the kids have wanted to for years and probably I've wanted to more than they have. And I finally was like, right, we're doing it this time. And it looks so magical. I love it. the kids are thrilled.
Dr Laura (02:58)
I
Yeah, the pictures look beautiful.
Dr Fallon (03:08)
Yeah. Yeah. And you've been putting up your tree as well with your kids.
Dr Laura (03:11)
Yes, yeah, we put it up yesterday, first of December. The kids are just wanting those decorations up, which is very different from what used to happen in my household when I was growing up. But I think we're going to save some of the Christmas talk around traditions until later on in December. But yes, just we had a really lovely time putting the tree up and playing some Christmas songs.
Dr Fallon (03:19)
Yep.
Dr Laura (03:35)
as we did so and yeah, it was really nice. So feeling as Christmassy as I possibly can being in Australia in the heat.
Dr Fallon (03:35)
Yeah.
No.
Yeah. I was laughing last night about like all the very snow themed decorations that we have. There's definitely not going to be any snow at all. but it does remind me though, we have a lot of listeners in places that do snow. I know we've got some Canadians who tune in, some people in the U S and definitely quite a few from the UK and there has been snow over there. So you've probably got all that beautiful magical feeling happening already.
Dr Laura (03:53)
No.
Mm-hmm.
Yes, yeah.
Dr Fallon (04:10)
I was looking at a light up reindeer yesterday in Aldi. was like, do I buy it? No, probably shouldn't. It's a lot of money. My daughter was like, why didn't you get it? Thinking like, yeah, it's Australia. Yeah.
Dr Laura (04:20)
You'll be asleep. You'll be asleep by the time it's dark enough and the lights are visible. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (04:26)
That's quite true. Yes. But so funny that in Australia we're putting out reindeer ornaments on the lawn. I don't know. It should be festive kangaroos or something.
Dr Laura (04:34)
my god, it's so funny. I'm always taking... I was up at my local Kmart shopping centre yesterday and I was taking photos of the koala and the koala in a Santa's hat and a Christmas tree that's got eucalyptus leaves on it. So like a eucalyptus tree shaped like a Christmas tree. And I was taking photos to send to my family and friends back in the UK going...
Dr Fallon (04:51)
You
Dr Laura (05:01)
Aussie Christmas, so funny.
Dr Fallon (05:03)
That's hilarious. Do you know, I once went all the way to Germany to have a white Christmas. I went to visit a friend and I was so excited. I was like, this is going to be like a real Christmas, but I got gastro. I spent the entire Christmas day lying in the dark in a dark room. couldn't stand the light as sick as a dog. I've missed all the Christmas celebrations, everything. So yeah.
Dr Laura (05:26)
that's no good. Well, I tell you what, one year, Fallon, we will do a trip to the UK and I'll throw a proper white Christmas. Well, I can't promise that we'd probably have to go to Scotland to be close to guaranteeing snow. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (05:31)
Yes,
look, I'm fine. Scotland's fine. Laura, no complaints from me. It's like my favorite place to be. it'd be magical. Wouldn't it? Anyway, I guess we better stop, stop daydreaming. I wanted to do a quick shout out. We sponsored the Ferroari race team in the energy breakthrough competition. So energy breakthrough is where, all the primary school, one, all of them, but a bunch of primary schools here in Victoria.
create a human powered vehicle that they've got a pedal and they race for nine hours or something like that. And for Team Ferroari, little Team Ferroari did so, so well. They ended up winning the presentation part of the competition, which is absolutely amazing. So well done. We were so thrilled to sponsor Team Ferroari. Such a cool name. Yeah, it is.
Dr Laura (06:05)
my goodness.
Yeah, well done to Ferroari. That's awesome.
Dr Fallon (06:23)
Well, I guess we dive into our little idea for this week's episode, which was to talk about tired signs. There's something that we see talked about a lot online all the time. And what's really interesting, I think with tired signs is that they do change quite a lot. So the tired signs you might look for in a newborn baby, they're not going to be the same tired signs you're going to see in an older baby or a toddler. And I think this can trip parents up sometimes like
Dr Laura (06:30)
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Mmm.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (06:52)
We were just talking about this before, weren't we? The old, the yawning one, it's just not a reliable, tired sign for a newborn. They can yawn for all sorts of reasons. whereas in an older baby, if they start yawning, you know, you might go, maybe they are tired. so it does so much depend on age. Do we want to just start by talking about what it look like in a newborn?
Dr Laura (06:59)
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Hmm.
Mmm.
Yeah, so in your newborns, what you tend to see is more kind of the movements go from being relatively smooth to much more jerky limb movements. And your baby might be unable to maintain eye contact with you. They might be like, I will often describe in the clinic, it's like your child is saying, get out of my face. Just looking away, they turn away.
Dr Fallon (07:30)
Hmm.
Yeah, yeah, they'll turn away and that long distance stay think what are you looking at? What's over there? That's so interesting. Yes.
Dr Laura (07:42)
Yes. Yeah. And your baby might become really grizzly And it's not until they get a bit older where you might start to see them rubbing their eyes and getting red eyebrows or pulling at their ears. So in the little babies, you're thinking jerky movements getting a bit grizzly, maybe the red eyebrows. And yeah, there may be a yawn in there.
Dr Fallon (07:58)
Hmm.
Dr Laura (08:07)
somewhere, but not necessarily. So don't be thinking that you need to wait for a yawn. Often it's the movement and the gazing off into the distance that's your sign that it's sleep time.
Dr Fallon (08:09)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Definitely. And with newborns, like really little babies, you often have a fleeting moment. Like they go, they wake up and they're sort of happy and well rested and that can last any length of time. It varies a lot baby to baby. But often when you start to see the jerky movements and that distance stare, you've got minutes before they end up just being overwrought, overtired.
Dr Laura (08:40)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (08:43)
really cranky, really hard to settle. So in a little baby like zero to eight weeks somewhere around that kind of mark, once you notice that jerkiness and the distance staring move quickly. So I would tend to say don't, you don't even have to wait for them to be grizzling because odds are they'll be grizzling within one or two minutes. So I remember, especially with my first born, he was very sensitive.
Dr Laura (08:54)
Yeah.
Mm.
Dr Fallon (09:04)
to this would notice the jerkiness and the staring in the distance. And we would hustle be like into that nursery, because we needed to, you know, put the sleeping bag on and change the nappy. And then if we put him down before he got to that really grizzly crying point, he'd drift off to sleep really easily. And that's the magic with newborn sleep is that if you can put them down in their cot right at that crucial moment, often they will just fall asleep in their cot. And if you keep practicing that, it's just...
Dr Laura (09:20)
Mm-hmm.
Dr Fallon (09:31)
you know, the place where they will always expect to sleep. But we wouldn't do that with older babies. We wouldn't want to kind of jump up and run for the nursery at the first tired sign. But a lot of parents do, they sort of, they keep doing what they did with their newborn thinking, well, this works. But there comes a point where so many parents we see in the clinic notice a tired sign and quickly put them down. And then they're like, they're not going to sleep or have to spend an hour patting them in their cot or
Dr Laura (09:33)
Hmm.
