Fallon Cook (00:37)
It's 5am. Your baby or toddler is wide awake and ready to party, but you are not. Early rising is one of the most common and most exhausting sleep complaints. And it's also one of the most misunderstood. Parents often assume their baby or toddler is just an early riser and that there's nothing that can be done. Well, in this episode, we're going to bust that myth right open and give you a real strategy for fixing early
Dr Laura (00:45)
you
Fallon Cook (01:07)
rising.
Welcome back to Brand New Little People, the podcast companion to the Sombelle Paediatric Sleep Clinic programs created by us. I'm Dr. Fallon Cook and I'm here with Dr. Laura Conway and we're the directors of Infant Sleep Australia. Laura, what's new for you lately? How are you going with the school holidays and the juggle?
Dr Laura (01:42)
Yes, not too bad. I stupidly did a Easter egg hunt with my kids. They're way too old for it. But just around the house, hid loads of little eggs, not Cadbury's because they were too expensive. But a different brand, which my kids then said they didn't like. So since then, I've been trying to cook loads of different desserts, chopping up these little Easter eggs.
Fallon Cook (01:52)
You
Uhhh
Hahaha
Dr Laura (02:09)
and hiding the Easter eggs inside little like ⁓ cupcakes and cinnamon rolls and all sorts of things. So yeah.
Fallon Cook (02:10)
⁓ how funny.
I
love that it's inspired some baking. I've done that. We still do an Easter egg hunt every Easter morning. My kids absolutely love it. But sometimes I'll even deliberately put in eggs that I'm like, they won't like these. So I'll get them all in the end and can split them with my husband. So there have been a few instances of that, but the cost of chocolate. my God. It's insane. ⁓
Dr Laura (02:26)
Okay.
⁓
Yes. Yeah, it is.
But I think some of the big supermarkets that came up are now having to sell the eggs off at 50 cents. ⁓ Yeah, so they were trying to sell those little bunnies for $15 or something ridiculous, and now you can get them for 50 cents because they're
Fallon Cook (02:49)
Hmm. Yeah.
Dr Laura (03:01)
overloaded with stock. Yeah, so maddening.
Fallon Cook (03:01)
maddening. Yeah
they just assume that people will buy them for this crazy price. I hope that lots of people just push back and did something different. Yeah if only they'd keep until next year we could all just stock up on chocolate now and store it away. ⁓
Dr Laura (03:08)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Yeah, if only. Yes. Yeah,
how's your Easter been so far?
Fallon Cook (03:24)
Yeah really good! We finally got chickens, we've been talking about it for years, so we picked up three little chickens the day before Easter which was really fun. They're so funny with their antics and one of them got out of the cage in the car which was like a bit of a crazy moment there where it was like perched on the boot cover that we'd pull out.
Dr Laura (03:39)
no!
Fallon Cook (03:47)
So I was like, quick, grab it, two hands. my gosh. It was a moment of chaos, but very funny in hindsight.
Dr Laura (03:47)
Yeah? my god.
Fallon Cook (03:55)
⁓ but no, they're all, all settled in and I'm just really enjoying the Easter holidays. It's really nice. I'm taking the kids to see, ⁓ magic far away tree later today, which was a massive favorite of mine when I was a kid. And we're taking my mum and I actually just, you know, we'd have these things all happen at the same time, but my mum recently gave me a bunch of stuff from childhood, which I was like, my, why have you kept this? Like, you know, some half page story I wrote in prep.
Dr Laura (03:55)
⁓
yes.
Yeah.
Fallon Cook (04:25)
in I don't well let's not even go into what year it was all right but but amongst it were some beautiful old children's books including her copy of the magic faraway tree that she had when she was a little girl so it's so funny to find that and then be like it's now a movie let's go see it but I'm so worried that it's gonna massively let me down because the magic faraway tree in my head is amazing I just don't know that it's gonna come out
Dr Laura (04:33)
Yeah.
⁓
Yeah!
Yeah.
Yes. Yes.
Fallon Cook (04:54)
properly in film, but anyway, we'll go along. We'll
give it a try.
Dr Laura (04:58)
I heard, I was listening to someone else talk about it. Um, and she, another podcaster, Lee sales, she was talking about how she had taken her kids to see it and she had exactly the same worry that you, um, had beforehand that the tree wasn't going to stand up to her childhood imagination, but apparently it's awesome and it does, and it's even better. Yeah. So it's like, yeah. Yeah.
Fallon Cook (05:20)
good. Well now I'm really excited.
Yeah, it'll be fun. I'm just trying to talk my older boys into coming along too, but I think they're worried that they'll see friends of theirs, you know, at the movies when they're going to see a kids movie and like, come on, just one last kids movie together before you're too cool. They probably already are too cool. I don't know. Can't blame them though.
Dr Laura (05:39)
Yes! No, hopefully they do come. I'm
going to do the same this Easter and take my two to see it because that was a, we read all of those stories together when they were little. Yeah.
Fallon Cook (05:54)
Yeah, yeah, yeah,
same. And I feel like it's, yeah, look, these moments pass so quickly, but I feel like for so many teens, they still actually do want to see that movie, but they just can't tell you that. So I'll be like, I'll be bribing with like, come on, we'll get popcorn and I'll let you pick a fizzy drink and that will probably get them over the line. And then they'll love it, but they probably won't admit it.
Dr Laura (06:09)
Yes. No, that's right.
They will. No, no,
probably not. But years later, maybe they'll say that was really nice. Have a nice memory of us doing that together.
Fallon Cook (06:25)
Yeah, yeah, yeah,
let's hope so.
Well, let's dive into this episode's topic, which I think is a really good one. And I think there's been a few parents who have, ⁓ you know, asked a lot about early rising and how to fix certain. just thought, well, this is just perfect for a podcast episode. ⁓ but let's start with Laura. Maybe you can tell me what do you think counts as an early wake up?
Dr Laura (06:55)
So anything before 6am, which is happening consistently, unless you're in far North Queensland, where a normal time to wake up is 5am, then ⁓ you know that that's, and it's not an issue for your family. ⁓ But mostly early wake ups, anything before 6am, happening consistently, not just a one off.
Fallon Cook (07:07)
Yeah.
Mm.
Dr Laura (07:20)
And look, we do know that most babies and toddlers do tend to be earlier risers than say teenagers or young adults. And they mostly will wake somewhere between six and seven anyway. So we always have to be realistic about what is a reasonable wake up time for babies and toddlers. For some, if you're trying to aim for a wake up that's after 7am,
that's asking too much, which is why we wouldn't consider like a six, a wake between six and seven and early rise. But anything that doesn't have at least a six in front of it is an ⁓ early wake up that we will look to see if we can do something about.
Fallon Cook (08:05)
Yeah, I think it's so important to be realistic because it does surprise me how many parents will enter parenthood assuming that their babies will or their toddlers will be able to have the same kind of daily rhythm that they have. So parents who like to sleep into 8.30 in the morning often will come to us and say, well, I don't want to get up before 8.30. So how do I make my baby or toddler sleep into that time? And sometimes it's like, ⁓ well, I've got news for you.
Dr Laura (08:19)
Mm.
Yeah, you've got about 14 years
to wait until that happens.
Fallon Cook (08:36)
It's not going to happen anytime soon. Gosh, unless I've got a roaringly high sleep need. Sometimes those babies and toddlers, you know, will sleep in quite a bit. But yeah, it's definitely not the usual, is it?
Dr Laura (08:39)
No.
Yeah.
Yeah, no, it's not the
usual, no. So, Fallon, why do early wake-ups happen?
Fallon Cook (08:56)
Yeah, so look, there's definitely a few factors that influence the early wake ups. Definitely too much day sleep or having naps too late in the day, so too close to bedtime, can simply result in sleep pressure running out at 5am in the morning. know, they've just kind of, maybe they overdid the day's sleep, they've met their total sleep that they need per 24 hours and they're wide awake because the sleep pressure is gone and they just feel, you know, rested and ready. Or even just napping too close to bedtime can just really
make that period of sleep overnight a little shorter.
