Fallon (00:37)
For most babies and toddlers, sleep improves when they start to fall asleep in their cot. But what if you have a super sensitive baby, one who absolutely hates their cot and will scream the moment you dare even walk into their nursery? Luckily, there is a solution. It just takes creativity and a little bit of dedication. If you've struggled to settle your baby or toddler in their cot, this episode is for you.
Welcome back to Brand New Little People, the podcast companion to the Sombelle Pediatric Sleep Clinic programs. I'm your host, Dr. Fallon Cook. I have a PhD, a couple of postdoctoral fellowships in infant sleep, and I'm a mum of three.
Let's dive in.
So, a few weeks ago in clinic, I had a really lovely follow-up appointment with a mum of an eight-month-old boy.
Who despite having really strong progress, you know, he'd gone from night wakes sort of of around five or six times per night down to only one overnight wake. ⁓ but despite this, she was really worried this mum that she had stuffed things up. And she described how her husband had taken the lead on cot settling ⁓ with their baby in the cot. it had gone really, really well.
And she had taken a back seat when he was doing this work because the baby would tend to get very, very upset if she tried to do a settle. But her husband was away one day and she had to manage the settling of her baby in his cot and she was feeling very, very nervous. She was expecting that he would probably cry a lot because he would be expecting her to feed him to sleep.
But this mum was very determined not to take backward steps because they'd worked really, really hard to move away from feeding to sleep. So she came up with a hybrid approach. Rather than sticking to exactly the same thing her husband was doing with the cot settling, she instead opted to put the baby down in his cot and she started to quietly sing his favourite song. She got a couple of teddies that he loved and kind of flew them above the cot and gently kept singing.
And without any tears, he just drifted off to sleep. But this mum was worried she'd made a mistake. She was concerned that maybe changing the approach was a bad idea and that it could derail the progress. To which I told her, Absolutely no, you haven't ruined anything. You've actually protected progress. And here's why. So this mum knew that her baby was going to get really upset if she tried the same approach as what the dad had been doing.
But she also really doubted her capacity to cope with this without having someone there to support her. ⁓ she also recognized that her child might respond well to other types of comfort, and that importantly, he would still be settling in his cot, even if he was getting a bit more support and interaction to do it. ⁓ and she was quite pleased with how well her singing and the kind of flying toys had worked. But she asked me if it was a mistake. Like, would her baby just expect this sort of
singing and teddies flying around, you know, for every settle thereafter. ⁓ and she asked me, you know, was it bad that I approached the settling differently that time? But here's what I told her. I said, no way, you absolutely nailed it. I think she approached this perfectly. And rather than failing, I told her she actually had saved the day. Because if an eight month old has been practicing falling asleep without feeding to sleep and you're a few days in with that and it's going really well
Then doing the settle in the cot, no matter how you have to do it, is always preferable to reintroducing feeding to sleep, which would really, really confuse the baby. ⁓ and I also said it's really unlikely that your baby's going to suddenly expect constant singing to fall asleep. ⁓ but I think it's also really important that what her baby had learned was that mum can settle me for sleep in my cot too, which is really good, really powerful, gives you a lot more flexibility when your baby knows that.
Anyone can can do the settle. So this experience with this mum really got me thinking over the past few weeks since the appointment about how we can modify our approaches to cot settling to really fit a baby's unique needs. And it also got me thinking about how sometimes good enough is like actually legitimately good enough. You know, it doesn't have to be perfect. Good enough is good enough. And that adapting to
A baby and what they might need in the moment, and also considering your own capacity for what you can manage, that is actually being a great parent. There's no failing in that. That is good parenting, absolutely. ⁓ so yeah, of course, if we're going to make big changes to how or where your baby settles, we want consistency to some degree because it can be really confusing if we are doing lots of different things. ⁓ but
Keep in mind that you can actually decide exactly how you're going to approach settling. You can apply whatever modifications you need to support your baby or toddler. But what I would say is once you decide on what those modifications are, try and apply them consistently. And I thought let's let's dive into some examples of what this could look like. ⁓ because I know from our members that you guys love reading case studies. You love hearing about other parents' experiences. And I think it's really important because often we see
elements of ourselves and our babies in these case studies and it can kind of inspire some thinking around what might be the right approaches for for you and your little one. So let's take this first example of a one-year-old. This one-year-old self-settles at daycare for all of their naps. ⁓ They sometimes self-settle in the cot at home. He's really outgoing, confident, there's no separation anxiety. So for this toddler,
It might actually be fine to simply put him down in the cot at home and just wander away. Give him a little bit of space and just kind of see what happens. Because we know this one-year-old has self-settling skills and he can do it. ⁓ so it might be worth just giving it a try at home, wandering away and just kind of seeing what he does. ⁓ and if he doesn't go well, you know, you can adapt your approach. You can always change tack, but sometimes just starting with.
