Dr Fallon (00:37)
You've probably heard someone say that babies and toddlers need to sleep in a dark room. And then moments later, you've heard someone else say that no, they have to learn how to sleep in a brightly lit room with the TV on and maybe even the vacuum cleaner going too. So who is right? Our dedicated listeners won't be surprised to hear that the answer depends a little bit on your individual child. As always, there are shades of gray between the
polarizing views on this one. In this week's episode, you'll learn how to tell if your child needs darkness for sleep, so you can set up the perfect sleep environment tailored to your little one.
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. are PhDs and sleep practitioners and co-directors of Infant Sleep Australia. Laura, how are you going?
Dr Laura (01:51)
Yeah, I'm good, thank you. How are you?
Dr Fallon (01:54)
I'm good. I'm really good. I'm wondering about you in terms of like sleeping in the dark. you the sort of person who has to have, you know, your blackout blinds on your bedroom window to be able to sleep well or are you a bit resilient with this type of thing? Yeah.
Dr Laura (02:07)
No, I'm pretty resilient.
And actually this weekend I had a lot going on. And I thought at one point, my goodness, I'm really tired. And I thought I'm just going to go and have myself a little nap between chores. And I made sure I just lay down with the blinds open and the bedroom door open so that I wouldn't go into a really deep sleep.
Just a short night, I just did a power nap myself, like I often talk about, just 20 minutes. And then I was up and I felt refreshed and could keep going. But if I had made the room really nice, with darkness and no sound, then I could have drifted away for hours and then I would have been up all night long.
Dr Fallon (02:32)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, that is so interesting. And I think that kind of applies to not all, but a lot of babies and even toddlers as well. yeah, I'm really sensitive to light coming in in the morning. get really cranky at my husband because sometimes he pulls the blind down, but he leaves like a couple of inches gap at the bottom. And I'm like, don't do it. Because if I wake up, like I normally get off at like six 30 or quarter to seven. And, if there's any light coming in on the weekend.
Dr Laura (03:11)
yeah.
Dr Fallon (03:20)
and you know, I wake at that time. That's it. It's all over. Like I'm up for the day. So yeah, it's got to be dark for me. Yeah.
Dr Laura (03:20)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, okay. Maybe when you were a baby
felon, you would have been one of the babies just lying in there looking at all the shadows and light playing on the walls. I would have been oblivious. Wouldn't have cared.
Dr Fallon (03:36)
Yeah. I wonder. Yeah, you wouldn't have cared less. You'd be zonked out. So
yeah, look, I think this is a really good one to unpick the importance of darkness with sleep. you know, sleep and well, I think it's particularly lets us start with nighttime sleep. So for sleep at nighttime, 100%, we need it to be dark. We don't sleep terribly well if there's a lot of light.
Dr Laura (04:02)
Mm-hmm.
Dr Fallon (04:04)
and that's why I would typically say if your baby wakes up in the night or your toddler, you want to keep it pretty dim. and I'm probably not alone in being one of those people where if I need to use the bathroom in the night, I like, don't even turn my phone light on. kind of feel my way around in dark. So I'm like, no, if there's too much light, I'll be too awake. and for most babies and toddlers, that's certainly the case. We want to keep it really dark at night and it kind of keeps us circadian rhythm on track in knowing that, you know, the nights for sleep and the daytime is when we're.
Dr Laura (04:11)
Hmm.
Yes.
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (04:34)
you know, awake and, and good to go. But what do you think Laura, like, are there some babies who can be okay with, you know, sleeping in the living room, for example, cause I know a lot of parents will say, we've been trying to do all the naps in the living room. So they used to being in brightness and with noise and chaos happening around them when they sleep.
Dr Laura (04:37)
Mm-hmm.
Mm. Mm.
Yeah, I think that it does vary from child to child. When we're thinking about really little babies, so newborn babies in the first couple of months, what we sometimes see is a day night confusion, where a baby is more often awake a lot overnight, and then they have these really long daytime sleeps. And that's because their circadian rhythm is
Dr Fallon (05:08)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (05:19)
well, it's not mature yet. they, their body just hasn't quite learned which part of the 24 hour clock is daytime and which part is nighttime. And in that instance, what we tend to suggest is using natural light and using darkness to try to really help and train that circadian rhythm to the 24 hour clock, to the day and the night. And so doing some naps.
Dr Fallon (05:42)
Mm-hmm.
Dr Laura (05:49)
out and about in the pram or doing maps in a bright space during the day can be really helpful to correct that day night confusion. Once we're outside of that very little baby range and babies who do have that day night confusion, then we really start looking at what the individual child needs. So if you do have a baby that is
Dr Fallon (06:00)
Mmm.
Mmm.
Dr Laura (06:18)
particularly a second or third or fourth born who's got older siblings running around. Sometimes it's actually just not practical to be able to put your baby down somewhere really quiet and dark. And it actually suits you as a family for your little baby to be able to learn how to fall asleep where there's a lot going on. But for other babies, even those who do have bigger brothers and sisters,
it can, for some who are very sensitive or more sensitive, they don't even have to be very sensitive, but more sensitive to light, you're going to find that they may find it hard to link more than one cycle if they are in a bright spot. And you'll soon see that if you do put them down somewhere dark, if they do then tend to link sleep cycles during the day and have longer naps.
Dr Fallon (07:07)
Hmm.