Dr Laura (09:29)
Mmm.
Fallon Cook (09:29)
⁓
Sometimes bedtime is just too early and I think this is a really important one to consider. You know, if your child normally is managing about 10 hours of sleep overnight ⁓ and they're going to bed at 6.30 p.m. well then obviously 10 hours later is 4.30 a.m. So you know, if you do see that in your child's sleep diary, like 10 hours seems to be the max they can manage overnight. You definitely don't want to be doing a really early bedtime. It's really unlikely to be helpful.
Dr Laura (09:47)
Yeah.
Mmm,
yeah.
Fallon Cook (09:59)
I'd
also be thinking about light and the environment. if you particularly, know, talking about those far North Queensland families or maybe up in the Northern Territory or in other countries where it is just getting bright really, really early, you know, it definitely, when light's coming in, it's really just a cue to the circadian rhythm that yeah, great, let's get up, it's daytime. So blocking out that light can be really important.
Dr Laura (10:10)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Fallon Cook (10:23)
⁓ Often early wakes are due to it just being really cold. I know here in Victoria at the moment, we're getting really cold nights down into the single digits. ⁓ But often it's still not too cold at bedtime, but by the time 4am comes around, it's, you know, five degrees outside and often the house has gotten cold as well. So that's definitely something to think about. ⁓ And finally, and probably a really common one that we see is just, you know, they can just wake up early simply out of habit. So if you're usually feeding them,
Dr Laura (10:24)
Yeah.
yeah, well...
Mmm.
Mmm.
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Fallon Cook (10:53)
bringing them into your bed or you're just starting the day at that sort of 5 a.m. mark then the circadian rhythm is just learning that it's a great idea to wake up at 5 a.m. because there's fun to be had and things I can do or I get a know big snuggle or a feed and that could be kind of motivating for little ones as well.
Dr Laura (11:02)
Yeah.
Yes.
Fallon Cook (11:13)
⁓ and that kind of leads me Laura into the factors that make early rising worse. Like I think this is something all parents need to know. So take us through, what do you think the main factors are that will worsen early rising?
Dr Laura (11:20)
Mmm.
Yeah,
so picking up on that point you just made about those feeding, ⁓ early morning feedings at around
They can make it much worse. This is really in relation to older babies and toddlers rather than really little babies that have to feed really frequently overnight as well. So for older babies and toddlers who ordinarily can have fewer or no feeds overnight, if they are having a feed at five in the morning in your attempt to get them to go back to sleep for another few cycles so you can have the wake up that you want.
that can actually kickstart the circadian rhythm. When we think about the circadian rhythm we're thinking more about just sleep and wake times, we're thinking about the ⁓ rhythm for the metabolism and if your older baby or toddler starts to have a feed at 5am every day that's teaching their body that okay let's just kickstart digestion now, let's get going, this is the start ⁓ of the ⁓
Fallon Cook (12:32)
Yeah.
Dr Laura (12:34)
of their appetite and it can just unfortunately become habitual that the body just knows they get their first feed at 5am, this is now the start of the day and then the body starts releasing all the hormones for digestion and it can then be a little bit hard to move away from.
Outside of feeding, if we just think about behavioural motivations, if you are bringing your little one into bed with you to have that snuggle and to maybe try and get a little bit more sleep until morning, that ⁓ can start to happen more and more frequently because of course your little one loves to have this time snuggling in.
the bed with you. It's a really nice thing that they think every morning they're waking up, is it time yet? Is it time yet? Can I come into your bed now? Yeah.
Fallon Cook (13:29)
Mmm.
Yes, and how many toddlers have you seen Laura
where it started at 5 a.m. And then it was 4 a.m. And then 3 a.m. And suddenly the parents like yeah when we go to bed at 10 They just come into bed with us for the whole night Yeah, yeah
Dr Laura (13:38)
Okay.
They just come in, absolutely. Yeah. And
so look, if that doesn't bother you, that's fine. But we're just thinking about those habitual 5am wakes. And I know if this is something that's happening for you, and you really want your, your baby or toddler to sleep beyond 5am, then considering what is happening, that might be motivating them to wake at that time. And if that is just coming into your bed, then that may be something that you
we'd want to look at and whether that is something that you want to continue doing. And the final thing about what makes early rising worse. So we've got those at the feeding, we've got the bringing them into your bed. And the other thing is actually just when you start the day. If every day when they wake up at five, you then go, all right, fine, let's start the day as soon as they wake up. That reinforces the early wake up because
Fallon Cook (14:26)
Mm.
Dr Laura (14:37)
When you start the day, you typically turn lights on, you might turn the radio on or your music on, you make yourself coffee, everyone just starts moving and it's telling the circadian rhythm that ah, this is our wake up sign post because we're up and we're going and the circadian rhythm then starts to learn that this is the wake up time and we'll use that to
Fallon Cook (14:58)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (15:06)
and determine how the next 24 hours look. So it's much better to, if you don't want to start the day at that time, to not start the day at that time, which does bring us onto the next question that I wanted to ask you Fallon, which is how can parents fix early rising?
Fallon Cook (15:19)
Mmm.
Mmm.
Yeah so look there's going to be a few steps here so grab a pen and paper because there really are a few I think it's one of these sorts it's like so many difficulties we might have with our children it's often not just one little thing we need to change it's often a few things we've got to
really consider in order to really make significant and lasting change. So look, I would say step one, you absolutely want to look at the full 24 hour picture of your child's sleep. You need to know what their unique sleep needs are and actually cater to those unique sleep needs. So looking at how much sleep do they average per 24 hours. And I would be particularly looking at how much sleep do they normally manage to get overnight? What's likely to be realistic for your child?
then that's going to help you really build out a daily rhythm that is going to fit what they are capable of and what's likely to just suit them because you can try and avoid getting up at 5am or avoid a feed or a cuddling bed at 5am. But if they've completely run out of sleep pressure, they've met their sleep needs already by 5am, you're probably not going to have a lot of success with them going back to sleep. So definitely have a think about that. Use the Sombelle Unique Sleep Needs Chapter to guide you if you're stuck. We've put so
much brain power into that chapter and really explaining to parents exactly how to assess your child's unique sleep needs and cater to those needs and what a good daily rhythm could look like. ⁓ That is a great place to go for support ⁓ if you're really stuck on this one.
Dr Laura (16:46)
You
Mmm, yeah. ⁓
Fallon Cook (17:02)
The second step that I want you to think about is doing a bit of an audit of the sleep environment. So like you've already mentioned, Laura, you know, if it's really bright, use block out blinds, you know, so that you can really control the light input, literally the lighting put into your child's retinas. You know, we do not want the light getting through to their retina before, you know, it's hopefully we can get them to 6am. ⁓ Being able to modulate that light input is incredibly powerful because light is the key signal.
Dr Laura (17:17)
Hmm. No.
Yes.
Yeah.
Fallon Cook (17:32)
to the circadian rhythm that, oh, it's daytime, let's get up and do something. White noise can be massively helpful if you've got, you know, live in a noisy road or you have, oh, this is the really important one.
Dr Laura (17:36)
Yeah.
Fallon Cook (17:44)
So many parents will say to me, you know, ⁓ they used to sleep in, now my husband started a new job and he gets up at 4 30 AM and he's like a bull in a china shot, stomping around the house. It wakes up the toddler. ⁓ aside from just telling your partner off and getting them some slippers or something to wear on their feet instead of work boots. you know, white noise can really help to just hopefully be enough of a mask that your child doesn't realize, Ooh, somebody's awake in the house.
Dr Laura (17:54)
Yes! Yeah!
Yes.
Fallon Cook (18:14)
let's go chat to them. So do that audit of the sleep environment. Yeah.
Dr Laura (18:14)
Yeah, it does. Yeah,
the white noise will just hopefully muffle those particularly loud or sharp sounds of a cup being dropped or a coffee machine being turned on or something like that.
Fallon Cook (18:26)
Yeah.
Yes.
