Dr Fallon (00:37)
If your baby or toddler has a lower requirement for sleep than other children their age, or what we often refer to as low sleep needs, chances are you've noticed early on. Maybe your little one would only cat nap when other babies of parents group were taking two or three hour naps. Or your little one might go to bed quite late and wake super early when other babies or toddlers are sleeping a full 12 hour night.
It can feel really isolating when your baby or toddler has a lower sleep requirement than others, simply because your little one won't neatly match up with any of the age-based advice that is so populous on the internet. But should you be worried? Well, in this episode, we're going to unpack what it means to have a low sleep needs baby or toddler. How to know if your little one is getting the amount of sleep they truly need.
and how you can manage their lower sleep requirements across the first few years.
Welcome back to Brand New Little People, the podcast companion to the Sombelle Pediatric Sleep Clinic programs created by us. I'm Dr. Fallon Cook and I'm here with Dr. Laura Conway. have PhDs and sleep practitioners and co-directors of Infant Sleep Australia. Laura, my goodness, haven't we been busy lately?
Dr Laura (02:09)
We sure have.
my goodness. just think, you know, someone said to me the other day, you know, how's it going? How's Infant Sleep Australia going? How's your business going? And I said, do you know what? It's like when you have one baby and you think, I am so, so busy. I can't imagine ever having more children than this. And then you have your second child and you think, my goodness, I thought I was busy before.
Dr Fallon (02:26)
You
Dr Laura (02:37)
And now it's just all over the place. And you went on to have a third child. And I didn't, I stopped. So I probably haven't. Yeah, it's a complete circus. And it feels like that with work. We are just so busy. But it's just been so energizing trying to work towards having more sleep practitioners available.
Dr Fallon (02:46)
It's a circus.
Mmm.
Dr Laura (03:05)
and fully trained so that they can start to see some of our clients. And gosh, it's just been wonderful. And yeah, really a great experience, but we are running on fumes at the moment, aren't we?
Dr Fallon (03:09)
Yeah.
Yeah.
We really are. It's kind of
a pinch point because we, we know that parents have been missing out on appointments because the wait times have been pretty crazy. And we're so grateful that we are, you know, in hot demand, which is phenomenal. but we have such high standards that
Dr Laura (03:32)
Mmm.
Dr Fallon (03:40)
We were so nervous for so long to let anyone else come in and work for us because we were like, no, our families, you know, we want everyone to have the absolute best. and then we've just had two incredible people come knocking on our door. Like, I really want to work for you. And these are people who listened to the podcast and really got to know our approaches. And we're like, you know, I work in sleep and I love what you're doing. Can I please come join you?
Dr Laura (03:45)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (04:07)
and that's been phenomenal. So we have Lauren and Kat, who are both starting in the next few weeks and they are just so like it's yeah, we have put them through their paces. They are so highly trained. We have been really giving them lots of supervision and observation opportunities and they are just absolutely phenomenal. And I'm so excited for parents to be able to have their support. because they're just an incredible, two incredible women.
Dr Laura (04:17)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, definitely with their own children as well. you know, so they've been through what a lot of our listeners have been through. And I think having that lived experience is just so valuable in this space.
Dr Fallon (04:40)
Mmm.
Yeah. Yeah.
It really, really is. And I just love that we're going to have this, you know, team, this kind of team to be working with. yeah. And more people for our clients to meet. and I think what's really, you know, going to be so valuable as well, cause we always, we have such high standards of our clinics is that. You know, now we're going to have for any new client that's coming to see us, any new family, they've got a whole team.
Dr Laura (05:20)
Mmm. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (05:21)
watching over them. You know, there's
a whole team meeting to talk about what's happening for this new family. What do we best do to support them? I mean, like that's just so cool to me because so often when, you know, we've got kids, we go and see health professionals and you know, we know what it can be like. We know what you're looking for as a parent in terms of the kind of support you want from any practitioner that you're dealing with. And I just love that we're continuing to uphold this really high standard of care so that yeah, all families can feel really well supported. So.
Dr Laura (05:31)
Yeah.
Mmm.
Dr Fallon (05:50)
So yeah, if you love the idea of coming in to visit our clinics, cause you like the idea of having appointments with us where we, you know, just work together, there's going to be increased availability coming up. And normally there is quite a wait list. So yeah, if that's something you're interested in, probably keep an eye on our social media calendars, or calendars, accounts rather, because we'll be posting on there when people, when our newbies get started. It's exciting times.
Dr Laura (06:01)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah. And of course, remember everyone
that we, I'm not sure we've spoken about it too much actually on this podcast, Fallon but we have opened the Children's Sleep Australia clinic. So we are now seeing children aged four to 17 years. So we are really covering the whole of childhood now. And so if you have older children,
Dr Fallon (06:24)
Mmm.
Mmm.
Yeah.
Dr Laura (06:43)
or you have nieces and nephews who are older and you know that they're struggling with their sleep, then visit Children's Sleep Australia and you'll be able to seek support, evidence-based, sensible sleep advice for primary school aged children and high school teenagers too.
Dr Fallon (07:00)
Mmm.
Yeah,
because it's so, you know, there's a flood of people working in baby and toddler sleep, but just so few people who can help you with the sleep of children and teenagers. So yeah, really excited to be entering that space. It's, yeah, a whole new world and very exciting. And so I'm just so glad that we finally are letting some people in and building that team. Yeah, it's going to be really exciting to see how that all goes over the next little while.
Dr Laura (07:16)
Hmm.
Mm.
Yes! Yeah.
Dr Fallon (07:34)
we have a really big, big, big favor to ask our listeners. So here goes. We, we know that so many of you absolutely love us and you send us these incredible reviews and we are so, so grateful for that. What we're desperately needing right now are video reviews. So if you're the kind of parent who is really happy just to, you know, turn on your phone camera, say a few words about what you love about us, whether it's our clinics or the Sombelle programs, that is
Dr Laura (07:40)
You
Dr Fallon (08:03)
gold for us. It really helps other parents that you know there's so much conflicting advice out there. It helps parents when they can hear another parent say yeah this is what I was going through and this thing really helped. So if you have time to do that it we will just be eternally grateful. So please please if you want to do it please do it. Shoot us through an email [email protected] yeah we'd be so so grateful wouldn't we Laura?
Dr Laura (08:04)
Mmm.
Hmm.
Yes.
Yeah, we would. then the purpose of those videos would be to use in social media and on our website, so that it's just spreading the word, you know, for so many of you listening, as Fallon says, you send us emails to say it's been life changing, and how your days have improved a thousand fold since understanding what your child's unique sleep needs are and making changes based on those and
Dr Fallon (08:38)
Hmm.
Mmm.