Dr Laura (07:16)
You might say, do you know what, actually it does work better for my baby to be out of the way in a dark space and a little bit more quiet.
Dr Fallon (07:20)
Mmm.
Yeah, yeah, definitely those FOMO babies that, you know, if they can see anything in their sleep environment, they kind of hyper-focus on it and they can't stop looking at it. They are the babies that do really well with just darkness. You know, when we make the room completely dark, it's sort of like we're closing their eyes for them. And without that visual stimulation, it puts them in a better position to do what is essentially a letting go of consciousness when we fall asleep. It's just, yeah, letting, letting the thoughts wander and not
Dr Laura (07:33)
Yes!
Hmm.
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (07:54)
being focused on anything in particular. That's what you need to be able to do to fall asleep. So yeah, definitely. think parents sort of know usually too, you know, you've got a really active, you know, baby who loves stimulation. You've probably already figured out that they do a lot better for naps in the dark room. But I think what I see really often in the clinic is parents will say,
Dr Laura (08:11)
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (08:18)
My baby does, or my toddler does really well overnight. Like they self settle in their cot. have, you know, really, really good nights, but their day naps are just not great. They just want to play. They want to interact. You know, they're awake long enough. I'm pretty sure the sleep pressures are there, but they're just not napping very well. you know, why is that? And often it's really amazing when, like I often say to these parents, well at nighttime, when your baby self settles, it's, it's dark.
Dr Laura (08:29)
Hmm.
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (08:47)
It's completely dark and that darkness could be one of your baby's cues that it's time to try to go to sleep. So often when those families use some blackout blinds and make the bedroom completely dark for the day naps, all of a sudden they've got this baby or toddler who goes straight to sleep and they're caught no problem at all. And they just really, they really needed that darkness. They needed everything to kind of switch off.
Dr Laura (08:54)
Hmm.
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (09:11)
and to be nice and dark and then they're fine. And I love it when that happens because families are like, wow, that was the easiest fix. Yeah, it really can make such a difference.
Dr Laura (09:11)
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah, and I think for those families, Fallon, often parents will describe that their baby is having multiple short naps across the day. They need a lot of daytime sleep. And, but they're only doing the one sleep cycle of each time. And as soon as they do make that change to ensure that the nap sleep environment is quite similar to the nighttime environment.
Dr Fallon (09:31)
Mmm.
Mmm.
Dr Laura (09:50)
They find that their baby isn't looking around and coming up into light sleep after one cycle and going, what's that over there? Or they're coming up into light sleep and going, this is still dark. It's still boring. And the sleep pressure will then take them into another cycle.
Dr Fallon (09:50)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Yes,
exactly. And another big fear from parents is some of them will say, no, I don't want them to get used to napping in a dark room because then I'll never be able to have them do naps on the go. Or if I'm at someone's house or whatever, it's just not the case. It really isn't the case. Babies tend to, you know, settle fine in a dark room. But then if you're on the go and they're in the pram, the movement, the warmth, the kind of snugness of being in the pram as an example, or maybe it's the carrier or the car.
Dr Laura (10:18)
Mmm.
Mmm.
Dr Fallon (10:35)
Um,
usually gives them that extra kind of assistance to get off to sleep. So don't feel like by settling your baby for naps in a dark room, you're making a rod for your own back. Um, typically that's actually not the case at all. So you could use the darkness to get some really good naps in there. And often we say to families, you know, do a nap a day on the go. Um, you know, they'll always be used to doing the odd nap on the go. And sometimes it's nice as a parent just to be able to get out of the house and not be, you know, trying to settle your baby, just letting them drift off when they're on the go.
Dr Laura (10:44)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Hmm.
Yeah, I think that's a really good tip, Fallon. And just a word on those parents who are thinking, I don't want to set bad habits. I don't want to be nap-trapped at home and I can't get out and about. Just remember that the period of time that your baby needs to have lots of naps in a day is actually relatively short compared to the length of time that you're going to be a parent. So it's very, very quickly that little babies go from having multiple naps, you know,
Dr Fallon (11:27)
Hmm.
Dr Laura (11:35)
somewhere between four and six naps a day when they're really small to, you by the time they're six, seven, eight months old, they're just down to two naps a day. And then you've only got really a few months, six, you know, six to eight, nine months of them having two naps before then they dropped down to just the one. So you're not making these decisions that are going to be, have no end in sight. It's all relative. It's a short period of time.
Dr Fallon (11:43)
Mmm.
Hmm.
Yeah.
Dr Laura (12:04)
And your baby will change preferences too. So just because your baby, when they were quite small, had to sleep in a dark room and didn't like sleeping in the pram or the car out and about, doesn't mean that a couple of months down the line, they're not going to be able to do it. They're constantly changing, developing new skills.
Dr Fallon (12:09)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's great advice. I know it took me probably at some point with my second child and certainly by the third, it took me a while to realize that you don't, if things are really crappy right now and you just like feel like you're absolutely in the trenches and your baby's naps are really challenging, it took me so long to realize that that doesn't last very long.
And that the kids will always have something that they're struggling with. There's always some little thing that you're thinking as a parent, oh, I've got to work on that. I'm, you know, it's in the back of my mind that something's going on with them. Um, but so often that is short-lived and it's really normal. And yeah. So by the second or third child, often you're like, ah, they're having trouble with that this week. Oh, wow. It won't last long. Then there'll be something else I'll be worried about. Um, and that's when you really start to relax as a parent and you let go of lot of that anxiety as well. I wish there was sort of a magic, um,
Dr Laura (12:50)
Mm.