Let's let's just give it a crack is actually a really good place to start. But many toddlers, if we're hanging around too much, they kind of like, well, you're here. What are you gonna do to get me to sleep? And sometimes when we wander out of the room, they just go, ⁓ okay, well, they're not here now. What am I gonna do to get me to sleep? And that's when they start to draw on those self-settling skills. But obviously that is not every child. And I'm just imagining parents listening going, phew.
That would never work for my one-year-old. And I believe you, there are some out there that that would not work for her at all. So let's dive into another example. How about another one-year-old who this this little girl has separation anxiety? She likes to be beside mum always. Really likes to be cuddled and howled a lot of the time. She's very, very unsure of her cod and she usually would co-sleep in the parent bed. This toddler.
is probably going to respond better to having their mum beside the cot padding and singing or shushing her all the way to sleep. ⁓ and you know, this parent could do just a very gradual reduction in the padding and the singing. They might space that out across a few weeks or even a few months, you know, whatever's the time course is that works for you and child. But they would be aiming to gradually phase out the padding and the singing until this child can confidently fall asleep without needing any help.
So a really different approach to that first one. ⁓ this is a much more sensitive toddler who has got some fears and worries being alone. And in those cases, we really do want to try and ⁓ I I guess take things slow, but it's more about actually just allowing a child the opportunity to build confidence and to realise, okay, I'm safe and I'm okay if I'm not completely tangled up in mum's arms, in mum's bed. You know, I can be safe and okay.
With mum with her hands on me when I'm in my cot and you know getting lots of support there. So sometimes we do just have to think, well, what's gonna actually allow for progress for this child? All right, and then let's take one last example. What about a seven-month-old who is the younger sibling to three-year-old twins? So this seven-month-old does not like their cot at all, but their mum is parenting solo and she can't leave the twins alone for even a second.
without something getting broken or someone getting hurt. So this mum might decide to put her baby in their cot for their nap, even though they're not a big fan of their cot, but they kind of don't have an option. They're gonna put their baby in their cot for their nap. They're gonna come and go from the nursery every few minutes to give lots of cuddles and comfort. She's gonna be reassuring her baby she's still there, she's still around, but she's also ensuring that she's keeping her older children safe. So this is a really good example of where
Sometimes a baby might not love their cod, but we have the broader context to consider. You know, if a parent is parenting solo, well the cot is a safe place for the baby. But if you've got three-year-old twins tearing up the house, ⁓ you know, who could get hurt and they need a lot of supervision, it might mean that you just have to be coming and going from that nursery, checking in quite often and still giving a lot of support.
⁓ but yeah, you you you just may not have the option of doing a really gradual adjustment for that baby. And that's perfectly fine and perfectly valid. You can still you know, there's ways to adapt approaches to fit for these situations as well. So I think that's a really useful comparison because we we really have to consider that broader context around the child in terms of what sort of settling approach is going to be the best fit.
And I think at seven months old too, a lot of families in clinic will say to me, I know I could just, you know, these are the ones with older children they've got to run around after. They'll say, I know I could put the baby in the carrier for all the naps, but honestly, they're really damn heavy now. And a lot of parents at seven months are just like, I can't keep doing contact naps or carrier naps because it's really starting to impact my back. And, you know, fair enough, a lot of these parents are just like, I just need a bit of space. Like I've got got a lot to juggle.
and I just want my baby to be able to settle in their cot. ⁓ yeah. So look, there's a few different examples there, and I hope that maybe there's elements of those examples that will resonate for you. but I think really what I want the take-home message of this podcast episode to be is that you truly do know your baby best. And they're, you know, you you also know your own capacity best as well. And those are equally valuable and important things.