No.
No.
Dr Fallon (09:59)
and that's yeah, just simply there aren't enough tired signs. So that's kind of the point where we want to see, yeah, jerky movements and usually they're not wanting to look at you. They're doing the distance stare as well. Yeah. Lots of that face rubbing, you described Laura, but usually just grizzliness where you, where you're finding you can't distract them. If you try and change what you're doing, they might very briefly be interested. And then within seconds they're grizzling and grumbling again. yeah, I think so important to look for that collection so that you don't.
Dr Laura (10:02)
Yes.
Yes.
Dr Fallon (10:26)
collection of tired signs so that you don't end up constantly trying to settle them too early and then they're never building sleep pressure. I would say it's probably the driving force behind those babies who have really fragmented days and nights where you can't see a clear difference in the sleep diary between day and night because they're constantly having tiny little naps that just take the edge off that pressure without actually building up good enough pressure to do a few hours in a row.
Dr Laura (10:33)
Hmm.
Yes.
Yeah. And we know that as babies get older and they can tolerate having longer periods of time awake, that's because their sleep pressure starts to build a little bit more slowly. And when they were younger, also over three months of age, their circadian rhythm system is coming on board and they start to be producing their own sleep hormones and start to be, their sleep wake cycles start to be influenced by hormones too. So at that
Dr Fallon (11:02)
Hmm.
Dr Laura (11:21)
we are not needing to be as quick and go, there's one sleepy, tired sign, let's get them down before they become overwrought. We can then start to wait for a few of them to be evident before you then go, all right, now it's time to pop them down. And if you are finding that, you your baby's over three months of age and they just seem to still only be having really short...
time awake during the day, an hour, an hour and a half, and then they're only having these really short cat naps and perhaps up to five cat naps a day still at that age, then I would be really encouraging you to look to see if you can hold off before you pop your baby down for a nap until there's a collection of those tired signs know that your baby's going to be okay.
And there's a chance then that they will, after they've been awake for a little bit longer, they will then be able to sleep for a bit longer too, when you do put them down for the nap. And so that's often how we resolve catnapping for many babies.
Dr Fallon (12:27)
I think that's a really, really good tip, Laura.
And I think as well, if you're working towards a new daily rhythm, like if you've identified that you need to make some changes to the daily rhythm, you might temporarily not pay as much attention to tired signs as you might have previously. So if you know that, for example, your baby's way overdoing day sleep and their nights are terrible, so you're trying to trim back day sleep to improve the nights, you might go, okay, I can see a lot of tired signs. Normally I would put them down, but actually I'm working on this plan to stretch them out a little bit. I'm going to keep working on that. And that's
because I think it can be confusing if you're trying to work on a new daily rhythm and you're also looking for tired signs. Just know that you might actually have to ignore a few tired signs while you're working on that new daily rhythm. But once they adapt to that daily rhythm, if it's a good fit for them, you'll be seeing tired signs when they are due for a nap. Yeah. And of course, in really little babies, we wouldn't be trying to push them out and push a big new daily rhythm on them because they get...
Dr Laura (13:06)
Yes!
No.
Dr Fallon (13:24)
don't tend to do so well when we do let them get, you know, too many hours in a row awake. can just make settling much harder. So there's a definite shift in that first year. And I reckon it's really tricky for a lot of parents to navigate, but maybe the simplest rule I supposed to keep in mind is if you've got a very little baby, don't wait until they're cranky to put them down. Just look for those first few tired signs and run. Move, move, move.
Dr Laura (13:26)
No.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (13:48)
And if they're an older baby, you want to look for the grizzling, the grumpiness. so there's a collection of signs and then pop them down. but that all changes in toddler hood, doesn't it? They turn into these little toddlers and look, you'll see some similar types. Often they, you know, we'll do a bit of staring off into the distance. they might not so much become jerky in their movements, but become clumsy. so it is, isn't it?
Dr Laura (13:59)
yes.
Yes, that's a big one that they become clumsy.
Dr Fallon (14:16)
Yeah, lots of parents will say, they just start falling over their own feet all the time. Well, you know, normally they can cruise really well on furniture, but suddenly they're just stumbling and they can look like they're a little bit drunk or tipsy. Can't they? just, yeah. Yeah.
Dr Laura (14:19)
Yes.
Yes. Yeah. And then it also becomes very hard to distract them. So your toddler who will have greater attention span than they would have had as a baby, still not great because they're only toddlers. But you know, perhaps on a good run, they might be able to play with something for let's say 10, 15 minutes, even a bit longer. Once they are beginning to be tired.
Dr Fallon (14:34)
Mmm.
Mmm.
Dr Laura (14:51)
they're just not interested in that toy anymore. They're not interested in that book. If you try and sing them a song, every song is wrong. That's not the song they want. That's not the key they want. That's not the plate that they want, the cup that they want. They become really intolerant. But because they're so little, they don't yet understand how to manage those feelings in their body.
Dr Fallon (14:58)
Yeah.
Hehehehehe
Mmm.
Dr Laura (15:12)
And so they can lash out, not necessarily in a violent way, but they can just be, yeah, rather than the jerky movements, it's their behaviour that becomes a bit more unpredictable. And that's normally quite a good sign that they're getting ready to need to have a nap or go to bed at night.
Dr Fallon (15:24)
Mmm.
Yeah. And I think for toddlers, it's similar for babies in that there will be times when you're going to see tired signs, but you go, nah, we're going to ignore these ones. We're going to push through. And that's okay. Cause I think as parents, get told, no, no, tired signs. know, you've to get them to bed. You've got to get them to bed. But if you've got a toddler who's had a day nap, they're down to one nap and at 5.30 PM, they're showing tired signs. Don't put them down for another nap.
Dr Laura (15:57)
No.
Dr Fallon (15:58)
You're going to ignore those tired signs, keep them busy and distracted, get them as close to bedtime as you can. So keep that in mind. There's going to be times you might be dropping a nap or you might be mixing up the daily rhythm or maybe you just flew in from England and you you've got to completely rework the circadian rhythm. It's fine to ignore tired signs if it's part of a bigger plan to improve sleep. It's not going to do any harm. Yeah, I think that's really important to know because it can trip parents up.
Dr Laura (16:17)
Yeah.
No, that's right. Yeah, absolutely. just in summary, very little babies, we're really looking at just one or two tired signs and then running. You don't actually have to run, but just going quite quickly can be helpful to have the swaddle or sleep suit laid out, the room dark already so that when you take your baby in, everything is just set up nicely so that it's just nice, smooth transition to get them into the...
Dr Fallon (16:24)
Hmm.
Dr Laura (16:47)
or bassinet quickly. For older babies, we're looking for a handful of tired signs. So it could be eye rubbing, ear pulling, yawning, and not as easily distracted. But you wait until there's a few of them before you put your baby down. And then for toddlers, what we tend to see is that they get a little bit more irritable. Their behavior can be a little bit
more oppositional or challenging, and you just can't distract them with their toys or books or things that they ordinarily would like to be distracted by or entertained by. And when you see those signs, again, not like little babies, you don't have to run, but you're just going, right, sleep is soon to be happening. And then you start the wind down nap routine or the wind down for bed.
