Fallon Cook (00:37)
It's the loudest room they'll ever live in. Inside the womb, your baby's world is a constant hum of blood flow, digestion, and a heartbeat that thumps along like a drum. It's definitely not quiet. So it's no wonder most babies find white noise soothing. It kind of sounds like home to them. From calming a crying baby to blocking out the doorbell during nap time, we've all been there.
White noise is a simple tool that can actually be a game changer for some families. In this episode, let's break down exactly how to use white noise to support your little one's sleep without the common mistakes.
Welcome back to Brand New Little People, the podcast companion to the Sombelle Paediatric Sleep Clinic programs. I'm Dr. Fallon Cook, co-creator of Sombelle and co-director of Infant Sleep Australia.
Now I know what you're thinking. You're like, hang on a minute. Where's Laura? That intro sounded different. Laura is super busy with some clinic business today. And I was like, that's cool. I'm just going to jump on. do a solo episode. But of course I've got that fear that you're all going to be thinking, Oh my gosh, I'm so tired of the sound of her voice. So I apologize if you, um, you know, get a bit tired of me. You're very welcome to pause it and catch up later if you need to. But, um,
You know, I was thinking about how in the clinic, often families will say to me, it feels like I'm catching up with a friend. I've listened to you so many times that you're just like this common voice around our house. And it's just like catching up with a mate. And I'm like, yes, we're mates. So if you feel like that, if you're one of my mates, one of my friends, then I would suggest put on the kettle, grab a cuppa. I've got a cup of, well, nothing very exciting. It's literally just water. ⁓ hopefully it'll, it'll get my voice.
you know, keeping up for the full hour or so. But pour a cuppa friend and let's dive into what I hope will be a really interesting, fun episode. So the inspiration for this episode came from Jayme a Sombelle member who wrote in to us with some questions about white noise and specifically around like when and how do I wean off white noise? And I thought this is actually really, perfect for the podcast because
It's one of those things that every now and then it does the rounds on social media and gets like massively mixed reviews. got people saying they love white noise and other people saying it's going to permanently damage hearing and language development. We've really got sort of both ends of the spectrum. And I thought that this area is crying out for, you know, a sensible middle ground and just some facts about white noise, things that we actually know.
⁓ so let's dive in with what is white noise. So white noise, I mean, I'm probably going to show my age here, but white noise is the sound of, you know, a detuned radio or a television that hasn't been tuned in. I'm totally aware there's a generation listening to this. Who are younger than my 41 years, ⁓ who might be thinking, what the heck is that? But basically white noise is that sort of sound that is a mix of every frequency.
That's how it's created. So it is just this, I don't know, gentle kind of roaring sound. I think we've all heard it. I probably don't need to go into that too much. But how white noise came to be used is that it's really, really effective at blocking out sudden sounds. So when you're asleep, there's kind of like, we all kind of know this, there's kind of a threshold where if a sound is loud enough, it will wake you up. Depends a little bit on where you are in your sleep stage.
But ⁓ we all kind of have this threshold of, you know, if a noise is this loud, it's going to wake me. But if there's a baseline level of background noise or white noise, it kind of shifts where that threshold is. Something has to be a lot louder to kind of cut through above that noise to wake you up. So white noise is just really good at blocking out kind of background sounds. And often it's people or children or babies who are really light sleepers who find white noise really helpful. But let's dive into that question of is it harmful?
because this is a really interesting one. So, I mean, to put it really simply, white noise, no, it's not harmful if it's used correctly. Like with most things, you could probably use it in a harmful way if you tried to, but I don't think you're gonna be doing that. There have been claims out there that using white noise is going to impact language learning, but there's actually no good evidence behind that claim. There are some people saying, I wonder if it might. That doesn't mean that it does.
What we want to be careful of is that white noise isn't so loud that it damages hearing, but we also know that it would need to be over about 50 decibels in the cot. So if you, and I encourage you to do this, get an app, can get apps that measure decibels. There's a bunch of them out there that are free. Set up that app, put it where your baby rests in their cot and turn your white noise on and actually check how many decibels your white noise is in the cot. I reckon it's a good little exercise.
to do because if the white noise is under 50 decibels in the cot, it's not going to damage their hearing. To damage the hearing, would have to be a lot louder than that and it would have to be for really long periods of time. look, realistically, I don't think there are that many parents who are going so wild with the white noise that they're going to damage their child's hearing, but it's a useful check to do, know, especially if you are a little anxious about using white noise. So
What I noticed is this is it was a while ago now. white noise was a real hot topic on social media. And one of the claims being made was that white noise use was going to impact language development. And I thought, well, if that's true, it's not that hard to actually check. There's a lot of longitudinal studies. Laura and I worked on a great longitudinal study, ⁓ called the early language in Victoria study where
You know, we tracked children for years and years. They're now young adults. We looked at language development and lots of different factors. But there are multiple studies like that around the world that look at factors that influence language development. So a lot of these social media videos from influencers were citing a study by Basner and colleagues that was published in 2021. It was a systematic review and Basner and colleagues are based at the University of Pennsylvania in the Division of Sleep and Chronobiology.
So when I saw that reference, was like, well, that sounds pretty powerful. Like maybe there's actually some evidence for this. And Laura and I very much, you know, we always have our scientists hats on. We can't help. We can't even take those hats off if we try I don't think ⁓ so we were like, cool, there's a study. Let's read this. Like we want to update our knowledge. If there is something dangerous about white noise, we better know about it. Cause we're going to need to tell parents. ⁓ I couldn't get hold of the full study. I could just see the abstract and I was like, that's kind of weird. It doesn't even mention language in the abstract.
So I, and anyone can do this. I reached out to the author listed as the main contact, the primary author, Basner. ⁓ I sent an email and said, look, I'd love to read the full study because I can't get the full text version of it online. And are you aware that people are saying your study looked at language development? ⁓ You know, when I can't see that mentioned in the abstract, can you just confirm if you did actually measure language development or examine that?