And I want any parent listening to know that you can and you should feel really empowered to make decisions about how you approach COP settling. You do get to call the shots. So often, you know, I see it all the time on social media. It drives me mad and I'm not a new mum. But I see this, you know, idea of sleep being presented as entirely black and white. Like either you do nothing and put up with all sorts of sleep challenges, or you have to cry it out.
you know, the complete other end of the the spectrum here. And it's just not like that. And it's a real shame that it gets ⁓ you know, really polarized and dichotomized like that, because it's not a decision between black and white. There are a a thousand shades of gray in between. ⁓ and I love it when I hear parents say, we kind of modified this approach a bit because we noticed they loved this particular thing. Like
That like all power too, that's what you should be doing, you know, is really thinking, how do we take what I've learned about sleep and cot settling and really shape it to fit, you know, something that feels manageable for you, suits the capacity you've got, and kind of fits in with with what your child needs as well. So if you're a Sombelle member, you already know that all of the approaches in Sombelle come with a whole suite of modifications we've kind of thought out ahead of time for you.
Read through them and you know you can apply those modifications based on what you think is going to suit your child best. So really read through those and put some of them into your plan because I always say a plan, you know, a plan that fits, really fits you and your baby, is a plan that will work because you'll be able to stick with it. So I hope that that's useful.
I always say that, don't I? Every episode we we touch on a topic and then I go, I hope that's useful. ⁓ definitely we've been getting some really lovely feedback from parents that you do find that sort of dives into these topics really helpful. yeah, amazing. And if you've got ideas for what you'd like us to touch on in the podcast, please do send them through. We do our best to cover off everything that parents ask for. There are a few sticky subjects we just don't go into because it's not worth a backlash that we get trying to pick apart some of these things.
⁓ but we'll do our best to cover off the topics that you're really needing to hear about the most. Amazing. Let's dive into some parent questions. Okay, this first question comes from Emily, who's been in touch before and she now has an update. Her little boy is now seven and a half weeks old.
She's having much more success with cotnaps and is down to two night wakes at around 1 a.m. and 4:30 a.m. And she's getting some four and a half to five hour stretches of sleep at the start of the night. That is amazing, Emily. Well done. That's really terrific. How wonderful.
Emily says naps are still variable. There's around five to six a day, averaging five hours of day sleep and about 10 hours of sleep overnight. Emily has a couple of questions. First, one is about that 4:30 a.m. wake-up. She says her baby struggles to resettle, wakes again 45 minutes later, and the only thing that works is a feed to sleep. Even though Emily doesn't think he's actually hungry, she's wondering whether waking him earlier
And ⁓ at around 3 30 a.m. might help, or whether an earlier bedtime could shift those night feeds forward. Second, she's been capping the last nap at 6 p.m., aiming for a 7.30 p.m. bedtime, but is crying intensely every night from 7 p.m. through to 8.30 p.m. before finally going down. She's wondering whether this will resolve on its own as the purple crying settles or whether something needs to change.
And whether an earlier bedtime will come naturally once the crying reduces. I love this question, and I think any new parent will be really keen to hear the answer too. So, first of all, just in regards to your first question, no, I wouldn't be waking him earlier at 3:30 a.m. ⁓ I I just wouldn't. I just no one wants to do it. So I'm gonna give you permission to not wake him up at 3 a.m. ⁓
and you're wondering whether an earlier bedtime might shift those night feeds forward. Look, I probably wouldn't tinker with with bedtime right now. ⁓ I mean, I don't think you could move bedtime earlier based on the behavior that you describe. it probably would be pretty hard to to get him down earlier. You're already trying for an earlier bedtime as it is. and he's not really accepting it. I would say the two feeds overnight are
very normal and maybe even quite good for a baby that is seven and a half weeks old. ⁓ at seven and a half weeks old I'd be expecting two night feeds. So I would just keep on with those whenever it is that he's waking for them and just keep an eye on things. If he's consistently really, really wakeful, you know, from four ish onwards in the morning, then it might be a sign that, yeah, maybe he'll cope a bit better with a little less day sleep now and maybe that'll help him do a little better overnight.
