Dr Fallon (00:00)
In our sleep clinic, it's common to hear parents say that they're worried about their baby or their toddler's naps. And we completely understand why. Everyone has a different opinion on how long naps should be, and it gets tangled up in a lot of emotion. The reality is the perfect nap for your child might be entirely different from the perfect nap for another. And it might even change day to day. The best nap is the one that leaves your baby or toddler refreshed and ready to go.
Whether it's a 10 minute power nap or a three hour mega nap, there are no bad naps. Today we unpick what science says about naps, removing the guilt and empowering you to feel confident in your baby or toddler's daily rhythm.
Welcome back to Brand New Little People, the podcast companion to the Sombelle pediatric sleep programs created by us.
I'm Dr. Fallon Cook and I'm here with Dr. Laura Conway. We are PhDs and sleep practitioners and co-directors of Infant Sleep Australia. Hello Laura, you're joining us from your little holiday getaway.
Dr Laura (01:05)
Yes, absolutely. We are knee deep in school holidays. And I have come away with my children and family friends, hired a house down near the beach. So really lovely. So that is what the background is for anyone who is wondering where is Laura? doesn't normally have those random sticks behind her. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (01:18)
beautiful.
It's
such a 90s kind of thing, isn't it? To put a bunch of sticks in a vase in the background. Love it. It's very holiday house themed. No, it's so lovely that you're away. And, you know, we tried to record this yesterday. So our regulars will know that this episode is coming out a day late. We had massive technical issues and God, we tried, didn't we? We, had to get everybody, you know, organized at the holiday house to be quiet. You had
Dr Laura (01:34)
Yeah, that's... Yeah.
we did.
Dr Fallon (01:54)
yourself all set up with a very unusual setup with your things balanced on pillows and yeah.
Dr Laura (02:00)
Yep, that's right. I think that my laptop
today is balanced on two suitcases. And yeah, I'm a little bit precarious, but if I don't move, hopefully nothing will fall over. But today I haven't been able to ensure that all the children are out of the house. So there may be a little bit more background noise today, but I'm sure our listeners will understand.
Dr Fallon (02:06)
Hahaha!
Yes, I'm sure they will. it's lovely. It's so nice that you've gotten away and yeah, technology is being a friend so far today, which is great. Cause yeah, we sat down yesterday, hit record and everything went offline. So if you're on an email from me, I'll try to get to it today or tomorrow. yeah, it's just how life goes sometimes, isn't it? Yeah. So we wanted to do an episode about NAPS today because we've had a few questions come through.
Dr Laura (02:30)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's right, yeah.
Hmm
Dr Fallon (02:50)
about
naps and it's definitely something where there's a lot of misleading information. think we sort of had an absolute, I would say one of the key things we wanted to address when we started infant sleep Australia was this whole load of nonsense that had gotten out of control with parents being told your baby has to have a really long lunchtime nap or
Dr Laura (03:12)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (03:12)
Every
nap has to be really long because the more day sleep they have, the better night sleep they have. And don't anybody grab that sound bite. Cause it's not true. It's so not true. Sleep does not beget sleep. But it's something that so many people, even now, I think I every week in clinic, someone will say, but, if I increase day sleep, will it help the nights? And it's a pretty clear no.
Dr Laura (03:20)
No, it's not true. No.
No.
No, that's right. And like we have
said again and again, children have a wide, there's a wide range of normal of sleep needs per 24 hours. And so children that are at the higher end, they have the higher sleep need, they simply have to have more daytime sleep and they will sleep a lot overnight because they have to add all of that up to 15, 16, 17, 18 hours of sleep across a 24 hour period.
Dr Fallon (03:58)
Yeah.
Yes.
Dr Laura (04:03)
And,
but what has happened in the past and still happens today is that some people who have had children with those higher sleep needs think it's because they sleep well during the day that they sleep well at night. It's not, that is a correlation, not a causation. It's the child has a high sleep need, so they will nap more during the day and they will still nap well overnight. But if your child is down the other end and they nap a lot during the day, then it's
Dr Fallon (04:16)
mmm yes
Yes.
Dr Laura (04:29)
will come at the expense of their nighttime sleep because they simply don't have enough fuel left in the tank to make it through a whole night.
Dr Fallon (04:32)
Mmm.
Yeah.
And this is why we need more sleep scientists working at the coalface with families who can look at that data. It's just a simple misinterpretation of the data. People have gone, oh, wow, these ones who sleep 12 hours overnight, you know, a lot of them can do, you know, three, four hours day sleep and they're just going, oh, that's caused by it. More day sleep equals better nights. Um, but most scientists would look at that and go, no, that's not, that's not a thing. Exactly. Yeah. Yep.
Dr Laura (04:45)
Yeah.
Yes.
There's another explanation. Yeah, yeah.
Dr Fallon (05:05)
Um, so I guess let's, let's dive into naps and what makes a nap good. And I would say, I don't know about you, Laura, but a lot of families will say, oh, they have, I actually had a family one time. I loved this. Who were like, we don't call them cat naps. We call them crap naps. How do we stop getting crap naps? And I was like, I love it. I love the terminology, but, I can't remember in that case, if those naps really were crap for that baby or if they were sufficient. Um.
Dr Laura (05:10)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (05:33)
But you know, it might be that your baby has a short nap, but that might be all that they need. And there's nothing wrong. You know, there's this idea that a short nap is bad sleep. It's poor quality. It's not good enough. And that is rubbish. All sleep is good. It's all equal. I would only say, you know, if they're not making it through a sleep cycle, if something's constantly waking them up at the 10 minute, 15 minute mark, and they're not able to finish a sleep cycle, then that would be potentially problematic for them. But that is exceedingly rare.
Dr Laura (05:37)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, and the reason it's problematic is not because it's going to do them any harm, but it's because they're going to be waking up mid sleep cycle. And some of us adults, as well as children and babies, when we're woken mid sleep cycle, hate how it feels. And therefore we act out and we are not at our finest. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (06:16)
Yeah, it's revolting.
Yeah, and it's the same for babies. Yeah,
it's, mean, parents know so well, I there are like a ton of nodding heads like, yes, when my baby wakes me up when I'm in deep sleep, you know, not in my light, stages of the sleep cycle, I feel terrible. Like, it is a really yucky feeling. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So that will definitely make babies cranky.
Dr Laura (06:35)
Yeah, you don't know what day it is. You've got dribble coming out of your corner of your mouth. You don't know what's going on. Yeah.
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (06:46)
But
otherwise, a good nap is simply one that just leaves your baby or toddler feeling refreshed and it might not be immediate. That's really important. Some babies, even if they have a two hour nap, will wake up really cranky. Same for toddlers. They can wake up cranky even though they've had plenty of sleep. We're really talking about three, four, five minutes after they wake up. Once you get them out of the room, are they bright as a button, happy as Larry, good to go, you know, and doing pretty well while they're awake in general.
Dr Laura (07:10)
Mm-hmm.
Dr Fallon (07:14)
or are they miserable all day long and you're not really seeing any kind of happy playtime? We're just looking for those, you we want them to be having some happy playtime and coming good pretty quickly after the nap. And that's what tells you that it was a good enough nap. So I hope that really is a bit of guilt.