Anyway, he replied really quickly, very lovely, shared the paper with me and said, no, we didn't even look at white noise and language development at all. ⁓ so it just, it's a good example of how someone can put a really impressive citation or reference beside their very sensational video. And it's going to make you go, my gosh, there must really be some weight behind this. But sometimes it's smoke and mirrors and it means nothing.
and you have nothing to be worried about. And it's just unfortunate that we live in a world where people are more concerned with clicks than parents actually getting useful information that's helpful and not alarming. So we don't have good evidence that white noise impacts language development. And I think if we just put our logical hats on, you would have to have white noise so loud, probably going all day so your child can't hear you properly and be really limiting
their exposure to language for it to really impact language development. And I think logically, you know, I feel personally, they're probably not going to find evidence that it impacts language development, but you know, I'm a scientist, so I'm open to taking on new information. If somebody comes up with a compelling study ⁓ with, you know, solid looking methodology, I will change my mind because that's what all good practitioners should do. ⁓ So yeah, I'll absolutely be keeping an eye out for any new.
literature in that space. So for now, I would say is white noise harmful? No, but be sensible with how you use it. Keep it below 50 decibels from the cot where they're asleep. So another question people sort of raise is what are the benefits? Are there actual benefits? So interestingly, that systematic review didn't show benefits overall. Some studies did, some studies didn't. They just kind of concluded that
there wasn't like a compelling reason why we should be telling everyone to use white noise because there's not a really consistent effect shown. But I think this is one of those things where it's probably going to work really well for some ⁓ and not be useful at all for others. So there are definitely people who say, ⁓ it really helps to calm my crying baby, especially those really little newborn babies. They're used to a really noisy environment. So it makes sense that
being, you know, having white noise might actually feel very familiar and comforting. Last night actually, it's such funny timing. I was scrolling on TikTok and there was this great video of this dad holding his baby and he takes the baby over to the oven and I'm thinking, my God, what is this person about to do with this baby? But it was all fine. He, the baby's crying and really upset. He takes it over to the oven, the stove area I should say.
and turns on the overhead fan above the stove. And I was like, I know why he's doing that. And sure enough, the baby's little frenetic arms gradually go still and the calming comes down. And you can tell this dad's just like, yes, that works so well. And it reminds me too, I had a friend in mother's group who, whenever her little baby would start crying, she would walk over to the kitchen sink, turn on the tap as hard as it would go. It was a real big kind of shhh noise.
And then he would go, ⁓ relaxed and chilled and happy. He just found it that soothing. So I think it's pretty easy to check if white noise is something that's going to be really soothing and helpful ⁓ for your baby. Of course, there are benefits for blocking out loud, sudden noises. If you've got a baby who just seems to spring awake really easily, white noise can be really, really helpful. And some people talk about white noise as potentially being a really useful sleep association.
So what I mean by that is if it's present when the baby falls asleep and then they roused during the night and they can still hear it, then they're kind of going, yeah, everything's the same. I can just go back to sleep now. So, you know, it can kind of become a cue. Like when, when I go into the room, when my parent turns on the white noise machine, I know it's sleep time and that kind of can help them prepare for sleep. So it could be helpful in that context as well. ⁓ Another big question that we get,
all the time, and this is something that's been fought over online as well, is whether white noise should be going all night or just at bedtime. And I just put my very practical hat on with this one. I think ideally we want everything that's present at bedtime to still be present during the night. And white noise can absolutely be one of those things so that, if they naturally come to wake up, things are as similar as possible so that they, you know, when they're doing that systems check, has anything changed in my sleep environment?
⁓ It's one element that wouldn't have changed during the night and maybe that will help to lessen overnight wakes. ⁓ It can be really helpful to use it through the whole night when you've got a sibling ⁓ who is noisy or calling out in the night or even like a partner who snores and I hope they go and get a sleep study done but a lot of babies are really interrupted by the noise that parents make during sleep so if you're room sharing and every time you go to roll over your baby springs awake ⁓
you know, having white noise so that they can't quite hear the shuffle of the sheets might be really helpful. But I think another really useful ⁓ reason to keep it on potentially during the night is if you have an adult in the house who maybe works unusual hours and you're noticing that when they get home from work or when they leave for work, your baby's waking up because they can hear that there's this sort of motion in the house.
So it's something to think about. Some parents will only use it at bedtime. They don't bother with it overnight. That's perfectly fine. Other parents are like, no way it's on through every single sleep. I think you're better off just testing it out for your own baby, your own family, and really being guided by how useful you find it. And then that final question that Jayme really ⁓ was asking when she emailed us was around, is it hard to wean them off the white noise and how would you do it? And
This is, think the really good news is if you find white noise really helpful, don't be scared about, my gosh, how will we ever get rid of it? It won't be that hard. I've never heard of anybody having a hard time weaning white noise. I'll probably get an email from someone who wants to tell me how hard a time they had, but I would say it's one of the easiest things to wean them off if it's become quite a habit or a sleep association that they're used to at bedtime.
It's just a case of gradually decreasing the volume or you might move your white noise machine just gradually further away from them. So it's just a little less loud. And that can work really, really effectively. ⁓ Some parents just turn it off one day and never turn it back on or it runs out of batteries and you never bother recharging. And then you just find it doesn't really matter that much. They're not too, too bothered. There is absolutely no hurry and no ideal age to do it.
There are plenty of older children who are light sleepers who find it really comforting to have that low level background noise when they're sleeping. And that's perfectly fine. There are adults who use white noise as well. So there doesn't have to be a hurry. And I think it's worth thinking to that, cause often parents will say, I don't want to create a rod for my own back. You know, is this going to be something that I ended up regretting because I'd rather just not go down that path at all. I would say that this, when white noise is a sleep association,
It doesn't seem to have that much of an impact on sleep. Like if, even if your child has only ever had white noise at bedtime and then one night you just spun and you're traveling, you forget to use it. The feedback I get from parents is that it doesn't really matter that much. I don't think it becomes like this really strong sleep association. ⁓ whereas other sleep associations like, you know, being bounced to sleep on a football or feeding to sleep do tend to become like very, very strong. So
Try not to fear it. I think it's just a good idea to have a bit of an experiment and figure out what works best for your baby and your family. I'm gonna take a big sip of water. So I think you guys should take a big sip of your cups of tea or your hot chocolates or maybe a drink, something stronger. That's fine too. And then we're gonna dive into parent questions.