Yes. Yep. Absolutely. ⁓ the third thing to think about is not responding to the early wake up as morning. So, you know, your child probably can't tell the time, probably too young for that. So think about just trying to treat it like a 2am wake up. So if you go in at 5am and you do the exact thing you would do if they had woken at midnight, 2am, whatever.
Dr Laura (18:45)
Yeah.
Fallon Cook (18:57)
your child is likely to go, I must be nowhere near morning because mom or dad or my caregiver is just doing the same things they would do to resettle me when it's earlier in the night. ⁓ so just remember that they don't know what time it is. the fourth step is I would be really giving these changes some time. ⁓ it's not the circadian rhythm doesn't just go, ⁓ click, you know,
Dr Laura (19:02)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yeah.
Fallon Cook (19:21)
I'm going to do this new thing now. It needs to learn from patterns of things that happen. So it could take one or two weeks for your child's circadian rhythm to really cotton onto these changes to go, it is dark until 6am. you know, there's nothing interesting. I don't get a feed or, you know, sleeping or anything like that until 6am. they, you know, it takes time for it to start to realize that some, it's sort of like when parents say, we tried to drop a day nap, but the night was still terrible. So we just went back to, you know, that.
Dr Laura (19:35)
Mmm.
Fallon Cook (19:51)
and it's like no no no one night of sleep is influenced by the whole week of sleep prior.
So it's the same with making these sorts of changes. It might take a week to actually see things start to come together. So patience is absolutely key. And then the final step, step five, if nothing has been working, I want you to reassess the daily rhythm. And this is a really important one. So much of the early rising behavior does boil down to the daily rhythm and
Dr Laura (19:57)
Yeah.
Mmm.
Fallon Cook (20:22)
Like I was saying earlier, some children just simply cannot sleep for as long as we want them to overnight. And in this case, we can keep banging our head against that brick wall, or we can just adjust our expectations and adjust the daily rhythm so that it is something that works a bit better. And I thought, let's talk through a bit of an example of what that could look like.
Dr Laura (20:28)
Mmm.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Fallon Cook (20:42)
⁓ If we take for example maybe a toddler who's got a 13 hour sleep need per 24 hours, you could say, all right, well out of that 13 hours, I'm going to give them one hour of day sleep and I'm going to give them 12 hours of opportunity overnight for sleep. But if you look over their sleep diary and notice, they never sleep for longer than 11 hours overnight.
Dr Laura (20:49)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Fallon Cook (21:05)
then that might be your clue that adjusting the daily rhythm to actually just aim for 11 hours overnight, maybe you're going to be able to offer a bit more day sleep. That's likely to fit your child better. So we can always divvy up the day and the night sleep, but we sort of want it to be, I suppose, somewhat resemble what your child is naturally leaning towards in terms of when they sleep and for how long and that sort of thing.
Dr Laura (21:05)
Mmm.
Yeah. Yeah.
Hmm.
Yeah.
Fallon Cook (21:33)
So I would keep going back to that daily rhythm. I would say the majority of babies and toddlers can manage to sleep in just 6am but it just might mean that to do that, yeah they have a later bedtime than the other babies in parents group or they might do something a little bit different with their day naps than the other babies around you and that's okay because you're just working out what works for you and what works for your baby or toddler and that's always the best way to go.
Dr Laura (21:33)
Yeah.
Mmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Mmm.
Yeah, that's right. I'd say another couple of
points for parents to think about with the early rising in toddlers. You were mentioning there, Fowlan, how, of course, babies and toddlers don't know what time it is. And for toddlers, one way that we can give them a sense of what the time is, by using some kind of training clock.
And there are some really lovely ones out there that change color across the night or they have stars on the screen and then as the night goes on, the stars disappear. So when your toddler looks across at it, they can get a sense of how far through the night they are. ⁓ And they can be really helpful for older toddlers who know that they need to stay in bed or the day doesn't start until...
Fallon Cook (22:37)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (22:48)
the sun comes up on the clock or the lamb changes color or whatever ⁓ happens. If you don't want to get a training clock, some parents will just put a timer on a lamp that turns on ⁓ or a nightlight that turns off ⁓ in the morning. So those visual cues can be really helpful for older toddlers. Yeah.
Fallon Cook (22:53)
Yeah.
Mmm.
Yes, that's a really, really good one, Laura. think you're absolutely right.
I see a lot of parents that are say, we tried the clock. didn't work, it's like you've don't aim for 7am wake up if they always wake up at 5am. Work in tiny increments. Maybe you're just trying to get them to 5.15am and then you're like, yeah, you did it. You celebrate it, make them feel good about it. And then you just creep it along. Yeah. It doesn't have to be all at once. It can be a gradual thing.
Dr Laura (23:17)
Yeah.
Yes. No, that's right.
And then the other thing again, mainly for older toddlers is just thinking about the time of that dinner at the end of the day. So we know that a lot of families will get home from daycare and sometimes they just give their toddler dinner really early, say half past four or five o'clock. Bedtime might be seven thirty or eight and then
Fallon Cook (23:39)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (23:55)
they're finding that their toddler is waking up at five. And if we think that, they had dinner at our bus four, but...
day before and now it's five o'clock in the morning. Sometimes they can actually just be waking because they're a bit hungry because it's been 12 and a half hours since they last ate. So have a think about what time dinner is, whether you can push dinner time later so that you all can sit down together and have a lovely ⁓ experience around the dinner table, which we know is really good for language development, communication development ⁓ and just family cohesion. Or if that is impossible, think about
giving your your toddler a snack later on as part of their bedtime routine just to ensure that they're going to bed with food in their tummy and that wake up isn't because they're ravenous at five.
Fallon Cook (24:45)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That
is such great advice. Look, if you've tried all these things and early waking is still a persistent problem, it's definitely time to look at all the factors together. So the daily rhythm, how they're settling for sleep, know, exploring those different motivating factors that can cause early wake ups.
Our Sombelle programs walk you through exactly how to do this. It covers all of those bases. Or of course you can book a clinic appointment if you'd like to work it all out together. So I just know that we're here to support you. Some other episodes that you might find really helpful. Cause I often forget about our massive back catalogue of over a hundred episodes where we have dived into a lot of this stuff. So I would say episode 106, the answer is sleep pressure is a great episode if you're struggling with early rising as is episode
Dr Laura (25:16)
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Fallon Cook (25:35)
Episode
108, the magic of a set wake up time and episode 114 on managing your low sleep needs child. They're great resources if you are struggling with early rising. So, all right, we've tackled that one, Laura. Let's dive into parent questions because we've got really meaty ones this week, haven't we? Like really long, probably most of these should have been coaching calls, but we'll see what we can do for you guys in the space of a podcast episode. Yeah.
Dr Laura (25:38)
Mm-hmm.
Yes. Okay. We have. Yes.
Yes. All right, getting
myself comfortable. Shall I kick off? Yeah. So we've got an email from Stacey. So Stacey has a baby boy who's actually turning one today. So happy birthday. And Stacey's son has a history of poor sleep since he was four or five months old and he has lower sleep needs.
Fallon Cook (26:06)
Alright, well, do you want to start then? Yeah, go for it.
happy birthday!
Dr Laura (26:25)
He's currently sleeping in his own room in a cot and can fall asleep independently. But he wakes up multiple times overnight.
and he requires support to go back to sleep and he's having one or two feeds every night, sometimes more. So he's currently on two naps a day, one around 10 in the morning and one at three in the afternoon, which lasts between 30 and 50 minutes each.
wake up time they're aiming for a 6.15 but he's often waking between 5 and 5.30 so I'm sure that was interesting what we were just talking about Stacey and bedtime is around 8.30 so they have been co-sleeping but they're trying to transition away from co-sleeping and Stacey has found that his total sleep need
average has reduced from 11 and a half hours to 10 hours and she's noticed an increase in daytime tiredness, clinginess and irritability. So Stacey returned to work part-time three weeks ago and they're finding that the toddler is refusing bottled breast milk during the day and Stacey is wondering if he may be compensating with increased overnight feeding due to that.
