Fallon Cook (00:02)
Waking a child from a nap can feel so counterintuitive, especially when you've been up half of the night with them. It can be so tempting to let them recover with a nice long nap, but it might surprise you to learn that it's actually usually not a good idea and it might even make their nights worse. We see loads of families in the clinic who are surprised when we tell them that they should be waking their child up from a nap that has stretched on a bit too long.
So in this episode of Brand New Little People, I'm going to give you the lowdown on when and why your baby or toddler should be woken up from their naps.
Welcome back to Brand New Little People, the podcast companion to the Sombelle Paediatric Sleep Clinic programs. I'm Dr. Fallon Cook and let's dive in to why and when you should wake your baby or toddler from their naps.
Laura's not here, you've probably noticed. It's just little old me. Poor Laura is a bit unwell and she's losing her voice. So she is saving her voice for all the appointments that she has with families this week. So hopefully she'll be feeling much better very, very soon. But I thought I would start by giving a few updates from the Sombelle headquarters before we really dive into things. So first of all, huge welcome. We have a ton of new members over the past sort of few weeks or so.
And it's so lovely to welcome those new families to Sombelle. So if you're a new member, have a bit of a think, is there a question that you would like to submit to the podcast? We'll do our very best to get to that. And of course we've got coaching calls available too, if you're needing that enhanced support. ⁓ Last week, Laura and I were so thrilled to meet up with beautiful Lauren, one of our sleep practitioners who we've never actually met in person.
We meet all the time online and we feel like we know Lauren so, well, but it was actually the first time to see her in real life. And Lauren is a practitioner of ours who sees families of children zero to 12 years of age. So she works with some of the primary school age children as well. She was visiting Melbourne and we were like, yes, we've got to get together and do lunch. So that was just so, so, lovely. Lauren sees families on Saturdays. And I think we don't talk about how cool that is enough because
For so many families, midweek appointments are really tricky. So if you're needing help with ⁓ sleep, you've got a child zero to 12 years of age, Lauren is your girl. ⁓ Do have a look, she's got availability on Saturdays, which I just think is almost unheard of at the moment. No one does Saturday appointments. So we're really, really lucky that we have Lauren. Another update is we did a social media post, you might've seen it, about what partners can do for...
⁓ the parent who's up all night with the baby. And it absolutely went off like so many, I think almost 200,000 people have seen it. It has absolutely thousands of shares. It really hit a struck a chord with families, I think. ⁓ and really interesting feedback from that post. There was sort of a mix where we had, you know, some really nice posts where a lot of mums were kind of shouting out their partner and saying, Hey, you already do these amazing things.
how lucky, you know, this is great. And then also a lot of really sad messages that we got from mums who feel really unsupported and were saying, I've been wanting my partner to do these sorts of things for so long, but they don't really seem to do it. They don't seem to change. And then we had some people saying, this is why I got a divorce. So there was a real spectrum of feedback on that post. But overall, I think parents,
liked it because it acknowledges how hard it is for that parent who is doing all of the overnights. Of course we prefer it when families share the load overnight but for a whole bunch of different reasons that that doesn't always happen. But I hope it did if you're a parent who does the share of the nights. I hope you found that post kind of was validating maybe. I think also the benefit of it was that it provides something that you can just send through.
to your partner to give them a little subtle nod that, you you could do a few more of these things. It would be really helpful. ⁓ Yeah, so it was, ⁓ it was interesting kind of seeing how that played out and seeing how well received it was ⁓ on Instagram in particular. But it got me thinking, you know, what other ⁓ social media content do we need to be putting out there that...
you know, helps combat some of the misinformation and the confusion online about sleep. Like we definitely want to be able to give parents good, clear advice, but we also want to, I guess, be posting things that are helpful and useful and that really do resonate with you. So if you've got ideas around what you would like to see more, you know, from us on our social media channels, ⁓ let me know because
It's always really handy. It's so handy when I sit down and I'm like, what am going to post this week? ⁓ it's really great when parents already have suggestions.
And last thing I wanted to ask you guys about. as we kind of, ⁓ you know, this year we're kind of settling into this year. I'm really starting to turn my mind towards what happens next with Sombelle? How can we make it better? Because Sombelle was always created by parents for parents. And we have continued to tweak things, add new lessons, new features. You know, we've got the night waking masterclass.