All right. So parent questions, there are an absolute ton to get through. Of course there are when I'm here doing this solo. ⁓ And these questions are really good ones. ⁓ They're not simple. So I'm going to do my best to give a good clear answer, but I will be trying to move through them fairly quickly, ⁓ but hopefully still in a helpful way. So.
We have a question sent in by Ella. She has a five and a half month old daughter with a 12 and a half hour sleep need. She's on three naps and they're using the supported accelerated approach for naps, but not at night yet. During the day, she can sometimes self settle within one or two minutes.
but other times escalates and needs to be picked up and settled in their arms. Ella wants to know, is it okay to continue settling in arms or breastfeeding overnight until self settling is more solid in the day? Or should they be consistent across all sleeps? She says if their baby falls back asleep close to the 7am wake up time, maybe around 6.45am, they want to know, do they let her finish the sleep cycle or wake her up at 7am?
Could she simply have a natural wake time of 6 or 6 30 a.m. Despite them aiming for 7 a.m. And finally, she says her daughter mostly naps for 40 to 45 minutes But occasionally links sleep cycles on those days should they let her sleep longer and adjust bedtime Keep wake time fixed or use a short power nap if the longer nap pushes the day out this is like a lot of questions all wrapped up here Ella
I'm just thinking about an overarching response. The first thing I think is that we need to, if we're really confident, like if she's always averaging 12 and a half hours of sleep, ⁓ you know, across that kind of weekly average per day, then we cater for that really precisely. That's going to help all the questions around settling as well, because when you go to use the cot settling for every settle, we want to know that we've got the daily rhythm. That means there's never going to be like a little
low bit of sleep pressure that's going to get in the way of her settling while in the cot. So I would come up with a daily rhythm that fits that. So use the unique sleep needs chapter. Look at the example daily rhythms, maybe for a baby with a 12 hour sleep need, but add that extra 30 minutes somewhere and then aim for consistency. So that might mean that you do have an earlier wake up time in the morning to fit that schedule. And it will just answer that question around, should we get her up?
Do we, you know, resettle? Do we wake on time? Work out that daily rhythm that fits her sleep needs. And if it means that, you know, it's a 6.30 AM wake up, fine, wake up at 6.30 every morning and don't let it go past that. I think that's a mistake often made by parents not realizing that if they're still sleeping at wake up time, get them up and start the day. Because starting the day at the same time every day.
really regulates how their sleep pressure is going to rise and fall across the day and you'll start to see a lot more consistency with day naps and at bedtime as well. ⁓ And then in terms of should they continue settling in arms or breastfeeding overnight until self-settling and the daytime is more solid or do it across all sleeps? This is such a fascinating question to me because
I generally advise parents to not worry about cot settling for naps at first, but to really focus on bedtime and overnight, because that's when sleep pressure is at its highest and it's generally easier. So I'm so impressed, Ella, that you've been able to make any progress with self settling for those naps while still holding or feeding to sleep overnight. That's usually not an easy way to do it. And I think it's really great that you've done that. I would say if your aim is to have the best possible sleep in the quickest timeframe,
I would work out what that daily rhythm needs to be. So work through some bell for that, spend a week on that daily rhythm, really mastering it, letting her circadian rhythm adapt to that new pattern of sleep. And then I would go all in with the supported accelerated approach for every settle because she absolutely can self settle. And when we've got sleep pressure, absolutely perfected for every nap and at bedtime and through the night. When you go to use that same approach, she's going to go, okay.
got it. This is not confusing at all because I know when I have the same path, same phrase, same process is followed. It really means that it's time for sleep. And you should see her adapt really, really quickly, but we just need to make sure that daily rhythm is really firmly in place. ⁓ That was a really quick answer, Ella. There's so much more I could say. If you're really struggling, please book a coaching call. It's the sort of thing where I can help you work out exactly what that daily rhythm needs to be. ⁓ But if you don't have a coaching call,
the resources in Sombelle will absolutely step you through how to do that. And I think you're doing a fantastic job. You have done so well working on cot settling for those naps and just really showing your baby that this is a safe space. I'm here to support you. And yes, you can do this. You're really helping to build her confidence in that space. So well done. All right, Bre emailed in and she has a nine month old daughter with an approximate sleep need of 12 and a half hours.
She's on two 45 minute naps each day with bedtime between 6.30 and 7.00 PM and a wake up time between 6.30 and 7.00 Over the past fortnight, they've reduced overnight feeds from three down to one. ⁓ gosh, I bet that was hard. Well done. Bre says since doing that, she's been waking three to four times overnight and can take anywhere from 15 to 90 minutes to resettle.
They're still offering a 5 a.m. after trying to resettle first, but would like to drop that as well. To resettle her overnight, they offer water, replace the dummy, and use patting and shushing, but she will scream if they leave the room before she's fully asleep. She is able to self-settle independently at bedtime and for naps, and previously when she was being fed overnight, she could be placed back into the cot awake and fall asleep completely on her own.
So Bre's main question is how to best address these ongoing night wakings now that feeds have been reduced and whether the supported accelerated approach would be appropriate in this situation. What a fantastic question Bri. Look, ⁓ my first thought in hearing about that daily rhythm is you've got a baby who absolutely knows how to self-settle. they've really, and you've also reduced night feeds. there's not sort of that as much motivation to feed overnight anymore that started to reduce.
So when I look at situations like this, think the only reason why that baby won't resettle quickly overnight is because the daily rhythm is out of whack because you're there being hands-on supportive. You're giving the support to go to sleep and she's having none of it for 15 to 19 minutes. So it's a full split night by the sounds of it. What I would be thinking is, okay, you've got 12 and a half hours to work with. She's having two 45 minute naps each day. So you're capping the total day sleep at an hour and a half.