Dr Laura (07:18)
you
Yeah,
yeah, I'm sure that it will Fallon and I think that parents will say to me when I'm in the clinic and I'm asking them to describe a typical day for their child and I will ask you know how long it takes them to fall asleep for their naps, how long they nap for and then what they're like when they wake up and some parents will be concerned that their baby or toddler always wakes crying but what I'm not looking at that as a sleep practitioner I'm not looking at that if they wake crying if that's a problem.
Dr Fallon (07:55)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (08:01)
I'm looking at how long it takes them to come good. So often they are crying because they're just waking up going, I don't want to be in here. What's going on out there? Come and get me. It's just communication. Yeah. And that transition. Yeah. And then when mom and dad goes in, picks them up, they're fine. they have a cuddle, a a drink, or a snack, and they're absolutely fine. Then it's nothing to worry about.
Dr Fallon (08:03)
Mmm.
Yeah, they don't like that transition, like from asleep to awake. Yeah. Yeah.
Mm.
Yeah, absolutely. And it's really interesting. There's starting to be a little bit more research done into napping and the benefits of it. And I did a very quick look through PubMed just to quickly get across, you know, sort of what research is showing us. But honestly, I looked at it and went, this is great. I actually need to sit down for a day and really go through some of the newer papers. So that's on my to-do list. But it's so interesting how
Dr Laura (08:49)
Mm-hmm.
Dr Fallon (08:53)
Napping seems to play such a crucial role in brain development, learning, language learning. There's a great study, I don't know why I didn't write down the reference, but I was telling you about it, Laura, where they taught toddlers nonsense language, just the made up language, they taught them some aspects of it. Half of the toddlers had a nap afterwards and then were tested on their knowledge of that language. The other half didn't. And it was really interesting because the ones who had the nap consolidated some of that learning.
Dr Laura (08:58)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Dr Fallon (09:23)
you know, saved it to memory essentially. so it really tells us that NAPs, you know, play a role, in development. But does that mean that more NAPing is going to mean, you know, amazing genius babies who remember everything? No, it doesn't. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr Laura (09:25)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
No, it doesn't. No, no. So we know
that sleep in general is just really important to process memories, process emotions, and just for a whole range of elements of cognitive and physical development. And that study that you just spoke about, Fallon, has been done in high school students, university students as well, not so much with the napping, but just sleeping overnight. So
Dr Fallon (10:06)
Mm.
Dr Laura (10:06)
if you
learn material and then attested straight away versus learning a material, having a good night's sleep and then being tested the next day, often people actually do better after they've had a good night's sleep. it's, yeah, but we sometimes think it's about cramming stuff into our brains to then be able to write it down quickly. you'd, some people might think, well, it's going to be better if you do the test straight away, but actually no, you need to let sleep do its thing and process the memories.
Dr Fallon (10:18)
It makes perfect sense, doesn't it?
Yeah.
Mmm.
Dr Laura (10:34)
so that then you can retrieve it more easily the next day.
Dr Fallon (10:36)
Yeah, this is going
to be a conversation we have a lot in our new Children's Sleep Australia clinic where we're working with school age and teenage kids where a lot of them will start really late studying trying to cram for exams when there's kind of like a bit of a balance you've got to strike. You know, you don't want to impact your sleep too much. You know, when you've got tests and things to be to be sitting.
Dr Laura (10:43)
Yes.
Mmm.
Dr Fallon (10:59)
so look, I would say, you know, while it's good to know that napping is important for your baby or toddler, you know, to consolidate new information, learn things. it's not a case of increasing that at the expense of nighttime sleep. And I think that's really crucial. If your baby is, you know, napping a lot and their nights are really fragmented, there is scientific evidence suggesting that really broken nights can have detrimental effects on other
Dr Laura (10:59)
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (11:25)
aspects of development. And so I would always be thinking about trying to protect those nights. Doesn't mean you've got to panic and have the most perfect nights, you know. But if your child's reaching sort of one year of age and they're still having really fragmented nights like a newborn baby would, definitely time to do something about it because it's so important for their, for their wellbeing. And if you're a bit of a research nerd and love a bit of science, I wanted to find a reference that those listeners can look up if they're really keen to learn more.
Dr Laura (11:41)
Mmm.
Dr Fallon (11:55)
There's a great paper, a meta analysis by Staten et al in 2020. You could search that up on PubMed or Google Scholar if you're keen to do a bit more reading about NAPs. But yeah, Laura, were sort of talking about sort of two key things that we want parents to be thinking about in terms of NAPs. Do you want to go through maybe the first one?
Dr Laura (12:05)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Mmm.
Yeah,
yeah. So sometimes what we see is that a baby or a toddler is an awesome napper. They do brilliantly during the day and parents will come into the clinic and they say, don't need to do anything about the naps. The naps are great. She naps for three or four hours a day, but it's the nights that are awful. So what I want is not just to forget about the naps, but I would like you to help us focus on improving the nights.
Dr Fallon (12:43)
If
only we could.
Dr Laura (12:45)
If only we could.
But often what is happening in that instance is that the baby or toddler is kind of overdoing their daytime sleep. And they're very, very happy during the day after they've had these nice long naps. And parents can look at me like I'm mad when I say, actually, what we need to do is trim down the length of those naps.
Dr Fallon (12:57)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (13:13)
because they're using them to catch up on the really broken sleep that they're having in the night. So usually what we find is that for babies and toddlers who are really happy mappers, but they have poor nights, is that we trim down their daytime sleep and usually that goes a really long way to improving their nighttime sleep.
Dr Fallon (13:18)
Mmm.
Yeah, it's amazing, isn't it? Because by trimming down that day's sleep, we get this increase in sleep pressure at night. And what parents often haven't realized is that when those nights start to improve, there's fewer wakes, there's some nice longer stretches, or even maybe just their baby or toddler resettles much faster. When they do wake, they wake up in the morning a bit more on the front foot.
Dr Laura (13:50)
Mmm.
Dr Fallon (13:54)
So they're not looking for a heap of the ones with the fragmented nights. They wake up in the morning, they usually feel pretty rubbish and they want to catch up on sleep all day. And then of course it's followed by another terrible night. But by deliberately trimming down that day's sleep, we see those nights improve. And then suddenly you've got a baby or toddler who actually can make it through the day more easily on less day's sleep. But it's definitely not an easy path. Like it's important to do.
Dr Laura (13:55)
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. No.
Dr Fallon (14:17)
but it's really important to know that your baby or toddler is probably going to be really cranky. It is so much like adjusting to jet lag. You know, we're really trying to push them back into the right kind of rhythm and it can really suck as a parent can be really tough, but it's worth it because once we get that balance right, everyone's so much happier. it's at that point that then if you need to work on
Dr Laura (14:28)
Mm. Yeah, it can. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (14:39)
how you settle your baby for sleep, you're much more likely to have success. Because their sleep drives high enough, if your baby's got a really low sleep drive overnight, because they overdo the day sleep, you are going to have the worst time trying to work on changing how you settle them for sleep. So always be, yeah, thinking about that balance. It's something that we go through a lot in the Sombelle programs, because it is just such a crucial part of the puzzle.
Dr Laura (14:43)
Mm-hmm.
Hmm.