Dr Fallon (17:30)
Hmm.
Dr Laura (17:35)
But of course, like Fallon says, if it's you're trying a new daily rhythm, then you're really thinking about a week before that your baby or toddler gets used to that rhythm. And so then you don't have to be as strict about observing those tired signs because you are just helping your baby move into a new daily rhythm. And once after a week, they are used to it, then you can start to rely on those tired signs once again.
Dr Fallon (18:01)
Yeah, I think that's a great summary. All right, well, let's dive into some parent questions Laura, because boy, we have a lot this week. And I want to thank the parents who I could tell some of you did a really good job of really whittling down your questions into a few succinct questions, which is such a tremendous help for Laura and I. So thank you to those who did that.
Dr Laura (18:08)
Yes.
Dr Fallon (18:25)
and just keep in mind, if you're writing an email to us and you're like, holy heck, this is really going on. And I'm giving lots of detail. if you feel like you can't whittle it down, book a coaching call. Cause it's probably a big enough issue that we need to really, you know, look at everything altogether. so yeah, keep that in mind, going forward. but let's start with Olivia.
Okay, so Olivia says, have a nearly eight week old who will do two to three hour naps during the day, then at night can take an hour to resettle after feeding and burping for an hour. that's tiring. She seems to have about a 14 hour sleep need. I'm not following any real daily rhythm yet, but she goes down to sleep at around about 9pm. We'll typically do two solid blocks of sleep with a feed in between.
Dr Laura (18:55)
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (19:09)
And then Olivia says, I struggled to get her down again after 5.30 AM. She'll grunt and squirm and only really seems to be in that very light active sleep. She regularly falls asleep by the end of or during the feed and is refluxy. So I try to hold her upright for around 20 minutes after a feed, which I wonder if it's giving her lots of little power naps and reducing sleep pressure.
Olivia says, don't want to do anything too extreme. Understanding her circadian rhythm is still forming and I want to give lots of love and support, but I'm keen to hear any age appropriate ideas that would help her build longer stretches and give me just even just another hour of sleep at night. She says, I'm currently averaging just five hours sleep. Ouch. Olivia, that is really, really tough. So Olivia's specific questions are.
Dr Laura (19:55)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (19:59)
Are the long daytime naps affecting night's sleep by reducing sleep pressure?
Dr Laura (20:04)
Olivia, well done for joining Sombelle and for getting a good sense of how much sleep your baby is averaging at the moment. She's just eight weeks old, so really, really little. You are just still right slap bang in the middle of the newborn trenches. And it sounds like you're eight week old is actually doing really well at night. So she's doing two big chunks of sleep in the night.
and having those feeds, which is absolutely appropriate for her at eight weeks of age. So I think that you can be relatively confident that things are where they need to be at this point. It doesn't mean it's easy, it's very, very hard and only having five hours sleep on average for yourself is a really difficult.
place to be. What I'd be thinking about doing, or just actually not even thinking about changing, it's more, I'm interested in how you highlight the sleep behaviour from 5.30 in the morning. You're describing that your baby is grunting and squirming and is in very light sleep. That is still important sleep.
So I wouldn't be thinking, Olivia, that she's not able to resettle after 5.30. I think it sounds like she actually is going back to sleep. She's just really noisy. Yeah. And you had a really noisy sleeper, didn't you, Fallon? I think you said that one of yours, needed to move out of your bedroom relatively early. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (21:21)
Mm, she's just a very noisy sleeper. Yeah.
yeah. Yeah. I had to move them out early because I just was not getting good enough sleep. So it's definitely something to think about Olivia. It might be that you, you know, after five 30, you do that feed, you go and sleep on the couch just to get some sleep uninterrupted. Maybe if you have a partner, they can listen for the baby or you'll probably hear them if they, you know, if they need you, they're going to cry and you will hear that, but you won't hear all those little grumbly rustling sounds that babies make.
Dr Laura (21:44)
Yeah. Yeah.
Mmm.
No. So that said, in answer to your question, the long day naps affecting the night sleep. So I don't think that they are. I think the night sleep sounds great, but it's certainly something to keep an eye on. As your baby gets a little bit older, what we sometimes see is that babies start to have a day night confusion. And so if you find that your baby starts to have, let's say,
Dr Fallon (21:58)
Hmm.
Hmm.
Dr Laura (22:24)
three naps a day that are each three hours long and then starts waking up a lot overnight wanting lots of feed then they could be having day night confusion. And then at that point we would go, all right, well maybe actually what we need to look at is thinking perhaps the longest nap might be two hours, for example. And then you might wake your baby after a two hour stretch, for example.
Dr Fallon (22:34)
Hmm.
Dr Laura (22:49)
but you would only be doing that if the night time starts to fall over. What would you add to that Fallon?
Dr Fallon (22:53)
Mm. Yeah. No, I think that's really good advice and it feeds into Olivia's other two questions, which is, you know, is it okay to gently wake my baby after a couple of hours of daytime naps? And sort of she asks about how to best do it. And she also asks, is it just a case of giving her circadian rhythm time to sort of develop and then start to work on a daily rhythm? And I think you've kind of answered that in that, yeah, of course you can wake them up.
Dr Laura (23:05)
Hmm.
Mmm.
Dr Fallon (23:20)
turning on the lights, turning off white noise, unswaddling, you know, taking them for a little walk or great gentle ways to wake, wake them up. Yeah. Definitely giving them some light as well to tell their circadian rhythm, you know, nap times over. and then over the next few weeks, you will probably notice Olivia that your baby, yeah, the circadian rhythm does develop a bit. They're a bit more wakeful.
Dr Laura (23:27)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (23:41)
and that's when I would say when you're starting to build in a daily rhythm, step one is really looking at having the same bedtime and the same wake up time, work out what those are going to be and work towards that. And then you can start to go, okay, well, with that bedtime and wake up time, how much like sleep do we have left kind of in the budget for day naps? And it might not be that you have a really strict nap schedule because you probably won't need one. Most little babies don't.
Dr Laura (23:49)
Hmm.
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (24:05)
But it might be that you say, okay, well, if we've got three hours of day sleep, we can aim for, you just make sure you're not going to pass that three hour mark. If that's what your limit is. and you could split that across various naps. The naps might vary in length. It's not such a big deal, but you're just making sure they're not overdoing that day sleep. and that tends to be, I think a good step to just starting to get that daily rhythm a bit more predictable. And usually that does work well around that sort of from the 12, week mark onwards.
Dr Laura (24:13)
Yeah. Yeah.
Hmm.
Mm, yeah. So well done, Olivia. Let us know how you get on. It sounds like you're doing a really good job. And she's, she's doing well. Also the fact that you're needing to hold her upright for 20 minutes after a feed. There is a chance that she may be dozing off whilst you are doing that. At this age, that's absolutely fine. So it's more important that she's comfortable and isn't having any pain from the reflux by you putting her down too early.
Dr Fallon (24:34)
Mmm.