She's also wondering how to determine what his true sleep needs are versus what he's currently achieving and whether that current sleep need of 10 hours is normal for his age. How to structure the naps, including the timing of that last nap and whether in fact it's time to begin transitioning towards one nap. She also wants to know how to manage those early morning wakings and anchor a consistent start to the day.
and how to balance reducing overnight feeds and sleep associations whilst ensuring adequate nutritional intake, particularly on those work days where he's refusing the bottled breast milk at daycare. There's a lot there, Fallon. Yeah.
Fallon Cook (28:26)
Wow, that it is a lot. Look, look,
I think for really specific advice, Stacey, please book in for a coaching call because there's a lot to unpack here. And I know my answer won't entirely do it justice, but my kind of quick overview response would be yes, he's getting to an age where you can think about dropping to one nap. Sounds like he's very low sleep needs ⁓ toddler now.
Dr Laura (28:34)
Mm.
Yeah.
Fallon Cook (28:49)
So that often is the case that they drop their naps reasonably early. So likely he will do better just on one nap. He's in a period of huge change in transition with you going back to work, he's in daycare, all this huge adjustment to feeding where he's now being expected to use a bottle.
Dr Laura (28:50)
⁓
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Fallon Cook (29:10)
⁓ that
is just a huge period of change. And I would expect that sleep would be really interrupted. So you might give him another couple of weeks, leeway, just let him kind of adapt to things, see where those cards land.
Dr Laura (29:15)
Hmm.
Mmm.
Fallon Cook (29:21)
I would be
trying not to overdo the overnight feeds because that's kind of going to tell his body and his circadian rhythm. We don't have to take calories during the day. We'll make up for it overnight. And that can really cause this big imbalance. We call it reverse cycling where they take on tons of calories overnight and then uninterested in the daytime. But exactly how many features you should be offering and when the right time is to dial those back overnight.
Dr Laura (29:36)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Fallon Cook (29:48)
I feel like I'd want to know more about your situation to really advise on that. ⁓
Dr Laura (29:51)
Mmm.
Fallon Cook (29:54)
Yes. So I guess a few other things to consider, you know, he can fall asleep independently, but he's waking multiple times, probably is motivated by those overnight feeds. ⁓ but you know that he does have, excuse me, the ability to settle independently. So that always makes me think, think that when we can perfect that daily rhythm, when we know that sleep pressure is where it needs to be every night, ⁓ he's got the skills to self-settle. So you probably will once we kind of figure out what that day
Dr Laura (30:04)
Mm-hmm.
Mmm.
Fallon Cook (30:24)
rhythm needs to look like. So I would simply go off whatever the current sleep average is and I'd build your daily rhythm around that. Even if you think it is a little bit lower you can always add more sleep opportunity back in over time to find that kind of sweet spot. ⁓ I feel like that's about as specific as I can get in the context of a podcast and without seeing a sleep diary. Is there anything major in there I've forgotten Laura? ⁓
Dr Laura (30:26)
Mmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm. Yeah. Mm. ⁓
Yeah, now I would think about
introducing some special play during the day because like you've pointed out Fallon there's a lot going on for Stacey's toddler starting daycare and mum going back to work.
So it doesn't surprise me that there's been an increase in clinginess because it just can be quite normal for some toddlers to respond in that way to big life changes. And so having some dedicated time, Stacey, each day where you have one-on-one time with him doing child-led play can really help increase that connection time that he might be trying to have with you in the middle of the night.
Fallon Cook (31:15)
Hmm.
Dr Laura (31:35)
when we want him to be having that during the day. So have a look at the special play resource in Sombelle and think about when you might be able to build that into your no doubt already busy day. So go easy on yourself. But that's the other thing I would be thinking about.
Fallon Cook (31:48)
Mmm.
Yeah, oh, that sounds really tricky, Stacey. See how you go over the next week or two and if it's not starting to kind of settle down, I would definitely invest in a coaching call so we can really come up with a really clear plan.
Dr Laura (32:03)
Yeah.
Fallon Cook (32:05)
Excellent. All right. Another meaty question we've got was sent in by Gab. Gab has a 12 month old daughter with an approximate 11 and a half to 12 hour sleep need. We've previously experienced highly fragmented sleep with six to nine overnight wakes, false starts and up to four feeds, but has improved to just one to three wakes with one or two feeds after adjusting the daily rhythm. Isn't that the power of the daily rhythm? Sometimes just adapting that daily rhythm
Dr Laura (32:09)
Yeah.
Mmm.
Yeah, it's, ⁓ yeah.
Fallon Cook (32:35)
it carries a lot of the weight of the changes just from the daily rhythm.
Dr Laura (32:39)
Yeah.
Fallon Cook (32:42)
Gab says she's currently on a two nap schedule with a 6 a.m. target wake up, although she has recently been waking earlier at around 5 30 a.m. Well, we hit the nail on the head with the topic for this week's podcast didn't Well these early rises. Gab says during disruptions like daycare, returning to work and illness, naps have occasionally been extended, which tends to result in more broken overnight sleep. They're gradually working towards reducing feeding to sleep and supporting independent
Dr Laura (32:52)
Yeah, we did!
Fallon Cook (33:12)
settling, however she currently feeds best when drowsy and tends to take only short feeds when fully awake. She is breastfed on waking before naps, before bed and one or two times overnight with solids generally well established but sometimes reduced if feeds occur too close to meals.
Gab is wondering whether the recent early waking may indicate readiness to transition to one nap and how to approach that transition if so, as she still appears tired at a usual morning nap time, as well as how to balance reducing feeding to sleep and overnight feeds while ensuring adequate intake given she feeds most effectively when sleepy.
Dr Laura (33:51)
Yeah, it's meaty and it has some overlaps with Stacey's question, doesn't it? So the age is the same. Gab's daughter has slightly higher sleep need than Stacey's son. But I still think that a lot of what we suggested for Stacey is going to be relevant here for Gab's toddler.
Fallon Cook (33:56)
Mm.
Dr Laura (34:16)
Where to start? So we do know, I guess for both Stacey and Gab, it's worth remembering that at 12 months of age.
most children, unless there is a medical reason, do not need to have feeds overnight to meet their nutritional requirements. And if you decide to continue offering feeds overnight, that's absolutely fine. It's a parental choice. And if it suits you to do that, continue. For some children, some toddlers, they will continue to wake up overnight way beyond
the number of times we want to feed them because they don't really understand why sometimes overnight they get a feed and sometimes they don't. So they may wake up many times going, what about now? Is it time for the feed now? And that's when we can end up giving many more feeds than we would prefer to. And then of course we can get into that situation of that reverse cycling that you spoke about, Fallon, where...
when they wake up in the morning, they're not hungry for their solids for breakfast. And then a little bit later, they're getting a bit sleepy, ready for the nap, and then just not that interested in having more solids. And so they want to have the feed. They're a bit sleepy. They feed a bit better. And so on and so forth. And they're not interested in morning tea. They're not interested in lunch. So we can end up in this situation where the solid intake is going up and down. And the milk feeding just gets more and more and more.
we do really want it to be going the other way. And at this stage we really do want them to be getting most of their nutrients or all of their nutrients from their solids, not from milk feeds. And if they're having too much milk, too much calcium, it can impact the absorption of iron because they're not... Anyway, so round and round it goes. I hope I haven't over-egged. I feel like I over-egged that point. So...
Fallon Cook (35:59)
Mmm.
you
Dr Laura (36:13)
Gab, I'd be holding that in your mind when you're thinking about the best way forward. We don't need to be offering your daughter that many feeds. Also at this age. ⁓
thinking about where possible when you are giving her those feeds, taking her into a room that is not stimulating. So she's less likely to be pulling on and off and looking at things around her. What some parents will do is they'll have a breastfeeding toy that they're, let me grab my little, my little bee here. So you can put like a toy or a bee on your shoulder that your, ⁓ that your toddler plays with as their breastfeeding.
and it keeps her more facing towards you rather than looking off and wanting to see what's behind her. So that's one thing to consider to try to support some better feeds when she's not so drowsy.