All of that happens because our wonderful members tell us, I'd love to hear more about this. Could you do this? Could you add that? ⁓ what's your feedback? If you've got a great idea for how we could improve Sombelle, maybe it's you want to have a community where parents, know, Sombelle parents can talk to each other. ⁓ are you desperate to see it live inside an app? ⁓ do you want more? ⁓ it could be like live Q and a sessions that I could do.
every week or every fortnight, or maybe we do different types of appointment options for supports, shorter ones, longer ones. I'm really keen to hear parent feedback on what would be helpful for you because yeah, we've always got parent voice sort of front and center with Sombelle. It's there to help you. So do let us know if you've got some great idea. We'll definitely see what we can do. All right, so let's dig apart this whole thing around
waking babies and toddlers from naps. There is just, there's always been that old bit of advice going around like never wake a sleeping baby. But I know that there are many parents listening who'll be like, yeah, you've absolutely got to wake a sleeping baby at times. And I think we should really dive into when and why that is. First of all, let's acknowledge that emotional conflict that comes up. Like if you've finally got them down for a nap and you've had a terrible night,
Why would you want to wake them? Like it's really normal to think, I just want them to sleep longer. They're clearly really tired after that shocking night. But you've got to remember that sleep is this 24 hour system. So it's not just about the naps or just about the night. So we've really got to think about the full whole day and too much day sleep is going to steal from the night's sleep. ⁓ I often think, you know, it's a bit like thinking about a pizza. ⁓
You know, some pizzas are family size, they would be our really high sleep needs babies and toddlers. Others are just, you know, those tiny little kiddie size ones you could get in the school canteen. You know, there are really low sleep needs kids. And what you're going to be thinking about is if you cut out too many slices of that pizza in the daytime, you've simply got less to work with overnight. And that's kind of how sleep needs ⁓ work. And this is why long naps can back fire. Essentially,
You know, if you're giving your child just too much of that pizza, too much of the sleep in the daytime, they're almost always going to be reducing the sleep pressure overnight. So when sleep pressure is brought down too much during the daytime, it's going to mean that they're likely really resistant to bedtime. So it might just take ages to settle or if they're a toddler, they might, might make all sorts of wild requests. Or they might fall asleep pretty easily, but then they just wake a lot, you know, false starts.
You might see split nights where they're awake, wide awake in the middle of the night. And early risings, another one that can really pop up quite a lot as well. And that's happening because they've slept enough. They've met their sleep needs. They've kind of eaten all the pizza, if you like. So a really common scenario we do see quite a lot of in clinic. And I really wanted to dig into this in this episode because it's something I talk about a lot. And I think there will be so many parents this...
advice will be helpful for. And it's when parents come in and they say, you know, my baby or my toddler just has an absolutely terrible night. And I can see that in the sleep diary, they're waking, you know, it be like eight, 10 times per night. The parent is then absolutely exhausted. So of course, for that day nap, that child is, is exhausted too. They really want to go and catch up. They're trying to get all the sleep that they didn't take overnight.
And then of course, when they over do that day sleep, even if it's only slightly overdoing the day's sleep, often that means the next night's terrible. So they can be caught in this really horrible cycle of terrible night, catch up on day's sleep, or it could be sleeping in the morning, but it's, terrible night, too much day's sleep followed by a terrible night. And it's just this constant cycle. And these parents will say, but they're so tired. Like they really need this day's sleep.
And I get it, they are, they are so tired because they've had this absolutely terrible night. But at some point we have to put the brakes on that cycle or otherwise there's no reason for it to stop. And it could go on for months, even years. Like we do see, you know, four year olds sometimes who are still having a lot of day sleep because their nights are just so tricky. So at some point we've just got to kind of, ⁓ yeah, put the brakes on that cycle.
I think the unfortunate part is that the job of putting those brakes on really does so often fall to the most exhausted person, that exhausted parent, which is quite unfair. And so it can feel incredibly, incredibly challenging. And I really want to acknowledge that because, you know, sitting in the clinic as somebody who's relatively well rested, whose children have moved past, you know, the early years where sleep can be really up and down.
⁓ it's probably seems all very easy for me to sit here and say, you know, you've just got to wake them up. You've just got to keep them awake. But I can see how absolutely challenging that is on the back of, you know, really poor nights. ⁓ so what I would say to that is if it feels too hard right now, you don't have to do anything. Also consider trying to have a few days. If you're to try and break that cycle, have a few days where you have extra supports around you.