Hmm.
Dr Laura (25:00)
So, but I'd be thinking that she's probably is asleep for some of that time. So that might feed into your, no pun intended, but that might feed into your estimations of how much sleep your baby is having. So perhaps she actually has a slightly higher sleep need than you've estimated if you have counted that as a fully awake time when she's actually asleep on your shoulder. All right, so let's move on to the next question, Fallon.
Dr Fallon (25:21)
Hmm.
Dr Laura (25:26)
We've heard from Kirby who says that her 10 month old is going through a rough patch of sleep. Kirby says we did his sleep needs diary about eight weeks ago and he has a 12 to 12 and a half hour average sleep need. We haven't tried any of the methods yet and we mostly feed to sleep and to resettle, but this association seems to be getting stronger. Kirby says I'm not ready to wean and I'm finding that
difficult to approach. So her baby starts the night in his cot, but after two or so wakes, I tend to bring him into my bed. For the past three to four weeks, whenever he wakes up during the night or from a nap or even when ready to wake up in the morning, he sits up straight away. Sometimes this means that he's still super sleepy and he'll either fall over and hit his head on the cot bar or he'll just be sitting there crying as if he can't figure out how to lie back down.
gosh, Kirby, that's sad when you see that. So, Kirby says, I would say his sleep has worsened since this has been happening. Does this sound like a developmental thing or a red flag? He also has mild eczema that we are semi-controlling and tongue tie. I'm hoping for some guidance on the sitting up with every sleep cycle and what approach might work best for us.
Dr Fallon (26:24)
Mmm.
Okay, look, first of all, Kirby, you're doing a great job getting onto that eczema. You say it's semi controlled, we want it fully controlled. So keep going back to your GP until it's entirely under control because eczema can definitely contribute to excessive night waking. I think what's happening for Kirby's baby is that he as he gets older, he's becoming more and more startled to wake up and find he's not feeding anymore. It can be really unsettling and they can find it
Dr Laura (26:54)
Yeah.
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (27:14)
just really unpleasant. They fall asleep, they're feeding, it's lovely. And then the next second they're somehow back in their cot again, and it can feel really upsetting and really confusing. And I think that's what's happening. He's going, where am I? What's going on? And he's sitting up thinking, you know, where's mom? Yeah. And going straight to being very upset. That's really common for babies that are falling asleep, feeding, and they're in that sort of older age bracket of 10, 10 ish months. In terms of what to do.
Dr Laura (27:27)
Yeah.
Hmm.
Hmm. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (27:43)
I think it is such a personal decision working out when you feel ready to wean, when you feel ready to work on other settling methods. And I think Kirby, you have to weigh up what's, what's sort of most important to you at this point. You know, you could keep going as you're going, but I would say he's just going to keep waking up and being really upset because it's a bit like if you, every time you fell asleep, your partner took the pillow out from under your head. I know, always makes me laugh thinking of this, but
you would wake up after every sleep cycle and you'd be really pissed off that gone and removed it again. You'd have a terrible night's sleep and you'd be really annoyed at the person who kept doing it. and that's kind of the experience for Kirby's baby because they're, waking up and going, damn it. know, how did this happen again? And they're cranky about it. Yeah. So it's kind of unpleasant. so I think have a think about, know, what, what your goals are. And if you think, okay, we're ready to work on some independent settling.
Dr Laura (28:15)
Yeah
Again! Yeah
Dr Fallon (28:37)
And you know, you're thinking how am I going to manage it because he sits up all the time. Generally, it's easy to manage that you would go over to him, you would lay him down and then do the approach you're using. So if you're going to give him hands on support, you know, to pat him all the way back to sleep, you'd start to do that. If he rolls out from under your hand and pulls himself up or sits up. Generally, I say to parents, look, try and wait, maybe it's a minute. You just keep patting wherever he was, keep patting there.
So you're showing him that when he rolls out from under your hand, like it's not fun, nothing different really happens. He's thinking, maybe if I roll out from under her hand, she'll pick me up or something, you know, I'll get a feed or something like that. so you just need to keep padding for a minute, lay him back down, keep padding and just keep going with that over and over again. And he'll start to realize there's no point in, sitting up. I actually get more comfort from mom when I'm just lying down and I've got this constant padding. If that was the approach you're going with.
Dr Laura (29:06)
Hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Dr Fallon (29:29)
If you decide to do more of a approach where you're just doing brief intervals where you just go to him and reassure him maybe every minute or something like that, you would lay him down once at the end of each of those intervals and give you comfort, wait the next short interval. So there's lots of different ways you can do it. excuse me, in the Sombelle Materials, we do talk about what to do if they're sitting or standing. So you could have a good read through that.
Dr Laura (29:29)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (29:53)
Yeah, it sounds like you're in a really tough position, Kirby. Sometimes for parents, they don't want to stop feeding to sleep yet, but it's what their baby needs to get good quality sleep. And it's hard when there's a real mismatch there. you might not be feeling ready for it, but it might be at a point where you go, okay, I want him to have better quality sleep and I need better quality sleep. So I might not be feeling ready for this, but it's something I've got to give some thought to, just for the sake of your wellbeing and for his as well.
Dr Laura (30:06)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, the only thing I would add there, Fallon, is that, and I know this may be a terminology thing, but Kirby says she's not ready to wean. You don't have to stop breastfeeding in order to do cot settling. You can continue to breastfeed and you can feed overnight if you choose to at this age. It's just the feeding to sleep association that would be changing, that would be, yeah.
Dr Fallon (30:22)
Mm.
Good point.
Dr Laura (30:46)
So you, there's at 10 months of age, there's of course you don't, your baby still needs milk, whether it's breast milk or formula. So yeah, carry on giving him the feeds that he needs. Of course you're not ready to, he's not ready to be weaned either, he's only 10 months old. So you're looking to just change how he associates going to sleep.
Dr Fallon (31:07)
And you're talking about night weaning there. Cause I just want to make that clear because yeah, there'll be some parents going, I'm not supposed to stop night feeds yet. But yeah, you can stop night feeds at 10 months of age if you're ready.
Dr Laura (31:09)
Night weaning.
Yes, you can stop night feeds if you were ready. You don't have to, but you can stop. then of course, you would continue to breastfeed during the day, but you wouldn't necessarily be feeding him to sleep for the naps. It would be giving him a breastfeed when he wakes up from his naps. So that you so you're not weaning him off the breastfeeding, you're just stopping the feed to sleep association when you're ready to do so.
Dr Fallon (31:21)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yep.
Yeah. And I think it's, it's good to talk about this because a lot of parents feel like, if I want them to sleep better at night, I have to stop feeding them overnight, but I don't want to do that yet. There are so many families we work with who have toddlers even, and they feed once or maybe twice overnight. The parents are happy to do it. But after they've had their feed, they're putting them back down awake and then doing whatever they're doing to get them back to sleep. And it means that they're not getting that startle. They're not going through a sleep cycle and then going, did the feed go? It's disappeared. They're like,
Dr Laura (32:02)
Yeah.
Yes.