Yeah.
Hmm.
Yeah, so be brave. If you're thinking there's no way that my baby or toddler is going to cope with less sleep, then just know that in all likelihood they will, but there's just going to be that tipping point. For a few days, their nighttime sleep is going to continue to be a bit tricky whilst you trim the day's sleep. So you might have a couple of days that aren't much fun. So think about having supports around you. But then it will start to tip.
Dr Fallon (15:18)
Mmm.
Mmm.
Dr Laura (15:31)
and you will start to see the nights improve. So then your child's going to cope much better with those longer times awake and less sleep during the day. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (15:39)
Yeah, and one great tip actually to make it easier is to be out in the house, out of the house doing lots of things because parents will say, when parents say to me, it was really easy to make those changes. I'm like, what were you doing? They're like, we were away camping. We went to visit family and it's like, yeah, there's so much interesting stuff going on. It was much easier to keep your baby or toddler awake a little bit longer in the daytime. Those parents hardly even notice the change happening because it's not a big struggle.
Dr Laura (15:54)
Yes.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm
Dr Fallon (16:07)
Plan lots of things, get out and about. Yeah, you'll get through.
Dr Laura (16:10)
Now there was a second
thing that we wanted to raise around the naps Fallon. Do you want to talk through that point?
Dr Fallon (16:20)
Yeah. So it is really important to be thinking about, you know, this is doesn't happen in a lot of cases, but it does happen in some. If you're finding that your baby or toddler is just grumpy all day and they're never refreshed, they don't have much happy playtime. Please be checking for any medical issues that could be impacting their sleep. So babies and toddlers are really cranky all day, never seem happy. So often there's a physiological
Dr Laura (16:33)
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (16:47)
reason for that. There's something interrupting their nighttime sleep that can mean they're not waking up refreshed. They're then, you know, really struggling to get the sleep they need. Be thinking about things. I think number one is snoring. It's never normal for a baby or toddler to snore. I mean, the exception would be if they've got a terrible head cold or something, you might hear some noisiness, but it should disappear pretty quickly. Gasping, coughing in their sleep, waking up with a splutter.
Dr Laura (16:53)
Hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (17:14)
If there's pauses in their breathing and snoring often then they're not getting good quality sleep. So really important to talk to your GP, demand a referral to an ENT and get that checked. Super important. We don't want that to go on too long. Thinking about things like if they're having really mucousy nappies, blood in their nappies, frothy nappies, they've probably got an irritated tummy. That can make it pretty hard to sleep. If they're vomiting a lot, an eczema is a huge one that most parents just don't realize.
Dr Laura (17:25)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Dr Fallon (17:43)
even really mild eczema can cause your baby or toddler to wake a lot. It's just a little bit of discomfort sometimes, but it's enough to pull them out of sleep and wake them up. So yeah, if you're just really struggling with persistent grumpiness, definitely talk to your GP. Don't be afraid. Like I get a lot of parents who say, the GP said just try and moisturiser for the eczema. And look, in some cases that, you know, if it's super mild, that might be okay. But we do often see that this is pretty
Dr Laura (17:43)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (18:10)
like decent eczema, it's not resolving. It's been around for months and you know, it's actually the root cause driving the sleep issues.
Dr Laura (18:12)
Mmm, yeah.
Mm, yeah, good. Well, I hope
that that really helps families listening today who are either feeling that they've got happy nappers, that the nights are terrible, or that are thinking, gosh, I have already adjusted the naps. It's not leading to the improvements that we've heard are likely to happen. And in fact, our child is just as grumpy as they were before. Then, yeah.
Dr Fallon (18:43)
Mm.
Dr Laura (18:43)
have
a think through speaking to your family doctor or your health nurse and just double check that there isn't anything physiological going on.
Dr Fallon (18:48)
Mm.
Yeah, and know that it always takes a few days because a lot of parents will say, one day they did only have, you know, two short naps and their nights were still terrible. And I'm like, of course, because the circadian rhythm takes a few days to a week to adjust. So make those changes, stick with it, give your child, yeah, time to, to adapt. Yeah. Amazing.
Dr Laura (19:00)
Yeah.
Hmm.
So we had a couple of questions, didn't we, Fallon, that were
specifically about naps. So shall I read the first one of those out? So Angela wrote in and said, is there any evidence on nap schedule? That is, many sleep programs or sleep consultants emphasize a longer duration for the afternoon nap. The reason I ask is because my little one tends to do a longer first nap of an hour and a half.
Dr Fallon (19:18)
Yeah, go for it.
Dr Laura (19:36)
The second nap is usually 45 minutes and the third nap is 30 minutes. Angela says, I have tried to cap the first nap at 60 minutes so we could have a longer second nap, but my baby will then always require resettling on that second nap. So Fallon, what do you reckon?
Dr Fallon (19:54)
Yeah, look, Angela's baby,
yeah, her baby's doing exactly what I would expect. It's really normal to have the longest nap in the morning. And we think most babies tend to prefer that because it protects their nights. We're kind of keeping the biggest nap away from the nighttime. And sleep pressure is just a little higher in the morning as well. So what your baby's doing is perfectly fine, Angela. I have no idea all these people saying they've got to have a longer nap in the afternoon.
Dr Laura (20:02)
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (20:19)
I don't know where that comes from. There's definitely no evidence behind it. So yeah, that would be my quick answer. Nope. No evidence. And yeah, every baby, you know, prefer something different. Some parents will say, my baby loves a long afternoon nap. And that's perfectly fine to, you know, fully their lead on that. but yeah, if they prefer a longer one in the morning, that's perfect.
Dr Laura (20:25)
Yep.
Yeah, no worries there. All right, shall I read out Danielle's question, Fallon, or did you want to read that? Yeah, okay. All right.
Dr Fallon (20:40)
Mmm.
Yeah. I'll read it out then you can answer this one. So
yeah, Danielle says, my baby is five months old since eight weeks. He has slept through the night from about eight or nine PM until seven or eight AM. That's amazing. You've been blessed Danielle by the sleep gods. And Danielle says, yeah, he doesn't wake up overnight. She says, we have no real bedtime routine and he doesn't require any settling to sleep. put him into the cot.
Dr Laura (20:59)
Yeah.
Hahaha.
Dr Fallon (21:11)
dummy in and a few strokes on his chest and he's down and out. He barely naps or if he does, it's just cat naps. This doesn't bother us as we're so lucky that we get that great stretch overnight. Danielle would like to know, is this normal? She says, I read and listen to so much about babies not sleeping and requiring so much settling, but I hear nothing about babies who sleep well and somewhat anxiously wonder if this is normal or is there something wrong?
Dr Laura (21:38)
Danielle, yeah, you would be in the minority, I would imagine, around your parents group and anyone at daycare. Having such a great sleeper who is having uninterrupted sleep for such long periods of time from only eight weeks of age is unusual, but that doesn't mean that there's anything wrong. So what we always look at is how
Dr Fallon (22:03)
Yeah.
Dr Laura (22:06)
our babies are functioning during the day. So if your baby, and it sounds like your baby is absolutely fine, you're not raising any issues to say that he's finding it hard to participate in play or daily life, then it's absolutely nothing to worry about. Your baby has just pushed most of their sleep need into the night and is really very happy to have short naps during the day. Functioning well.
