Fallon (00:37)
If you're the parent of a baby or toddler who has sleep difficulties, then understanding your child's unique sleep needs is one of the most important steps you can take towards better sleep for your whole family. If you routinely offer more sleep opportunity than your child can realistically achieve, chances are you'll have a hard time settling your child to sleep, especially if you're aiming for cot settling.
And you'll face persistent overnight wakes. In this episode, you'll learn about the huge range of unique sleep needs for babies and toddlers, and you'll learn how you can identify and cater to your child's unique sleep needs. Plus, I answer 20 brilliant questions submitted by Sombelle members. So let's dive in.
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 and a couple of postdoctoral fellowships in infant sleep, and I'm a mum of three. Wow, it's been a while, guys. I know our regular listeners have probably been wondering what on earth is going on.
I noticed before it's been a month since our last podcast episode. And I guess it's just been a whole bunch of different things. There's been the school holidays, which have just wrapped up. My kids are back at school today. I had like a really rough run with illnesses. I've had sort of back-to-back bugs, which is just so typical of this time of year in the middle of winter, isn't it? there's just been a lot going on, but I also think I just really needed to
Have a little break. You know, if my heart's not in it, I think it's always a sign that you've just got to take a bit of a rest. And I just felt like I needed to step back for a little bit and just kind of get some rest, get better again, like properly recover before diving back into things. so yeah, I'm back today. Kids are at school, everything's quiet, everything's calm, and it's really, really nice to be here. And thanks so much for your patience in waiting for this episode as well.
I've also done a bit of an office reset yesterday. So if you do tune in on YouTube, there are a handful of you. you'll see that the background and everything just looks a little bit different. Because I was like, you know, getting kicking off the second half of the year, we're gonna start fresh with a bit of a new setup. yeah, so yeah, feeling good, feeling ready for this. and I also just want to quickly say a huge welcome to all of our new members. We ran an end of financial year sale and it went
off we have the biggest intake of new members we've ever had. We kind of keep breaking records, which is unreal. So if this is your first time kind of tuning into the podcast, you're a new Sombelle member, welcome and I hope you love it. And make sure you go and listen to the other 120 odd episodes that have been recorded already because they are a treasure trove of information that's really going to support your learning through the Sombelle programs. But let's dive into
Today's episode content. This one really came about because I'm still just seeing so much, you know, misleading information online that is really confusing parents. And I was thinking about what it is I really want parents to to know. I think, you know, and the the first step in the sleep clinic is always that we think, okay, we've got this child in front of us, what's their unique need for sleep like? How do we best cater to it?
It is always the first place that we start. And I thought it was worth doing an episode where we just really dive into this. because these are, you know, learning about unique sleep needs, it changes how you think about sleep right across the lifespan. You'll even be thinking about this for your own sleep. you'll be thinking about it when your child is a teenager. You know, it's really relevant information that you'll draw on time and time again. But for today, we're going to talk about babies and toddl. Let's dive into
the typical kind of sleep needs for a baby and a toddler. Let's start with the zero to three month olds, the really tiny newborns. You're gonna find that they're gonna have a sleep need somewhere between 11 and 19 hours. And that might shock you. I hope it does, because that is an eight-hour range of variability, you know, baby to baby. And that's huge. I mean eight hours is what a lot of adults are trying to get per night. And this is just the the variance between little babies.
it's really important to know this because, you know, when we have a new baby, especially if we're a first-time parent, we love to look at the babies around us that are the same age and we naturally go to compare because we're thinking, well, I've never done this before. Is this what my baby's supposed to do? If you are comparing your baby to other babies, you might get a shock because there will be inevitably be babies that sleep more than yours, less than yours.
It'll look different for every baby. And I want you to know that that's normal and really natural. And it doesn't mean anything is wrong if your baby's not doing the same amount of sleep as the other baby at the parents' group. It's really important to know. For four to twelve month olds, that range of variability is still eight hours, but it tends to be that they fall somewhere between needing 10 and 18 hours of sleep. So still a massive, massive difference.
What's really important to know is that you can have a perfectly healthy baby getting 18 hours of sleep per 24 hours, and a perfectly healthy baby getting 10 hours of sleep per 24 hours. And I know that's a shock to a lot of people because the 10 hour, the really low sleep needs babies, they're pretty rare. You know, they're not everywhere. They're pretty hard to come across. We see, you know, a lot of them in clinic. but
Yeah, there can be healthy babies that just have a really, really low sleep need. They tend to have a huge appetite for stimulation, learning, engagement, and actually do really well on less sleep and genuinely do well on less sleep. And then for toddlers, we still have a pretty wide range. Toddlers, you know, from sort of one to three years of age, typically need between somewhere between nine and sixteen hours of sleep. So still a really big range there.