Dr Fallon (32:06)
No, I fell asleep in my cot. I'm still in my cot. You know, they do that systems check, everything's normal. And then they go back to sleep. So you're not getting that constant wake up and startle. Excellent. All right. Well, let's move on to Monica. me. Monica has a couple of questions about dropping night feeds. it's probably good driving then isn't it? Monica says, my daughter is 14 weeks old and currently has two feeds overnight.
Dr Laura (32:09)
Yes.
Mmm.
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (32:34)
Okay, so two feeds overnight at 14 weeks is actually pretty standard. She says, my husband gives her a dream feed at 10.30 PM, which she almost always stays asleep through. And then she wakes to feed again sometime between 2.30 and 4.30 when Monica feeds her. Monica's really keen to get this down to just one feed overnight. Okay, I think this is really important to look at because parents have really different priorities. So some parents would be like,
Dr Laura (32:38)
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (33:00)
loving two night feeds awesome. And others are just like, nah, let's get this to the minimum. And I'm a hundred percent behind whatever a parent wants. but yeah, it's great. Monica's wanting to keep one feed, which is very reasonable for a 14 week old. so Monica's first question is around, is it appropriate for a baby this age to drop to just one overnight feed when weight gain is on track? and she also wants to know which feed is the best one to drop.
Dr Laura (33:04)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (33:24)
In Sombelle we tend to say drop the feed earlier in the night, but is that still the case when it's a dream feed? Or is it better to drop the early morning feed so that Monica's getting more sleep through the night? Love that you're protecting your sleep Monica. Such a good idea. And Monica also just wanted to know about the dream feed. Is it disrupting her deep sleep? What do reckon Laura?
Dr Laura (33:37)
Mmm.
So first of all, like you've already said, Fallon, 14 weeks of age, it's absolutely appropriate for your baby to be having the two feeds overnight. So it's, she's not feeding excessively. Now that said, her weight gain is on track. If you would like to have a go and see if she could get by on one feed a night, then absolutely give it a go.
She will soon tell you if she's hungry overnight because hungry babies do not sleep. we can... No, they will not let up. No, that's right. If she is hungry, she will let you know and she will not be able to be resettled. So just keep that in mind when we now talk about how you might do it because if it isn't appropriate for her to go down to one feed a night for her development, she will not be able to do it. And then you will need to go now is not the right time.
Dr Fallon (34:14)
Yeah. Yep. And they don't let up with their crying. They're not going to stop. Yeah.
Hmm.
Dr Laura (34:40)
so, the question about which feed to drop. Yeah. Really interesting. So we do, if we think about the science overnight, what we're thinking about is a sleep pressure builds all through the day and then it is relieved overnight. and so therefore it's much higher earlier on in the night, which is why we tend to say when you're dropping a feed drop.
a feed earlier on in the night because the sleep pressure is likely to be high enough for your baby to be able to be resettled without relying on that feed. And then that's why you keep a feed, then you would give the feed, we normally say after midnight or 1am when you switch to one feed overnight, because at that point, the sleep pressure is getting a little bit lower, you give the feed and then it's normally enough to tide over appetite until morning time.
So now, so that's the general thought around that dropping the feeds overnight. But when it comes to having a dream feed, that does throw a little bit of a spanner in the works. So you're looking like you want to jump in. Have you got an answer to this, Fallon?
Dr Fallon (35:30)
Hmm.
I'm just waiting to hear what Laura's inner feminist says. I keep thinking, no, husband's doing one of the feeds and he doesn't get to go to bed early. You know, this poor mom's tired and I just think, you know, you've got to protect your sleep Monica. You carried a baby for months and you've been looking after them for months now. can hubby just do a feed later in the night, you know, and then you just don't have that feed. That's totally reasonable. think.
Dr Laura (35:56)
Yes.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (36:12)
The reason, yeah, the feminist in me is jumping in is because I just constantly see in so many families, it's just assumed that if there's a feed left that mum will do it. And mums just keep taking on more of those night feeds, but there's no reason why you couldn't drop to one feed, Monica, but have your husband do that one feed, even if it is at 4am or whatever time it is. that is an option. And I think parents forget that that is an option. So I just want to jump in and say that because.
Dr Laura (36:34)
Mmm.
Yes.
Dr Fallon (36:41)
Your sleep's valuable. And if your husband can cope with doing a feed, even if he can't, like women do it all the time. Sometimes we can't cope with doing one night feed. it could be night on night off for each of you even. but just make sure it's fair and equal. And yeah, anyway, that's my little, that's my little rant.
Dr Laura (36:42)
Yeah.
No.
Yes.
Yeah. No, and I think that's, I think that's a really good thing to say, Fallon, because I think it is something that's easily missed. And actually, it's something that I was going to miss in this response too, because we are so programmed to be the givers all the time as mums. So one thing you could look at doing is perhaps your husband sees if he can stay up later and does a feed around 11.30 or 12 o'clock.
Dr Fallon (37:07)
Hehehehehe
Yeah.
Dr Laura (37:25)
and tries to give it to her as a dream feed. and see then if she makes it through until morning. And just in answer your question, is it disrupting her sleep? No, it wouldn't be disrupting her sleep. So don't worry about that. So yeah, I would give it a go. Like I said, she will tell you if your partner can
Dr Fallon (37:25)
Mmm.
Yeah and then see if she makes it through till morning.
Nah.
Hmm.
Yeah.
Dr Laura (37:50)
last until maybe half 11 midnight before he gives her the dream feed. And then she wakes up around four or five. You could try to resettle her using one of the settling approaches that we describe in Sombelle, give it maybe half an hour. But if she doesn't go back to sleep, the time is not right, then give her a feed. And then
Dr Fallon (38:01)
Yeah.
Mm.
Dr Laura (38:13)
that should get her through until morning and just keep trying and she's quickly going to show you if she's not ready.
Dr Fallon (38:21)
I think that's such good advice. And I know, look, there'll be some people listening, you'd be furious that we've been talking about reducing feeds in a baby this young. But the reason why we're saying it's okay to try is because some babies drop all of their night feeds, believe it or not. And I know a lot of our listeners do not fall into this category, but some babies drop all of their night feeds when they're three, four weeks old, 10 days old. Some of them just start sleeping right through the night and
Dr Laura (38:26)
You
Dr Fallon (38:49)
You know, it's, it's like, it's, it's worth having a try because some babies can just absolutely do it. And like you say, Laura, the ones who can't do it, they're not going to just go, well, like they're going to tell you that that hunger is going to keep them awake. and I think parents know their babies best. Monica's thinking about this because she thinks her baby can do it. So test out that theory. and if it doesn't work out, well, you've got your answer. Try again in another few weeks. Yeah.
Dr Laura (39:00)
Yeah. Yeah.
Mm.
Yeah, yeah. Okay, so our next question is from Sarah. And Sarah says, I first want to say a big thank you for Sombelle. At the time of joining, my baby was waking every 45 minutes and settling in the cot took over 30 minutes of intense crying. This went on for four months. Sarah, poor thing. So Sarah writes,
I was desperate for help and had seen many health professionals and sleep schools with no improvement. Using the supported accelerated approach with the step away modification, my nine month old is now sleeping much better with roughly two wakes overnight. yeah, well done.