If she is having a feed close to the nap time, really working hard to unlatch her before she's fully asleep. She'll probably have some big feelings about it. She's one, so she's a bit stronger, but it is okay to unlatch her before she is asleep, just to try and break that feed to sleep association. And we do have those really gradual approaches in the toddler program, like the slow fade approach.
where you can look at ⁓ reducing the feeding to sleep. So have a read of that, Gav, and see if that feels like an approach that feels right for you. I feel like there's lots of other things in there, Fallon. What have I missed?
Fallon Cook (37:58)
It's one of those ones where we could talk about
it for 50 minutes probably. Look, I would just say, I feel like maybe last week's episode, I did touch on this a little bit. I think it was last week's, or last fortnight's. Don't discount how strong your toddler's drive is to meet their calorie needs. They will make sure they get enough calories unless there is a medical reason, which Gab probably would have mentioned, but... ⁓
Dr Laura (38:03)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Fallon Cook (38:28)
Toddlers are great at meeting their calorie needs. So you are allowed to start dialing back the overnight feeds if they're not working for you and your child is absolutely capable of replacing it with more solid foods in the daytime. ⁓ So just keep that in mind and have some confidence in that with really tiny little babies, we just go, yeah, totally normal to feed overnight. But certainly as they're entering toddlerhood, ⁓ they tend to do a lot better without the overnight feeds. Night sleep improves. They wake up happier and more content. They power through the day. They enjoy big solid meals.
Dr Laura (38:33)
Mmm.
Mmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Fallon Cook (38:58)
it will come together but it is a tricky spot to be in and it takes a bit of massaging along I think to really get there.
Dr Laura (39:04)
Mmm yeah and
at this age your little one may well be ready to move to one nap a day Gabb. If you feel that she can't then I would be looking at
the two naps being on the shorter end of whatever the cycles, the sleep needs are. So maybe two short naps for the time being, because within a month or two, they probably will drop to just the one nap.
And you may find that then there is a reduction in the number of wakes that she's having in the night just because of the power of sleep pressure, which you've already noticed. She's gone from six to nine overnight wakes and is now having one to three. Yeah, so there's a lot for you to think about there, Gab. And like Valen said before, if you want some more detailed one-on-one advice, then do book in for a coaching call.
So we're on to another question here from Hannah. So Hannah has a seven month old daughter who's previously made good progress with cot settling, reducing from four to nine overnight wakes to around one to three. But she's recently gone back to waking four to five times overnight and Hannah wants some help.
So she is able to fall asleep independently, but she's experiencing a false start followed by wakes every two to two and a half hours. And during these wakes, she becomes really distressed. And when attempts are made to resettle in the cot or rocking, feeding is usually the only reliable way that will help Hannah's daughter return to sleep.
particularly as when they're transferring her back to the cot, it frequently fails. So I think that must mean that they have to pick her up and start all over again. She's currently on a three nap schedule with wake windows ranging from around two to two and a half hours in the morning up to a maximum of three and a half hours before bedtime. Her total sleep need has been tracked at about 12 to 12 hours, 15 minutes. Although with the recent
capping of the naps that's coincided with a gradual drop in sleep needs down to about 11 and a half hours. So Hannah is wondering whether this may be related to daily rhythm or an indication that she's ready to transition from three naps to two despite concerns that she may struggle with longer wake windows. So Hannah's a bit unsure where to begin in addressing that increased night waking and reliance on feeding for resettling.
Fallon Cook (41:50)
Yeah. Well, Hannah definitely start with the daily rhythm because you've mentioned multiple signs that tell me sleep pressure is much too low overnight. the false starts would be one of the signs, the frequent waking is another, but also the fact that it takes a lot of intense support to get her to sleep. And then she can still spring awake really quickly. And it sounds like with quite a lot of fuss too. She's waking up pretty upset in the night. So there's lots of signs there that sleep pressure is too low.
Dr Laura (41:59)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yes.
Fallon Cook (42:20)
She's also seven months old, so it would be pretty normal to be on two naps now. So I would definitely make that move to two naps. And Hannah's reporting that really common thing where they're so wakeful overnight that of course the next day they're really, really tired and they want to catch up with the third nap. Can feel really tricky, but it's fine to push ahead with that. Hannah also mentioned a maximum of three and a half hours of wake before bedtime. At seven months of age, that's actually just a really normal amount that we would expect. And I would say,
Dr Laura (42:25)
Mm hmm. Yeah.
Yes! Yeah.
Fallon Cook (42:50)
be making it an aim that it should be three and a half hours if not even slightly more at that age of awake time before bed. So don't be frightened by them being awake a bit longer it's not going to hurt and will feel painful at first because they tend to be pretty cranky. But once she adapts to a two nap schedule the nights will probably improve and then you'll see the flow in effect with happier days more settled behavior.
Dr Laura (42:55)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yes. Yeah.
Fallon Cook (43:17)
it's terrific that she can settle independently at bedtime. It just sounds like overnight, sleep pressure is too low and she knows she's supposed to self-settle. You you've given her that skill, but she just can't do it because the sleep pressure is not there for it.
Dr Laura (43:17)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Fallon Cook (43:30)
So I'd spend a week, you know, work out what our daily rhythm needs to be and obviously use some bell to do that. Work on it for a week and really see how far you get with just changing that daily rhythm and moving to two naps. And then when you go to, you, you might reach a point where you say, okay, from this point onwards, it's all cot settling. We're going to leave behind, you know, the rocking or feeding to sleep. That's what your goal is. then from that point, you might only be dealing with a couple of tricky settles rather than, you know, multiple wakes overnight where you're having to resettle.
Dr Laura (43:31)
Yeah.
Fallon Cook (44:00)
But you're also making sure she's got the sleep pressure there to be able to resettle herself during the night. We're not asking her to do it when sleep pressure is low. So that's how I would approach it. Work out what the daily rhythm should be, work on it for a week, see how far the highest sleep pressure gets you, and then make the changes to settling as you see fit. ⁓ Did that catch everything, Laura? Did I miss anything?
Dr Laura (44:05)
Mmm.
Mm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. And I think that what Hannah experienced before was a major reduction in the number of overnight wakes down from nine to about one to three. ⁓ And that worked brilliantly when her daughter still needed to have those three naps. And we've just now seen that she's ready to.
Fallon Cook (44:36)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (44:47)
reduced to two naps and so it's gone wobbly again and this is what we often talk about is that when sleep goes wobbly after an improvement and it has persisted for more than a week then we go actually is it time to make changes to the daily rhythm does a nap need to reduce does bedtime need to move later or does wake up need to change so ⁓ Hannah don't let this ⁓ discourage you it's just
Fallon Cook (45:03)
you
Dr Laura (45:14)
in those, certainly up to the point where they move to two naps, there is just one rapid change after another, and that you hardly have time to catch your breath before it goes wobbly again. Once she's on two naps, she'll be on two naps for quite a few months before things go wobbly again, and you're going to likely see these same changes happening. She'll start waking more overnight again, and then you're going to go, well, she's 14 months old or whatever she is. Now it's time to drop down to the one nap.
Fallon Cook (45:21)
Yeah.
Mmm.
Dr Laura (45:43)
Hang in there. You know what the signs are and you know that making changes to the daily rhythm reduces the overnight wakes. So yeah, good luck.
Fallon Cook (45:43)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, good luck. All right, Laura, we have a question from Leah who has a 19 month old daughter with an approximate 12 hour total sleep need. Currently on a one nap schedule with a one and a half hour nap starting around midday. Bedtime routine starts at about 10 past seven and they independently fall asleep in, she independently falls asleep in her cot within 10 to 20 minutes.
She is able to fall asleep without direct assistance but requires a parent to remain in the room during the process as attempts to leave the room tend to disrupt the settling. She also relies on a dummy, often waking overnight, once needing help to locate or replace it.