Yes. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (13:19)
potion or something we could give to very first time parents who often are feeling so much anxiety about getting everything just right. It's impossible. You won't always have everything just right. There's going to be ups and downs along the way and that's really normal. It's how you learn and how your baby learns as well. Yeah, well, we've got some great questions to get through this week. Shall we dive in Laura?
Dr Laura (13:26)
Yeah.
Mmm.
Yeah. Good.
Yeah, let's. So our first question is from Holly and Holly has an almost two year old daughter who has one nap a day and self settles and she sleeps through the night 95 % of the time in her cot. So that's awesome. And Holly says, we have an overseas trip next month where it's not possible to have a porter cot or extra bed set up for our daughter. As she has been fed to sleep when she was younger,
Dr Fallon (13:54)
Woohoo!
Dr Laura (14:07)
I really want to avoid her doing this whilst we're on holiday. Would you have any advice? Holly says, shall I let her sleep with grandma rather than myself and her dad instead? Or should we try having her sleep in a sleeping bag on the floor, for example? She's got another couple of questions, but maybe we'll answer this one first.
Dr Fallon (14:26)
Hmm. I think Holly knows that. Yeah, we'll go one at a time.
I think Holly knows that this is a slippery slope for her daughter. I think most parents know this. There's this thing that, we can't ever go back to that because it was very hard to get away from how we used to do things. So if this is what you think your daughter, like a potential habit she could fall back into 100 % if grandma is happy to have her or dad instead, or have her sleeping on the floor nearby.
Absolutely do it. It's just going to mean when you get home, you're not facing a, you know, an angry two year old who thought that they could, you know, have you there and be feeling to sleep, you know, forever more. so yeah, a hundred percent. I'd get somebody else to be doing that with her.
Dr Laura (15:05)
Mm-hmm.
Great. And Holly says, we have a bedtime routine with books, bath, a bit of jumping and dancing to music, then a milk feed and sleep. What do you suggest we do if we have to occasionally shower her earlier in the day, for example, if she's been swimming? So Holly says that on a night where she wasn't able to or she didn't give her two year old the bath at bedtime, her two year old then had
protested a lot that night and it was hard to settle her into her cot.
Dr Fallon (15:42)
Given that she's nearly two, she'll be understanding a lot. So on those days I would start to talk about, just talk about how we don't need to have our bath or our shower tonight before bed, but this is what we do instead. We get a nice warm face washer, you know, we fill it with warm water, we wipe over our face. It's just kind of like the shower, but you know, we're cleaning our body in a different way and just explain that to them.
Um, they're still getting that, you know, that they're learning those different ways of doing things. And I just keep an eye on the jumping and dancing before bed. love it. So good to get that energy out. Um, as they get older though, sometimes we need to move that a bit earlier before we start the bedtime routine, because it might be that she's using the milk feed to calm down and then go to sleep, but the milk feed probably won't stick around forever. As she gets older, it'll be something you want to drop. Um, so we want to have some other relaxing things built into that routine after we've gotten all the sillies out with dancing and.
Dr Laura (16:09)
Mm.
Hmm.
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (16:38)
and all of that.
Dr Laura (16:40)
Yeah, that's great tip. Holly's last question is that we've noticed that she requires a bit more sleep, especially when she's been super active during the day or has been sick. Is this normal?
Dr Fallon (16:53)
Yeah, definitely. Especially during sickness, we often need a bit more sleep. Just be careful, I suppose, with the days that are really busy. Sometimes they are just a bit more tired. They have a bit more sleep. If that then means the next night's an absolute shocker, then don't allow that extra sleep. Try and kind of keep bedtime and wake up time the same. But if it's not making a big difference night to night, yeah, it's fine to let her have that little bit more. I just wouldn't ever let a child drastically overdo it. You know, having hours long naps.
Dr Laura (17:09)
Yeah.
Mm.
Mm. Awesome. No, I think that's great. That's, I think Holly is going to be all set now for her trip overseas and, and on the busy days. Yeah. Enjoy your trip, Holly.
Dr Fallon (17:23)
Yeah. Would you add anything to that Laura?
Yeah, have a great time. Yeah,
absolutely. Madeleine wrote in, she says, our six month old baby is now on step four of the slow fade approach. She's waking most nights only once to feed and other nights having one or two wakes before midnight where she can be settled quickly. Before we implemented cot settling, she was having two and a half hours over three naps.
and nine and a half hours overnight, waking every one or two hours and feeding to sleep. This has been quite a big shift. Madeline says, since we started cot settling, she's now having closer to three hours of naps and nine hours overnight.
Dr Laura (18:06)
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (18:14)
Is that an issue? Should I revert to two and a half hours? I'm wondering whether she is having more frequent wakes at night than we realize because she's used to the cot and is not calling out for us and as a result needing longer naps during the day. She can get quite tired in the morning and it can be tricky to stretch her to two hours awake before nap one. I resettle her during the day if she wakes up crying and can get back to sleep within 10 minutes. What do think Laura?