Dr Fallon (22:09)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (22:36)
totally fine, don't worry about it. If you were saying that your baby is not participating well during the day, was very floppy, you know, any lack of eye contact and not wanting to engage with you or toys, not looking around, then it would be worth, definitely worth speaking to your GP or health nurse.
because then you'd be wanting to have some checks to ensure that there isn't anything else going on that was making him really, really sleepy overnight and sleeping for long periods of time. But ordinarily, we would then see a lot of sleep during the day as well. So it sounds like you're going well, Danielle, and enjoy it.
Dr Fallon (23:13)
Yeah.
Yeah, a hundred percent. I agree. think Danielle has provided the perfect case study to demonstrate that more day sleep doesn't mean more night sleep or that opposite, would be a lot of people are out there saying, if they have, you know, short, terrible naps or, or miss naps, it's going to ruin their nights because they're overtired. No, it's not. It's just not. So thank you, Danielle. It's a really good example of how very different babies can be. There are plenty of five month olds who would not
Dr Laura (23:39)
No.
Yes.
Dr Fallon (23:48)
if they didn't have, you know, four big naps. But here's Danielle's baby who copes perfectly fine with shorter naps. So this is why it's so important not to compare to other babies. It's so hard not to, but if you've got a happy baby and they're sleeping all night, I'd just be like, yes, jackpot. Yeah, it's awesome. cool. Now thank you both Angela and Danielle for writing in about naps. Yeah, it kind of inspired this episode.
Dr Laura (23:52)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah it did. All right, shall we get on to the other parent questions Fallon? Perhaps I'll take the first one. So Rhea has written in with questions about her 13 month old and her three year old. So Rhea and her partner live in WA, they have no family support. Rhea writes that her 13 month old seems to have a sleep association with taking sips of water. She says, if I go in and give water, he usually settles.
Dr Fallon (24:21)
Yeah.
Dr Laura (24:46)
Any ideas if this is an association or could he actually be thirsty in the middle of the night? Is this something I can fix or should fix?
Dr Fallon (24:57)
Gosh, that's a really interesting question. All right. I would be thinking about, mean, Rhea doesn't mention that, you know, he's refusing to drink anything during the day. I feel like Rhea would have probably said something about that if, you know, he's wanting to drink water all night and barely touches water during the daytime. I'd always be thinking, you know, if you feel that overall he's drinking water excessively, talk to your GP, just because that can be a sign of diabetes. It's probably not, but...
Dr Laura (25:00)
Hmm
Mm-hmm.
Dr Fallon (25:26)
you
know, anything out of the ordinary like that. I'd always just follow up with a GP. It could be a sleep association. Some babies or who's going into toddlerhood now, they will wake up and think, I know that if I give a bit of a shout, I'll probably get some water. I'll get to see mom or dad have a little bit of interaction and then I'll go back to sleep. And it might be super brief, but sometimes that's enough to motivate them to call out when they, excuse me, when they come up into light sleep.
Dr Laura (25:50)
Mm.
Dr Fallon (25:54)
So I think you could work on trying to reduce that. Certainly a 13 month old is typically able to get all the fluids they need in the daytime to get through the night without needing a drink. But you know, pretty normal for toddlers every now and then to have maybe a few sips of water in the night, maybe a handful of times per week. But if it's happening multiple times per night, I would also think, yeah, it's probably a sleep association. So it could be that you do, much like dropping night feeds, you could just start to stretch out the time between when you offer the water.
Dr Laura (26:08)
Hmm.
Mm.
Dr Fallon (26:23)
might be that you only offer the water once in the middle of the night, know, one or two AM or later, something like that. Or you could just cut it down three overnight waters, two, then one, then drop it. So he's kind of, I'm saying he, but I can't recall if it's boy or not anyway, yeah, like you could just gradually reduce it like that if you're concerned.
Dr Laura (26:27)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Hmm.
Yeah, I think that's, those are good points. Of course, Rhea, in WA, there would be days that are really hot. And in those instances, there's a very good chance that he'll be, he or she, sorry, I don't know why I'm thinking it's a boy as well. think perhaps in the longer, I think Rhea maybe has sent a longer email and we've just had to reduce it just so that we have enough time to fit all the questions in. So I think maybe in the original email that Rhea said it was a boy.
Yes, so if he's really hot, then because it's a hot night, then he may well need to drink more overnight. Think about your own thirst levels and just think about the temperature of the room and try and keep it down where you can so that he's not getting too hot in the night. Okay, Ria's next question says that they're going to the UK for seven weeks where there's only going to be two bedrooms. And Ria wants to know what...
Dr Fallon (27:18)
you
Mmm.
Dr Laura (27:41)
best sleeping arrangements are. So she's given us three options that she needs to choose between. So of course they've got the toddler, the 13 month old, and then they've got the three year old. So the options are that Rhea could co-sleep with the three year old, but the three year old has never co-slept and has a tendency to sleep at all angles in a bed. The second option, no, I don't love that option either. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (28:05)
I don't love that option. Zero out of 10.
Dr Laura (28:11)
The second option is
give him a small mattress on the floor of the room that Rhea is sleeping in and then Rhea sleeps in the bed and he sleeps on the mattress. Or the third option is that Rhea sleeps downstairs on a mattress and leaves the three-year-old with the bed in the bedroom. What do we recommend?
Dr Fallon (28:23)
Yeah.
I would go with option two. If it was me with my kids, I think, yeah, that's probably a safer option. You're less likely to run into trouble when you get home and suddenly you've got a three year old who's like, I sleep in a giant bed now, or I sleep in a giant bed with you now, mum. So when I traveled with my little ones, my youngest was, think, two. She was a pretty big two year old too.
Dr Laura (28:49)
Yes.
Dr Fallon (28:56)
One of things we did, was just so easy. Wherever we were, we pulled the couch cushions off and made up a little bed for her on the floor of our room. It meant that she was close to us or otherwise we'd put her in with her brothers, but she was close to someone. Cause it's bit weird traveling you're somewhere new. Your three year old is probably going to feel a little out of sorts being somewhere different and it's harder to sleep. So you can keep them close in the same room, but then they're not suddenly expecting to be co-sleeping. So yeah.
Dr Laura (29:14)
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (29:22)
could be that you make an improvised bed with some couch cushions or you get a little mattress or if somebody's over there has got a spare cot mattress that can work really well on the floor for a three year old. They don't need much to feel comfortable, do they, at that age? So you can kind of just wing it. But yeah, that's what I'd lean towards. Is that what you'd say, Laura?
Dr Laura (29:35)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah,
absolutely. Definitely go with option number two, Take any, lock it in, lock in number two. Take any comforters, any dummies, any sleeping bags that your three-year-old uses, and then make it seem like a bit of an adventure. And enjoy that trip to the UK for seven weeks. I'm very jealous. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (29:44)
Lock it in.
Yeah.
Yes, send us a photo. I'd love to see some pictures. I love it when my family sent me photos of them traveling. It's always so cute.
Amazing. All right. We also had an email from Sky who says, I currently have an eight month old with a sleep need of around about 13 hours. They do two and a half hours of sleep during the day and 10 and a half hours overnight from about 8pm to 7am.