Dr Laura (08:59)
using our settling approaches. And there's so many families still out there floundering, not knowing where to go. So if we can, you know, use those lovely words of yours to help other like signpost the way to us for other parents, that would be really, really wonderful. So yeah, do give it a thought. And if you're happy to do so, yeah, please do make that recording and send it through to us. That would be wonderful.
Dr Fallon (09:07)
Mmm.
Yeah.
It really would be. Wow. Let's dive into this week's topic on low sleep needs and how you don't need to panic if you've got a low sleep needs baby. So this episode was requested to me last week by a lovely mum that I saw in our coaching call clinic who was just sort of saying, I just need to keep hearing that it's okay if they've got a lower sleep needs. And I just need that to be, you know, kind of repeated in a way because of all the misinformation online and
Dr Laura (09:33)
Mmm.
Yes.
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (09:58)
you know, all this scary setting stuff about what happens if babies don't get enough sleep. And I thought, yeah, it's actually, and I remember saying to her, was like, you're probably going to hear that episode pretty soon actually. Cause I'm often just like, what are we going to talk about this week? So it was quite perfect. so I hope that mum enjoys this episode. but maybe we'll start with, know, what does it mean when we say low sleep needs? And when I sat down to really think this through, I realized that we haven't established like a really set criteria here.
Dr Laura (10:08)
Yes.
Dr Fallon (10:27)
We just kind of have an idea in our own minds about what is a little bit less than typical for different ages. So I would say, and these are really just rough guides, but less than 12 hours for a little baby is pretty low, pretty low sleep needs if they're getting less than 12 hours per 24 hours. For older babies and young toddlers, I'd say it's more like less than 11 hours. And then as they enter sort of the older stages of toddlerhood, maybe two years plus,
Dr Laura (10:33)
Mmm.
Hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Dr Fallon (10:57)
you know, less than 10 hours is sort of towards the lower end. but I think that's really important to know that it doesn't mean there's something wrong. If your baby's total sleep requirements seem a little lower than average. you know, it is, there's going to be that variability. I don't know why it's gotten so out of control actually online, just this idea that, know, all the babies have to have a huge amount of sleep.
Dr Laura (11:01)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Dr Fallon (11:21)
It would be a bit lucky for saying, all the babies have to be very tall. You know, like, they all have to have really big feet. It doesn't make sense to think about it like that.
Dr Laura (11:26)
Yes, yeah.
Yes!
No, it doesn't. there's, you know, I will often describe to parents that it can be helpful to think about sleep needs in the same way you think about height and weight. And when you take your child to see the nurse and for the checks across the first few years, the nurse is weighing your baby and then telling you what percentile they are on, you know, are they
Dr Fallon (11:43)
Mmm.
Hmm.
Dr Laura (11:57)
off the chart, you know, they 95th percentile for weight or are they on the fifth percentile or are they just at 50th percentile? parents very quickly become attuned to knowing that their child has always been at the high end of the range for weight or the low end, but they're not concerned because the nurse has said that it's they're progressing okay. And so it's similar.
Dr Fallon (12:24)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (12:27)
for sleep. it wouldn't be, we wouldn't be saying every child needs to have 15 hours of sleep when they're four months old. In the same way, we wouldn't be saying that every four month old baby should be three and a half kilos. It's just totally meaningless to say that, but there would be the average weight for a child that age in the same way that there's the average amount of sleep for a child that age, but you're going to have
Dr Fallon (12:43)
Mmm.
Yeah
Dr Laura (12:56)
children falling on either side of that and some are going to fall quite far from the mean, from the average, and some are going to fall closer to the average. But as long as they're functioning well during the day.
Dr Fallon (13:02)
Yes.
Yes.
And we're not sitting there going like, no, that baby at parents group is three centimeters longer than mine. And I've really got to try and get them that little bit longer. It's silly. Yeah. And that's what it's, that's sort of what it's become with sleep. So let's talk about how the term low sleep needs came about. It was really a few years ago now. We started to use this term because we noticed that
Dr Laura (13:18)
No, that's right. Yeah, we're not saying that at all. Yeah.
Mm.
Mmm.
Dr Fallon (13:36)
parents kind of kept following these age-based schedules. And obviously for some parents, they'll just work fine. But for some, they absolutely were not working fine. Yeah, and they were obviously, you know, a lot of the time completely disastrous. So if you've got a schedule, you know, saying that babies need to have several really long naps every day, low sleep means babies just can't keep up with that. They just don't need that amount of sleep. But what we were really noticing was that no matter what these parents tried,
Dr Laura (13:45)
Mmm.
Mmm.
Mm.
Dr Fallon (14:04)
their babies would still stick to roughly the same average total sleep per day. It just might change when they're having that sleep. So if you keep pushing for a really long lunchtime nap, well, they might eventually do it, but it's not going to be more sleep overall necessarily. It's usually not. It's usually they'll take a little bit off the night. So we were seeing a lot of babies who were starting to do great long day naps, but then having atrocious nights. and that's what sort of made us go, some of these babies with low sleep needs can't handle that.
Dr Laura (14:09)
Mm-hmm.
No.
Mm-hmm.
Dr Fallon (14:34)
And we actually need to think about making parents think more about how they want to distribute the amount of sleep their baby seems to need across that 24 hour period. So if you've got a lower sleep needs baby, you probably don't want to aim for huge long day naps or you're to be up half of the night with them.
Dr Laura (14:34)
Yes.
Yes, I fell and I think
that is so commonly seen in the clinic where parents will say, their sleep has always been terrible. But we've managed to get the day naps under control. But it's just the nights that we need help with now or the other way around. Their nights are fine. But it's just the day naps we need help with. we yeah, can you make them that? Yes.
Dr Fallon (15:10)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Yeah, can you make them that longer? So yeah, how short do you want the night to be?
Dr Laura (15:23)
And
obviously this is on the back of the really old school notion of sleep begets sleep, etc. Where, you know, the idea that you need a child needs to nap loads during the day, and that's going to improve their nighttime sleep. then, yeah, then there's all the stuff that comes from the previous generation telling you those that type of information.
Dr Fallon (15:30)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Dr Laura (15:48)
So yes, think absolutely fun. I just wanted to jump in and say that because what you're saying there is how we then look to say, no, it's the distribution of the sleep across the 24 hour period. It's not trying to get a baby to sleep this amount during the day and this amount at night. It's a distribution of their sleep need across the day and the night.
Dr Fallon (15:59)
Mmm.