Dr Fallon (39:51)
That is so brilliant. Laura, how powerful is Sombelle? You know, sometimes we get parents who go, no, you know, I've tried online programs. I don't want another program. I want to see you in clinic. And I'm always just thinking that you haven't tried Sombelle. It is such a powerful program. I'm so bloody proud of it. Anyway, carry on. Yeah.
Dr Laura (40:03)
Yes!
Yeah, me too. Well done, Sarah. So Sarah writes with a few questions. So her first question is, and we might just take these one at a time, think, Fallon, she says, Is it too early to drop to one nap? My baby has a 13 hour sleep need and we've had a couple of difficult settles at bedtime. Or she says, Is it possible the settles are more difficult due to separation, anxiety or teething?
Dr Fallon (40:18)
Yeah, yep.
Dr Laura (40:31)
In general, he rarely shows tired signs, even when awake for four hours.
Dr Fallon (40:37)
Hmm. He's nine months old. So I'm in a 13 hour sleep need. I'm going to say he's too young for one nap. That's just a bit too young. If he was 11 months old, maybe, but nine months is too young. I would be really looking closely at that daily rhythm. So, you know, you're having some difficult settles at bedtime. He's not wanting to nap. Look, I don't think separation anxiety is likely to be a big problem and teeth.
Dr Laura (40:44)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (41:05)
You know that teething pain is sporadic. So if it's a consistent tricky set, or it's not going to be teeth, but you could try Panadol to rule it out. and he's rarely showing tired signs even when he's awake for four hours. well, four hours awake for a nine month old isn't such a long time anyway. look, I would be thinking if he doesn't like napping.
Dr Laura (41:08)
Hmm.
No.
Dr Fallon (41:25)
Keep him on two naps. This is just my thinking off the top of my head. Obviously I haven't seen a sleep diary. Maybe they're two cat naps. They're just really brief naps because he's not into napping. Maybe that uses up an hour and a half of his total sort of daily sleep need.
Dr Laura (41:34)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Dr Fallon (41:39)
in which case you've got, what is it about 11 and a half hours left in the tank overnight. So then you're going to have a set bedtime and a set wake up time. You're just going to allow that 11 and a half hours. if he has a really terrible night, you're getting him up on time. think, you know, once you work towards, me, a really, consistent daily rhythm, you, you should see that those settles get a whole lot quicker and that the final couple of night wakes should start to, resolve as well.
Dr Laura (41:42)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
resolve. Then Sarah says, when settling we're still experiencing a lot of crying. This does not happen overnight but every nap and at bedtime there is intense crying. Usually by the second or third interval he's asleep but it does make me feel very guilty. Is there anything I can do to lessen the crying? He doesn't seem to respond to pats or shushing anymore.
Dr Fallon (42:28)
Yeah, it's a really common question too. If he doesn't, isn't soothed by pats and shushing, he sounds like he's really good self settler. So if he's not so settling quickly and it's taking him a while, probably going to come down to sleep pressure. So that would be fixed by looking at that daily rhythm. some babies that we've talked about this before, some babies just cry. Like when they transition from awake to asleep, they have a big cry and then they go quiet.
Dr Laura (42:41)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (42:53)
So look, he could just be one of those. The best way to rule out, I suppose the best way to approach it is to make sure you've got that sleep pressure consistently high. So it minimizes the crying. If he always cries for, you know, 10 minutes before he falls asleep, might be pushing bed bedtime or nap time that little bit later and seeing if that helps to reduce it. so try not to feel guilty. some babies, no matter what the transition, they have a bit of a cry. It might be just putting them in the pram or putting them in the high chair and it triggers this bit of
Dr Laura (43:01)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (43:22)
fussiness and upset and then they calm down and settle into it.
Dr Laura (43:24)
Mm, I think that really helps answer the next question as well. So Sarah goes on to say, my baby always cries out after the first sleep cycle at night, 40 % of the time this wakes him up and he needs a quick resettle to calm down and start his long sleep for the night. What's happening here? The cry seems very intense and sad, even if he was calm at bedtime. So we call those false starts where
Dr Fallon (43:36)
Mmm.
Mmm.
Yeah.
Dr Laura (43:51)
a baby wakes up often in the first few sleep cycles in the first one or two or even three. And so I think what we need to do there is just push bedtime a little bit later, or you certainly look at that daily rhythm. So that the sleep pressure is high enough, and he's not doing one sleep cycle and then calling out for you. And he's then using the same behavior as he uses at bedtime to go back to sleep with that.
intense cry. And then it's on us as adults, we're thinking crying means sadness, because that's generally where well, actually, I cry all the time with every emotion, because I have some issues. My kids are always embarrassed by me crying at the drop of a hat. And so I cry when I'm happy and sad and joyful, but you know, often we think crying means sadness. But it's unlikely that your baby is feeling sad, Sarah. He's well loved. He's
Dr Fallon (44:23)
Hahaha
Dr Laura (44:39)
just having a full start and working on that daily rhythm is likely to stop those wakes that are happening so early on in the evening. my God. Okay, whoa. Okay.
Dr Fallon (44:46)
Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. We have still got so many questions to go Laura. We are not even halfway there. So I think we're going to break a record with this episode. So very quickly we've got Mal who says sleep has really improved, which is wonderful. Her baby wakes up very upset early in the night, usually after half an hour. So it's a false start, just like we described. She's got a toy that plays a lullaby and it's helped her a lot to go to sleep.
Dr Laura (45:06)
Mm-hmm.
Dr Fallon (45:14)
But Mel says, I made the mistake of Googling and now I'm worried I shouldn't be leaving it playing that lullaby the whole night. Is it okay to leave music on all night or should it be turned off? Should we just quickly answer that one? Yeah.
Dr Laura (45:25)
Yeah, it's fine to have it on, just have it make sure it's at a safe volume. And what we want is everything that is present as your baby falls asleep to be present when they wake up in the night. So if the lullaby is playing or the white noise is playing when they fall asleep, we want that to be playing when they wake up overnight. If you don't want to use it, then you have to stop it before they fall asleep. But it's fine, it's not going to do any damage.
Dr Fallon (45:45)
Yeah. Yeah. Yep. And we have another one I think we can quickly get through from Mwasi who has a 14 month old with a lower sleep need of just 10 and a half hours. She has two 40 minute naps each day, a 9pm bedtime and a 6am wake up. She self settles quickly at bedtime, sleeps through the night provided the daily rhythm stays on track. She does her naps in the pram and nap times do vary a bit each day.
Dr Laura (46:01)
Mm-hmm.
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (46:11)
Mwasi reports that she can be difficult to wake and is prone to being very grumpy. If she offers more sleep though, the nights worsen. Mwasi knows she's due to move to one nap, but worries she won't make it through the day on just one nap when she's already grumpy. Catch 22 isn't it? Sometimes we make the nights a bit longer and they actually do manage during the day. What do you think Laura?
Dr Laura (46:15)
Mm.
Mm.
All right, OK.