Dr Laura (18:40)
I think that it sounds like you're doing really well, Madeline. You've done a really good job. You've moved on to the cot settling. You've moved away from feeding to sleep, which is what you wanted to change. And so that is awesome. Now that your baby has those skills. think she's linking more, she's linking probably another sleep cycle during the day for her naps. So she's doing three hours rather than two and a half hours.
And of course, then you've noticed that the amount of nighttime sleep that she's having has reduced because we're always just looking at the maths. It sounds like the maths is still the same. And I think what probably is happening is that most nights it's just one night, one wake for a feed, but those other nights, if it's maybe two, three nights a week, she's having an additional two wakes overnight.
on top of that feed in the middle of the night, you're starting to see that taking its toll a little bit on her during the day and therefore she wants to have that catch up sleep during the day. So she's starting to push some of her nighttime sleep back into the day and really what we want to be doing for all of our little ones as they get older is helping them move towards having most of their sleep at night.
Dr Fallon (19:46)
Hmm.
Dr Laura (20:07)
until they get to the point where they don't have any daytime sleep at all. So I probably, Madeleine, would be looking at moving back to about two and a half hours daytime sleep just to help address those wakes that she's having overnight so that you can just shift that ratio a little bit. And when she's having fewer wakes in the night, she's gonna be having more restorative sleep and then it won't be such a struggle in the morning.
Dr Fallon (20:11)
Mmm.
Mmm.
Dr Laura (20:37)
to, for her to stay awake before her first nap. Do you have anything else to add Fallon?
Dr Fallon (20:44)
Only two little things. At six months of age, she might be just about ready to move to two naps. So keep that in mind that that third nap might be causing some of those night wakes. The other thing is, Madeleine says she's on step four of the slow fade approach. So some of those wakes just could be that her baby's falling asleep with some padding or shushing, wakes up in the night and is like, where are you? Get back over here. I need my padding and shushing. Thank you very much. So I'd aim to finish that approach.
Dr Laura (20:46)
Mm.
Mmm.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (21:11)
do a little push to just be really hands off with the settling so that she is doing it herself. And sometimes that means just changing to a different approach. You might look at something like the supported accelerated just for that last little bit. But yeah, otherwise it sounds like Madeline's doing a brilliant job and you're really close to having sleep well and truly sorted. So well done. That's great.
Dr Laura (21:14)
Hmm
Mm-hmm.
Yes,
awesome. So our next question is from Erin and Erin says, currently we've been told by our child health nurse to save one of our naps if it's less than 30 minutes, which we do by contact napping. Our baby then naps for a further hour and a half to two hours. So Erin says, my question is when I'm logging my child's sleep for
those days should I just log his naps for the duration he naturally sleeps for without the attempted resettling or saving with a contact nap?
Dr Fallon (22:08)
so Erin's really focusing on figuring out the sleep needs at the moment and keeping that diary. I would track all sleep and I'm glad Erin sent in this question because we do get it quite a bit with parents saying, should I not do this? Should I change this while I'm tracking their sleep? Like, what should I do? The only thing you have to do is just mark in the diary when they sleep. That's it. It's that simple. So it doesn't matter what you're doing. If you do something different, if it's a contact nap, if you, you know, traveled, whatever.
Dr Laura (22:12)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (22:36)
just put down in the diary when they slept over the course of a week, that average is, yeah, it's, it's an average. So it kind of allows for some, you know, change in there as well. so yeah, I'd really just keep it that simple. Erin, would you add anything to that? Laura, is there any?
Dr Laura (22:39)
Mm-hmm.
Hmm.
Yeah, no, I would just, yeah, if you
are choosing to save the nap by, and I think what Erin means is she's just heard when her baby wakes up after half an hour, or less than half an hour, her nurse is suggesting that she does anything she can to try and save it to try and get a bit more daytime sleep. So yeah, whilst you're logging the sleep, if you're doing that, just that's fine. Just log that you can do some days you could do every day across that week when you're logging sleep saving the nap.
Dr Fallon (23:07)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Dr Laura (23:19)
using the word that your nurses has used with you. If your baby doesn't actually need to have those long naps during the day, we will see the consequences in the overnight sleep or early rising, for example. So yeah, like Fallon says, it will kind of average out. So you just carry on doing what you're doing for a week and just log each time your baby is having a nap.
Dr Fallon (23:24)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah,
yeah, once you figured out that daily rhythm and decided on your approach as well, that's when you might go, okay, no more saving the nap because we're really going to work on some different skills. So yeah, that's, that's fine what you're doing.
Dr Laura (23:55)
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (23:58)
Great, Maria emailed in and she's got two questions. So we'll go through these one at a time. She says, we have a nearly four month old. We're doing padding and shushing and hoping to wean off the padding and eventually the shushing. The issue is since he started to roll from back to tummy recently, if we don't have our hands on him while we're trying to settle him, he will just roll onto his belly and get quite worked up.
Dr Laura (24:02)
Hmm.
You
Dr Fallon (24:24)
So what they've started to do is they're gently placing their hand on his torso instead during the settling and this seems to stop him rolling around and getting worked up. She wants to know, do we have any suggestions on how we go about withdrawing the hands on and shushing side of things?