Yes. Yeah. And I think the reason
that the whole sleep baguette sleep thing just keeps being passed around and even by some pretty leading organizations, has to do with just a misreading of the sleep science, because I really feel like a lot of people are having a quick look at the literature and going, okay, well,
you know, babies who have great long nights, you know, some of them have great long day sleep. So maybe that's the key. Like, you know, if they have a lot of day sleep, they'll have a lot of night sleep without thinking those babies just have a huge requirement for sleep. So they've got to do it at some time. They're to have great day naps and great nights because they have to sleep that much for their unique need. It's not that having big long day sleeps leads to better nights. And that's what, how I personally think it's come about. I'm
Dr Laura (16:39)
Mmm.
Yes. Yeah.
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (17:00)
glad that we can
look at that scientific literature and go, come on, there's more than one way we can interpret this. Yeah. And I think it's, I think it's really important just because when we started to consider sleep requirements in babies, the settling side of things just absolutely came along in leaps and bounds because that was when we really started to realize that if we aren't considering what a baby's unique sleep requirements are,
Dr Laura (17:06)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (17:28)
and we're putting them down when they're not tired yet, or haven't sort of built up sleep pressure in their system, you are going to have the most horrendous time trying to settle them, even in your arms. A lot of parents will say, it doesn't matter if I hold them or bounce up and down or whatever. They just will not sleep for hours. So optimizing that daily rhythm around the sleep needs is just game changing for so, so many families.
Dr Laura (17:38)
Hmm.
Yes.
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (17:55)
and I'm really proud of the work that we've done around that and really helping spread that word because now I'm seeing people using these terms that we use all over the place. Like it is really spreading like wildfire. think a lot of people in the sleep space have been like, that's an interesting idea. They try it and go, Holy crap, this works really well. Like this is really important. and I'm really proud that that information is getting out there. we're seeing, you know, a lot of sleep consultants talking about low sleep needs, which
Dr Laura (18:04)
Mm-hmm.
Yes!
Dr Fallon (18:23)
It just makes me so happy. The tide is turning just a little bit by a little bit. It's so good.
Dr Laura (18:25)
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah,
because it is so hard for parents who have babies and toddlers who do have low sleep needs. In the society which just is telling them that they're essentially telling them they're doing something wrong, and they're not getting their child to sleep as much as they should, and that's going to have detrimental effects. It's just awful for them.
Dr Fallon (18:35)
Mmm.
Mmm.
yeah.
Dr Laura (18:53)
So yeah, I'm delighted that we can, yeah.
Dr Fallon (18:53)
Yeah. You end up so wrecked with guilt. Yeah. Yeah. But I think it's really important to talk about, mean, look, there would be people who listen to this going nonsense. When I did this, my baby started sleeping more. Of course there will be babies who aren't getting enough sleep or who simply need more sleep but can't get that sleep because it could be that there is a sleep association that's actually really impacting their ability to get a lot of sleep.
Dr Laura (19:08)
Mm.
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (19:20)
you know, there can be other variables at play, of course. So when you do work towards your baby's unique sleep needs, if things are going well, you're always going to be testing and trialing a bit more sleep, in their day, just to see if they ever do have that little bit more, because we do have some science that suggests there is a really small group of babies where over that first year, their sleep requirements might slightly increase. And it might just be the resolution of some early feeding difficulties or something like that means that they can start to get a little bit more sleep.
Dr Laura (19:30)
Yeah.
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (19:50)
We don't fully understand it yet, but for that reason, we're always cautious and we'll always try and add a bit more sleep back in just to test things out and see, you know, what is the maximum, you know, baby can manage. But what I think probably one of the biggest questions I get Laura, and I'm wondering if you hear the same, it's parents saying, but how can I be really confident that they're truly a low sleep needs baby? Like, how would I know if they're just chronically not getting enough sleep?
Dr Laura (19:51)
Hmm.
Mm, yeah.
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (20:17)
You know, what, what advice do you give to families who you know, express those sorts of worries?
Dr Laura (20:22)
So what I ask them to do is to describe how their little one is behaving during the times that they are awake in the daytime and thinking across a whole awake period. Are they happy and content for some of that time? And probably for a fair amount of that time. Can they make eye contact with you? Can they...
Dr Fallon (20:32)
Mmm.
Hmm.
Dr Laura (20:51)
If you're feeding them, are they taking on food? they looking at their toys? Are they engaging with people around them? And you know, if they're getting cranky, every look, if we all get cranky, as it is getting close to our sleep time. So at what point after they have woken up, are they becoming cranky? Is it just in that last short period of time, in the lead up to nap time or bedtime? Well, that's okay.
Dr Fallon (21:13)
Hmm.
Dr Laura (21:21)
That's all right. That's actually expected. Yeah. But if they are cranky for most of that awake time, and I use the word, we often use the word cranky, don't we? So it's cranky, upset, whingey, clingy, can't be put down, generally just unhappy, grizzly, miserable. I'm thinking of all the adjectives that parents use in clinic. Then there is
Dr Fallon (21:21)
Yeah, it's totally normal.
Mmm.
Grizzly.
Hehehehe
Dr Laura (21:51)
a chance that they are not getting all of the sleep that they need. And then I'd be going, yeah, you go.
Dr Fallon (21:54)
But you'd see that, yeah,
and you'd see it across the day. Like really normal if that last wake window, they're just grisly and over it. They might be like that for that whole last evening period, especially, you know, for younger babies. But yeah, a really chronically tired baby will just be unhappy almost all the time. You'll know. You will really, really know. Yeah. I think one of the other signs is that
Dr Laura (22:03)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Hmm, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dr Fallon (22:21)
Um, if you try to make them sleep more, they just simply don't. Um, like if, if you're thinking, are they low sleep needs, try adding more sleep in and see where you get to, know, if they do it, well, great. But so often parents will be like, they'll show me months of sleep diary data and they'll be like, we tried this, we tried that, we tried this. And I'm like, and look at it. They've just sat on 11 hours, you know, literally up and down, but for months.
Dr Laura (22:47)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (22:48)
There's your answer. You've tried all these things. You've tried to get them sleeping more, but they won't, they might, yeah, have a longer nap and then they take a bit off their night and it just kind of keeps working out like that. So that's another big clue. But I think parents should always check. Like it's always good to be thinking, is it possible my baby needs more sleep, but they can't for some reason. Like, so you would, you would see all the crankiness and grizzliness as well, but I would be, if this is, you know, real concern of yours.
Dr Laura (22:57)
Yes.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Dr Fallon (23:16)
have a think, are they snoring? Are they doing other strange breathing during sleep? Are they gasping, spluttering, suddenly waking up with a huge intake of air? Doing a lot of mouth breathing. These can be signs that there's a physical problem going on that could mean that they're not able to get all the sleep they need, because that's constantly waking them up. Or if they're having settling difficulties that make it really hard for them to get enough sleep.
Dr Laura (23:18)
Mm.