And you've got an 11 hour window for sleep overnight. So if you spending kind of an hour and a half from that 12 and a half hour budget, you know, that's being spent on day sleep, you've got 11 hours. can expect her to do overnight. And this is where I would be tightening things. I would be saying, for example, okay, it's going to be a 7pm bedtime and a 6am wake up. That's just an example, but you set that 11 hour window and you stick to it like glue. And that probably sounds a bit crazy, but
How this works is if her circadian rhythm realizes, okay, I need 11 hours overnight, but I can do that anywhere between maybe 6.30 PM to 7 AM. So there's a 12 and a half hour window for me to have my 11 hours that I'm looking for. Well, that baby's going to wake for probably an hour and a half overnight. It could be one long hour and a half wake up, or it could be a whole bunch of 15 minute wake ups. There's different ways that can present. Sometimes they sleep beautifully, but they wake horrendously early.
⁓ so when we fiddle with that daily rhythm, set the bedtime, set the wake up time and cap the naps within about four or so days, your baby circadian rhythm is going to cotton on and realize, okay. I cannot afford to be having middle of the night parties because I've got to get up on time. I've got to get through the day on this, you know, total day sleep and I've got to get through to bedtime the next night. So I feel like in Bre's case, just bringing in that bit of structure.
and rigidity is going to be massively helpful. And it might even mean that most of those night wakes disappear. Yeah, you might find that going to the supported accelerated approach works really well at that point because you've got consistently high sleep pressure and you're not having these 15 to 90 minute dips in the middle of the night where sleep pressure is rock bottom and you can't get out of the room. ⁓ So I hope that answers your question, Bri. I feel like that's sort of the
the crux of the issue and I'd be really keen to hear ⁓ how you go. think so often parents are really, really close, but it's sometimes just making that daily rhythm a little bit rigid to get rid of those split nights. And then they start to wake up really happy, really well rested from a great night of sleep. And you'll find that they power through the day really, really well. Awesome. All right, let's move on to Eilish. So Eilish has a 10 month old.
Who has gone from co-sleeping and six to 10 wakes per night. Oh my God, Eilish, that sounds so exhausting. Um, but now she's sleeping through with no feeds after four weeks of doing Sombelle program. Oh my God, that is so good. Oh, Eilish, I'm so happy for you. You are who we built this program for. Let me tell you. Um, that's music to my ears. Well done.
can't imagine the difference that's made. So Eilish is asking how to shift persistent 5.30 a.m. wake ups closer to 6 a.m. She wants to know how to confidently handle bedtime for the grandparents or other carers and how to factor in very short car naps. ⁓ How do we factor those into the daily rhythm? Cool. All right, let's dive into this one. So your baby's had a massive reduction in overnight waking.
So now that they're having consolidated sleep, they kind of achieve that full amount of sleep they need overnight earlier. And that's what the early wake up is. She's, ⁓ or he is getting this brilliant overnight sleep, waking at 5.30 AM, totally ready to start the day because that sleep quality is golden. What I would be thinking about without knowing much about the daily rhythm that she's on, if it's a really persistent 5.30 AM wake up and maybe your bedtime is like,
I don't know, 7 p.m. or something, then what you wanna start doing is shifting bedtime 15 minutes later and wake up time 15 minutes later and doing that every three or so days. So we're gradually kind of pushing the circadian rhythm along. ⁓ It's pretty easy to keep a baby awake at 15 minutes extra before you put them down, but getting them to sleep in, there's always a few days lag before they start to do it. So all you'd be doing is you would say, okay, if she's still asleep at 5.30 a.m.
course we'll let her sleep till 5.45 a.m. but if she wakes at 5.30 a.m. clearly not going to go back to sleep. We'll just aim to keep it really dark, really boring and then at 5.45 a.m. we turn on the lights, make noise and try to only offer that first feed of the day at 5.45 a.m. So then you're giving this very clear signal to the circadian rhythm that this is when we should start the day.
and it won't go to plan at first. You'll be getting her up at, well, she'll be getting herself up at 5.30 AM and still trying to get through to this later bedtime. But over the course of a few days, sleep pressure builds and she will start to add that sleep in. So that's how I would handle that and just keep shuffling it along. ⁓ In terms of grandparents and other carers handling bedtime, I don't know much about what process you're using. I don't know which Sombelle approach you chose to use.
but I would just give them the steps. would show them the steps and say, or write out your own ones if you've got your own little process, but talk them through exactly what you do and explain that, you know, they might find their own way of settling your baby to sleep, but if it's going to be tricky, this is exactly how I do it so that you can copy the same process. It's really just about having, I think, really open conversations and explaining to any caregivers what it is that helps your baby to soothe and calm and get off to sleep.
With very short car naps in the day, gosh, it's hard. I would take the car naps, the sneaky naps, I call them, take minus them from the total day sleep you've set yourself. So I'm assuming you're using a daily rhythm. If there's, you know, two hours maximum day sleep across two naps or something, and your baby has a 10 minute nap in the car, take it away from those two hours and just really try and protect that.
the final lead up to bedtime. At 10 months, we want more than four hours awake in the lead up to bedtime to build up that sleep pressure. So I hope that helps Eilish. And of course, if you want to have a chat about any of these things in more detail, I'm very happy to see you for a coaching call. All right, everybody take a big sip of your drinks.
All right. We are powering through. So we've got Caitlin next, who has a seven and a half month old daughter who averages 12 hours and 20 minutes of total sleep. Isn't that interesting? We've had a few in a row that have a very similar sleep need. Caitlin says there's around about 10 and a quarter hours overnight with one to two feeds and just over two hours total sleep during the naps across the day.