Because over the the first few months we do tend to see a gradual decline in sleep needs. Sometimes it can be a bit sudden. ⁓ so it might be that, yeah, the sleep needs are just slowly starting to drop. And you may find that if the he's really wakeful after 4 a.m. every night, you could start to think about maybe trying to stretch him out a little in the day, just very gently at this age, ⁓ or just capping the total day sleep, but just a little less than what he's having, and you might start to see that he's
Really chasing that little bit more sleep overnight. and I think that, well, you sort of touched on as well, Emily, the purple crying. And I think that's a really important consideration. So if you have a new baby, go and learn all about the purple crying curve. So all babies have a peak in crying, it kind of begins around the four-week mark. It's often starting to wrap up around the eight-week mark or maybe a little later.
⁓ but it's where they can cry for hours and hours every day for no apparent reason. So parents try everything they can, but there just tends to be a lot of crying at this age. And we see that in every culture around the world. ⁓ it's not something, you know, unique to us here in Australia. It really is in every culture, and we don't fully understand why babies have this really strong peak in crying.
But it always centers in the evening. So it sounds like that's what Emily's seeing. This really like lots of crying, kind of the witching hour, except in Emily's case, it sounds like it's going for a good hour and a half or so. ⁓ look, I it is a normal part of development. And given that it centers on a particular time, it doesn't make me think, there's some pain or something's wrong, because why would that only happen in the evenings?
⁓ I would say it probably is part of the purple crying peak. And if you're worried, have a chat with your GP, get a bit of a checkup done. ⁓ but it is just one of these unf unfortunate things that does tend to resolve over those first few months. So I would be thinking, look, you know, he's not tired until ⁓ around eight thirty pm. Just know you're probably gonna have a couple of tricky hours in the lead up to eight thirty p.m. You might even start to move a lot of your bedtime routine that little bit later.
and over the next few months you'll start to see that crankiness reduce a bit. But do keep in mind, really normal for babies and toddlers to just be crankier in the evenings than at any other time of day. ⁓ you won't get this level of crying forevermore that will reduce, but it is quite normal for them to be pretty worn out and a bit touchy and difficult towards the end of the day. so yeah, I would say for now, I don't think you need to make really big changes, Emily. I think he's doing really, really well for only seven and a half weeks old.
He's about to undergo huge maturation of his circadian rhythm. And you'll notice around that 12-week mark things really start to shift. ⁓ and you'll you'll probably will just get a better sense of what daily rhythm works well for him. It can feel pretty messy in these first sort of couple of months. ⁓ and then things do settle down. So I think you're well on track, Emily, and doing a great job. Well done. All right, let's move on to Nicole.
Nicole has a three and a half year old daughter who has had ongoing sleep challenges since infancy, including multiple night wakes, split nights, and false starts. She no longer naps and has an estimated sleep need of around about ten and a half hours. She's put to bed at 8 p.m. and usually wakes for the day around 6 30 a.m.
The main concern is that she consistently wakes every night, usually between midnight and 1 a.m. She leaves her room and seeks out her parents. She often says she's scared and will only settle if a parent stays with her on a spare mattress. If mum settles her, she may wake again several hours later and require the same support. They use a sleep clock, like a toddler sleep clock, but this has not improved the night waking.
Nicole is wondering why her daughter continues to wake at the same point each night, despite what appears to be an appropriate sleep schedule and meeting her relatively low sleep needs. She questions whether the ongoing parental presence at night has become a sleep association that is reinforcing the wakes and is seeking advice on how to help her transition between sleep cycles independently and sleep through the night. Amazing. I love this question. It's such a good one, Nicole.
⁓ yeah, I agree. You've got a great daily rhythm in place. And ten and a half hours isn't such a low sleep need for a three and a half year old. ⁓ but yeah, I I love the sound of that daily rhythm. It's terrific. And a really good sign that you're on track with it is that she's sleeping from bedtime to midnight to one a.m. So she's having a really good stretch of deep consolidated sleep, and that's a good sign that the daily rhythm is working. If she's then getting a lot of
split nights, I'd be saying, something's off, but it doesn't sound like that's the case. So look, definitely, I think what's happening with your daughter is that she has become quite used to falling asleep with you present. I'm not sure if you're present at the start of the night or not, but she's definitely used to it during the night. I suspect she's waking up and thinking, ⁓ I don't really like being in here alone. Where's mum? So she gets up, comes and gets you, and she knows that you'll lie on that spare mattress until she falls back asleep again.