She says, I returned to work in March and I'm wondering how I go about cutting out the night wakes and the overnight feeds. He will wake two hours into his night's sleep and needs shushing and resettling in his cot. His overnight feed can be any time from midnight onwards. So she says, I'm having a lot of broken sleep and worried how this will affect me when I'm back working.
Dr Laura (30:46)
Sky there's going to be lots of parents listening today I would think contemplating returning to work and children going to daycare for the first time and having similar worries to you. So what I would be thinking about doing is at the moment your night time sleep that you're offering your eight month old is slightly more than he needs and that's giving the allowance for a feed overnight.
Dr Fallon (30:53)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (31:15)
So the very first thing I would do is just think about shaving off half an hour. And so that might be moving, I'd probably move wake up a little bit earlier, perhaps to 6.30, because you probably won't want to be going to bed much later than eight, or your little one going to bed much later than eight when you've got to go to work the next day. But of course, completely up to you, Sky, I'm making assumptions about your family life. So I'd shave off half an hour.
Dr Fallon (31:15)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (31:43)
just so that we can ensure that his sleep pressure is more likely to be able to take him all the way through until morning.
Dr Fallon (31:43)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Yeah. If we allow time for a night feed, they're just more likely to keep doing it. So we just sort of need to not allow that time.
Dr Laura (31:58)
Hmm,
yeah. And then I'll just be thinking about, look at eight months old. Yeah, have a think about whether you want to go cold turkey with the, I think he's only having one feed overnight, whether you want to just say, okay, so from the next weekend, we're not going to offer him the feed anymore and pick a different, one of the settling approaches in Sombell. And perhaps if you have a partner,
See if the partner can do the resettling overnight with that settling approach and just really stick with it like we've spoken about before. Often it just takes maybe two or three nights of being really consistent for a baby to learn that they're not having any feeds overnight anymore. Or you might want to start to over the next week or two start to gradually reduce the volume of the feed first.
Dr Fallon (32:30)
Hmm.
Dr Laura (32:56)
And again, that's going to depend on whether it's a bottle feed or whether it's a breastfeed as to how easy that will be. If it's a bottle feed, parents will often just slowly, you know, few days through night, blah, every few nights, reduce the volume by somewhere between, you know, 10, 20 mils until there's hardly any that your baby is having, and then you drop it all together. If it's breastfeeding, some parents will...
Dr Fallon (33:22)
Hmm.
Dr Laura (33:25)
only be able to do that gradually if their child has a really long feed. So you then just unlatch your baby a minute or two sooner than they would unlatch themselves. And you do that every few nights until they're just having a quick suckle and then you can drop it. If your baby has a really quick breastfeed, that's going to be really hard to do. And it's going to be easier to then just go cold turkey, I would say in that instance. Yeah, anything to add, Fallon?
Dr Fallon (33:52)
Yeah.
Only that, you know, if he's always needing shushing and sort of padding or something like that to get to sleep, then I'd be thinking about encouraging more independence for every settle. So not just the overnight feed when you go to drop it, but even at bedtime, trying to work towards him being a little bit more independent and falling asleep is likely to really pay off. But yeah, good luck with the return to work, Skye. It's a huge, big change to go through, but I know so many parents...
Dr Laura (34:11)
Hmm.
Mmm.
Dr Fallon (34:23)
you know, don't mind getting back into work and kind of tapping into that part of their brain again. So hopefully you'll find that really rewarding and manageable. Yeah, next question is from Josie. Do want to read this one out Laura?
Dr Laura (34:33)
Good.
Mm
hmm. Yeah, so Josie has an has eight month old twins who have two naps each day totaling three hours and then they have 10 and a half hours overnight with one overnight feed. So not too dissimilar to Skye's little one. So Josie says they've used this schedule for two weeks now, basing it on an estimate using a few days of sleep diary data and trial and error because Josie said they found it really hard to track.
the sleep of both of their babies. So yeah, it can be very, very hard when you've got more than one baby to track sleep. And Josie did include some extra information in her email. So I appreciate that it has been hard for you, Josie. So Josie's main struggle is stretching wake windows and
Dr Fallon (35:15)
Yeah.
Dr Laura (35:29)
The twins have ongoing grumpy tiredness towards the end of each of the wake windows. They are using all sleep opportunity, maybe 30 % of the time, and the rest of the time they're either having a shorter last nap or waking up up to 30 minutes before wake up time. But the wake windows are hard and I feel like I'm constantly in this stretching phase. Is this normal? Should I expect to get easier?
or should I just brace myself to continue as is? Do we have any tips for making it more doable? Josie says, I feel like shortening the first wake window just doesn't work and leads to a cascade resulting in needing a third power nap at around 4.30, which then leads to false starts at night.
Dr Fallon (36:20)
Josie, you're doing such a good job. And I love that you've been working on that schedule for two weeks. So you've really tried it out because then it's by by having that consistency, you've realized that, okay, they're not using all the opportunities to sleep that you're giving them. You're saying only 30 % of the time will they actually sleep that amount. So I think you are very close to having this sorted. And I would consider adjusting their daily rhythm to be
Dr Laura (36:22)
Mmm.
Mmm.
Mmm.
Dr Fallon (36:46)
potentially 13 hours, just dropping 30 minutes from somewhere. This is a little bit like skies, isn't it? But just dropping 30 minutes, because it sounds like sometimes they will wake up sort of 30 minutes early and it might make all the difference in the world. You might get to a point where, you know, they're having really good nights, then they're waking up more refreshed and then you can get them through the day on those two naps. Definitely sounds like avoiding that third nap is really important because you're seeing that you're getting false starts if they have it.
Dr Laura (36:51)
Mmm.
Hmm.
Mmm.
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (37:13)
And
the twins are eight months old. So I really shouldn't be having that third nap anymore anyway. So I think you're really close, Josie. I think it's probably just been the schedule hasn't quite fitted. It's just allowed a little bit of wobbliness and some babies exquisitely sensitive to that little bit of wobbliness. If they know, you know, I'm, I'm, you know, going down for the night and I need, you know, they're looking for maybe 10 hours of sleep, but there's 10 and a half hours opportunity.
Dr Laura (37:17)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Dr Fallon (37:42)
Even just that, some babies will just keep waking up for half an hour in the middle of the night. And once we reduce that opportunity, it all just comes together. But it does take a week or so for that to happen. Sorry, I'm all over the place. I'm giving you all of the ins and outs. But I think you're really close, Josie. So have a think about how you could adapt that schedule. Maybe take 30 minutes off somewhere and see how you go. Give it a week and it might hopefully all come together.
Dr Laura (37:46)
Mmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah, and I would I appreciate that Josie, it's your describing that you feel like you're in this stretching phase because we do talk about to stretch them a little bit longer for those wake windows. And now and you're describing that they're grumpy just towards the end of the wake window. So again, I'm not having any not hearing that they're grumpy all the time. It's grumpy towards the end of the wake window when the sleep pressure is getting high. So again, not something to worry about because it's not the whole time that they're awake that they're grumpy.
Dr Fallon (38:19)
Hmm
Hmm.