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (23:42)
And by that I mean, you know, if your baby has some really complex association, maybe they've got to be fed and bounced, you know, for 25 minutes before they fall asleep. You know, how realistic.
Dr Laura (23:52)
listening to a particular
Mozart piece of music.
Dr Fallon (23:56)
Yeah, yeah, particular
song or yeah, then if that is so complicated and takes so long, is it actually plausible for them to get more sleep, particularly overnight? If that's what's required after every sleep cycle, that could start to chip into how much sleep they're able to get. So if you notice, yeah, the snoring or breathing issues, or there's some really complicated sleep associations going on, that's worth working on.
Dr Laura (24:14)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (24:23)
Because
certainly sometimes when babies become really good at just independently falling asleep in their cot, sometimes they do manage to get an extra sleep cycle in there per day. Not always, but sometimes they'll just get that little bit more sleep. And you just always want to, you know, test that out and see if it is the case that they can do it. And I'd also be cautious too, you're going to see people online who say, this child was getting a low amount of sleep.
Dr Laura (24:33)
Mm-hmm.
Dr Fallon (24:48)
We did all this, you know, often it's a pretty hard and fast version of sleep training. And now they're having, you know, this huge amount of sleep. actually I see this in babies who come out of sleep school too. They in, in sleep school environment, they've encouraged to have lots and lots and lots of sleep and then parents say, you know, and this is what you won't necessarily see in the reviews and testimonials and things for those services is that often parents get home from sleep school or they finish up with whoever they were working with.
Dr Laura (25:03)
Mm.
Dr Fallon (25:17)
And it just does a complete backflip. They have had maybe a few days to a week of a heap of sleep. And then they spend a few days to a week getting hardly any sleep because they've just gone so over quota that now they're coming under quota. And then they'll just kind of go back to that middle ground again. so yeah, that's another thing to consider is that you want to make changes to your child's sleep that are lasting. So the best way to do that is just to look at what are they averaging with their sleep? Really aiming to cater for that.
Dr Laura (25:18)
Yeah.
Hmm.
Yes.
Yes.
Dr Fallon (25:46)
Yeah, I hope that gives parents some reassurance and guidance as well.
Dr Laura (25:49)
Yeah,
yeah, I hope so. If you are seeing a pattern of, you know, maybe three really good nights where they're achieving 13 hours of sleep, let's say in a 24 hour period, and then you have two or three days and nights that are terrible and it's dropping down to 10 hours and then you go, it goes back up again.
Dr Fallon (26:11)
Mm, split nights.
Dr Laura (26:12)
Yeah. And
it's, I sometimes think about it as either a roller coaster that you're riding or this pendulum swinging backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards. And then parents are thinking, this is when they're having that really high amount of sleep. That's what I'm aiming for. That's their, that's what they really need. But actually, no, it's not because then it swings the other way because their body does this like auto correct and then go swings completely the other way.
Dr Fallon (26:20)
Mmm.
Yes.
Mmm.
Dr Laura (26:40)
And then their child is having a really small amount of sleep, which is why then we go, do you know what, what's the average? And the average, let's bring it to the midpoint. Yeah. And we try and stop that pendulum from swinging. And then we go, yeah, your child is a low sleep need child, but we can, we can take away the very, very low days and the very, very high days. And let's just try it. We accept that your child has a lower sleep need than average. And then we cater for it.
Dr Fallon (26:46)
Yeah, let's bring it to that midpoint. Get some predictability.
Mmm.
Yes.
Yeah.
Dr Laura (27:10)
and then it just stops this swinging.
Dr Fallon (27:13)
Yeah.
And if, if we're wrong, you'll always test it out. So if, if you're like, no, I'm so sure that they actually need 14 hours. Well, start out with the average work towards that. And when things are going great, keep adding in more sleep and see what happens. If it works. Sweet. You are lucky, but you might actually go, yeah. The more we try and push more sleep, the trickier the settling gets, the more broken the nights are. And you realize actually it's easy just to stick to.
Dr Laura (27:17)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (27:42)
Yeah. A predictable pattern. Um, yeah. Uh, it's such a good discussion. find we talk about this so much in clinics. I'm really happy to get it into a podcast episode so that more families can, can listen to it. If that's, if some of this is ringing bells for you and you're thinking, Oh my gosh, is that what has been going on for my baby? You know, they're definitely a pendulum baby. Um, that is our specialty. is.
Dr Laura (27:44)
Mm.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Yes.
Dr Fallon (28:06)
Our cup of tea, we live and breathe looking at unique sleep needs, looking at sleep diaries, figuring out what's going on with the circadian rhythm. and really optimizing that so that we can make any changes to settling as easy as possible. And boy, when you hit the nail on the head with that, timing side of things, the settling can stun parents. Often babies are just, they adapt so easily. so yeah, we can help you with that either in the clinic or in Sunbell.
Dr Laura (28:24)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Mmm.
Dr Fallon (28:35)
if that's
something you're struggling with. Terrific. Well, should we dive into some parent questions, Laura?
Dr Laura (28:39)
Okay.
Yeah, let's go. Shall I read the first one? So Jade has written in and Jade has a 12 month old who wakes early for the day despite tightening his daily rhythm. He's got an 11 hour sleep need. So here we are. He has a low sleep needs. Totally. Yeah. So just tightening the daily rhythm shifted his wake up time from just after five to about 5.40. They can't quite crack that 6 a.m.
Dr Fallon (28:45)
Yeah.
Yeah on the low side.
Dr Laura (29:11)
So he has two naps a day, one from 10 till 11 and another half an hour one around 2.30. His bedtime is 8.30 and they're hoping for a wake up of around six. So they're wondering if it's time to move to one nap or if they should stick with the current routine for a bit longer.
Dr Fallon (29:11)
Mm.
Hmm. I would be checking if there's a few signs that your 12 month old is ready to drop to one nap. So in some bell, you know, it's in there, you sort of signs and things you can look for. because it certainly might be a big part of the equation and might just be that, sometimes it's not even, you know, often say to parents, sometimes we combine that total day sleep into one nap and the night just stays the same. Nothing much changes.
Dr Laura (30:01)
Mm-hmm.
Dr Fallon (30:01)
But sometimes it's just so much longer awake and they're so much more tired by bedtime that sometimes they do manage to get a little bit more of a sleep in. It's, you know, again, it might not mean that they suddenly sleep more, but sometimes it does for some families. So it could be worth a try, just to see if that helps, but always be checking. there anything at all happening at that time of morning that tells your baby it might be time to get up and start the day. So if you want a 6am wake up, keep it dark until.
Dr Laura (30:10)
Mmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mmm.
Dr Fallon (30:31)
6am. Don't offer the first feed of the day until 6am. Turn all the lights on at 6am. Yeah, I, yeah, I'd be seriously thinking about dropping to one nap reasonably soon. I'd say it's probably going to help.