Dr Laura (24:40)
Okay. that's a tricky situation, Maria. When you are using a hands-on settling and then you've got a little one who's rolling around, it can be a bit tricky. It sounds like you have found a good solution where you're just keeping your hand on the torso and doing the patting and that seems to stop them from rolling around. As long as you're not applying any force, we don't want to be like,
really kind of nailing our babies to the cot mattress to stop them from doing what they want to do. Often once a baby starts to roll, they'll do it for a little bit and then they kind of go, yeah, this, I roll over, I get stuck, I don't like it. They then stop to stop doing it. So we need to give them a little bit of leeway to have a bit of a practice. But since it sounds like you're just gently placing your hand on the torso and doing the
patting, and that's mostly stopping him from rolling around. I would continue doing that. I appreciate now you're trying to wean off the patting. So I wonder if what's happening, Fallon, is when Maria is patting her baby, then she lifts her hands off him to start to wean off the patting. That's when he rolls. And so if he's doing it that immediately,
I think you carry on, we do need, in order to make progress with this type of patting, we do need to be able to take our hands off. So I would kind of be brave and just be thinking when you're weaning off the patting, you you might get really quite drowsy with the patting first before you start to lift your hand off him to see if just
that slightly higher sleep pressure does stop him from rolling. But if he does roll, just count to however long you're taking your hand off for, maybe it's five seconds, 10 seconds, then roll him back onto his back and then do the next load of patting, take your hand off, let him roll, then wait for the interval for your hand to be off him before you roll him back. And with time, he's going to get bored of doing it. He's going to learn that he doesn't like it very much. And he'll stop doing it.
Dr Fallon (26:49)
Mmm.
Yeah, that's what I would suggest. I think they need to feel a little bit frustrated that they've rolled and they're out of position for sleep. If they don't get that frustration, then I do see a lot of parents who are just like, we just have to sit there with their hands on them. We've been doing it for months. We don't want to do it anymore. so yeah, I'd be thinking about, yeah, maybe it's 30 seconds or less if that's all you can manage, but where you, yeah, just do your padding intermittently rolling back like you've described Laura.
Dr Laura (27:21)
Mm.
Dr Fallon (27:22)
Often
they just need to feel a bit annoyed about it a few times and then they just think too tired for this and they finally lay still Good so Maria also says We've always had his first nap of the day in the pram when we take a morning walk What I'm finding however is he just loves the pram so much that if I try and take him for a walk later in the day He would start to fall asleep even though it's not at his regular nap time
Dr Laura (27:24)
Mmm.
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (27:50)
How do we work around this so I can take him for a second pram walk without having to sprint home when he starts to have an unscheduled nap and then won't respond to me trying to keep him awake?
Dr Laura (28:00)
Maria, you've got all the tricky questions this week. You're really in a patch where sleep is a little bit tricky. Some babies, I will often joke in clinic that some babies just have to sniff a bit of move, they sniff the car seat or they just see the pram and they know movements on its way and they falling asleep. They have, yeah, they love it. They have such a strong association with movement and sleep.
Dr Fallon (28:13)
Yeah.
They love it.
Dr Laura (28:27)
And it's, there's not a great deal we can do about it except to avoid the car or the pram when it's not at nap time until the babies get a little bit older when you'll find that he'll be a little bit more resilient to staying awake with movement. So I would be thinking about, you could always let him have a second, he could have both of his, like he'd have his first nap of the day and a second.
Dr Fallon (28:33)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (28:55)
nap of the day in the pram, there's nothing wrong with that. So don't feel that he can only have one nap a day on the go. He can have more than that. If you are, if you have to go out and about between the naps, so it's nowhere close to his second nap. Have a think about whether going in the carrier might be a better way for him to stay awake.
Oftentimes, if a baby can see lots of things going on around them, then that particularly if they're a little bit FOMO, that might be a way to try and keep him awake and help you get out of the house so that you're not feeling that you're trapped at home. But I think that it isn't really an easy answer to this question. It's just something that he will just become a little bit more resilient.
Dr Fallon (29:41)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Dr Laura (29:53)
about as he gets older. Do you have anything to add Fal and perhaps you've got another tip that I haven't thought of.
Dr Fallon (29:57)
Yeah. No, I
think that's perfect. I think just if they, if babies do take a bit of extra sleep, you know, like it just happens some days you're like, Oh crap, they've gone and had 15 minutes in the car or whatever. Just try and take it out of that daily total. Like if you've got a baby where you're working on their daily rhythm and you've been really trying to make sure they don't overdo the day's sleep. Um, that's where I'd be thinking about just taking that sleep out of that total daily budget so that it keeps the night on track.
Dr Laura (30:24)
Mmm.
Dr Fallon (30:26)
But yeah, it's definitely temporary. They get a bit older and then all of sudden you'll be like, damn, I remember when they used to nap in the pram and it was so handy and now they're just way too alert. Yeah, it'll all shift before you know it. Yeah. All right. What we got next?
Dr Laura (30:35)
Yeah, and they need the dark room. Yeah, good. Okay.
Yeah, so we've got a, we had an email from April and April wrote some really lovely words. So we don't have time to read them all out April, but thank you very much that they were very kind. April says recently my six and a half month old sleep needs have dropped from about 13 and a half hours to 12 and a half hours.
So April said, decided to drop the third nap this week, but it's been hard to push her through her longer wake windows. And she's been extra grumpy before her second nap. My question is, will she just take time and adapt to this change in schedule? Or is there a better way to figure out nap timings? April says she's currently offering a nap at around 10 in the morning, 3 in the afternoon, with an 8 PM bedtime and a 6.30 wake up.
and April says, have I dropped an app too early?