Overnight sleep is generally settled aside from the occasional dummy related wake up, but she is consistently waking early. So timely this Eva. She's consistently waking early between 5 and 6 a.m. She's typically unable to resettle independently at that time, but will return to sleep if brought into bed sleeping till around 6 30 a.m. Without this, she is noticeably tired and cranky during the day. They're wondering how to reduce reliance on parental presence at bedtime.
Dr Laura (46:42)
Yes.
Fallon Cook (47:04)
how to move away from the dummy related sleep disruptions and how to break the early morning co-sleeping pattern while supporting more consistent and appropriate wake time.
Dr Laura (47:13)
Yes, well, Leah, you probably already got a lot of tips from our earlier discussion. I would be thinking about stopping that early morning co-sleeping because that may be a motivating factor for your little one to wake. I'd be thinking about that.
Bedtime, I'm just looking and just doing some quick maths. So an hour and a half day sleep, that leaves 10 and a half hours overnight out of a 12 hour sleep need. And if you're starting the bedtime routine at seven and then waking at 6.30, that's more.
than that 10 and a half hours. Thinking about that sleep onset time, 10 minutes is reasonable, 20 minutes we're starting to get a little bit long and that would make it hard for her to fall asleep or would make it hard for you to bring about any changes to how she settles when it's going to take her 20 minutes to fall asleep. Often we want her sleep pressure to be nice and high when you come to change how she falls asleep. So I would be looking at moving bedtime
closer to 8 if you want the sleep in to be till 6.30 or even doing 7.30 until 6, so kind of leaning into her earlier wake up at the moment and not putting her into the cot until you know maybe five or ten minutes before 8 o'clock which will then mean her sleep pressure is much higher.
So she'll fall asleep more quickly, which will then enable you to choose a different settling approach. Maybe the parental fading approach would suit your family best, where you start to very, very slowly and gradually reduce your presence at the start of the night without her getting upset. Or if you want something quicker, using something like the advanced accelerated approach. It's much easier to do that when you put little ones into bed, much closer to their falling asleep time, rather than giving them a whole 20 minutes.
and
that can just drag things out and make it much harder for everyone. So that's tackling the kind of early rising, leaning into it, choosing 6 a.m., bedtime, not putting her into her cot until the time that is closest to the time that she's gonna be falling asleep based on that wake up time, minus 10 and a half hours. And then thinking about the dummy.
I'd probably do those things I just described first while she still has the dummy. But depends how quickly you want to go. At this age...
can start to think about getting rid of the dummy if that is something that you would like. You might find that with higher sleep pressure she can actually just go the whole night through without waking up needing help to find the dummy and just chucking a few extra dummies in the cot to increase the chances of her finding a dummy, maybe all it takes. But if you do want to think about getting rid of the dummy there is a chapter in Somme Bell about
dummy use and weaning off the dummy. So think about which approach would suit you better, whether it's a dummy fairy or the collecting all the dummies and leaving them by the front door or burying one in the garden and growing into a lolly tree or whatever it is that you want to do to get rid of that dummy. But when you do decide to do it, just do it. Get rid of all the dummies at once so that you're not.
getting rid of it for a day or two and then saying this is too hard and giving it back it really needs to be a clean break. If you do want to talk about any of those things in more detail because there is a lot going on there of course do book a coaching call but Fallon is there anything that I have missed that you would add to that?
Fallon Cook (51:04)
Nar.
Personally, as a parent, I'd be terrified to drop the dummy at 19 months of age. I think it's so hard at that age. I would, ⁓ I would be inclined to probably keep it and just work on them replacing it themselves. So definitely scattering a few around the cot ⁓ rather than trying to get rid of it entirely. But yeah, it's one of those things where you've got to pick your battles and work out what your priorities are. I would say one wake up per night to replace the dummy. You're really likely to see her start to manage that herself. ⁓
Dr Laura (51:11)
Mmm.
Mmm.
Hmm
Fallon Cook (51:36)
quickly
and I love the idea of parental fading I think sometimes you they just need to know why you're leaving the room and what for and then you just see that you come back and you practice that a little bit like I've just gonna get my drink bottle I'm coming right back and then two seconds later you reappear with your drink bottle it just shows your toddler that ⁓ okay mom or dad is actually really reliable when they say they're coming back they are and they start to feel a bit more confident waiting for those brief moments alone so
Dr Laura (51:45)
Yeah.
Hmm.
Yeah.
Fallon Cook (52:03)
Yeah, good luck Leah. Sounds like you're doing a great job.
Dr Laura (52:06)
Yes. ⁓ Okay, so Natalie has written in, she has a two and a half year old son who has a long history of sleep difficulties, and they're currently experiencing ongoing split nights. Typically, he wakes for extended periods overnight, waking somewhere from about 3.30 in the morning, alongside increased daytime tiredness.
tantrums and challenging behaviour. Oh Natalie, that sounds really tough. Natalie writes he appears to have a lower sleep need of approximately 10 hours per 24 hours. Previously they'd estimated it at 10 and a half hours and he's currently on one nap which they've recently reduced from over two hours down to around one hour and now they're trialling 30 minutes.
but she says the naps are really difficult to achieve, often requiring a car ride before transferring him into his bed. When they've attempted to stop the nap altogether, that's resulted in earlier bedtimes of around 7pm and increased night wakings.
So the current schedule aims for an 8.30 bedtime and a 6 a.m. wake up, although mornings can extend later when the nights are disrupted. Well, that's quite typical for split nights because everyone feels shattered and then you end up letting them have a sleep in. He, yeah, so yeah, we'll talk about that in a second. He requires parental support to fall asleep in the form of hand holding and during night wakes is often brought into their bed, particularly as they're also
looking after a four month old baby and navigating adjustments to this change in the family. He's never been a consistent sleeper, has rarely slept through the night and is also awaiting further medical review with an ENT because he has mouth breathing.
They're wondering how to manage the split nights to balance the nap length and daytime sleep without worsening overnight disruptions. And they're wondering how to approach sleep support habits within the context of his developmental changes and the changing family dynamics, I guess, with the new baby. ⁓ There is a lot. Yeah.
Fallon Cook (54:29)
Hmm. Yep. Oh, there's a lot going on here. Look, my first thought
is I, the day nap sounds like a nightmare trying to get them down, you know, having to do a car ride and then transfer to a bed all for 30 minutes.
Dr Laura (54:38)
Yeah.
Fallon Cook (54:43)
and still having split nights, it's not working. So in all honesty, what I would probably recommend, I mean, I would want to see a sleep diary, but I would say drop the nap. And if you can only get him through to a 7pm bedtime, fine, do a 7pm bedtime and a 5am wake up because you've got 10 hours to work with. Do that, but know that it's not forever. So you might go, okay, we're going to do 7pm bedtime, wake him up by 5am. Even if he has a split night, get him up on time, try and power through the day as best as you can.
Dr Laura (54:54)
Mm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Fallon Cook (55:13)
Once he adapts to that and his circadian rhythm realizes, okay I've got to get all 10 hours overnight between 7 and 5 He'll start to be better during the day because he won't have split nights. His body's chasing this sleep need that he has The split night should reduce he'll wake up happier. He'll do better. But then you can start to go Okay, let's do 7 15 p.m. To 5 15 a.m. For a few days after a few days and it's 7 30 to 5 6 So you keep shuffling it along and I'm I'll probably end up aiming for something like 8 p.m. Bedtime and
Dr Laura (55:13)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Fallon Cook (55:43)
6am wake up.
Dr Laura (55:45)
Yeah.
Fallon Cook (55:45)
Um,
that's my first thoughts on how I would approach it. Split nights are not going to be because of, um, you know, some sort of sleep disordered breathing episode. tend to be lots of brief wakes. A split night is always a sleep pressure problem and you've got lots of signs there that the day nap, um, just doesn't need to happen anymore. But I hear Natalie's hesitance because from her experience, it sounds like she's tried to do no nap. Night's still been a disaster. So it's very tempting to go, well, that
Dr Laura (56:12)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Fallon Cook (56:15)
doesn't work, let's pull the pin. It's gonna take at least a few days in a row, if not a week, to really start to see those nights come together. Like I was saying earlier, any one night is influenced by the whole week prior. So when you go to drop that nap,
Dr Laura (56:17)
Mmm.