Dr Laura (38:38)
And once you shave that 30 minutes off, either perhaps if you're finding that they, you need to pick whether you're going to shave off the day or the night. So if it's the naps that they often don't make that full three hours, then I would just shave that. I would think, well, let's just have their day allowance two and a half hours. But if it is the morning wake up that they often aren't making, I would just make morning wake up a bit earlier and do the half an hour there.
Dr Fallon (38:58)
Mm.
Yeah.
Dr Laura (39:08)
And you'll probably then find that then when they're able to maintain their sleep for the full stretch overnight, they're not going to be quite as grumpy in that last bit of their wake window, but a little bit of grumpiness is actually just to be expected. So yeah, keep going, Josie.
Dr Fallon (39:23)
Yeah,
yeah, you're doing a great job. Excellent.
Dr Laura (39:28)
All right, so Chloe has sent in an email and Chloe has said, from the slow fade approach, we have built a really consistent bedtime routine for my six month old baby boy. The problem is within a minute of the light going off, I'm sorry, I'm starting to laugh already at this. I'm laughing in sympathy, Chloe, with this email. So within a minute of the light going off, my baby does a massive poo in his nappy.
Dr Fallon (39:43)
Hahaha
Dr Laura (39:54)
every night. So the light goes back on and we're back to the beginning of the routine again. Chloe says my baby is perfectly happy and he doesn't seem to mind at all but I feel like somehow I have taught him this association with the bedtime routine and pooping. I've tried moving the breastfeed earlier and reading longer stories but he seems to hold out till the lights are off. Is there a way that I can break the association between the end of the bedtime routine and pooping?
Dr Fallon (39:54)
You
Mmm.
Dr Laura (40:22)
Chloe adds, once I've changed him, how much of the routine should I redo in order to resettle?
Dr Fallon (40:29)
I love this question. It's so interesting. Chloe, I don't think you've taught him to do that. I think as parents, we immediately go, what have I done wrong? You've probably done absolutely nothing wrong. So what I think we often just fail to talk about is the fact that calorie intake and all the output in the nappies as well, they're actually part of the circadian rhythm. Like all of our body systems kind of fall in line with the circadian rhythm. So
Dr Laura (40:38)
Yeah. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Dr Fallon (40:57)
When I hear that a baby is pooing at a time when they should be going to sleep, I always think probably a few tweaks to things is going to iron that out. For some reason, Chloe's baby doesn't think it's sleep time until it's done this poo and then, you know, I'm assuming falling asleep fine after the second go at the, at the routine. so I would definitely be thinking about things like bringing that feed earlier.
Dr Laura (41:12)
Mm-hmm.
Dr Fallon (41:22)
Chloe mentioned she's tried that. I would just do it really methodically. Like you might move it 10 minutes earlier every few nights until you kind of reach a point where hopefully you'll find that, that poop comes and happens a little bit earlier and then you can, you know, do your wind down into bed and all be fine. also it won't last forever either. It could completely stop happening all on its own. but if you're really thinking that, you know, something about it going dark is signaling, you know, it's time to get this out.
Dr Laura (41:40)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Dr Fallon (41:51)
then I would experiment with the light a little bit too. So it could be that part of your bedtime routine is to have a song together in the dark room or something where maybe he lies down, maybe it's just lying down on the bedroom floor, not the cot. It's dark and you sing a little song and that's part of your wind down routine. And then you go and.
Dr Laura (42:01)
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (42:12)
Maybe you do something out in the light. Maybe you walk out into the living room and say good night to other family members if you've got them. And then you go back into the room. So you could kind of just test it out. Like, are you finding that when you do that, the poop happens when you do the song in the dark? So it's going to kind of answer your question around, is it a sleep association thing or not? And if you do have to change him and you've got to redo your routine, would, I actually wouldn't redo the routine. I think I would be inclined to keep it really dark.
Dr Laura (42:21)
Mm-hmm.
Dr Fallon (42:41)
change his nappy in the dimmest light you can and then pop him into bed. And yeah, but it's an interesting question. What would you add to that one, Laura?
Dr Laura (42:46)
Yeah.
It is.
I would, no, I probably wouldn't add anything. think I wouldn't add anything. I think you have a really good idea about just seeing if actually it's a light going off and the timing of the feed that is just causing that the bowel movement. And so turning the light off, lying down on the bedroom floor while singing him a song that might just trigger the bowel movement. And then you can do the nappy change and pop him into bed.
Dr Fallon (43:02)
Hmm.
Dr Laura (43:18)
And the association, when we talk about sleep associations, we're not talking about the entire routine, but Chloe did in a longer email describe it, all the steps that she goes through. Now that kind of half an hour of routine where you're moisturizing a baby, popping baby into their pajamas, or you've got a toddler doing the teeth and all of that. That's the bedtime routine, which just helps the mind and body prepare for sleep.
and you start to, a baby or toddler associates those activities with going to sleep, just like we as adults, when we have good sleep hygiene, associate those activities that we do before bed with getting ready to go to sleep. But the sleep associations are what are in the cot with your baby at the time that he falls asleep. So it's when you're thinking about needing to redo the whole routine, because that's the association, that's not.
Dr Fallon (44:05)
Hmm.
Mmm.
Dr Laura (44:12)
quite the case, it's just what's
in the cot when he goes into his cot at the point where he falls asleep. That's what we think of as the sleep associations as he falls asleep. So that's why Falon is saying that you don't need to redo the whole routine, bedtime routine, because that's just the lead up to it.
Dr Fallon (44:25)
Mmm.
Yeah,
yeah, that's it. Awesome. We have a really short question now from Annalise and I was going to say as well, loving when parents send through the really brief questions, we've got a little bit of a problem happening, haven't we, Laura, where we've had some absolute, I call them a thesis sometimes when they come through. And we know that as parents, you can feel really, panicked about sleep and you feel like you've got to give us all the background on your child's sleep for
Dr Laura (44:42)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (44:57)
your question to be answered on the podcast. But if you're thinking, you know, we've had some emails that are over 900 words long for these questions. So when parents listen in and hear our questions as we read them out, we have had to drastically edit those questions down. And it takes a lot of our time and we seriously need admin support with that. Anyway.
Dr Laura (45:05)
Mm-hmm.
Dr Fallon (45:19)
What I want to say is if you feel like your question requires us to understand the history of your child and everything you've tried and everything you've done, you need a coaching call. You need a higher level of support. We won't be able to address your question thoroughly enough in the setting of a podcast. And it almost starts to feel a little almost a bit unethical to even try to address those questions on the podcast. Cause I know we can't do them justice.
Dr Laura (45:29)
Yeah.
Mm.
Dr Fallon (45:46)
So if you're typing out your question for us and it's really getting very long, just keep that in mind. Think, should I just trim this right down to a couple of dot points? And is that okay? Or do I just need to have a coaching call and really talk this through? And yeah, definitely please aim for really super succinct. Otherwise we've got to trim it and we don't know if we're trimming the stuff that's actually really important to you or not. So it's better if you trim it down to the core, core questions.
Dr Laura (45:55)
Mm-hmm.
Hmm.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (46:14)
Anyway, so on that note, Annalise has a lovely short question for us. She said, do you have any tips for moving an infant from sleeping in their cot in our bedroom to sleeping in their own bedroom? She says, I'm unsure when to make the move knowing that separation anxiety is starting for them now. So I'm not actually sure how old this baby is, but what do you reckon Laura? What's the best way to do it?