Dr Fallon (31:36)
Well, I'm assuming April dropped that nap because she saw signs that her baby was ready for it. I think it's really important to know that it's never easy to drop a nap. They're never just going to be, well, never say never. There have been some FOMO babies who are very happy to suddenly be awake for hours longer. but most of them will be a bit cranky, know, like they might really struggle. might be furiously tired, for the first few days and then it clicks, you know, the nights get a bit better.
Dr Laura (31:42)
Hmm.
No.
Mm.
Dr Fallon (32:05)
They start to power through the day just fine on two naps. So yeah, it is completely normal that you're having this, this bit of a rough patch. In terms of the timings, I mean, it sounds like you've done a good job of roughly equally splitting those naps across the day. You could trial just moving both of the naps, maybe an extra 15 minutes later, and then just see if that takes a bit of pressure off the end of the day.
And sometimes, and not always, so this is definitely one to think about whether it suits your child. Sometimes for families who are really struggling with dropping a nap, I'll suggest adding a little bit more day sleep in to that daily total temporarily. The first few days you might offer an extra 30 minutes of day sleep, for example, but then by that third day you're really trying to drop it and get them back on schedule so that their nights don't get too wobbly and it just helps them get used to the slightly longer amount of time awake.
Dr Laura (32:47)
Mm.
Mmm.
Dr Fallon (32:58)
Yeah. And if after a week, you're just like, this is how they have not adapted. Yeah. It's not going well. Then you go, okay, let's add in a third nap again. Maybe it's just a bridging nap, a 10, 15 minute nap. Um, and then you try dropping that nap again in another few weeks. It can be a good way to do it. Hmm. Cool. All right. We've got Larissa who wrote in, she says, I'm confused about when overnight sleep becomes the first nap.
Dr Laura (33:13)
Mm. Yeah, awesome.
Dr Fallon (33:26)
for my four month old. She says my daughter sleeps from 8.30 or 9.00 p.m. until 5.00 a.m. when she has a feed, then she goes back to sleep within the hour and sleeps until 8.30 to 9.00 a.m. She's wondering should I consider 5.00 a.m. or 9.00 a.m. as her wake up time in her daily rhythm. I'm unsure which time to keep consistent as her wake up time and whether to treat the 5.00 a.m. feed as a night feed or turn on the lights and get her up.
She has four 30-minute cat naps throughout the rest of the day. What do you think, Laura?
Dr Laura (34:02)
So Larissa, will kind of depend on how long she's awake for at five. So you said that she goes back to sleep within the hour. So if it's pretty quick, then I'd be thinking that her wake up time is more like the 9am. And I would be considering it like a, yeah, yeah. And so,
Dr Fallon (34:23)
Yeah.
Dr Laura (34:29)
If it's, since it's happening consistently though, what I would be trying to do is to probably shave off that. So 9 AM is probably a little bit too late for her, as in too late in the morning. And so if she's waking up at five every day, that's where her body is wanting to start the day, but it is just anything before six is just too early unless you live in far North Queensland.
Dr Fallon (34:44)
Hmm.
Dr Laura (34:58)
and so, yeah, I would be thinking, let's think about splitting the difference. Maybe wake up is actually closer to 8am. And if you start with that as an 8am wake up, and so not letting her naturally sleep until nine, then what you may find is after a couple of days, she's, not waking up at five and being awake for quite a while before going back to sleep until nine.
Dr Fallon (34:58)
you
Dr Laura (35:26)
she's more likely to, even if she does wake up for a feed, to then go back to sleep quite quickly because the sleep drive is still there. So she's not awake for a long time in the morning and then it's just getting more consistently through until eight without seeing a sleep diary. Sorry, I can't comment on the, I mean, that would be roughly 11, 11 and a half hours overnight that she would be having if she's doing 8.30 or 9.00 PM at night until.
Dr Fallon (35:27)
Hmm.
Hmm.
Mmm.
Yeah.
Dr Laura (35:56)
8am in the morning. it might 8am might not quite be the right time, Larissa is what I'm trying to say. But yes, I think that's going to be the the main way of just stopping that that extended wake and at 5am. Do you have anything to add Falon?
Dr Fallon (36:08)
Hmm.
Yeah,
only that I definitely would not be turning on the lights. Like, unless you really want a 5am wake up, but turning on the lights and starting the day at 5am, it's just going to tell us circadian rhythm that that is morning. At the moment, her circadian rhythm might be trying to figure out is this morning or is morning closer to 9am. I would say we want to get her through, yeah, to 8am.
Dr Laura (36:18)
No.
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (36:33)
AM sort of thing and then you can think about maybe shuffling everything along a bit so that you've got an earlier bedtime and earlier wake up from there. But yeah, definitely keep it dark at 5am. Larissa has a follow on question. Is there any evidence for early bedtimes being beneficial for sleep quality or is it simply a personal preference?
Dr Laura (36:39)
Hmm. Hmm.
Just a personal preference. What we know is that most older babies and toddlers are going to sleep somewhere between seven and eight o'clock at night. But if you have a lifestyle that means that it suits you better to have a later bedtime because you start the day later in the morning or you have a low sleep news baby, then you just have to have a later bedtime. That's totally fine. If you're from some European countries like Spain or Italy, they just as a
population tend to have much later bedtimes for children. So, yeah, I would just be thinking about what's going to work well for you, Larissa. Ultimately, in the first few hours of the night, that's when the deep sleep happens. And whenever that night time starts, that's when your baby's going to have most of their deepest sleep.
and it really doesn't make much difference whether it starts at eight or whether it starts at nine, nine thirty.