I don't know about you guys, but for my kids, if we had family visiting or friends visiting, there was no way they wanted to nap. You know, they wanted to be part of what was going on in the house. So often just having guests over, you know, for those first few tricky days where you're trying to cut down on day's sleep can be massively helpful. ⁓ And do keep in mind that as you start to dial back the day's sleep,
the nights will eventually start to improve. won't happen straight away, but over a few days, the nights will start to improve. There'll be a bit more sleep happening at night and then they're going to wake up a little happier, a little more refreshed and they'll be better able to power through the day on a little bit less day sleep. So have hope that it does get better pretty quickly. A lot of parents are just like, they'll never cope with less day sleep, but when their nights improve, of course they will, they will be more refreshed and they can get through the day with a bit less day sleep.
We just have to have the strength to push through those first few tricky days. And I think really keep in mind that sometimes I think parents say, but it feels really mean trying to, you know, wake them up and they're really tired. But I want you to have a think about how important nighttime sleep quality is. So when we look at the research about what are the components of sleep that are most important for wellbeing, it's our nighttime sleep. We all need, all humans need some
long stretches of consolidated overnight sleep. So you're doing yourself a favor, you're doing your child a favor as well when you correct that kind of imbalance if they're having too much day sleep and it's impacting their nights. So let's talk through when you might wake your baby or toddler from a nap. I would be really checking in on their unique sleep needs and as a first step, because that's really going to help.
you to figure out if long naps are a problem. Think of an example, say you've got a toddler who averages 12 hours of sleep per 24 hours. If they're having three hours of day sleep, then they're only probably going to need about nine hours of sleep overnight. And that might only be maybe 9pm to 6am. So, you know, if you offer more opportunity than that overnight, they're likely to wake up a lot.
So in that example, I would say, yeah, that's a lot of day sleep. It might be time to dial that back a bit so that you can get a longer night. so think about their unique sleep needs and check that you're meeting those sleep needs. ⁓ you're giving enough opportunity to meet the sleep needs, but not an excessive amount of opportunity. Like if, if this, ⁓ toddler with a 12 hour sleep need has, you know, three hour day nap,
then you're putting them to bed at 7pm and letting them get up at 7am. With that 12 hour window you might potentially be offering them overnight, you can expect them to be awake for 3 hours. So I hope that makes sense. We've got this 12 hour budget to work with and if we're allowing a huge window of opportunity overnight to get a whole lot of sleep on the back of really long day nap, usually they just can't do it.
have a bit of a think about your baby or toddler's unique sleep needs and it will really help you shape up whether, okay, yep, we've got to cap that nap, get them up a little bit earlier. And of course, if you're a Sombelle member, the unique sleep needs chapter is the absolute first place to go for all your advice around daily rhythms and ⁓ working out how much day sleep is appropriate. All right, so that kind of covers when you might identify it as a problem. I would be, you know,
Really having, I think most parents realize, you oh, it's a terrible night. They're really tired. They're catching up on sleep. Just have a bit of a think about the pattern of your child's sleep or track it in a sleep diary so you can look back over a week and you know, are you noticing that, yeah, there's quite a bit of day sleep there. They're really wakeful at night time. They're having split nights or false starts. That's really going to tell you that this is something that you specifically could be working on. Other things I want you to know though are that
You know, you can have this kind of imbalance happening with too much day sleep and then really terrible nights. And you can turn that around and you might find the perfect daily rhythm that's really helping them have more sleep at night and things are getting into a really good groove. But night waking might not completely resolve if there is still a sleep association that is causing them to wake up ⁓ at nighttime. So this would apply to the older babies and toddlers who ⁓
You know, maybe they feed to sleep or they're rocked or bounce on a football to sleep. You can perfect the daily rhythm and really, you know, they've got great sleep pressure overnight, but they still might not have the skills to be able to have good long stretches at night. If they are constantly springing awake, kind of freaked out to find themselves somehow, you know, teleported to the cot when they were asleep. So have a bit of a think about that. Often we have to work on both how they fall asleep and when and for how long they're sleeping as well.
And of course the caveat to all of this is if they're sick. So babies who are unwell often do need to nap for longer. What I would say is try to think about striking a balance. Like if it's a really mild cold that they've got, they probably don't need a whole lot of extra day sleep. You might find you can just keep them on their usual schedule. But if they have a fever, think fevers in particular often make us feel very, tired.