what I would say is it's great that she's not needing like really intense support. I'm really glad to hear that. I think what we need to do is really work on building her confidence. I think the reason that the toddler sleep clock isn't working is that she probably genuinely is a bit anxious, maybe a little bit fearful being alone in her room. And there's no amount of motivation on earth that is going to convince a frightened or worried toddler to go back to sleep again.
that fear and worry will always override any motivation they might be feeling to earn a reward or, you know, to see the clock come up in the morning. so I would be thinking of this through a lens of let's build her confidence and capacity to do well in her bedroom on her own. So she's not needing to seek you out in the night. What I would be thinking is, look, probably the first step, pop a safety gate on her bedroom door if you don't think she's gonna rally too hard against it.
Sometimes if if you think she's gonna absolutely crack it when you put that on the door, maybe just don't bother. But the reason I would suggest doing it if you think she'll be fine with it is just that it puts an end to her coming all the way to your bedroom and it just really shows her that no, we stay in your room all night long. And if you need me, call out and I'll come, but we stay in the room. So sometimes that can be a really helpful first step. The next thing I would be thinking about is look at the parental fading approach in Sombelle. It is the most beautiful process of.
gradually building confidence in toddlers where you are saying to them, I've just got to go grab this thing. I'm going to be right back. You leave for maybe one second, grab a thing, go back in the room. Read through that process because so many parents love it. You're not pushing your child or trying to force them to be comfortable with something they're not comfortable with. You're giving them tiny little opportunities to realize how capable they are.
⁓ and to build their confidence at being alone briefly in their room. And often it might take two or three weeks to get to a point where, you know, they're falling asleep without you in the room. But if that's been done in this gradual way and you've now got a really confident toddler who feels really good about being in their room, even alone at nighttime, then that's two or three weeks of gentle practice that has paid off big time. and often parents say they see it flow through to all aspects of their toddler's behavior, you know, even just things like
separating from them at daycare becomes a lot easier. They're just more confident toddlers. ⁓ or in your case, she's just about a preschooler now, Nicole. ⁓ so I hope that helps. Go into Sombelle, look at the parental fading process, get really familiar with the steps, and before you just dive into it, really plan out exactly how you're going to implement that approach. ⁓ and I would start gently working through that ⁓ that one. Let us know how you go though. I I love working with
toddlers and preschoolers with these sorts of ⁓ challenges because it is just so delightful when you see a worried toddler turn into a really confident one who feels really capable. Like what a gift. You know, it's it's yeah, gosh, I'm lucky. I'm lucky to do this work. All right. Good luck, Nicole. The next question is from Gemma. Gemma has a 10 month old daughter who's eight months corrected.
She recently transitioned to two naps and stopped overnight breastfeeding. She currently averages around 12 hours 15 minutes of sleep per day with approximately an hour and a half of day sleep and a bedtime of around 7.30 p.m. Following a brief period of sleeping through the night until almost 6 a.m., she's developed progressively earlier wakes, moving from 5 a.m. to 4 a.m. over recent days.
Her current schedule is roughly a 6 a.m. wake up, the first nap at 9 30am, the second nap at around 2 pm, with wake windows adjusted according to nap length. Gemma is seeking advice on the cause of the early morning waking and whether it may be related to the two nap transition, the daytime sleep, the recent removal of overnight feeds, or inadvertently reinforcing the pattern by allowing her baby to sleep in after a tricky night.
This is such a great question. Look, it could be a little bit of everything in a way. If overnight feeds have only recently stopped, it's really normal for them for a while to just do the odd call out to kind of say, Hey, do you you remember how we used to feed? ⁓ you know, sometimes they're just like, I know I used to wake up for something. What was it again? ⁓ so it could be a bit of that. Often when we do drop to two naps and good move doing that, that's she's definitely the right age to be doing that. ⁓ it can
It can just kind of, I guess, throw everything a little out of whack. So when we have a big change to the circadian rhythm, sometimes night sleep just gets really, really bad and then it settles again. So it could just be that kind of variation. ⁓ I don't definitely don't think you're overdoing the day's sleep. I would say the number one change I would make, Gemma, is I would be militant with that 6 a.m. wake up. And I definitely would not allow a sleep in.