Dr Laura (30:32)
Mm-hmm.
Hmm.
Yeah, yeah, given that they found that tightening up the daily rhythm already led to changes. That probably is the main reason that your little one isn't quite making it to six.
Dr Fallon (30:51)
Mmm.
Yeah. All right. We have a question from Alexia who says their six month old is an early riser. Another one. There's wakes at 5am. ouch. I could not deal with this. Hats off to you. 5am is hard. So Alexia says at five and a half months, he had about a 12 and a half hour sleep need.
Dr Laura (31:04)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, it's horrible.
Dr Fallon (31:20)
He was consolidating his night's sleep since he started some bells. That's great. So he went from having one or two night feeds and now just has no night feeds or maybe one on occasion. But now he's consistently waking after nine hours of sleep. Alexia is wondering if nine hours is enough for his nighttime sleep or if he needs 10 or more hours. He takes three naps a day. Two of them are 35 minutes long and then there's one that's about an hour 20. He does these in the pram.
Dr Laura (31:20)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Dr Fallon (31:49)
although they're using the slow fade approach to encourage independent settling during the day. He settles independently in his cot at night. Well, that's great. Alexia is wondering whether they need to adjust the day naps, work on independent settling for the naps or do something else to help him sleep for more than nine hours at a stretch at night. She says the 5 a.m. start does not bother her. Wow. She must be a morning lark too. But she just wants to be sure that he's getting enough nighttime sleep.
Dr Laura (32:11)
Yeah.
Yeah, Alexia, it sounds like you have come on leaps and bounds and having those really good stretches of sleep overnight must be doing you all the world of good. There are some babies, we haven't spoken about this in a while, Fallon, you do seem to be these nine hour babies, where they will just do a nine hour stretch overnight and it seems very hard for quite a few months to get them to.
Dr Fallon (32:39)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (32:48)
to do more than that. Sometimes we try everything that we possibly can and they just continue to, no matter what, only do nine hours overnight and then we just have to make sure that we're offering them enough daytime sleep to meet their sleep needs when we just kind of say, we just have to accept what we've been dealt, the cars we've been dealt with at this moment in time and we do nine hours overnight and adjust the day naps accordingly.
I am wondering, Alexia, whether what we could probably look at trying for your little one is moving him to, sorry, I was just looking to see what the pronouns were and I think it is him, moving him to two naps a day. So he's six months old. So it may be that he's actually just starting to get ready to move down to two naps from the three naps.
Dr Fallon (33:30)
Yeah, it's a boy.
Hmm.
Dr Laura (33:46)
He's only just turned six months, I think. So you might want to give it another couple of weeks since you're okay with that 5am wake up. You might want to just see, since it's only been a recent thing that you've been able to get things just so and those 5am don't bother you. You might just say, you know what, nine hours overnight is fine. I'm just going to push a bit more sleep into the daytime and keep him on the three naps. But probably as he's getting six and a half months, seven months, I would say.
moving him to two naps a day is probably really going to help and give him the best chance of getting that extra hour or so in the nighttime sleep. But I don't think there's nothing wrong, Alexia, with him only having nine hours overnight. It's about him meeting his sleep needs. So if you're worried that he should be having more nighttime sleep, I don't want you to be worried about that.
Dr Fallon (34:19)
you
Mmm.
Dr Laura (34:40)
If he's generally functioning well, coping well, happy, as we've just talked about during the day, and is napping well during the day, then I think just be really pleased with the progress that you've made, Alexia, it sounds like it's good.
Dr Fallon (34:54)
Yeah. The only other thing I would add is you might find with a little push to do a bit more practice with the independent settling, that then at 5am when sleep pressure is getting pretty low, they're kind of running low, you might find that he's, you know, better able to get himself back to sleep with that lower sleep pressure. So yeah, definitely he's at an age where, you know, if he's independently settling at night, maybe do a little bit of more of a push with it.
Dr Laura (35:14)
Mm.
Dr Fallon (35:22)
just with some of the day naps if that feels manageable because sometimes that can really help to kind of knit everything together. But it sounds like you're doing an awesome job, Alexia. Fantastic.
Dr Laura (35:23)
Mm.
Yeah.
Okay, we've had a question from Carmen and Carmen is implementing a new daily rhythm for her baby to create a 12 and a half hour daily total with a 6.30am wake up, an 8pm bedtime and two hours of daytime naps. So she said that she's noticed since they've started to use this new daily rhythm, his sleep needs have changed from between 12 and 13 hours total to around 11 hours.
and she's worrying that he may be missing sleep that he needs. So she has some questions to ask about what to do when the daily rhythm isn't working. I think I'll just read them all out and then maybe we can take them as a whole. So Carmen wonders if her baby wakes up for the day 30 minutes early, so she's aiming for that 6.30 wake up and I think often he's waking up at six, should she
Dr Fallon (36:15)
Hmm. Yep. Hmm.
Dr Laura (36:30)
add that extra time to the naps or move bedtime the next night earlier. And likewise, if the baby naps for less than the two hours that they're allocating to day naps, should she move bedtime earlier? And what to do if after a rough night where there's lots of wakes and resettling, should they adjust the naps or bedtime the next day to make up for what Carmen
calls lost sleep.
Dr Fallon (37:01)
Hmm. So the short answer to all of those questions is no, preferably not. If your baby has a really bad night, a tricky night, a short nap, you know, the day's a bit out of whack. Try not to go and adapt the schedule because you kind of sang to the circadian rhythm. Sure. Wake up 10 times overnight or wake really early or take a tiny nap because we can, we can work with that. We'll just have a bit more sleep later on.
Dr Laura (37:07)
Yeah.
Mm.
Dr Fallon (37:29)
so that can just keep a whole lot of drift and wobbliness day to day. That just doesn't resolve. What we're better off doing is trying to be reasonably rigid with that daily rhythm, just at first to help your baby really get into that pattern. So their circadian rhythm goes, if I'm awake lots overnight, I still got to get up on time. I still got to get through the day. Yeah. That just puts that little bit of pressure on their system to try and make sure they're sleeping when we want them to be asleep. So I would try to keep that fairly, steady.
Dr Laura (37:55)
Hmm
Dr Fallon (37:59)
But the other thing I want to do something that Carmen mentioned was that drop in sleep needs where it was about 12 or 13 hours and it seems to have dropped to around 11 hours. That's nothing to worry about. So often when we go to change the daily rhythm or change how we settle a baby or just make any big change in a baby's life, often what we see is that that total sleep they're getting is going to drop off a little bit. Um, just because there is all this change, circadian rhythm is trying to figure out like, Whoa, what's going on.
Dr Laura (38:09)
Mm.