⁓ they might actually be chasing a bit more sleep. So I wouldn't be trying to dial back day sleep at that time. You might let them even have a little bit of extra day sleep, but when they're feeling better, you try and kind of massage things back on track again, cause you may find they're feeling better, but they've just gotten used to four hours of day naps. Now they're awake half the night. You'll really get a sense that yeah, okay. We've got to reign this in a little bit and kind of reshape, ⁓ the day and the night. So I hope that's helpful. I feel like that is such a key concept that.
makes a really big difference for parents when they're thinking about their baby or toddler's sleep. Especially if you're thinking, I know they're supposed to have dropped this nap by now, but they're just so tired because the nights are terrible. That might actually be a sign that they really, really need to drop that nap, even though it feels really terrifying when you've got a really tired baby on your hands. and look, these things can be pretty complicated. So if you are feeling really lost, ⁓ and you really don't know where to start,
That's what we're here to help with. Whether you're a Sombelle member and you want to book a coaching call, or if you're not a member, you can still just book an initial appointment in the clinic. This is our bread and butter and we help families with this every single day. So don't be afraid to reach out for some support. You're certainly not alone.
Okay, let's move on to some parent questions. let's start with a question from Matilda. Matilda has a five month old baby with an approximate 12 and a half hour total sleep need.
who has never slept longer than three or four hours overnight and has been experiencing false starts every night for the past three and a half months. that sounds really tiring, Matilda. She says overnight, he wakes frequently and tends to escalate quickly on waking, becoming very unsettled and difficult to resettle. Although if fully woken, he is calm and happy.
They're finding that his sleep pressure is high before bedtime and despite trying multiple strategies, the false starts are ongoing. They are wondering, can false starts become habitual and what might be causing the intense overnight wakings where he escalates quickly, but settles if fully woken. this is really interesting. Okay. So he's five months old. All right. So to answer one part of your question, Matilda,
I don't think false starts really become habitual. So a false start is always to do with sleep pressure. So I'm sure there is something we would be able to change in that daily rhythm that would help those false starts resolve. So the kind of hallmark of a circadian rhythm that's in a really nice pattern is that babies will, ⁓ know, babies over 12 weeks of age will start the beginning of the night with their longest, deepest stretch of sleep.
So they tend to go pretty quickly into really deep sleep. They spend three or four hours there. I often joke to parents that, you know, tornado could pass by and they wouldn't wake because they have so deep asleep. And that is kind of, that kind of tells us, yep, they're starting the night with their deepest sleep as they should. So they're probably not too bad of a sort of daily rhythm. When there's a false start, it usually means something's out of whack with that daily rhythm. So I would, I would want to have a look at how you,
dividing up that 12 and a half hours of sleep opportunity across the day and the night. They're five months old, so they should be on three naps at this point. You know, are we offering a little bit too much day sleep or is, the third nap sort of gravitating too close to bedtime and that could be throwing out the nights. There's a few things there we could look at. And what's really interesting to me is this.
how you describe Matilda, the wakeups overnight where there's a lot of noise from him. And I know in the email you said he's like flailing his arms around and making all these wild noises. And then you talk about if you fully wake him, he's happy and fine. So that tells us that he's a really, really noisy sleeper. And that is ⁓ really common in little babies. They can be crying, grunting, growling, all the noises.
and be actually fully asleep. So as wild as that sounds, if you feel like he's not really awake, don't do anything, just wait and leave him. He's in the light stages of sleep and he's really likely, if you leave him, he's likely to put himself off to sleep. If he does eventually wake up, that's fine, go to him and settle him, but just give him some time. He's in the light stages of sleep. He's, you know, at some point he will just, you know, make a bit of noise and then enter those deeper stages of sleep again.
And it's really important not to go and interrupt that. There are some families at this point with a really noisy sleeper where they have to have the baby in another room because otherwise no one sleeps well. I had one of those, they had to be put in the next room way before I was ready for it. But because they were just so noisy in light sleep that my sleep was being so interrupted, I was a complete exhausted wreck. So that's something to think about.
If things are really challenging though, Matilda, you could be a good candidate for a coaching call so we can really dig into that diary and figure out exactly what we need to do so we can hit the ground running. Okay, Angela wrote in, she has a 15 week old baby who's averaging four to five hours stretches overnight and is having two overnight feeds, which she's recently reduced from 150 mils down to 100 mils.
feeds are brief, taking only around four minutes and her baby returns to sleep easily. During the day, they're having six bottles and baby is able to self settle to sleep independently for naps and at bedtime. That's quite impressive for a 15 week old. And Angela says she recently removed the dummy. So she's wondering whether these overnight wakes are expected at this age or if there's something she should be doing differently to support longer stretches overnight.