Hmm.
Fallon Cook (56:29)
you know, do it when you feel ready. Maybe you're waiting until if you've got a partner who can take a bit of time off work to support you through some of those tricky days, that would be a good idea. You've got a four month old, so this is really hard work. You definitely want the support around you when you go to make this change. But I would say ⁓ dealing with really crabby toddler behaviour in the daytime, in my eyes, that will be easier than dealing with two hours of him awake in the middle of the night upset.
Dr Laura (56:42)
Yeah.
Mmm.
Yeah.
Fallon Cook (56:58)
⁓ so that's, that's what I would be aiming to do. think that's the best start point. And then once you've got that figured out, then you can go, okay, we're holding his hand to sleep. Is it causing wakeups or is he sleeping fine? ⁓ you can work on reducing that if you feel like you need to. what do you think, Laura?
Dr Laura (57:09)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah, I think that,
yeah, that all sounds great. I think you're right that the split nights are usually not due to sleep-sorted breathing. So, yeah, it may be that she hasn't described exactly what the, no, she has, math breathing is the reason for the ENT appointment.
Fallon Cook (57:26)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (57:39)
Yeah, we may find that once that resolves through the ⁓ ENT intervention that ⁓ any residual ⁓ problems with behaviour during the day resolve. Sometimes ⁓ if a child is, they might be getting the quantity of sleep that they need, but if they do have sleep disorder breathing, it's really lower quality because their body will keep waking them multiple times overnight.
⁓ and so they're not getting the restorative sleep that they need, which does then of course impact their behavior during the day. So this behavioral intervention that Farrell has just talked you through is going to help reduce those split nights, which are unlikely due to any...
sleep disorder breathing and they may improve the behavior to some extent but if there is continued ⁓ sleep disorder breathing the behavior is likely to take a little bit longer to improve until those issues are addressed. But good luck Natalie, it's going to be really important to just hold steady on whatever wake-up time you decide upon and I do agree with Falon's seven until five.
Don't let him have longer sleep-ins, even if he's had a split night. So if you do have a partner, think about splitting the time in the morning, alternating who gets to sleep in so that you, as a family, can protect your own sleep. But not, because you did say that sometimes the wake up is a bit later. If the nights have been bad, that is something that is really important that you hold steady when you're dealing with split nights. So good luck. That's tricky.
Fallon Cook (59:21)
Mmm and
the last podcast episode touched on that as well while we might need to wake a child up in the morning so definitely have a listen to that one as well. All right Emma is two weeks into song bells so she's just getting started and she says her 15 month old son continues to wake for 90 minutes overnight screaming ⁓ ouch
Dr Laura (59:29)
Yeah. Excellent.
Yeah.
Mmm.
Fallon Cook (59:44)
She says, has been going on for months. He appears tired and distressed during these wakes. So they think he is unlikely to be under tired and the family is feeling stuck in resolving his sleep difficulties. They're wondering how to approach these prolonged, highly distressed night wakes and what next steps to take when progress feels limited, particularly given personal financial constraints around accessing additional support, such as coaching calls. I just want to quickly jump in here and say, I absolutely feel you on this with the financial constraints.
It is the toughest time financially to be a parent. Like, my God, I'm not going to go into my own personal finances, but there are appointments I need to book for myself right now and I'm not, I'm not booking them because I'm like, I don't know what the future holds. I own two diesel vehicles. I can't afford to put fuel in them at the moment. Like it is insane right now. So I absolutely hear you Emma. It is really, it's an expensive time to be alive and to have children.
Dr Laura (1:00:20)
Mmm, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah,
Fallon Cook (1:00:43)
It is really, really tough. So what would you suggest, Laura?
Dr Laura (1:00:44)
yeah. I would suggest that ⁓ really doing something similar to what I just described for Natalie. ⁓
those extended overnight wakes for an hour and a half. That is so, so draining Emma and it's been going on for months and what you're currently doing isn't resolving those, that issue. So it is time to try something else which I appreciate can feel very, very scary. You're describing that
Your son appears really tired and distressed during those wakes ⁓ and drawing a very reasonable conclusion that that must mean that he's not under tired, so that his sleep pressure must be high enough. But I would just encourage you to challenge that thinking. He is managing to stay awake for 90...
minutes and I suspect he is distressed because he doesn't want to be awake in that time but he can't go back to sleep he knows yeah yeah
Fallon Cook (1:01:53)
Mmm, he knows. I reckon sometimes they know, don't they? They're frustrated. They're
like, I know you want me to go to sleep, but I can't do this. I don't have the sleep hormones where they need to be. Yeah, it's hard.
Dr Laura (1:02:01)
Yeah.
Yeah, and it's incredibly
frustrating. As adults, we know what it's like, or many of us know what it's like when we wake up in the night and we just can't go back to sleep. my goodness. And we've got all of, we've got a fully developed prefrontal cortex. It's still incredibly frustrating for us. Say for a toddler, where they haven't got that, their brains aren't fully developed, they don't understand what's going on. It is frustrating and they can get distressed.
And yes, then what happens is that their nights are fragmented. So then during the day they can be really tired, clingy, have challenging behavior, which again makes us think, well, they need more sleep. And it's just very hard to gain traction as long as we hold on to those beliefs because...
What I suspect Emma is going to really help is to compress the night time so that we ⁓ don't think it says in this email what his sleep needs are, but logging that sleep, trusting after a week that you can calculate the average sleep need and then we meet him where he's at. So if he's got an 11 hour sleep need, let's say or 11 hours overnight, because I'm assuming he still has a nap.
thinking about standardizing the nap length so that he's not blowing out and making up for that hour and a half he's up in the night during the day. So standardize the nap time and standardize bedtime and wake up. And even if you feel that it's not offering him enough sleep, you're still offering him the amount that he is averaging. So we're not giving him less. So just talking to yourself, but we're just meeting him where he's at. We're just changing at what point he can have that sleep, but we're not
Fallon Cook (1:03:47)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (1:03:54)
We're not restricting it. And know that for months and months and months when you've tried something different, it hasn't worked. So it is time to try something new. Make sure that you and your partner, if you have a partner on the same page, and know that it is going to take at least a week for him to his circadian rhythm to adjust. And
Fallon Cook (1:04:04)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (1:04:17)
In that time he may still have overnight wakes where he's upset and screaming and unable to go back to sleep And he's going to feel tired during the day, but stick with it Really stick with it give it a red-hot go Because in all likelihood this will resolve more quickly when you stay persistent with that daily rhythm in the day and just park those thoughts that he's not
Fallon Cook (1:04:30)
Yeah
Mmm.
Dr Laura (1:04:46)
that he's overtired, that he's not under tired. Just park all of that because that hasn't been able to resolve things so far. And this is just, it's been going on for so long, no doubt it's taking a tremendous toll on you and your family, Emma.
Fallon Cook (1:04:50)
Mmm.
Yeah,
a hundred percent, Emma. would be really honing in on the unique sleep needs chapter and following that to a T that is where you're most likely to see improvement because this is a circadian rhythm problem. ⁓ I would, that's where I would really be putting your energy. Like I said, one night is influenced by a whole week of sleep prior. So you might find that adapting that daily rhythm. Yeah. It just doesn't work for a while. And then after a few days to a week, suddenly you're like, ⁓ yeah, we're getting some nights without that now. And yeah.
Dr Laura (1:05:08)
Yeah.
Hmm.
Yeah.
Fallon Cook (1:05:31)
things
will come together. ⁓ Good luck Emma, we're here to support ⁓ you. If it becomes an option to book an appointment, it might be that that is a really good move, but yeah, completely understand it's financially really challenging at the moment for a lot of families.
Dr Laura (1:05:46)
Yeah, that's right. And send in another
question. You can send in another question. We'll answer it in another podcast. So, Okay, so Loretta, we're nearing the end. Loretta is the penultimate one. It's so long. my goodness. So Loretta has a 13 week old baby boy and is early on in their sleep journey. They are currently working on building his sleep pressure, which has already led to some improvements.