The reason for that is if she's really wakeful from you know 4 to 6 a.m. maybe she falls asleep at quarter to six in the morning after being really unsettled for an hour and a half or so. If you then let her sleep in, I don't know, maybe you let her sleep till 6.30 or 7 a.m., something like that, then you're kind of directly telling her circadian rhythm, sure, wake up at 4 a.m. Be really wakeful because we'll just catch up a bit later anyway. So you're kind of allowing that to happen in a way.
Whereas if we are really militant, like she falls asleep at 5.45, you still get her up at six, you give her a big dose of bright light, you still push her through the day on her usual naps and get as close to bedtime as you can, that's when you're telling her circadian rhythm, don't do that. We don't want to be awake at 4 AM
⁓ and that's the signal we really want to give her circadian rhythm that we're just not going to there's not going to be a chance for catch up anymore. So if you're in the cot and it's sleep time, get as much sleep as you can. So I would say with just that one little change, it might take a week to see a difference, but across the course of a week, I think you'll start to find that sleep pressure stays pretty high until 6 a.m. She'll be really trying to meet her sleep needs and her body will be realizing there's not the chance to to catch up with a sleep in.
yeah, it sounds like you're doing an awesome job though, Gemma. Well done. ⁓ and hopefully you'll start to see that come together pretty soon. All right, moving on to Sophie. Sophie has a four-month-old baby who was born one month premature and currently has an estimated sleep need of around 14 and a half to 15 hours per day. He sleeps approximately 7 p.m. to 6 30 a.m. with two or three overnight feeds.
And mostly naps on the go with a flexible pattern of around four naps per day. He falls asleep independently for bedtime and naps at home, but is typically fed back to sleep following overnight feeds. Sophie has two questions. First is whether she should be using her baby's actual age or corrected age when considering sleep development, sleep architecture, and sleep maturity.
Given that he's meeting milestones somewhere between the two ages. First up, I'm just gonna answer that before we dive into the second question. ⁓ you absolutely want to go off the adjusted age. So, for example, when we sort of talk about sleep getting a bit wobbly at four months, if your baby was born ⁓ you know, a month early, then you're waiting until
their five months sort of chronological age, which is their four months adjusted. I always have to think about this very carefully when I talk about these things. It's one of those things that gets very messy in my brain. And I shouldn't, because I had a premature baby. But it does mean that you do need to think about the development of sleep a little differently ⁓ because you've got to go off that corrected age.
⁓ all right, so back to Sophie's question. So her second question is she's wondering whether feeding back to sleep after overnight feeds may become problematic in the future, despite her baby already independently settling at bedtime and gradually lengthening his overnight sleep stretches. This is kind of the middle million dollar question, Sophie. So there are some babies who can feed back to sleep overnight, and it doesn't really seem to impact them. If they self settle at bedtime,
You know, and for their naps, then they're fine and you know it's all it's all good. But I would say the majority of babies, what we see is that the feedback to sleep overnight does become problematic. My guess is around probably 80% of babies. ⁓ they start to often it is at that four month mark, sometimes five months. So you might be quite close to it now, Sophie. ⁓ that's when they decide, you know what, if I sometimes feed to sleep, I expect to feed to sleep.
After every sleep cycle all night long. Often they, you know, fall asleep feeding, they go into deep sleep, they come into light sleep, and then they spring awake, like, where am I? Get back over here. I want my feed back to sleep again. We don't know what your baby's gonna do, Sophie. They might just sail along fine, and it's never a problem. They just over time gradually drop those overnight feeds and it's all fine.
⁓ or maybe they will suddenly in a few weeks time start to wake up five or six times overnight and it really becomes a you know a big problem. It can be quite exhausting. So you've got to weigh that up with what your priorities are right now. Some parents are just like, I'm fine, I'm just gonna see how this plays out. ⁓ if it becomes a problem, I'll deal with it then. Other parents are like, ⁓ no no, I would rather work on this now and just practice putting my baby back in their cot awake after the night feeds.
to s because at the moment it's pretty easy. I'm pretty well rested, sleep's okay. So resettling a couple of times per night is not a big deal. And I'd rather work on that now than when they're waking up five or six times overnight. So I g I think again, it comes down to parental capacity. If you're just like really motivated to get the best possible sleep in the quickest time frame, then you might be like, yeah, I'm gonna make sure they're being put back in their cot awake after those night feeds.