Angela, you are so on the ball with sleep. Look, I think your baby is doing incredibly well for a 15 week old to just be having two overnight feeds is really, really normal. ⁓ I love that you've been allowing your baby that space to have a go at self settling because a lot of really little babies, you can put them down and when they're tired, they just drift off to sleep and it's never a big deal. There's no drama around settling in the cot at all.
They're just fine with it from the get-go. So keep practicing that and it's likely to be your baby's favorite place to fall asleep, hopefully forevermore. You know, when they hit that kind of four months sleep regression, when they, hit that point, they're to decide on how they prefer to go to sleep every time. And if mostly they're falling asleep in the cot, that's probably what they're going to prefer. So you're really likely to have things pretty settled over the next few months.
As your baby gets a little bit older, it's a really good chance even just in another few weeks, they might even drop themselves down to just one overnight feed. ⁓ But yeah, really normal for night feeding to continue to around six months of age. It's from six months of age that babies start to drop overnight feeds or if they haven't, we can start to gently reduce overnight feeds if that's a priority for the family.
So I'd say Angela, you're well on track and your baby is doing really, really well for their age. I don't think there's much you really need to change right now.
Okay, Stacey wrote in, Stacey has an 11 and a half month old baby boy with an approximate 10 to 11 and a half hour total sleep range per day. He's currently averaging closer to 10 hours per 24 hours. He's having two naps per day for around one to one and a half hours. The naps are typically only 30 to 45 minutes each. And she says the last nap ends before 4pm.
He wakes up around five to 6 30 a.m. In the morning and bedtime is approximately 8 30 p.m. Overnight he wakes multiple times, often every one to two hours and is difficult to resettle, sometimes taking up to 45 minutes. And he still has a couple of overnight feeds. Ouch. Yeah. They're split nights for sure, Stacey. It sounds really, really tricky.
Stacey says they're currently settling him in the cot with hands-on support. So he is able to fall asleep independently at the start of the night if he's tired enough, but struggles to resettle overnight. He previously co-slept where total sleep was higher, was around 11 and a half hours. But since moving to his own room and cot, the total sleep has reduced and he appears more tired and unsettled during the day. They're wondering...
how to determine his true sleep needs versus what he is currently taking, whether 10 hours total sleep is too low, how to structure naps, including whether to move to one nap or adjust the timing of the last nap, how to anchor a consistent wake up time despite the early rising, how to balance nutrition with reducing overnight feeds, especially with reduced intake on work days, and whether a coaching call would be beneficial given their history and limited progress.
Well, I'm going to start with a coaching call. It's probably a very good idea. ⁓ it sounds really, really tricky, Stacey. And I think you've got a few moving parts that are throwing things out. I've been saying to parents with sleep so often we have to make sure every single factor is addressed or progress doesn't happen or progress might sort of start and then it stops. ⁓ so what I'm thinking is, yeah, we need to get a handle on what the unique sleep needs are.
Maybe you start with 10 and a half hour daily rhythm. Have a look through our guides in Sunvale for the 10 hour daily rhythm. ⁓ Maybe you're aiming for about 10 and a half hours of opportunity per day. ⁓ You definitely have a sleep pressure problem there because those are, those resettles overnight are very long. They're split nights and you're there giving support. So if he had the sleep pressure to fall asleep, I think he would. So it tells me there's something a little off with the daily rhythm.
If it turns out that that's not enough sleep, you're going to be able to add more sleep back in later. You might just tighten up that daily rhythm. Do the work on things like the settling. Cause I was thinking, ⁓ if he's still having hands on support in the cot, that could be a cause of the night wakes. He wakes up and thinks, where are you? Get back over here. I need your help.
so it's a bit of a combination low sleep pressure at night time potentially the daily rhythms a bit off. And he's not entirely self settling yet. So there could still be him calling out and wanting that support. Also with a couple of night feeds for some babies as long as there's a couple of night feeds or even one night feed on offer. They just keep waking over and over again to kind of check you know, is it time is it time. So I'd work on reducing that as well.
But I think it's about coming up with that full plan that addresses the daily rhythm, what you're to do in terms of settling and how you're going to reduce the night feeds. Probably bit more than I can unpack in a podcast. And I definitely want to see the sleep diary to be able to give you really firm, clear advice on that. So I hope that helps. think that addresses most of your questions.