Dr Fallon (37:55)
Mmm, yeah, good answer.
Dr Laura (37:58)
All right, so our next question is from Linda. Linda says, my 11 month old has gone from waking once overnight to twice after a bout of gastro. She has a quick 15 minute breastfeed and then back to sleep. I'm wondering whether two wakes a night at 11 months old is generally considered good or whether I need to implement some change. She can self settle and go to sleep by herself for naps and at bedtime, but during the two night wakes she demands breast milk.
Dr Fallon (38:28)
What a great question, because I think this really nicely highlights that we can't just say, it good? Like it's absolute parent preference. So for some parents that say, is awesome. I only do two brief night feeds and other parents would be saying, you know, I'm dying. I'm having to feed twice per night and they're 11 months old. You know, how do I get rid of this? It really depends on what you feel is manageable. 100 % an 11 month old, I'm assuming she's in good health, weight gain's been fine.
Dr Laura (38:35)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (38:58)
does not need to feed overnight. They don't need to. And if we drop the night feeds, they'll compensate and take more calories in the daytime. And then you'll never do a night feed again. But if you don't mind doing the night feeds and you know, find it pretty easy, then there's no reason why you can't just keep going with it. It really is just personal preference. I would only just be thinking Linda about if she's, I think what Linda was saying was that she's falling back asleep during the breastfeed overnight.
Dr Laura (39:06)
Mm.
Dr Fallon (39:26)
That can be a slippery slope, especially at this age, they're pretty clever. So if they realize, well, if I call out at night, I get this lovely feedback to sleep. Sometimes every sleep cycle, they start to wake up and go, Hey, you know how you were feeding me before? I'd really like a bit more of that. So it can just be that they start to wake more and more and more often. And then suddenly instead of getting rid of two night feeds, you're trying to get rid of six night feeds, which is pretty tough work.
Dr Laura (39:28)
Hmm.
Hmm
Dr Fallon (39:51)
So if that's something that worries you, it might be really easy to get rid of those two night feeds now, or even dial it back to one. But yeah, like it really is just preference and you know, what you consider to be a problem. Would you add anything to that Laura? Have I missed anything?
Dr Laura (39:56)
Mm.
Yeah. No, I know
that in Linda's longer email, she did say that her preference would be for there to be one or no overnight feeds. And Linda, we know that your baby previously could just have one feed a night with gastro. You were offering her more just to keep her hydration up. But you know that she can just have the one feed a night. So yeah, I would be looking at scaling it back.
Dr Fallon (40:13)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (40:34)
to just the one and then whenever you want to drop that final overnight feed. But that's just because that's your preference to go that way and it would be perfectly reasonable to make that decision.
Dr Fallon (40:38)
Mmm.
Yeah, absolutely.
Fiona emailed in and would like to know is white noise something she should consider introducing to reduce her baby's one or two overnight wakes?
Dr Laura (40:59)
So Fiona, it's going to depend on what it is that is waking your baby overnight. So if your baby is waking up because something has changed in their environment, so particularly in terms of what they can hear, it could well be something that would be helpful. If it's quite noisy, depending on whether you've got other children in the house or you and your partner are making noise at bedtime.
Dr Fallon (41:04)
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr Laura (41:28)
And that's what your child can hear as she goes off to sleep. And then when she's waking up in the night, can't hear anything. And so it's kind of a bit jarring. Then it would be worth considering introducing the white noise at bedtime, just so that it muffles any of those environmental sounds and just creates a kind of just a constant sound that's going to be present throughout the night. So that when your little one comes up into light sleep, she's hearing the same things.
I'm saying she actually sorry Fiona if it's a he but yeah so I wouldn't be thinking about introducing white noise to if it's not something to do with the sound that is waking her or him.
Dr Fallon (41:57)
Mmm.
Yeah. Yep.
Yeah, yeah,
white noise can be good for babies that are really light sleepers and wake, you know, at the drop of a pin. And if you do use white noise, make sure it's under 50 decibels. Check in your baby's cot how loud it is just to protect their hearing. Excellent. And last question.
Dr Laura (42:15)
Yes!
Okay, and last question is from
Grace. This one came through this morning. So you just got your question in through Snuck over the line, Grace. She says, my just over two year old sleeps independently in her cot from seven at night until six or 630 in the morning and naps for an hour and a half each day. Over the past week or so she's taking an hour to fall asleep at bedtime.
Dr Fallon (42:32)
Snuck over the line.
Dr Laura (42:53)
She's very happy in her cot, just chatting away and is awake until roughly 8pm. So going into her cot at 7pm now, not falling asleep until 8pm. And on top of that, Grace said she's also waking up around 5.30 in the morning. Again, she's very happy in her cot, she's just chatting away and we try to leave her there until at least 6am to see if she will resettle. So Grace says,
She has got three questions. I'm just going to read them all out at once because they're all related, Fallon. So her first question is, is she showing us that she is ready to drop her day nap? How old typically do toddlers drop their nap? And finally, should we adjust the lunchtime nap first to only 45 minutes?
Dr Fallon (43:24)
Yeah, yep.