Dr Fallon (38:26)
And then once they kind of fall into that pattern, it comes back up to where it was again. So if you see a temporary dip, you don't need to worry about that. It's probably fine. And also just these poor parents, there's always different factors to consider, but baby's sleep needs are gradually reducing over time as well. And it might just be that you've had a real dip, a big dip in sleep needs all of a sudden. They're all on their own little pathway. So.
Dr Laura (38:30)
Hmm.
Hmm.
Mm.
Dr Fallon (38:52)
Just keep an eye on it, see what happens. If you're finding that it's sticking to around 11 hours and your baby's really happy and coping fine, well, that might just be their new sleep needs. So you just adapt that daily rhythm to fit that. Anything you'd add there, Laura?
Dr Laura (39:03)
Hmm. Yeah.
No, I think that's, that's a perfect answer, Fallon. Yeah, you might find Carmen that if your baby just continually is waking up at 6am, that actually just becomes a new wake up time. You know, if because you might then see, well, this is his sleep need has dropped to let's say, stabilises at 11 and a half or 12 hours, then he might just have an earlier wake up.
Dr Fallon (39:20)
Hmm... yeah.
Dr Laura (39:31)
We can't make a baby sleep more than they need. So yeah, just keep on persisting Carmen. Let us know how you get on.
Dr Fallon (39:33)
Mmm.
It's such a good point. We really can't make them sleep more than what they need. Yeah. All right. We had an email from Sam who has a two and a half year old who recently had their tonsils and adenoids removed and they're still recovering. Sam says sleep has become more challenging and Sam thinks this is likely due to pain, of course.
Dr Laura (39:45)
No.
Mm.
Dr Fallon (40:04)
and changes in her sleep needs and separation anxiety. It's a really good point actually, hospital stays often really do trigger separation anxiety. Sam says their toddler has started trying to climb out of her cot.
Dr Laura (40:12)
Mmm.
Dr Fallon (40:17)
and they're unsure if it's time to transition to a toddler bed. Sam also asked whether to adjust the sleep schedule now or wait until recovery is complete and they're wondering how to support their child without creating unsustainable sleep associations. I love this question.
Dr Laura (40:34)
Yeah, it's awesome. There's quite a few things to cover here. So well done for identifying that there were some challenges around your toddler's breathing whilst they were sleeping overnight, and following up on that. That's awesome. Whilst your child is recovering from that surgery, they will need more sleep. So I would be thinking
I wouldn't be going in too hard and trying to get back onto the sleep schedule that they were on before surgery. I know in Sam's email, there was a longer email. She said that her toddler had gone up to needing 15 hours sleep in the days following surgery, which was much higher than what she was on previously. So I would just be monitoring that.
Dr Fallon (41:20)
Hmm.
Dr Laura (41:29)
pain and the recovery. Kids do generally bounce back relatively quickly, but hopefully your surgeon has given you some indication of timeframe. But I wouldn't, I'd be thinking at least a week before you start trying to revert to the old schedule. Just as a rule of thumb, would you add anything else to that, Fallon?
Dr Fallon (41:44)
Mmm.
No, I
think that's dead right. wouldn't be trying to change the schedule too much until you're feeling confident that the pain has stopped and they have fully recovered. But I hear Sam's concern around, you know, the toddlers starting to climb out of the cot, thinking, it might be time to go to a toddler bed.
Dr Laura (41:54)
Mm.
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (42:10)
And how do they support them without creating unsustainable sleep associations? I think for a lot of parents whose toddler's going to hospital, that is a real fear because you're thinking they need more of me right now. They need more comfort. They've been through something pretty massive, but you're like, I don't want to end up having to sleep in their bed or them sleeping in my bed or what would you do, Laura? What's your advice?
Dr Laura (42:21)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Well, I do know that in Sam's longer email, she said that her toddler has managed to, on two occasions, flip herself out of the cot and has, yeah, and has been caught. So she wasn't injured, luckily. So given that she's actually done that twice, I would say it's definite you need to move her into a toddler bed because she's flipping herself. No.
Dr Fallon (42:42)
no.
Yep. and you don't want a broken arm. It happens
all too often.
Dr Laura (43:03)
Yeah, they get those corkscrew
breaks in the arms. Yeah, so you don't want that. So yes, in this instance, I would be taking the side off the cot and turning it into a toddler bed. And then I'd be thinking about whether you put a mattress beside the cot or the now toddler bed to support your little one just as she's recovering and
and do your best to not be, you know, might just sit on the bed on your mattress next to her bed, rather than like cuddling her to sleep or pulling her onto your mattress to go to sleep. So try and keep it as independent as you can, while still staying with her so that it then doesn't develop into an unsustainable sleep association, which is what Sam is concerned about.
Dr Fallon (43:49)
Hmm.
Mmm.
Dr Laura (44:02)
So,
you know, potentially if you were to lie on your mattress and you take the side of her cot, so it's a toddler bed, you might be patting her all the way off to sleep as she lies on her mattress. And if she tries to come over onto yours, just keep popping her back and patting her or rubbing her back as she goes to sleep. And then as she recovers, then withdrawing the amount of...
Dr Fallon (44:20)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (44:24)
perhaps or back rubs that you're giving her and then start to perhaps use parental fading to leave the room once she's better. So it's just a very temporary measure that you're staying with her while she's just getting over that hospital visit.
Dr Fallon (44:33)
Hmm.
Yeah,
I think that's really good advice. It's just giving just enough comfort that they can get off to sleep without kind of, yeah, going too sort of far, you know, too far off course. So that then when she's feeling a bit better, hopefully things will come together nice and quickly for you, Sam. Good luck and do reach out if you need a bit more support.
Dr Laura (44:52)
Yes, yeah.
Good. Yeah.
All right, we had a question from Emma, who has an eight week old baby who seems to have a 14 hour sleep need. So just a little one. She's having three naps a day, the first two are often two to three hours long. And then she has the third nap, which is, I guess it must be a bit shorter than that. Emma is breastfeeding on demand and does not yet have a clear daily rhythm. She writes,
that her baby does tend to sleep for a four hour block once I get her to sleep at night, which ranges from 8pm ish to anywhere up to midnight, depending on her cluster feeding that evening. So she is wondering, and there's three questions, but I think, again, I'll just read them all out at once. Is it normal for a two month old to have such long naps? Should she be waking the baby to manage the nap length and create more structure in the day?
Dr Fallon (45:48)
Yeah.
Dr Laura (45:57)
Or is it okay to continue with the more on-demand approach for feeding and sleeping? What do you reckon Fallon?