It's probably the best I can do in a podcast setting, Stacey. ⁓ but yeah, very happy to see you for a coaching call and we can really nut out exactly what needs to happen. That sounds really tricky. All right. Gab emailed in, she has a 10, sorry, 12 month old daughter with an approximate 11 and a half to 12 hour sleep need. They're currently waking one to three times overnight with one or two feeds.
And this is after previously waking much more frequently and having false starts. So you've come a really long way, Gab. Well done. That's really great. Gab says she's following a two nap schedule with naps typically around 9.30 or 10 a.m. and later in the day, there's another nap and 6.30 a.m. is the target wake up. Although she says recently her daughter has been waking earlier at around 5.30 a.m.
Gab says they're currently feeding to sleep at times, particularly as this is when she takes her most substantial feeds and they're gradually working towards independent settling while navigating recent disruptions, including daycare, return to work and illness. So Gab's wondering whether the early waking could indicate readiness to transition to one nap. Yeah, it absolutely could. You're right on the money there. She's wondering how to approach that transition if that's the case.
and how to balance reducing feeding to sleep and overnight feeds while ensuring adequate intake given she feeds best when drowsy. I've come up across this so much in clinic. ⁓ First of all, the transition to one nap. So if you think she's ready for that, you're essentially going to join the two naps together. So if, for example, she's been having two hours total day sleep across two naps, just make it one two hour nap.
It's going to be a tricky transition. It's always rough. There'll be some days where you think, my gosh, how do we get through to bedtime? Just do your best. And as you start to practice this more, the circadian rhythm realizes that, okay, there's been a shift here and she should fall into that pattern and it should start to feel a bit easier. All right. So in terms of
this problem, I see it a lot where parents say my baby is real FOMO baby and they don't feed well if there's any distractions. So I have to give them big long feeds and they always fall asleep on them. You know, I can only really get a good feed in when they're really drowsy and ready for sleep. It happens all the time. The good news though, Gab, is that you've got a one year old now and they are really quite resilient to these sorts of changes.
What I would be thinking about is your daughter has a very strong drive to achieve her calorie needs. So if you start to dial back the feed to sleep, she will start to take on calories at other times of the day. It might be that she increases her other feeds during the daytime. Maybe she's a bit less distracted because she's actually more hungry and needing it more.
But I would be thinking of adding in lots of her favorite solid foods, the ones that she's gonna eat quite a lot of and really enjoys, ⁓ add lots of those in and then start to dial back the feeding to sleep. And she will start to shift those calories. It's one of these things where ⁓ we can get caught in a bit of a cycle of thinking that we just have no option but to offer these big long feed to sleep just to get the calories in. But actually,
sometimes the reason why the other feeds are really, really brief and not super long is because we've gone and taken the edge off that hunger. They know that there's going to be a huge feed coming later. So I don't really have to take on too many calories right now. So it's absolutely safe at this age, especially if her weight gain has been fine. She's a healthy little girl, then start to dial back the length of those feeds, offer more solid foods. Cause at this age, it's really important that she's taking on lots of different solid foods. That's where we want to
children to be moving their calorie intake to at around that 12 month mark so they can meet their iron needs as well. So be brave and good luck. It is a really tricky thing to do. think 12 month olds certainly know their mind and it might be a little bit of a tricky transition to get your daughter used to not having such long feed to sleep and you know maybe working on some ⁓ different settling, some cot settling if that's what you're looking to do.
Great, yeah, and also, Gab, happy to see you for a coaching call if you'd like to talk that through in more detail.
Okay, next up we have Jess who has a six month old baby boy who was previously waking twice overnight for quick feeds but has recently started waking every two hours or more with occasional long wakes overnight. says the other night there was a 4am wake up lasting an hour. ⁓ that sounds horrible.
⁓ Jess says he's often sleeping over 12 hours overnight. So from around six or 6.30 PM to six to 6.30 AM and having around three and a half hours of day sleep across three naps. That is a massive amount of sleep. talking 15 and a half hours or so. ⁓ but I would be thinking, you know, if there's wakeups happening, then it's actually not that much. So yeah, Jess just, ⁓
you know, measure that total sleep need, keep an eye on it, make sure you take away the night wake so you really know how much sleep he's actually needing. Just says there's a longer morning nap and two shorter afternoon naps. She says it's been becoming harder to settle him for naps, which is shortening the final wake window before bed. They're currently feeding him back to sleep overnight and during resettling are using a consistent phrase and patting.