Caitlin says bedtimes around 8 30 PM wake up is 6 30 AM and she alternates between two naps totaling about two hours or three shorter 40 minute naps. If they're out and about got it. Yeah. Cause if you're out and about often those naps are a bit shorter and you're trying to compensate for that. ⁓ Caitlin wants to drop the remaining night feeds and settle more predictably. She's currently rocking to sleep. She's wondering whether to refine the daily rhythm more tightly before working on cot settling.
and when her baby will adjust to longer awake windows. She's also asking whether a shorter morning nap and longer afternoon nap might help, how to manage inconsistent daycare naps, tips for restarting cot settling using the supported accelerated approach, ⁓ how to build her partner's confidence with bedtime, the best way to drop the final night feed and whether an 8.30 PM bedtime is too late and could be contributing to waking.
That's a lot to unpack. my God. could have done a podcast episode on your question, Caitlin, cause this is just, ⁓ this is exactly, ⁓ the type of level of questions that people turn up to coaching calls with where there's lots of different things they want to talk through. ⁓ but this is what I'm thinking. You've got a few night wakes you want to get rid of and your seven and a half month old is occasionally holding onto their third nap.
So that is the first thing I want to change. You've got to push for two naps, even if they're two 40 minute naps, your baby won't do that for long. If you do two naps and they're only 40 minutes each and you push through to the same bedtime, get her up on time in the morning, really quickly, her circadian rhythm is going to be like, can't be mucking around overnight anymore because I've really got to take more day sleep because there's just not going to be opportunity for that third nap anymore.
So that would be one of the first things I would change. It's gonna tighten up the sleep pressure and then make the cot settling much, much easier. Your baby's gonna be cranky with longer wake windows, 100%, and that's fine. It's not gonna hurt them. What we're gonna see is that when that overnight sleep quality improves, she's gonna wake up more settled and happy, and she'll power through the day much more easily on those two naps. She's definitely ready to go for the two naps.
Does a shorter morning nap and longer afternoon nap help? I would say it's usually the other way around. Most parents will say that a longer morning nap and a short afternoon nap leads to a better night because there's more time awake in the lead up to bedtime. But you can have a bit of an experiment. ⁓ Talk to daycare about what they are doing for naps and try to copy it at home as best you can. If they're unwilling to get on your schedule, it might be better for you to get on theirs, but I'd be definitely saying to them, it's just two naps.
and ask them to cap those naps at your current total. When you're restarting the Supported Accelerated approach, I would say it just comes down to showing your baby how consistent you are. So stick to one minute intervals with the padding and the phrase. Do it on high repetition so you can really show your baby that this is the process we're going to follow and they're getting to see that process a lot of times. That's going to help them to understand that that is how we're settling now.
and that higher sleep pressure from the new daily rhythm is going to help so much. ⁓ Building your partner's confidence at bedtime, get them to watch you, ⁓ get them to sit in the corner of the room and just silently observe what you're doing when you apply whatever settling approach you're going to use. And after they've settled to sleep, say to your partner, see how there were a couple of tricky moments, but if we just persisted, it started to get easier and she started to adapt. Sometimes partners really just need to see that
It actually can work and it's okay to persist with the plan. ⁓ Dropping the final night feed, I would say work on the self settling first, ⁓ cap the night feed to just one, make sure they put back down a wake after that night feed. And then after a few nights, I'd probably be inclined to just drop the final night feed and have your partner go in and do the resettle for you. ⁓ And then I'm rambling on a million miles a minute.
With the 8pm bedtime, is it too late? Could it contribute to night waking? I know where this is coming from. There are a lot of people online who say the ideal bedtimes between 6pm and 7pm and any later, they're going to be overtired and you miss this magical window. It is total nonsense. If an 8.30pm bedtime is working for you, great. If the sleep in is too long and you want your baby to be able to wake up earlier in the morning, bring bedtime earlier. I haven't met many parents that actually want to do that.
But there's no way that the 8.30 PM bedtime is contributing to night waking. So that is my absolute whistle stop tour of poor Caitlin's kind of complex situation. But I hope that helps give you some reassurance, Caitlin. And I don't know, Caitlin, you might be the lovely Caitlin on social media who is always quick to like our posts. And I noticed you. I don't know if this is the right Caitlin, but there is a Caitlin out there who is rather sporty and who
is always such a champion of us and it doesn't go unnoticed. So I don't know if that's this particular Caitlin but if you're listening, so appreciate you. There are people who just are always championing us and I love it, it doesn't go unnoticed. All right, so we have a question from Gemma next who has a four and a half month old. ⁓ They're six and a half months chronological age that they were.
but because we're talking about sleep, we will go with the four and a half months old corrected. So Gemma says they've been seeing significant improvements since they started Sombelle They've been using the slow fade approach and there were two recent nights where their baby slept through from about 10 or 11 PM to seven or eight AM. That is brilliant.
But Gemma says, however, usually her baby will fall asleep and then wake repeatedly, could be three to 10 times within the first hour of the night. So every five to 10 minutes before they finally settle into consolidated sleep. Gemma is confident it's not a sleep pressure issue as her baby appears exhausted and previously would fall asleep instantly when picked up. She's wondering why this pattern is happening and whether it will resolve as they progress further with the cot saling.
I love this question because this is, you know, I this quite a lot. So when you're having false starts, so Gemma is a hundred percent describing false starts. It's that classic, like just can't quite get into that deep long stretch of sleep. It is always to do with the daily rhythm. There's always something that has to change in the daily rhythm. ⁓ so I know that Gemma doesn't feel like it's sleep pressure.
but I would almost guarantee it is. But I don't want to discount what Gemma's saying. I hear you Gemma, I understand that she is really exhausted. And this is something that can trip parents up is that sometimes we have a baby who might be very physically tired. So they're showing all the tired signs, they're cranky, they're grisly, but the structure of the day naps has brought down the sleep hormones they need at bedtime. So they've got the physical fatigue.
but they don't have the sleep pressure and the drive to actually get into that deep stretch of sleep until it sounds like it can take about an hour for Gemma's baby to do it. So I would be thinking about that daily rhythm. I would be checking there's not too many naps, four and a half months corrected. I would be, you there should just be three naps really at that age. There are very few babies that are going to do that well on four naps at that age. So.