Yeah, I love what you've been doing, Grace. You've really just kept the schedule as it is to see if is this temporary, you know, that she's taking a while to fall asleep and waking early. and it sounds like it's not just a temporary blip in the radar that she's being pretty persistent, with lying awake in her cot. and it's definitely something we want to minimize. So we think about adults, if they spend a lot of time awake in bed.
Dr Laura (43:53)
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (44:03)
that association between getting into bed and falling asleep starts to erode and that's when insomnia starts and it's similar for toddlers as well. So Grace is very good for picking up on this. So I would say yes, she is definitely showing you that she's ready for less day sleep. It might not be that she's ready to completely drop the nap.
Dr Laura (44:07)
Hmm.
Mm.
Dr Fallon (44:23)
So
definitely I would adjust that lunchtime nap to 45 minutes, do that for a week and it might entirely resolve the problems overnight. She might be falling asleep much quicker and hopefully getting back through to 6 a.m. again. But if she's not and if it really persists and you've tried for a week or two, then you might just drop that nap altogether because to answer Grace's question, often toddlers are aged between about two and three years of age when they're ready to drop that nap.
Dr Laura (44:27)
Hmm.
Mmm.
Dr Fallon (44:51)
So it's a good, way to do it is always just to cut the nap down a bit, see if that resolves the problems, give it a week or so. If it doesn't then yeah, drop that nap. Yeah, I love how in tune Grace is with, with what's going on. That's really, really great. Would you add anything to that Laura? Have I missed anything?
Dr Laura (45:00)
Mm.
Yeah.
Now, all I would add is that if you really like having the hour and a half nap for your two year old, and it works well for you if she's at daycare, and that's what works well at daycare, then the other thing you could look at doing is just moving her bedtime later. So don't look at putting her to bed until closer to eight, because she doesn't need to be lying there awake.
Dr Fallon (45:22)
Hmm.
Yeah, good point.
Dr Laura (45:35)
for an hour in her bed, in her cot rather, so move it a little bit later. You might find that she still is waking up at half five and therefore is something that you need to address by reducing the lunchtime nap.
Dr Fallon (45:35)
Mmm.
Hmm. It's a really good
point though, cause some families will say, no, I'm really happy just to put them down to sleep later because my partner gets home at seven and it's going to mean they get time to spend together. So for a lot of families, it's like, this is actually really good for us because we can have a bit more time doing stuff together before bed. So yeah, it's a really good example of you can kind of, it's a choose your own adventure. Sort of depends on what your preferences are and you can absolutely make that call. That's right for your family.
Dr Laura (46:01)
Yes.
Mm.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (46:18)
Amazing. We had such good questions this week. I hope everyone's enjoyed listening to those answers and thank you so much to all the people who sent in lovely feedback with their questions which we haven't been able to read it all out. We've also had some lovely comments and things come through on social media which is really really nice as well. and I will just note please don't send your questions via DM on Instagram or Facebook because
I don't know what the deal is, but it often hides them in a request folder and we don't often see them. And I have a feeling there might've been one or two this week. And of course we've forgotten to include them because that's what happens. So when you email us, we flag that in our inbox and it won't.
Dr Laura (46:52)
yeah. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (46:58)
Well, shouldn't get missed. think we have missed a couple before and we've had to apologize to people. But yeah, emailing us is definitely the way to go. If you have sent something through on social media, please just email it to us instead. If you're a Sombelle member, you already know the email address and how to do that.
Dr Laura (47:02)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (47:16)
Thank you so much to Elise, Jeanette, Melanie and somebody anonymous who bought us coffees in this past week. It's so lovely, totally makes our day. We love you guys. It's really, really lovely. If you've been listening in, you love the work that we do, maybe you've gotten some great tips for your little ones, sleep. You absolutely can buy us a coffee. We'll love you for it. The link is in the show notes so you can just click there. It's very quick and easy to do. And yeah, thank you to everyone who has already.
Dr Laura (47:25)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (47:44)
and of course, if you love our work and you don't want to buy us a coffee, that's fine too. The cost of living is crazy. We completely understand. subscribe to the podcast or write a little review. you know, these are things that really help us to get more reach as well. We appreciate the people who do that so, so much. and of course, yeah, yeah, word of mouth. Yeah. Word of mouth just counts for so much. We appreciate what someone was saying.
Dr Laura (47:49)
Yeah. Yes.
Yeah, we do. Tell your friends. Tell your friends. Tell other new parents out there.
Dr Fallon (48:12)
The other day, yeah, I tell everybody I meet about you guys and that is awesome as well. Um, if you're struggling with sleep and settling, of course you can join Sombelle You could be submitting your question for next week's podcast. There's lots of videos, downloadables. It's an incredible resource Sombelle and we're improving it all the time. So if you need support, reach out. That's what we're here for. There are coaching calls actually available next week. So if you're a member and you want some extra support, there are a few still left.
Dr Laura (48:14)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (48:38)
There's also the clinic option as well. We have a clinic if you'd rather just work one-on-one with us without the program, that's okay too. Laura will be the one who you'll get to see if you take that option. And yeah, there's appointments coming up in the clinic as well. Well, that's probably all of we've really got to say for today. I guess we better get on with the day and go and see some clients, Laura.
Dr Laura (48:56)
Yeah.
Yeah, let's get on. Yeah, so thanks everybody. Bye bye.