Yeah, Mwasi I'd say that at 14 months old and with a low sleep need, definitely be brave, move her to one nap. I'd be looking at a starting point being an hour 20 for her day nap, given that she's currently having two 40 minute naps. So we'll just combine those. And then you may even just bring bedtime a little bit earlier, maybe half an hour earlier, just to start with, just to help her make it until bedtime.
Dr Fallon (46:53)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (46:57)
And then just see how you go, make sure that you give it a whole week, watch the dust settle, it may go a little bit up in the air before it comes down. And you might find with that longer nap that she's having, that's a little bit more restorative for her than the two short naps. And if you're then finding that moving the bedtime a bit earlier means that after a week, she just can't maintain her sleep until morning, then keep her still on the one nap and just move bedtime half an hour later again.
Dr Fallon (47:23)
Yeah I think that's a good idea since she's a bit cranky and tired you're adding in a little bit more sleep and just testing out if she can manage it. Brilliant!
Dr Laura (47:25)
Hmm.
Okay, Angela. Angela has a 21 month old within an 11 and a half hour sleep need. He has a one and a half hour nap, goes to bed at 7.30 and wakes at 5.30. He sleeps through the night. That's great. Angela says that for two weeks this was going great and he started to sleep in for an extra 15 or 20 minutes each day, waking closer to six. However, for the past week
He's been starting to take 20 minutes to fall asleep at bedtime. So she started to put him down in his cot earlier. So he's asleep by 7.40. His mood has been grumpier and he's finding it harder to get through to his lunchtime nap. He's always been a happy early bird no matter what. And Angela sometimes feels anxious because his classmates all seem to do 12 hours overnight. gosh, comparison is a thief of joy, Angela. it's so hard when you have a lower sleep needs child.
Dr Fallon (48:15)
Hmm.
Yes.
Yeah.
Dr Laura (48:21)
So Angela wonders if she should continue with the daily rhythm and is it normal for there to be some up and down with mood whilst adjusting to a new daily rhythm?
Dr Fallon (48:32)
Yeah, look, it definitely, definitely is. They can have a few days of real crankiness and they can really be a bit of, you know, up, up and a few ups and a few downs is what I'm trying to say. look, I would say Angela's describing that she's allowed him to sleep in a little bit longer on a few days. And then what's happened? Bedtime has taken a little bit longer and that's what can sometimes happen. They sleep in a bit longer bedtime gets a bit later.
Dr Laura (48:52)
Yeah.
Yes.
Dr Fallon (48:56)
What we actually don't want to do is put them down. So if you're thinking, well now it takes them 20 minutes to fall asleep. Therefore I put them into bed 20 minutes earlier. So they might fall asleep at about the same time. Not a great idea because if any human, if we spend a lot of time in our bed, awake at a roadside association between popping into bed and falling asleep. so if you're going to allow that longer sleep in, then you'll have to move bedtime later. that later bedtime is when you put him down in the cot.
Dr Laura (49:08)
No.
Dr Fallon (49:25)
I hope that's making sense. so look, I would, if you're happy with 7.30 PM to 5.30 AM, you could just leave it. Or if you want to shuffle it all along a little later to get a longer sleep in, that's fine too. Stick to it really consistently though. and he will be a bit moody while he's adjusting and then things should settle down again. yeah, good luck.
Dr Laura (49:25)
Yes. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, this is exactly what we mean, Fallon, when we say if sleep falls over, we, you know, we offer more sleep to see if they need it. And then if it falls over, we go, no, it didn't work. And we then revert back to what it was. So this is what Angela's describing, where she's offered a bit more, it seemed to be going well, and then it fell over. And we go, all right. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (49:51)
Mmm.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, yep. He's just compensating at bedtime, like clockwork really. it's, yeah, yeah. I think you get a bit of a sense of the limits that your baby can sleep when you start to play around with the daily rhythm. Yeah, good.
Dr Laura (50:14)
Hmm.
Okay, so we've got Noni next. So Noni has a three and a half month old little boy and is working through the four to 12 month program. Her baby averages around 13 and a half hours per 24 hours and he usually catnaps. Noni mostly uses the quick fade approach and he's been falling asleep in his cot for naps and at bedtime too. well done Noni. Noni is struggling because he's feeding four times overnight and it's impossible to put
down, back down, awake after these feeds. If she changes his nappy he gets excited and is even harder to resettle. Noni is working on a regular bedtime, 7.45 pm and a 6am wake up each day. She also reports that she recently tried to trim the overnight feeds to 10 to 15 minutes long and this has helped him to be a little bit more awake when she placed him in his cot which resulted in him sleeping for a three hour stretch, much to Noni's delight.
Noni is very tired and keen for better nights and wonders if we have advice.
Dr Fallon (51:21)
Noni, you're doing such a good job. And I love that you've experimented with the length of those night feeds and found that he's actually managed a longer stretch that tells us that he's it's starting to emerge in him that if he falls asleep feeding, he's going to spring awake later on wondering how did I get back in my cot. So you've kind of worked out that he is at that sort of developmental stage where he's going to be startled to find himself somewhere different. So I think that that
Dr Laura (51:27)
Hmm.
Mmm.
Dr Fallon (51:45)
that's perfect, you've kind of got your answer there. So keep going with not letting those night feeds be too long so that he's a bit aware when he goes back in the cot. And I think, you know, keep a bit of a cap on the day sleep so he's not sort of over overdoing the day sleep. So start to think about how you're going to divvy up that 13 and a half hours sleep need that he's got. And that'll just help to ensure that the sleep pressure is high enough during the night.
Dr Laura (52:05)
Mmm.
Dr Fallon (52:10)
that, know, you might be able to, you might find that he'll just automatically stretch himself out between those feeds. So just putting him back down a bit more alert means that he's able to do more three or four hour stretches and he might drop some of those night feeds all on his own accord. but if he doesn't, you could start to work down to maybe. What's three and a half months, maybe start to aim for two feeds maximum overnight. but to reduce those night feeds, having high enough nighttime sleep pressure is really important. So definitely,
Dr Laura (52:20)
Hmm.
Mmm.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (52:37)
Thinking about that daily rhythm is a really important part of that. Yeah, well done.
Dr Laura (52:39)
Hmm.
Yeah. And we'll see that as he gets closer to four months that, no, actually three and a half months now, his circadian rhythm is really going to be maturing now. And the, you're going to start to find that that daily rhythm is going to be a little bit firmer. He's going to be able to move to, hopefully starting to have at least one longer nap for you Noni. And yeah, we'll, you'll start to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Dr Fallon (53:09)
Yeah, good job Noni. All right, we've got a question from Kaylee. Kaylee says, I have a four month old daughter and I'm working my way through the Sombol materials. My daughter has a sleep need of approximately 12 hours and will sleep for about nine hours a night. She usually wakes just once, which is lovely, she says, between 1.30 and 3 a.m.
She usually has a big chunk of sleep of around seven hours at night and then after the feed has another two hours. She usually goes down for the night between seven or eight PM and wakes around five AM, sometimes a little bit earlier. So Kayleigh's question is how to push her night's sleep a bit later so they aren't all waking up so early. Kayleigh says by seven PM she's exhausted and it's very hard to keep her awake until later.