They're wondering whether his increased night waking could be related to too much day sleep, whether they should drop the third nap or adjust bedtime and how to manage the increased overnight wakes. Okay first up, yep sounds like they're ready to drop to two naps. That's exactly what you'll tend to see is that those naps start pushing a bit later and the settling gets a bit harder. It's time to move to two naps.
work out the unique sleep needs and make sure the daily rhythm really caters to those unique sleep needs. And I think a big part of the night waking problem is he's six months old now. And if he is falling asleep, feeding, um, even just a few times per 24 hours, often they then go, you know what? That's the only way I'm going to fall asleep from now on. And that's when night waking increases at the end of, you know, a lot of sleep cycles, they ping awake and go, hang on, I'm not feeding anymore. And I'm not going back to sleep until I am.
And that's where we just see lots of continuous waking because they want to be fed back to sleep. So it could just be that you decide, okay, ⁓ I'm going to put him back in his cot awake overnight after those night feeds so that he knows that that's just the one place where he's going to be falling asleep. You might be ready to drop some of the night feeds. He's six months old now, so you could certainly get him down to just one if you want to. He might even be ready to drop them all together. A very personal decision though of whether you and him are both ready. ⁓
But yeah, I think that's your answer. Adjusting the day naps, getting rid of that third nap and yeah, working on how he's falling asleep. I would say they're the key drivers of the overnight wake stress. Have a bit of a crack at that and hopefully things start to come together. Just keep referring back to Sombelle. I think so many parents will go back to the unique sleep needs chapter, you know, every couple of months to kind of tweak things.
have a look through the settling approaches, read through the chapter on the psychology of sleep so you're really thinking about what are you know what is my baby's experience of settling and what is it that's causing them to wake up and really need something from me during the night time. Excellent, alright lucky last we have Caitlin. Caitlin has a newborn with an approximate 14 and a half hours sleep need. They're usually getting around four and a half hours of day sleep across multiple naps.
Wake windows are around 1 hour 30 to 1 hour 45 minutes with a 2 hour wake window before bed and a 7am wake up time. Overnight he has 2 wakes with a 4 to 6 hour first stretch followed by a 2 to 3 hour stretch and sometimes a shorter final stretch. They're currently rocking him to sleep but often feel like they're fighting him as he frequently cries when being put into the rocking position. They're wondering is it normal for newborns to cry when being put
to sleep? Should they try to extend naps if he wakes up happy? Could they be encouraging more sleep than he needs? And how can they reduce crying during settling? They're also wondering whether they should be aiming for more consistent nap times rather than following awake windows. these are great questions. Caitlin, everything you describe about your newborn sleep sounds really pretty good for a newborn. So you've got a couple of wakeups overnight. Sounds like sometimes three.
That's really typical. I don't know the exact age of your newborn, but I'm guessing they're just sort of a few weeks old. It's really interesting that he really doesn't like being laid down flat. I think when we think about their experience in utero, they're not really lying flat with pressure along their back, you know, they're, you know, immersed in fluid, you know, so lying when they're born and they're suddenly laying with this hard surface along their back, even if it is just your arm underneath them.
That's a weird experience. You know, it's very different. It's like if somebody, you you go on a roller coaster and your body suddenly upside down, it feels really weird. That's probably the closest approximation I can think of. So it's really normal for newborns to find what should be, you know, pretty regular thing to actually feel really confronting and unusual. And it takes them a while to get used to it. I would say.
When this happens, it really is just a case of giving them lots of support as they get used to the world around them. It's a bit like when they're born and most newborns absolutely hate nappy changes. It's weird, it feels unusual, it's not very pleasant for them, but they really quickly realize, these are gonna happen, they're actually okay. So the more experience they have with these situations,
the more they're likely to kind of go, okay, yeah, I remember this and it's actually okay. It's not the end of the world if I'm lying down flat on my back. I'm still loved. I still have my parents here to support me. So I would say do some practice with that. I think people listening in probably expect me to say, don't rock to sleep, put him in the cot, but he's just a tiny newborn baby. I think a great first step would just be practicing having him fall asleep in your arms in that rocking position.