⁓ at four months, ⁓ yeah, maybe one or two night feeds is pretty typical. You might even try and drop that third night feed if you want to. ⁓ but just have a bit of a think around what your goals are. If you really want the best possible sleep in the quickest time frame, yep, pop them back in their cot awake after those feeds. If you're feeling okay for now and you just want to see how things play out, that's a completely legitimate choice as well. ⁓ I think really be led by what you've got capacity for, Sophie, and and what your goals are. Good luck.
Okay, lucky last question is from Kate. Kate has a nine-month-old baby whose sleep need was previously assessed at about 12 and a half hours ⁓ per 24 hours at five months of age. She would like to reassess his current sleep needs and is wondering whether temporarily following his cues rather than a set schedule is the best way to determine this.
She is also asking whether contact naps should be counted when assessing sleep needs or whether they may artificially increase total sleep. This is such an awesome question. I love it. Thank you, Kate, for sending it in. ⁓ okay, so sleep needs almost definitely would have changed a little bit since your nine month old was five months of age. There's a pretty good chance they've probably started to drop off a little bit and are sitting a little bit lower than they were.
I wouldn't make any changes to the daily rhythm, how you're settling, anything like that. I would just take a measure of his sleep average as it is right now and be led by that. Because if you've been kind of you've been working towards something, obviously, you've got a bit of a daily rhythm in place, Kate. ⁓ your baby will be accounting for that and making sure they get all their sleep needs kind of within that daily rhythm that you've allowed for.
If you suddenly loosen things or change things, sometimes what happens is for they have a few days where they overshoot the mark and they get a whole bunch of extra sleep. And then they have a few days where they undershoot the mark and they go really low. Or it can just become really, really wobbly. And then sleep can just kind of spin out of control. And I don't want you to go through that. ⁓ and you're probably gonna get an accurate enough reading just by ⁓ measuring your sleep duration just right now, using the schedule you've been using.
⁓ to talk to where the contact naps should be counted, yes, I would count them. I would absolutely count them. I would just be keeping in mind that sometimes those contact naps do kind of artificially inflate the total sleep needs because sometimes when a baby is contact napping, they might not really be in a deep sleep. They're just kind of dozing. They can stay in this kind of dozy, hazy kind of space that looks a bit like sleep, but you know, they wake really easily. They're
pretty aware of what's going on around them. ⁓ but still I would count it if it looks like they're asleep, count it. Work towards your new daily rhythm. And if you feel like the new daily rhythm kind of isn't tight enough, like maybe you did overestimate their sleep needs, you can always trim a little bit off and just see if that suits them better. But I would say that's the best place to start. Keep things on a fairly even keel and just measure sleep as it is now. And that really goes at any age or stage. Like if if a parent's coming in to see ⁓ me or one of the team in clinic,
Often they will email and say, do I just sort of like how do I measure their sleep? Should I stop doing this, start doing that? We always just say, nope, we want a reading of exactly what's happening right now. Don't change anything. Just track the sleep. If they're asleep, you track it. It's as simple as that. And then, you know, after a week, you're going to be able to work out that average. Awesome. So there you go. That brings us through another set of awesome parent questions.
a quick note as well. We had a couple of other questions come through from people, but I can't find you in our members database. It might be that you're not a member, so obviously we only answer member questions on here. ⁓ but if you are a member and you sent through your question from an email address that we don't have on file for you, then you might get missed. So just a little note if you're a Sunvail member, ⁓ send in your question from the email you signed up with, or even just ⁓ mention in the email what
email address you signed up with so we can really easily find you. We want to make sure we answer all your questions. So if today's episode helped you in any way, I would love it if you could share it with another parent who might need to hear it. If you haven't already, please leave us a review in whatever app it is you listen to our podcast. It makes a really big difference to how many families we're able to reach.
We want as many families as possible to get high quality information about baby and toddler sleep. It makes such a difference to early parenting. If you're needing extra support, please check out the Sombelle Sleep Clinic programmes or book an appointment so we can start working together. And that wraps us up. So take good care of yourself. Be gentle on yourself and I'll see you next time.