I would be looking at three naps per day, making sure you've got a good long stretch of awake time before bed. ⁓ and check in on that daily rhythm. So how much sleep are they averaging per day and how are you just catering to their unique sleep need? Or are we offering way too much opportunity to sleep? And there's lots of little naps that are just bringing down that sleep pressure at the start of the night. ⁓ yeah, it's a really common one. I hope that there's other people listening that that resonates with.
Cause there is that balance we've got a strike of not having, you know, so much physical fatigue and not the sleep pressure. it's, ⁓ happened fusing is this forbearance. Honestly, you sleep deprived already and there's all these changing factors. It is really, really challenging. All right. I'm to take another big gulp of water. Please everybody take a big sip of tea or whatever your poison is.
Next up we have Vanessa and Vanessa has a 30 month old toddler who's in the process of dropping his daytime nap. He rarely sleeps during the day now but is clearly tired, becoming very upset and even falling asleep at the dinner table while trying to resist sleep. She's looking for guidance or a podcast episode that covers how to manage the transition away from the final nap in a two-year-old.
I really should have done my homework. I should have looked this up before I hit record. ⁓ but I'm just thinking, I feel like we have talked about dropping a final nap for toddlers. feel like there is an episode on that. In our, on our brand new little people webpage, there is when you go into it, there's like a little box, a search bar. It's actually, it's not one of those terrible search bars that just tells you nothing. If you pop some keywords in there, it's actually pretty good at finding episodes.
talked about that content. So anyone who's listening who thinks, oh, I want advice on that particular problem, go and check if we've already mentioned it in an episode. It's a great way to get a quick answer to your question. But in terms of dropping the final nap for a two year old, I would say that there is always this two month kind of window where they need to drop the nap, but it's really bloody hard work and.
It's just challenging and there's no, I don't know that any parent really gets like this clear sailing through where it's all just blissful from the moment they drop the nap. It's really hard. And there are going to be times where they're just so exhausted. So I would just be thinking, okay, what's the total sleep need that they've got to meet overnight and make sure your bedtime is super consistent and your wake up time is very consistent as well. So even if they have a tricky night, for whatever reason, you get them up on time, big dose of bright light. And then I'd be thinking, okay,
We want to get out a lot of energy early in the day or around midday. And then as we're getting towards the end of the day, we want to really start building in the wind down time so that they're not really physically exhausted before they're ready for sleep. So it's kind of a bit often parents will experiment with when they take their kids out for that really busy, you know, play at the park and that sort of thing, because they start to notice that
Yes, sometimes bedtime's really hard to get to if they've just done so much physical work that day. So it can be about finding that balance. But look, I would say in any case, it just might be that you're a few weeks away, hopefully only days away from a point where you'll notice, they're having a great night. They're refreshed enough. They're powering through the day and they've made that adjustment. It is just sometimes a tricky adjustment that really does take time. Good luck, Vanessa.
It's so tricky when they're just, yeah, exhausted at bed time. Well, at dinner time in your case.
Fallon Cook (42:54)
Okay. So Lauren has an eight month old with a lower sleep need of around 11 and a half hours total. And she's seen significant improvement since dropping to two naps and implementing cot settling strategies. Well done, Lauren. That sounds awesome. So Lauren has several sleep questions. We've got when a baby's sleep cycle lengthens beyond the 30 minute cycles common at around four months. Should night sleep be managed in alignment with sleep cycle timing in the same way as naps?
So after an early morning settle, should they give their baby a full cycle or stick to the wake up time? Okay, let's start with that and then I'll unpack the rest of it Lauren. This is a brilliant question. So at the start of the night, your baby does the full sleep cycle, the deep sleep, the coming up into light sleep. They do the all stages of sleep within a sleep cycle. As it gets closer to morning, they don't do the deep sleep.
they stay in around stages one, two, maybe a little bit of stage three of sleep, but mostly around stages one on two, one and two, as they're getting closer to morning. And this is quite light sleep. So they are really easy to wake up pretty much at any time. So I wouldn't be worrying about thinking, okay, we've got, you know, this amount of time overnight for sleep. And that's exactly matching the length of the sleep cycle because by morning,
the sleep cycles are really just full of light asleep. They're easy to wake up anyway. But I love that question. I don't think I've ever been asked that before. And now I'm wondering why no one's asked that before. That is a really good question. ⁓ So yeah, we don't have to be thinking, you know, are we waking them up at the end of a sleep cycle when we're talking about mornings. Lauren also wants to know,
If it's normal for babies on two naps to experience pronounced sleepy dips mid wake window, but rarely if they push through. She's wondering whether this suggests a need to increase total daily sleep and how to confidently test adding sleep without disrupting an otherwise stable rhythm. I love this as well. This is so good. ⁓ so yes, it is really common. Like you've got to remember that
You know, as sleep pressure builds, you're not going to see like this really linear increase in ⁓ sleep cues, like sleep signs, ⁓ tired signs, trying to say. So often what we will see is we'll see like a few tired signs come up and they get a bit grisly and you know, that. And then they rally again. They're like, yeah, I'm okay. I can actually keep going. And then you see them engage in kind of focused, settled play, ⁓ you know, and they just seem fine. You're like, they're not really that tired.
That's really normal. happens to adults. mean, if you talk to me at 3pm on any day, I'm kind of a bit tired and sleepy. So that is really normal. It definitely wouldn't be thinking of going back to three naps per day for an eight month old. So I wouldn't worry about that. I would be pushing through. ⁓ In terms of does this mean that she needs more total sleep and how would you test that out without disrupting what is a great daily rhythm by the sounds of it? Here's what I would do. I...
say this in almost every single coaching call and appointment that I do. If you have had two weeks of excellent nights where you have achieved all your goals, where you're feeling really good, you've achieved everything you wanted to achieve, and it's just golden, but you think maybe my baby needs a little bit more sleep and you're thinking I'd really like to just test that out, then here's what you do. Try adding either 15 or 30 minutes is typically what I say. Try adding
15, 30 minutes more sleep to their schedule at the exact same time each day for a full week and see how they go. So for example, if you're finding it's hard to wake them in the morning, ⁓ maybe then you will decide, okay, I'm to let them have maybe a 15 minute longer sleep in and I'm just going to allow that for a full week and see, do they take it? And what you're looking for is if they take that extra sleep and everything remains great, the nights are golden, every settling is fine, everything's great.