Dr Fallon (46:03)
Yeah,
it's totally fine to keep going with that kind of on demand approach for the feeding and sleeping. If that's feeling manageable for you, Emma, at this age, they can have, yeah, like you're describing a huge four hour variability in bedtime. And that can just be how it is for an eight week old baby. And if that's not a problem for you, you know, you don't have to rush into changing anything. If it feels challenging and you're thinking, gosh, I'd love to start having a bit more predictability.
Dr Laura (46:12)
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (46:30)
then sure, you could start to tinker with that daily rhythm a little bit. It might be that maybe the naps are a bit too long and we start to dial them back just a little bit so that you're getting a more consistent bedtime that's a little bit earlier in the evening. It's fine for your baby to have those long naps, but again, it's just thinking like, that working really well? Because if you're finding the nights are really hard, that could be something you tinker with, wake her up a little bit earlier from those naps just to help, you you get a bit more predictability in the evenings.
Dr Laura (46:38)
Hmm.
Mm.
Dr Fallon (46:59)
because your baby doesn't have a fully developed circadian rhythm yet. They're reliant on you to show them this is night time, this is daytime. So if you're just very much led by them, they won't just, well, some will, but a lot won't just fall into a, you know, an earlier bedtime and a typical kind of wake up time. They do kind of wait for us to show them. Yeah. When, when nighttime really is. So yeah, there's no pressure to change anything.
Dr Laura (47:06)
Hmm.
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (47:28)
to having, you know, two, what was it, three day naps that are longer is completely fine. Most babies that age tend to have much shorter naps, but it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with those naps are longer. So yeah, I think you're in a great position Emma, where you can just decide when you feel ready to make changes and go for it then. You certainly don't need to rush into it if you're not feeling like it right now.
Dr Laura (47:37)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, awesome. Okay, and we have another email from Rebecca. And Rebecca actually sent a really wonderful email. I wish we had the time to read it all out, Fallon. It really lovely, kind words. So thank you so much. We appreciate it. So Rebecca is 18 months old, transitioned to one nap. And since doing that, had begun sleeping really well overnight.
Dr Fallon (47:51)
Cool.
Aw, thanks Rebecca.
Dr Laura (48:17)
and sleeps about, you know, somewhere between 10 and a half and 11 hours total. Might have one or two brief wakings in the night. So always going well. But then in just the last few weeks, he's reverted back to taking two naps, especially at daycare, with the first nap happening only three or four hours after waking. So Rebecca is asking, why might he be sleepy so early?
and reverting to two naps again. And could it be a problem? Or is it okay as long as the night sleep remains intact, which it is at the moment, and as long as she continues to cap the total day sleep? This is an unusual one, isn't it, Fallon?
Dr Fallon (49:00)
Hmm.
It is. So it's not necessarily a problem. Like you could just look at it as well. You know, if he's not sleep staying on track, then maybe that's okay. You know, like when you're okay with sticking with two naps a bit longer at that age, though, I feel like it's probably not going to stay okay. Like it wouldn't surprise me for the next few weeks. The nights start to get a bit more challenging if those two nap days are happening more and more often.
Dr Laura (49:19)
Hmm.
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (49:28)
So yeah, just watch out what happens. If anything's a bit off with his sleep, I would just really try and push him through on just the one day nap because it's certainly age appropriate to just be on one. But I would just, there's just a little niggle in the back of my mind thinking, well, he's suddenly getting sleepy earlier in the day and is it possible that there's a physiological reason for that? So if you have noticed Rebecca that he
Dr Laura (49:37)
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (49:52)
is snoring during his sleep or has the coughing gasping spluttering in his sleep. Anything unusual with his breathing. That could be that he's not getting good enough sleep quality because he's been working multiple times overnight. You'd want to go and see a GP get an ENT to check him out. Because that could be causing that excessive daytime sleepiness. Or if there's been any other change, health changes, physiological changes, chat to your GP just to rule that out.
Dr Laura (50:04)
Mm.
Mmm.
Dr Fallon (50:20)
But yeah, overall I'd say it's probably not a problem, but it might start to impact those nights. So if the nights are wobbly at all, I'd be saying to daycare, look, please just stick to the one nap, push him through on it. He will adapt to it. He will be okay.
Dr Laura (50:34)
Hmm. Yeah. And Rebecca, if you have to go
back to doing one longer nap at daycare and then he has a 10 minute nap on the drive home, I mean, a little power nap in the car, then as a transition point to get him back onto one nap, then so be it. But, you know, just for a couple of days. yeah.
Dr Fallon (50:53)
Hmm.
Yeah, good. All right. And Sarah emailed in about her nine month old who's been sleeping well overnight, sleeps from 9.30 PM to 7.30 AM with no wakes. Thanks to some bell and coaching calls. lovely. Well done, Sarah. That's fantastic. must feel good. Sarah says, however, recently she's shown separation anxiety at daycare and during naps. She now
Dr Laura (50:58)
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Dr Fallon (51:21)
cries for 30 seconds to five minutes when put down to sleep, but still falls asleep independently and sleeps through the night. They'd previously used a supported accelerated approach, which worked really well, but now they're wondering, should they start sleeping in her room or can they continue with the current approach and let her fall asleep on her own despite the brief crying since she's still sleeping well at night and handling naps?
Dr Laura (51:47)
Yeah, Sarah, think that it's a brief answer that basically she's still sleeping well. It's very, very brief that she protests for when she goes into the cot. So she's not becoming overly distressed, which is what we might anticipate happening. it was really severe separation anxiety, she would be really inconsolable. When you leave her at night, she isn't.
Dr Fallon (52:12)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (52:14)
so I would just carry on doing what you're doing. If it's only 30 seconds or a minute or two, it's nothing to worry about. she's still able to calmly go off to sleep and then she's resettling herself multiple times overnight when she has her normal night wakings, and isn't upset that you're not there, isn't calling out. So there's nothing that's really telling me that you need to change anything, about the settling. And hopefully this will just,
Dr Fallon (52:33)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (52:43)
that little bit of crying that she's doing at the start of the night will just be a little phase that will pass. If you really are finding it hard to listen to, then you could always look at just sitting in her room or by her door as she falls asleep, just to see if that gives her a little bit of reassurance and gives you a bit of reassurance too. And sometimes it does, but for other children actually leads to an escalation because they're...
Dr Fallon (52:50)
Hmm.
Hmm.
Yeah
Yeah. They're
like, you over there, come over here now. Make, yeah. Come out. We've helped me go to sleep. Yeah. Don't just sit there doing nothing. Yeah. Really can sometimes just make them furious. Kind of. So I think that's really good advice for Sarah. Yeah. Hopefully she'll move through that pretty quickly. You'll be off in a way.
Dr Laura (53:11)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Mmm.