⁓ even though he finds it upsetting, just take some little breaks. If he's not enjoying being on his back. ⁓ if you're really worried about that crying, get him checked out by his pediatrician or your maternal and child health nurse or GP. ⁓ you if you're worried about vomiting and things like that, ⁓ sometimes babies with a lot of reflux don't like to be laid down flat. Absolutely get those things checked out, but in all likelihood, he's just not keen on this position and he'd rather be upright because that feels a bit more familiar and comforting. So yes.
practice the rocking to sleep as much as you can use that rocking position so the pressure is along his back in your arms. And I think you'll find pretty soon he will start to get used to that and it will become, you know, feel a bit more normal to him. So is it normal for newborns to cry when being put to sleep? I don't think there's much normal for newborns. I even think across one day you'll have some settles where they're just like,
I fell asleep so easy, know, no trouble at all. And other times they're an absolute roaring mess. It takes a lot of time to really figure out what it is, why they're crying, what they need. Some babies just hate transitions. They just really struggle to go from one state to another, awake to a sleep, but also asleep to awake. So a lot of them will wake up absolutely howling, even though nothing's wrong. ⁓ They just struggle with these changes in state. I would be thinking,
⁓ Is he a bit too tired by the time you go to put him down? So in babies under 12 weeks of age, we don't want them to be so, so tired that they're just absolutely exhausted and screaming because they are harder to settle at that point. So it's the one time you'll hear me say, try to avoid over tiredness. A newborn can't build sleep pressure the way an older baby can. And when they're just too tired, they don't have the benefit of that sleep pressure to help them fall asleep. They can just become really overwrought and really challenging.
So with a newborn, I'd be looking for those first few early tired signs and then settling them pretty quickly. Whereas for an older baby, you're looking for a collection of tired signs and the grizzliness starting to emerge and that's when they are ripe and ready to put down for sleep. And then in terms of following nap times or wake windows, I wouldn't be too worried about either.
to be honest, I would more be led by tired signs at this age. I wouldn't be following really strict wake windows, but you will probably notice, I mean, you pointed out actually in the email that you're around an hour and a half or so your child is ready for sleep. So that could give you just a bit of a guide as you work through the day that, they might be starting to get a bit tired now. They have been awake for a while.
It does not matter if the naps are at the exact same time each day. In fact, it'd be kind of unnatural for a baby to have this like really rigid nap schedule the same time every day. I think with newborns, most of them are looking for just a little bit of ⁓ flexibility. So definitely be led by your baby in terms of when you put them down for naps and be looking for those first few tired signs and moving pretty quickly to settle them for sleep. And of course, Caitlin, when you're feeling ready for it, you can have a go at settling him in the cot.
with these practices of falling asleep in your arms with that firm arm along his back, you might find that actually he starts to be quite fine to be put down in his cot or bassinet to fall asleep. All right, those were some really fantastic questions from a really good range of different ages. And I hope there are parents out there listening in who found those answers helpful.
If you are listening in, you're not a Sombelle member and you're thinking, my gosh, I really need some help with sleep and settling. Check out the Sombelle programs. We try really hard to make those programs sensible, practical. It's only evidence-based advice. It's all safe for babies and toddlers, but really importantly, it's really tailorable to an individual child. And everything we do with our little ones should be fitted to what they're unique.
needs are. We can't treat children like they were all made with the same cookie cutter ⁓ because they're absolutely not and that's what we try to do in Sombelle. So if you're needing that support check it out see what you think. We would love to have you join and we're here to support you. We also of course have our amazing sleep clinics. We've got Dr Laura who is working out of the Victorian Children's Clinic which is one of Melbourne's most incredible pediatric clinics. my gosh they have incredible experts there and it's just the most
delightful place you'll ever step foot in. So if you're in Melbourne, you can see Laura on Thursdays in Malvern on Wattletree Road, not far from Cabrini. But of course we do so much work via telehealth, because if you're exhausted, no one wants to get in the car or on the tram. We see families all around the world. So you can check out our sleep clinic services as well if you just want to work one to one with one of our amazing practitioners.
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bask in your family and have those joyful moments and run around the garden with your toddler, you know, finding Easter eggs or however you celebrate. I hope it is absolutely delightful. These little joyful moments are, you know, so fleeting when they're little. Before you know it, they grow up and it all changes. So just take a moment to really enjoy your wonderful, beautiful families. And ⁓ yeah, I'm going to wrap it up there and you'll hear from us again. We'll do another episode.
probably in another couple of weeks.
Bye bye.