Dr Laura (46:34)
So,
red nose guidelines is to the safest place for a child to sleep is on their own sleep space in the parents room for the first six to 12 months. So if your baby is older than six months, which I'm imagining Anna-Lise's baby is because she's mentioning separation anxiety that can start very, very early from six months, but generally
we see it more strongly around nine months. So that makes me think perhaps Annalisa's baby is maybe nine months old, perhaps. after, yeah, once they're over six months of age, you can move them into their own room. Of course, like we've spoken about before, there are reasons why you might do it beforehand, but just as a kind of general rule, first six to 12 months share a bedroom with the parents.
Now, then we're thinking about how to make that move as easy as possible. Now, if you have a situation like Anna-Lise's where she feels that there may be separation anxiety, then what you'd want to be doing is helping your baby feel as familiar as possible with this new room that they're going to be going into and doing a cot settling approaches. All of our Sombelle cot settling approaches involve you staying with.
the baby as you're settling them in their cot or their bed for toddlers. You certainly wouldn't be using the kind of step away modifications where you leave the room for any child that has separation anxiety because we don't want to trigger that anxious response in a child that has got separation anxiety. So I'd be thinking about in the lead up.
to making that move. Perhaps if you've got a chair in the bedroom, you could start doing some of the bedtime routine in their own bedroom, reading them a story on the rocking chair, perhaps giving them their final feed in their bedroom before putting them down in the room that they share with you first of all, just to help them gain some familiarity with that bedroom. Some parents will then bring in some naps in that bedroom during the day first.
before moving to putting their baby in that room overnight as well. And others prefer just to do it all at once, naps and bedtime. You start at the same point and yet thinking about which of the settling approaches, if any, because we don't know from Annalise whether her baby actually is able already to settle independently or not. But if your baby isn't able to settle independently, some parents will actually
work on the independent settling whilst they're still in the same room with the parents because it's just a bit easier to be nice and close to your baby, particularly if there is separation anxiety and others just make the move to the new bedroom and then pick an approach where you stay alongside the cot, do the cot settling. You may want to a trundle in the room with them for the first few nights so that you stay close by.
and then go back to your own room when you feel ready. But again, depends on the child whether you really need to do that or not. Separation anxiety, you may well want to do that. But if mainly they're fine, you wouldn't necessarily need to sleep in there with them first. Gosh, Fallon, I feel like I just went blablabla, every possible option.
Dr Fallon (50:08)
Every option. Annalise is well equipped now with every version. Yeah. My first thing, my first thought with that question was just, just sleeping there near the cot the first few nights. It's been like when you travel with them, it feels weird for them. It's different and they'll get a lot of reassurance just seeing that you're over there somewhere. and I would generally say if your child's over six months of age, they're healthy.
Dr Laura (50:24)
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (50:29)
And you're finding your sleep's really interrupted because you hear every little gurgle and squawk, or you think you're snoring. I don't know, there's a lot of snoring parents out there who know that their snoring wakes their baby, then move, make the move. Everybody will sleep better. And it's, fine to do that after six months. Keeping them in your room up to 12 months is sort of optional, depending on what you want to do. Awesome.
Dr Laura (50:43)
Yeah.
Hmm.
Okay, great. Now we have another question from Lydia. So Lydia has said, she's previously sent in some questions to the podcast and she says, we have followed all of your suggestions. They've used the accelerated, supported accelerated approach and the suggestions have worked beautifully, which is great to hear. Well done, Lydia. Their child went from waking approximately seven times a night to now just two or three times. And he also no longer feeds to sleep.
Dr Fallon (51:13)
Yeah.
Dr Laura (51:23)
which is awesome, well done. He has one feed at 2 a.m. and sometimes one other between 5 and 5.30 a.m. if the settling is taking more than 20 or 30 minutes. His average sleep need is 11 and a half hours. He has two hours a day sleep across three naps and then nine and a half to 10 hours overnight.
Lydia says, do we have any suggestions for how to help him sleep for longer than four hours stretches? She has then done a little bit of brainstorming herself. So I'll just read out the brainstorming that she's done Fallon. She says, should we be pulling the nap budget lower? So an hour and a half instead of two hours. She also asks, should we be transitioning to two naps? He's six months old.
And finally, Lydia says, we've recently started up. He has recently started teething and they've also introduced solids and it looks like he's about to crawl. Do these really impact sleep the way the internet insists? It's been over a week of consistent effort, Lydia says.
Dr Fallon (52:34)
Hmm,
lots to think about. So first of all, is he struggling to settle for that third nap of the day? Like are you finding you've got to do it in the pram or it's got to be in your arms because it's tricky or it just takes so long to settle him. If it's at all hard, it's time to drop it. That would be what I'd be thinking in terms of that third nap. He's six months old. Some of them are ready. Some of them are not. So yeah, just have a bit of a think about that one. Should you pull the nap budget even lower?
Dr Laura (52:37)
Hmm
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Dr Fallon (53:03)
You could, it could be something that you try. You could also just adjust the night. You're allowing sort of an extra 30 minutes in there some nights. You know, maybe it's just pushing that bedtime always to 8.30 and you might find over the course of a week, makes a really big difference. So that's something you could definitely think about trying as well. Regarding whether teething, solids, crawling, do they really impact sleep the way the internet insists?
Dr Laura (53:18)
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (53:31)
They can, if it's, if you're worried about teething use Panadol or Neurofen, 20, 30 minutes later, you're to know that pain's probably under control. and then you can kind of rule out teething. They teethe all the damn time in this first year. So, you know, you can't always be stopping what you're doing because you think there's teething. So yeah, manage it with pain relief, starting solids. I don't think that has much impact on sleep. anything, you're having some bulk in their tummy can really help overnight for some babies.
Dr Laura (53:45)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (53:59)
crawling, if he's crawling around the cot, yeah, it could mean that he takes longer to settle because he wants to practice those new skills. But I feel like what Lydia's getting at is, there this sort of, I feel like some advice online, it's almost like some kind of magical thing where if they get a new skill, they'll just have terrible sleep. Even if that new skill has absolutely nothing to do with sleep. And I don't know where that comes from.
Dr Laura (54:02)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (54:24)
you know, if, if he's learning to crawl, it's not going to impact his sleep unless he's trying to do it in the cop when he should be sleeping. I hope that makes sense. so I would say no, they don't have a huge impact on sleep. but you know, there'll be parents who disagree with me. That's totally fine as well. Yeah. Would you add anything to that?
Dr Laura (54:31)
Yes.
Yeah. Yeah, because there will be that
there'll be variability from baby to baby. But I tell you what, if your baby is just learning to crawl, and you're finding that it's been taking them longer to fall asleep than in the past, it's probably because them learning to crawl has coincided with a change in their sleep needs anyway. Also combined with
Dr Fallon (54:47)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Dr Laura (55:06)
they're now more mobile and in the past they would just lie there quietly and perhaps might look like they were asleep or just be, it just wasn't as visually obvious to us as parents that they were awake and taking a little while to fall asleep. Now they're moving around and we can see it and they're doing things like knocking their heads and getting upset about it. So yes, it's again, it's one of those things where it's not, it's a correlation, it's not a causation.