Yeah, good. And we've had a question from Louise. She's purchased the toddler program and she's about to start logging sleep in the sleep diary. And she's just a bit unsure about whether they should allow their toddler to nap unrestricted during the day, or whether to continue capping their naps as they have been doing.
Dr Fallon (53:52)
Yeah. So with the sleep diary, just keep doing whatever the usual is, is what I say to parents. So you don't want to suddenly uncap the naps because we know that might have a disastrous impact on their nights. Just keep doing whatever it is you have been doing, keep the pattern that they've been on when you're keeping a sleep diary. Yeah, we do get questions about that quite a lot. So it really is just a case of just staying the course for those, you know, that week of tracking their data. Don't change anything.
Dr Laura (54:04)
Yeah.
Dr Fallon (54:22)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (54:22)
Great.
I think we're down to our last question now, Fallon. Lucky last from Maddie. And she's wondering when to drop from three to two naps for her son. Now, I'm not sure actually how old Maddie's son is. I know over four months, maybe five or six months old. And what he's doing at the moment is two 30 minute naps and then he has a longer hour and a half nap in the afternoon.
Dr Fallon (54:25)
Lucky last.
Dr Laura (54:50)
goes to bed somewhere between half seven and eight at night, wakes up at seven. And what Maddy describes is that now when they're putting him down for those shorter naps in the morning, he's sometimes waking up after only 20 minutes, sometimes even less. So he's not even getting a sleep cycle in for those naps. And she's wondering, she said, we're trying to extend his awake time beyond two, two and a half hours to maybe three hours.
and he's still waking four times overnight, needing to be resettled. Sometimes he's having a fee, at least one feed overnight. So Maddie's really after some advice about how to improve the nighttime sleep and to improve the naps during the day, which are becoming quite inconsistent.
Dr Fallon (55:38)
Mmm.
Yeah, so
there's a few things that jump out at me. There's a few signs there that it sounds like Maddie's baby is probably ready to go to two naps from about six months of age. That's pretty typical for them to drop to two naps. And the fact that he's not really getting through a full sleep cycle makes me think he's just dozing for a bit and then springing awake. So probably low sleep pressure. Maybe didn't really need the nap if he wasn't able to do a full sleep cycle.
Dr Laura (56:03)
Mmm.
Dr Fallon (56:11)
Um, there's also the longer nap looks like it's the last one of the day. And that can often make things a little complicated too. Um, there's four overnight wakeups in there, which is if he is around that six month mark, that's a lot, it is kind of tricky. Um, and he's not spending a lot of time awake. So if he is six months, you know, we're kind of wanting that last wake window to be three and a half hours or so awake before bed. Um, so I suppose to.
Dr Laura (56:14)
Mmm.
Hmm.
Mmm.
Dr Fallon (56:40)
To think about how we would improve that schedule and consistency. mean, certainly look at what the total sleep is that he's typically getting and start to look through the daily rhythm charts to kind of see if there's something similar to what he's currently doing. I would be thinking it might be time to drop to just two naps. You'll probably see a really big difference, but I understand that can feel hard when you're struggling to keep him awake for a couple of hours at a time. But what you need to know, Maddie, is this.
Dr Laura (57:04)
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (57:09)
When babies have a tricky night, they wake up on the back foot, they find it really hard to get through the day, they kind of want to doze a lot. They can be crankier. So they seem like they need more day sleep. And we try and give them more day sleep, but then the next night's tricky and it just kind of keeps snowballing. So it might be a case of even though it feels really hard to keep him awake, being a little bit brave, working out what that daily rhythm needs to be, and really trying to push ahead with it and push him into that pattern so that he's getting
Dr Laura (57:24)
Hmm.
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (57:37)
some better nights, because you're not feeding excessively overnight. We want to see those nights improve. He'll wake up more refreshed and he'll hopefully find it easier to get through the day. That's probably the best advice I can give, not sort of knowing the specifics of his age and his sleep diary, but if you're needing more support, Maddie, you could be a good candidate for a coaching course that we can really dig into the daily rhythm and figure out what the best approach is.
Dr Laura (57:41)
Mm.
Hmm.
Yeah,
yeah, awesome. I think that's great advice. Yeah, and hang in there, Maddie. It may just be that you think to yourself, what type of things does my baby absolutely love doing during the day? Does he love going outside and, you know, in his pram looking at the cars going past or does he love looking at the leaves blowing in the wind? What is it that he likes to do? And when you're then thinking, okay, I'm really going to try to
Dr Fallon (58:18)
Yeah.
Mmm.
Dr Laura (58:32)
encourage him to stay awake for two and a half to three hours, this awake window, I'm to go and do that. That's the thing I'm going to do to try and distract him and keep him awake for a little bit longer and know that then that will mean that he's more likely to build up higher sleep pressure, which means he's more likely to do at least a sleep cycle for you, which currently he's not managing to do for his naps. Yeah.
Dr Fallon (58:41)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah,
sometimes babies just need that bit of massaging of that daily rhythm to really get them into a good groove. So good luck with that, Maddie. Well, thank you to all the parents who have sent in fantastic questions. It's been really fun answering these questions this week. I've really enjoyed it. Like we asked earlier, if you are a parent who isn't too camera shy, who would be happy to just, you know, point the camera at yourself, talk about your experiences in some vowel.
Dr Laura (59:01)
Hmm.
Dr Fallon (59:24)
If you're happy for us to use that in our website, social media, that sort of thing, it is such a terrific help because we know that the parents who feel lost in the quagmire of misinformation get a lot of comfort when they hear another parent who's been through something similar and who has emerged out the other side. It is super helpful. So if you would be able to do that for us, thank you so much. Just email us at [email protected].
Dr Laura (59:34)
Mmm.
Dr Fallon (59:51)
If you love our work, maybe you're too camera shy. You could always buy us a coffee instead. I'll put the link in our show notes. If you would love to buy us a coffee, we would love that because we love coffee. And other ways you can support us are to leave a review, to subscribe to the podcast. If you see our posts on social media, give them a like, give them a share. And of course, if you're struggling with sleep and settling, we have an amazing sleep clinic.
Dr Laura (1:00:03)
Yes.
Dr Fallon (1:00:19)
You can get so much support directly from us. We have the Sombelle programs. And if you're a member of Sombelle, you can have coaching calls with me. We have so many different ways that we support families. So please don't feel like you're alone. If you want some support, reach out and grab that support because it is life changing. So thanks everyone for tuning in and you'll, well, we're grappling with school holiday schedules at the moment, aren't we Laura? So we think you'll hear from us next week. We will see how we go.
Dr Laura (1:00:45)
Yeah, we are.
Yeah, we're doing the juggle. We're in the trenches too, people. All right. Thanks, everyone. Bye bye.
Dr Fallon (1:00:50)
See if the stars align.