Dr Laura (53:53)
Mm.
Dr Fallon (53:59)
She also says day naps are not very routine, but she usually has a 20 to 40 minute nap every two and a half hours. So three or four naps per day.
Dr Laura (54:08)
Hmm. Okay. Yeah. Really tiring. Kayleigh having those early morning starts. she's doing really good chunks of sleep overnight. So she's linking her sleep cycles multiple times. particularly when she's doing that seven hour stretch of sleep. So that is awesome. so, and it's also fine that she's, having that one, one feed overnight. and then is able to do a couple of hours, until the early morning start.
I would be looking at starting to make that, particularly that last period of time awake before bed to be the longest one. And I can hear you're saying she's very tired by 7pm. So it might be looking to see, can you even just extend that last awake time by 15 minutes, for example, so that you can
just begin to have her being awake for maybe closer to the three hours before she goes down at the start of the night and every day just working towards that. if at the moment it's two and a half hours, it might be that tomorrow you try to get it, she might manage two hours, 45 minutes before she goes down at bedtime. And then maybe the next day, for sure, another five minutes later.
until it's much closer to the three hours that she's up for before the start of the night. And when you do it very gradually like that over a week, when you're only adding a little bit of extra wake up time every day, then oftentimes it's a little bit easier for your baby to adapt.
Of course, it's also perfectly fine to say, you know what, I'm knackered. I'm really just gonna go right from tonight and just going to be thinking about distracting her as much as possible to try and get that three hours of wait before the start of the night. And that will probably look like she'll also move to just the three naps a day rather than four naps. And hopefully a longer nap will come into play as well, particularly that first or second one of the day.
Dr Fallon (56:00)
Yeah, I think that's really good advice. It just can take a bit of a push and a shove, can't it, to just move that daily rhythm along a little bit and get that longer sleep in. So well done, Kayleigh, that's really, really good. Awesome.
Dr Laura (56:05)
Mm.
Yeah. Sabrina has written in, she has a 13 month old baby girl who has had several months of very challenging sleep due to illness, teething, plus a few holidays. Sabrina has weaned her off breastfeeding to sleep and has stopped overnight feeds. Well done, Sabrina. A dummy was introduced, which she absolutely loves. She has approximately 13 hour sleep need, is in bed overnight from nine until 7.30.
and has two day naps for between an hour and a half to two and a half hours total day sleep. I see. So she has two naps totaling up to two and a half hours. Sabrina describes how her daughter waits excessively overnight between two and 5 a.m. She might fall asleep briefly, but then wake up very upset. This goes on for hours until she finally falls back to sleep. She might feed at 7 a.m. and then go back to sleep for an hour.
Sabrina has started to sleep near the cot just to try to reduce the middle of the night upset. She says that she's at her wits end, I'm not surprised, and wonders if we know what the missing ingredient is.
Dr Fallon (57:16)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (57:19)
Fallon, what's the missing ingredient?
Dr Fallon (57:20)
you poor thing.
More flour, less sugar. Look, that horrific time between 2 and 5 a.m., that's low sleep pressure. I would think of it a bit like a split night. She is trying to go to sleep and just can't do it. And I would say it's going to come down to something in the daily rhythm. So.
Dr Laura (57:32)
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (57:41)
Sabrina, I would, if you haven't re-measured the total sleep needs lately, do it again. Is it still 13 hours or has it dropped down a little bit? And then very meticulously, you know, work towards that 13 hour, whatever it is, daily rhythm. you know, if she's doing 9pm until 7.30am, then you're not going to let her sleep till 8am if she has a bad night. You're getting her up at 7.30am.
Dr Laura (57:46)
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (58:06)
And if that's what is that 10 and a half hours overnight? So if it is a 13 hour sleep need then definitely not going over Yeah, it doesn't quite add up to me because some days she is sleeping a bit less than two and a half hours Anyway, I would just be making sure you're really keeping a cap on that total day sleep give however many hours of opportunity That matches her unique sleep needs so she's not really getting into proper sleep
Dr Laura (58:19)
Mm.
Mmm.
Dr Fallon (58:32)
from two to 5 a.m. it probably shouldn't be counted as sleep. So if you have been including that as part of her sleep need, that could be the problem. It might be, if you think maybe she's dozing half of that time, just count half of it towards her sleep need. That'll give you a bit of a starting point, but it's definitely gonna be a timing issue. That's going to be what the missing ingredient is.
Dr Laura (58:40)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Mmm.
It could well be time Sabrina for you to move her to one nap as well. So she's 13 months old. She has, she's having two day naps at the moment, but she is from the sounds of it having split nights. And that is, as you'll know from the course, when we think about what the signs are that your child is ready to drop down, to drop a nap, having excessive or extended overnight wakes is a sign.
Dr Fallon (59:00)
Yay. Yep.
Mm.
Dr Laura (59:21)
that a child is ready to drop a nap. So at 13 months old, she's right in the zone to move to the one nap. And you might find that's a relatively quick and easy change to make. And then you'll have much better sleep for yourself and for your little girl.
Dr Fallon (59:36)
Yeah, absolutely. All right. it's time to wrap up another absolutely packed episode. my goodness. We've been to all the far corners of sleep.
Dr Laura (59:41)
Yeah.
Yes
Dr Fallon (59:46)
in those first couple of years, today, which is great. And I've just been getting such amazing feedback from all my coaching call clients, Laura saying that, what does someone say that we're just like these voices in their house? So it just sort of like welcome visitors in their house every week, which is so amazing. I'm sure our teenagers would be absolutely horrified that anyone wants to hear the sounds of our voices.
Dr Laura (1:00:01)
that's wonderful.
Yeah, we speak way too much for our teenagers taste.
Dr Fallon (1:00:11)
Yeah. but no, it's been fun. Anybody tuning in who is having difficulties with sleep and settling, know, Sombelle is there for you. If you're not already a member, come and join us. We're having a ridiculous sale at the moment. It's a very good time to join. So go check out the website if you're needing some support.
If you're already a member, you know, you've got those coaching calls available to book. They are limited in the run up to the end of the year. They are booking up really quickly. So if you want some support, just know that they're there. Don't waste any time booking one in, or you might miss out. Don't forget to rate us and review us. If you love the podcast, one of the best things you can do for us is go and give us a five star rating, write a little sentence about how amazing we are. It helps us reach more parents and makes us feel really, really good.
Dr Laura (1:00:37)
Hmm.
Hahaha!
I'm
Dr Fallon (1:00:59)
And follow us along on social media. We are trying to think up interesting, useful, science-backed content for you every day. So go and follow along there and hopefully you'll find some answers to any of the difficulties you're facing. So thanks everyone for tuning in. I've so got a frog in my throat this week. I'm going to have to do some serious editing to get rid of all these coughs and... Anyway, so I best get started on that.
Dr Laura (1:01:21)
yeah you will. Thanks everyone, bye bye.
Dr Fallon (1:01:25)
See you next week everyone.