Fallon Cook (1:05:53)
Yeah, 100%.
This is the longest episode we've ever done.
Dr Laura (1:06:16)
She has noticed that at times he appears to sleep with his eyes partially open, particularly when being held for sleep. And she is unsure whether this is normal, whether he is truly asleep and if the quality of his sleep may be affected. She's wondering how common this is in young infants and whether it is something to be concerned about.
Fallon Cook (1:06:37)
Mmm.
nothing to worry about. Lots of humans sleep with their eyes partially open. It just might mean having sort of dry uncomfortable eyes sometimes in the morning. It doesn't mean that sleep quality is affected at all. Very likely that he is still cycling through his sleep cycles just like he you know a baby normally would. So try not to worry about it. It's generally not something we really need to be concerned about. If you are noticing that you know he's got really uncomfortable dry eyes, he's waking
Dr Laura (1:06:56)
Mm-hmm.
Fallon Cook (1:07:08)
up
in the morning with really crusty eyes, you know if anything worries you, always check in with your GP and they can look over things but yeah look I wouldn't be worried about that one Loretta, it might change as he ages. You can also just if you notice his eyes are partially open gently close his eyelids to help his eyes stay moist during sleep just if you happen to notice it but otherwise yeah I wouldn't be too worried about that would you Laura?
Dr Laura (1:07:14)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, no Loretta,
I sleep with my eyes partially open, which apparently is really freaky for anyone who's in the room with me. If I'm sharing a room with my kids, they say it's really unpleasant because they look over at me and it looks like I'm peering at them. So I just get dry eyes and I just put drops in. I have a niece also with a genetic eye condition and she can't close her eyes fully and she has to use special...
Fallon Cook (1:07:36)
You
Dr Laura (1:08:01)
gel for her eyes when she goes to sleep at night just to keep them moist but it doesn't affect her sleep quality. yeah, all right. ⁓
Fallon Cook (1:08:15)
Excellent. All right, lucky last we have Melissa who has an almost five
month old baby currently on a four nap schedule and is working through how to adjust their daily rhythm as sleep needs change. She's finding it difficult to transition to three naps without creating a very long awake window before bedtime around four hours. She's unsure what would be considered too long for a baby of this age. She's wondering how to determine an appropriate maximum awake window before bedtime and whether there
general guidelines for maybe too long across the next six months as our baby continues to grow and transition through NAP changes.
Dr Laura (1:08:53)
Okay, so Melissa, we know that as babies get older, their sleep pressure starts to build more slowly, which is why they reduce the number of naps that they have during the day. So when they're really small, sleep pressure builds super quickly and they have five, six naps a day at around
four months many are dropping down to three naps and around six or seven months they're dropping down to two and then over the next six months after that sleep pressure again is just building even more slowly so then they eventually will move to just having the one nap in the day and so those wake windows necessarily need to get longer because it takes longer for the sleep pressure to build high enough for them to be able to be ready to fall asleep for
So with a five month old baby, ⁓ I'm not sure how many or the current sleep ⁓ need is, Melissa, but given that it's you're finding it hard to
You're finding it hard to transition to three naps because that last wake window feels too long. I'm wondering if it's down the lower end of the normal range. If you do have a child who has sleepiness down the lower end of the normal range.
They often do have to have longer sleep, awake time, sorry, during the day than babies who are at the higher end of the normal range. It's just maths. your five month old has a 16 hour sleep need, they're not gonna manage really long wake windows. But if you have a five month old that only has a 11 or 12 hour sleep need, just necessarily will be, they will have to and will be able to cope with longer.
wake windows so there isn't really a rule of thumb like this time is too long and this time is too short because it depends so much on what your baby's total sleep need is. look at a some somewhere around six months most babies can have their longest awake time of somewhere between three and a half possibly four hours often actually not possibly
Fallon Cook (1:10:59)
Mmm.
Dr Laura (1:11:12)
up to four hours awake as their longest wake window and ⁓ if you're almost five months old is down the lower end of the normal range it would be fine for them at this age to have three and a half to four hours awake before bed but without knowing exactly what their sleep need is I can't tell you for sure just know that when we
When you do transition down to three naps, there will be a period of time across that first week where it's a little bit tricky for your five month old to manage that longer time awake, but they will get used to it after about a week. So think about having your grumpy baby, thinking about helping them.
deal with that feeling of being super tired because they're being they're awake now for maybe half an hour or an hour longer than they usually are think about water play having company over to help distract them taking them into nature and so that we're thinking about just distracting them for like five minutes at a time to try to stretch them to that later bedtime
And don't worry that you're going to do any damage to your child by stretching them another few minutes every day. It's just the way that maths works. If your child only has a 12-hour sleep need, they have to be awake for 12 hours, about 24 hours. And it's how we position those naps across the day so that the first wake window tends to be the shortest one and the last wake window tends to be the longest one. That's the important thing.
⁓ and those wake windows will be different depending on your child's total sleep ⁓ needs, as I said earlier. What would you add? Would you add anything, Melissa? Melissa Fallon. Would you add anything for Melissa Fallon?
Fallon Cook (1:13:04)
Hmm
Look, I would,
I think in situations like this, the best thing you can do is try to gently stretch out all the awake windows across the day. And it makes that last one get a little bit shorter. And at this age, just be looking for a full collection of tired signs before you put them down for a nap so that they're really tired, really grisly. Nothing will distract them rather than early tired signs. So often when you're just aiming for that point where they're absolutely done.
can't distract them really grisly. ⁓ That means they've been awake a little bit longer than normal and then suddenly parents are like, yeah, now a three nap schedule feels a bit more manageable because everything's been stretched out that little bit more. ⁓ It'll come together though, Melissa, it sounds like you're really well on track.
Dr Laura (1:13:46)
Mmm. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Fallon Cook (1:13:52)
Amazing.
Thank you to all the parents who sent in fantastic questions this week or the past fortnight rather. ⁓ These are great questions and they help a lot of other parents, know, listening to the answers. I think there'll be parents nodding along going, yeah, okay, maybe I'll try that too.
Dr Laura (1:14:04)
you
Yes!
Fallon Cook (1:14:10)
thank
you parents, because you are our amazing Sombelle members and it's these questions that really make what we do so enjoyable. And it really helps us shape the work that we do as well. I had someone in clinic the other day who told me this little tip that she'd done and I thought, oh, I'm going to file that away. And it's true. So often what parents tell us really does shape the way we practice sleep as well.
Dr Laura (1:14:19)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Fallon Cook (1:14:34)
So if you are needing help with sleep and settling, of course you can join Sombelle. We think it's the ultimate resource for understanding and adapting to your child's unique sleep needs as they grow. So that early rising can be prevented from ever kicking off in the first place. So many parents will tell us that they dip back into the program all the time. When something new pops up, they've got that resource there to help them. You can also book a coaching call if you want enhanced support. It's one of the big benefits of being a Sombelle member.
Dr Laura (1:14:49)
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Fallon Cook (1:15:04)
and they're mostly with me. So you might be able to have a chat with me. We can look at your sleep diary and figure out what those next steps need to be. Or of course you can see Dr. Laura or a member of our amazing sleep practitioner team in the clinic. If you'd rather have longer appointments and more one-on-one support. We have our clinic in Malvern at the Victorian Children's Clinic. So if you're local to Malvern, you can call in and see Laura there. But of course we do telehealth Australia wide and in many other countries, just not the USA.
Dr Laura (1:15:11)
Mm-hmm.
Fallon Cook (1:15:33)
or the USA's territories. That's not our fault, it's just what insurance tells us we're allowed to do and not allowed to do. So yeah, we do see parents from lots of different countries. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review, give us a five star rating, hit subscribe, and of course you can buy us a coffee if you'd like to. I'll pop the link in the show notes. But thanks for tuning in everybody and have a great week.
Dr Laura (1:15:38)
Yeah.
Thanks everyone, bye bye.