You've answered the question. Yes, they can take that 15 minutes more sleep. If they have really chaotic nights when you introduce that 15 minutes or settling becomes really tricky, then they're not actually taking that extra 15 minutes. They're they, they might sleep in 15 minutes longer, but they're taking 15 minutes away somewhere else. So it kind of tells you you've hit that ceiling in terms of maxing out how much sleep they can manage. That is the nice methodical way. like parents to test this sort of thing out so that
They get a sense of what is the limit of how much sleep we can offer this child before things start to fall over. and if you add the 15 minutes and goes great at another 15 minutes, you can keep testing that. want you to keep testing that because there are babies, some of them who will increase their sleep needs over time. And I think most parents are pretty quick to get onto that and realize, let's, let's try adding a little bit more. You can do it in that methodical way so that if you, if it doesn't go well, you just simply go back to your old schedule. that's a great way to handle it.
Lauren was also wondering why her baby has frequent overnight vocalizations where her baby cries briefly but doesn't actually wake up. And yeah, that is such a great question too. So some babies are just hellishly noisy in their sleep. Every time they're in light sleep, they're, you know, so grisly. Sometimes they'll cry really loud and hard and then they just stop. And we know that these babies are in the lightest stages of sleep. People have checked that using EEG. ⁓
⁓ There's nothing to worry about. It's just some babies make a lot of noise and often these are the babies where everyone does better when they have their own room so that you hear fewer of those little grumbles ⁓ in light sleep. It protects your sleep but certainly if they get really upset you're definitely going to hear it and you can go into them. ⁓ So sometimes it's about just thinking about the best sort of arrangement in terms of where everybody's sleeping so that she's not interrupting your sleep too much. Awesome, great.
Let's keep going. We've got Clare who has a six month old with a 12 hour sleep need. He's currently having three short naps and up to 10 and a half hours sleep overnight. After transitioning from the quick fade approach to the supported accelerated approach, night wakes reduce from up to six per night to typically just one or two with one remaining overnight feed after 1 a.m. She's seeking advice on how to eliminate the earlier night wakes, often occurring three to four hours after bedtime.
and whether factors such as room sharing or lingering feeding expectations may be contributing. She also wants to know why some naps are smooth while others fail despite appropriate sleep pressure and whether missed day sleep can be redistributed into earlier bedtime. Finally, the lower sleep needs babies tend to drop naps earlier or later, particularly as she anticipates the transition from three to two naps. my God, you guys just ask these great questions. This is so good.
Okay. Lower sleep needs babies definitely tend to drop naps earlier for sure. ⁓ and I would say if she's six months old, she should be really close to dropping to two naps. ⁓ and if, you know, she's a low sleep needs baby, that's probably going to happen really soon. And if it doesn't nights will potentially worsen. So it's really good that you're thinking about that Clare. ⁓
So that earlier night wake three or four hours after bedtime, that's when they're exiting the really long, deep stretches of sleep that we have at the beginning of our nights. And I think Clare, you're on the money. It could be that your room sharing and right when you're going to bed, your baby is starting to cycle up into light sleep. So they're waking up thinking, ⁓ you know, I can hear mom over there or dad snoring over there. They absolutely could contribute.
it could be a lingering feeding expectation as well. So you might want to work on pushing that one feed a bit closer to morning, or if they're doing well on solids, you might even just get rid of that final overnight feed if that's what you're feeling comfortable doing. And most importantly, though, I would just be making sure that when she wakes up, you really take your time to do anything. So this is a baby who knows how to self settle. You've done the work on that. They can fall asleep without help.
it sounds like you've got a really good daily rhythm in place. So when she does call out at night, I'd be really trying to just wait, like it could be three minutes or five minutes, just see what she does. Cause so many babies, like the really noisy one that we were talking about, they can come up into light sleep and make an absolute racket. But then two or three minutes later, they're back into deep sleep again, and they actually didn't need any help from us. And we want them to keep practicing that even if they do fully wake up.
and cry out, we want them to have that moment to go, hang on, everything's okay. I'm pretty tired and I know how to get myself off to sleep. We want them to then put themselves back to sleep. But if we rush over really quickly, often they're just like, well, I'll just wake up, scream, someone will arrive really quickly. It's great. I get some attention, some cuddles. And then we just see this like night waking going on and on and on because we're just responding a little bit too quickly.
So just try to hold your horses a little bit. Often that makes a massive difference. And within a few nights, they're sleeping way more soundly ⁓ and just not calling out quite as much. And just know that if she's hungry or has pain or something, she's not gonna stop calling out. She's not gonna go back to sleep. She will persist and make it known that, no, I actually really need your help right now. ⁓ In terms of, okay, so can missed day sleeps be redistributed into an earlier bedtime?
No, I would try not to. I would try to stick to the same bedtime. If day sleeps are terrible and we put them to bed earlier, we're kind of telling the circadian rhythm, sure, have crappy day naps because we'll just have an earlier bedtime. We'll make up for it later. So if you're really keen to keep things on track, I would stick to your daily rhythm reasonably rigidly. And look, sometimes naps just are not smooth. It might be that if you're having trouble settling for naps, it really is time to move to two naps.
⁓ or just doing that third one on the go. If it's a really tricky settle and then when you're ready to drop it, yeah, just dive in and drop it. hope that answers all your questions, Clare. could be another one. That's a good, ⁓ good one for a coaching call. if you need help navigating all of that. All right. Two questions to go.
Fallon Cook (53:24)
So next up we have Kate. Kate has a five and a half month old with a 12 and a half hour sleep need. And she's trying to optimize his daily rhythm before working on cot settling. Love to hear that Kate. Music to my ears.