Dr Fallon (55:13)
Mmm.
Hmm.
Dr Laura (55:34)
So it's not the learning to crawl that's impacting the sleep. It's just the timing of it happens with a lot of other things at the same time. So, and it's more likely, I think, Fallon, that idea of taking away that half hour variability overnight is gonna really help a lot. moving, Lydia's baby is currently going to bed anywhere between eight and 8.30 at night. So if he is crawling around the cot, just making the...
Dr Fallon (55:35)
Yeah.
Mmm.
Dr Laura (56:00)
bedtime more consistently, 8.30, it's just gonna mean that sleep pressure is a bit higher, which means he's gonna be a little bit more tired, a little less wanting to crawl around his cot in half an hour at start of the night.
Dr Fallon (56:12)
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely. All right. And we can squeeze in one last question just quickly. We had Fiona email in who says her nine month old is having some disrupted nights. She has a 12 and a half hour sleep need and the daily rhythm is having 11 hours overnight and two naps totaling 90 minutes in the day. But she says they can vary in timing and duration and that's fine if it's adding up to about 90 minutes.
Dr Laura (56:22)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Dr Fallon (56:40)
The timing of naps doesn't seem to change the night. Fiona describes some inconsistency in settling overnight. She often gives her comfort feeds and she generally goes down easily after that. However, Fiona sometimes has to lie on the floor, shushing her or patting her. So Fiona's questions are, is this purely a sleep pressure issue? And if so, how can I help her build more pressure and avoid an early bedtime? Should we be working harder on establishing consistent naps?
timing. She says I was planning on naps being 45 minutes each, so the length of one sleep cycle, but alternatively we could go for an hour and then a short 30 minute nap to get her through to bedtime. Do we want to answer that one first Laura and then we'll go on to the other question?
Dr Laura (57:22)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I would think when you are trying to kind of finesse the overnight sleep and trying to reduce, excuse me, kind of these persistent wakes that just will not do not seem to resolve. Then I would be thinking about being a little bit firmer on the naps during the day.
Um, so I would be thinking, um, if you, you, cause at this point, Fiona, sounds like you're just tinkering around the edges just to try and get over the line. I would be considering, um, helping your daughter have two naps at 45 minutes each. I think that sounds really good rather than doing an hour and half an hour. Um, uh, just having a, um, the naps that are the sleep cycles that are your daughter's length.
rather than just an arbitrary 60 minutes and 30 minutes that don't tie up with her biology at all would be preferable. And then see if by sticking to two 45 minute naps for a whole week that are happening at a relatively predictable time in the day, just see if that helps. I think that's probably a good way to go.
Dr Fallon (58:46)
Hmm.
Yeah. And if you were still having wakes at night that you thought were due to low sleep pressure, you could then start to tinker with bedtime or wake up time. if you need to, Fiona, Fiona also says, I'm not too concerned about the settling when she does wake overnight, unless this is contributing to why she wakes. I think it probably is. She says, I know the cuddly feeds and possible inconsistencies can make settles difficult. Is this part of the problem?
Dr Laura (58:56)
Mm-hmm.
Hmm. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (59:14)
That's a pretty quick answer. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Come up with one really consistent thing that you're going to do overnight. Because if it feels like a bit of a lucky dip for your baby, they think this is exciting. I don't know what might happen this next week, even though we think it's not very exciting. They're like, will I get a feed? Will I get pattern? Will I get a cuddle? Try and make it consistent. It's far less entertaining for them. And Fiona also asks, there's another part to this. says, I'm
Dr Laura (59:15)
Yeah, yes it is, yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Hmm. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (59:42)
I'm signed up to another course about baby development. The opening statement includes all babies should be sleeping from 7pm to 7am. should they? Okay. She says, well, common sense tells me all babies don't do anything the same. I agree with you there. She says, you've taught me about unique sleep needs and this has been rattling around my brain for a few weeks now.
Dr Laura (59:51)
You
Dr Fallon (1:00:06)
She says, it doesn't help my sense of confidence. So she's just interested to know if we think, you know, should all babies be doing this sort of 7pm to 7am? I reckon we could probably answer at the same time, Laura. One, two, three. No. No, definitely not. They're not all made from the same cookie cutter. Yeah. So to have some confidence and if you've, yeah.
Dr Laura (1:00:18)
Yeah. No! No.
Dr Fallon (1:00:31)
It's totally fine to switch off from any channels that are giving you information that's confusing or making you feel guilty or like you're not doing a good enough job. Um, you know, you're doing an awesome job. And I think if things, if you're getting confusing sources of information, switch them off. Um, even if it was us, if you listen to us and you listen to a bunch of other people and you don't like our approaches, turn it off because you're the parent. You can make that call. You're, you're at the steering wheel, you know? Um, yeah.
Dr Laura (1:00:52)
Yeah.
Yeah, that's right. You'll drive yourself mad
otherwise. we have come in, we created Infant Sleep Australia and the Sombelle program to provide evidence-based advice to parents to try and cut through all of the misinformation out there. But if you are finding that it's just, you prefer some advice that somebody else is offering, then we don't want to be part of the problem that you're experiencing. Just don't listen.
Dr Fallon (1:01:24)
Yeah.
Dr Laura (1:01:25)
So just turn us off and follow whoever it is you prefer, if it's working for you. But if you do decide that you want to follow our advice and it is working for your child, don't drive yourself mad by just having these little chinks in your armour, letting in this misinformation out there because you're just gonna, you're gonna have it rattling around in your brain for several weeks like Fiona has.
Dr Fallon (1:01:41)
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely. And look, I would say, yeah, on that note, we probably should wrap up the episode. It's certainly going on a bit. we have had so many beautiful reviews come through lately. People leaving reviews on our Google business profile. It's absolutely so appreciated. I cannot tell you how thankful we are. we've also had a bunch of delightful people buy us coffees.
Dr Laura (1:01:57)
Yes.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (1:02:16)
If you have found something worth said really helpful and you want to shout us a coffee, you better believe I'll drink it. I love coffee, typical millennial over here. But yeah, the link will be in the bio. So do buy us a coffee if it's within your means and you want to show appreciation. And if you can't afford a coffee, you could always leave us a review, hit like, subscribe to the podcast, share it with your mates, talk about it at Mother's Group. It really, really helps us to grow. And we love doing this work and we want to keep it going.
Dr Laura (1:02:16)
Yes.
Dr Fallon (1:02:46)
And yeah, if you want to send in questions, we only answer the questions of Sombelle members. And like we discussed earlier, try and keep them really succinct because otherwise, you know, they can end up on the chopping block and we might not quite answer the question you were intending to ask. So yeah, keep that in mind. Have a great week, everyone. And welcome to all the new members. We have had the most astonishing number of new people.
joining us and I reckon there's a lot of people who are like right we're going back to work soon you know the holiday period's over and we've got to get some sleep so I love this welcome to all those new families if this was your first episode tuning in know that we've got a huge back catalogue of episodes covering everything under the sun so do start working through those when you can yeah have a great week
Dr Laura (1:03:14)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, alright, thanks everyone, bye