Kate says he alternates between three and four naps depending on nap length with bedtime set at 8 p.m. and wake up time at 6.30 a.m. On three nap days, he often becomes very tired one to one and a half hours before bedtime, creating uncertainty about whether to offer a late cat nap, move bedtime earlier or stretch to a slightly later bedtime. She's also navigating variable night wakes with two to three feeds and occasional false starts.
which seem more frequent with earlier bedtimes. She's seeking guidance on whether to consistently aim for four naps to protect the 8pm bedtime, allow three naps with a micro nap if possible, or lean into an earlier bedtime when needed. I absolutely love this question, Kate. So here's what I would do at five and a half months of age, it's not unreasonable for him to be on three naps. It sounds like he's having trouble transitioning from four naps down to three.
possibly because the nights still sound like they're a bit tricky. ⁓ And often that just means that they're tired during the daytime. So they go searching for that fourth nap, but then they have the fourth nap and what do you know? Nights are really tricky because that sleep drives too low. And you're noticing that if he has an earlier bedtime, there are more false starts. So he's on the cusp of dropping from four to three naps and it's going to take a little bit of a push to get him over the line.
So I would say you got a 12 and a half hour sleep need 8 p.m. So 8 p.m. to 6.30 a.m. That's 10 and a half hours. You've got a two hour allowance for those day sleeps
And I would cap them potentially, you know, if the sleep cycle is 40 minutes, could just be three 40 minute naps, but I do a really big push to get him onto the three naps and push him through to that bedtime. And often it takes a few days. It's a few really tricky days that are really challenging trying to avoid that fourth sneaky nap, but then it clicks and the circadian rhythm realizes, okay, I've got to have as much sleep as possible overnight because I've got to get through the day on just three naps.
And that's how we kind of get that traction and things start to come together. ⁓ so yeah, it's a tricky time for you right now, Kate, but I think if you just keep pushing for those three naps, stick to that daily rhythm, he's really going to get on board quickly before you know it, he's going to be due to go down to just two day naps, probably only in another month or so. ⁓ so yeah, it's totally fine to push for the three naps and you're really likely to find that that's really, really helpful for those nights. And when you go to work on cot settling, ⁓ it's going to help so much.
if he's on the three naps. So dive in Kate and good luck. I hope it goes really well. All right. Lucky last is Clara.
So Clara has an eight month old who previously co-slept and has been in his own cot and room since five months of age. Historically, he settled well, waking once or twice overnight for a feed and taking two 30 minute naps daily. However, in the past week, he's begun screaming at bedtime for up to three hours and occasionally waking later in the night with prolonged crying episodes of a similar length.
He's also refusing cot naps, only sleeping in the car, carrier, or while breastfeeding. Despite troubleshooting illness, discomfort, environment, hunger, and following the supported accelerated approach, most bedtimes still involve feeding to sleep or extended crying with a parent present. With short day naps and long wake windows of four or five hours before bed,
She's feeling unsure what's driving the sudden change in behavior and is seeking guidance on how to restore calmer more independent settling. Whoa, that is such a huge change, Clara. I am really, there are so many questions I want to ask you to dive deeper into this because it sounds like he's not overdoing the day's sleep. But having three hours of screaming at bedtime, it really sounds like something is up.
Fallon Cook (57:39)
So it kind of makes it hard to give you advice because I feel like I'd really want to unpick whether you've got any physiological signs that could be impacting on sleep quality. So snoring, noisy breathing, mouth breathing. Has there been separation anxiety? Has there been a big life change? It's such a drastic change in behavior. I would really want to know more about what's going on. But for now, I think I would go right.
back to basics and I would be thinking of implementing something that is highly consistent and catering to whatever the sleep need currently looks like. So measure his current sleep average across a week as we usually would. Identify how much sleep he tends to be averaging. Make sure your daily rhythm is really well fitted to that sleep need. And then I would be thinking
standardize the settling, even if it's not self settling right now, it sounds like that could be just too hard, but standardize the settling, how are you going to settle him and make it consistent? I'd probably aim for something like, maybe it's the quick fade approach. Maybe you're just doing hands on constant support until he's asleep in his cot but you're bringing in this predictability because it sounds like a really chaotic time for your baby. And when the world is chaotic and there's a lot of crying and things are really not, not going great.
just bringing in this calm, consistent approach that you stick with until he sleeps is going to be a great way to make things as predictable as possible for your baby. ⁓ So I feel like that's probably the most I can say, but I definitely recommend Clara booking in a coaching call, because I'm definitely keen to dive into a bit more around what's happened and how things got so off track. And that's just so much crying and that's not fun. It makes me wonder if there's something.
something else going on that we really need to dive into. ⁓ All right, that brings us to the end of what was a full on episode with really meaty questions. And it was ⁓ really annoying not being able to be like, hey Laura, did I miss anything? What do you think? ⁓
But we got there in the end and I hope those answers are helpful to all these beautiful parents that spent the time writing into us. We love getting your emails. We love helping you and supporting you. And we're so proud of how all of you are using the Sombelle materials to bring about these really fantastic changes. You are learning so much and these are skills and it's knowledge about sleep that you're going to use right across your child's, you know, childhood. it's...
It's going to be important and useful information for you to have and skills for you to have for a really long time. So thank you everyone who put up with me for the past hour or however long it is I've been talking, just a reminder, if you need support with sleep or settling, the Sombelle programs are so comprehensive. We pour our heart and souls into them.
And we are here to support you. you're member, send in a question, book a coaching call. If you need help, that's what we're here for. said to a family the other day, I've seen so many thousands of families. There's nothing new anymore. And there is always a way forward. ⁓ so if you need that support, just reach out and you can be my best friend and we can meet up, have a coaching call, have a yarn about what's going on and figure out what to do.
We have appointments available via Telehealth If you want a big initial appointment, we can do it via Telehealth. sees families in our clinic in Malvern. So if you're Melbourne local, absolutely head on in there and you can meet face to face with Laura. If you love what we do, please leave a review. Give us a five star ratings. Hit the subscribe button, buy us a cuppa. It all really, really helps with the work that we do.
So thank you so much for tuning in and you'll hear from us again in a couple of weeks. Have a good one guys.