Yeah, and I think it's really important to keep these these numbers in mind because we often are told that, you know, your baby's this age, they must get, you know, a two-hour day nap in the morning and they've got to have twelve hours overnight. And there's all these hard and fast rules online, particularly in the kind of Instagram space, I think, where people are just trying to create content that gets, you know, parents engaged and clicking on it and or even alarms parents on purpose so that they'll engage with the content.
but it's just not that straightforward. if every baby was the same, I would dare say there would be very little work for me because they would all be doing the same things and generic advice would work perfectly every single time. but we know it certainly doesn't. So if you are like me and you love science and you want the evidence, those figures for the range of typical sleep needs come from the Sleep Health Foundation website.
There's a brilliant chart that they created. We use it all the time in Clinic to show parents. And I'll put a link in the show notes if you're keen to go and check that out. So, why do I want you to know about unique sleep needs? I think this is really, really important. And this might sound even a little bit surprising, but I would say that most sleep problems that we see across our clinics and in some Bell parents as well are caused by parents having been told that.
Their baby should be sleeping this particular amount of time. And those parents are then really trying to chase that. So we see a lot of parents saying, I know that my child's supposed to have a two hour nap. I know that they're supposed to sleep 12 hours overnight. And we're kind of like, whoa, where did you hear that? but when parents go chasing this idea that they've been taught is you know what their child needs, it leads to lots of problems. So
If we want to take a bit of an example, let's just imagine maybe your baby has a 12-hour sleep need. So sort of towards the lower end, but not super low. Maybe you've read that your baby at that age should be having, you know, 12 hours overnight, so 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. and four hours total day sleep. So that's 16 hours of sleep opportunity. and we see schedules like that online all the time. So you might have also seen something similarly ridiculous.
So if that parent of the 12-hour sleep-need baby is aiming for a 16-hour allowance, you know, or opportunity for their baby to sleep, what's gonna happen is that they're probably gonna spend hours in a dark room desperately trying to settle a baby who really does not need to sleep and doesn't want to sleep. We've got parents who are feeling increasingly depressed and anxious and like they're failing at everything they're doing with their baby, which is just an awful thing.
We've got babies that are unhappy and really frustrated and they might have an unmet need for stimulation, especially if they're those really active white-eyed babies. They often really want to learn and engage. But if we're trying to constantly settle them when they're not needing sleep, then they're not, you know, getting that opportunity for that engagement and stimulation. So that's where settling becomes really, really hard. Night waking increases through the roof.
and that's when parents go, my gosh, I just can't do this. I need that extra support. So believe it or not, it's what keeps us busy in clinic is actually a lot of the time it's just misinformation online where parents have got unrealistically high expectations for how much their baby can sleep or their toddler can sleep. so that's why I want you to understand this because I think it's incredibly powerful when you understand.
your child's unique sleep needs, you can really start to plan out a day that's gonna work well for them. It's gonna work well for you. No one's frustrated. Hopefully no one's depressed or anxious or spending a lot of time, you know, in a dark room trying to settle a cranky child. It's pretty powerful stuff. So I guess that's one of the key takeaways is if you're aiming for more sleep than what your baby or toddler needs, they are going to have really tricky settling
it can take literally hours. You know, we have parents saying, I try for three hours to get them to sleep at night. It's horrible. You're gonna have false starts, frequent night wakings, split nights, early rising. And sometimes we even see in these families what I've started to call a complete fragmentation of sleep. And this is a really shocking thing, but it's when essentially you look at the sleep diary and if you cover up the time scale on that diary, you can't actually tell the difference between day and night.
There's, you know, in a baby with pretty good sleep, you're gonna see most of their sleep falling at night time and then naps across the day. So you could look at that diary and you'll know where the day is and where the night is. But in a totally fragmented sleep diary, when you cover that time scale, there is no clear day or night. that child's sleep has become entirely fragmented. It's just little sporadic dribs and drabs of sleep right across the day and the night. that is in insanely exhausting.
J it's just not something any human is built to cope with. parents cannot cope with that. And that's what worries me is that it is when this happens that's when we see an increased risk for SIDS events happening because parents become so exhausted that they will, out of desperation, do things like sitting up in a armchair holding their baby to keep them asleep, or it might be sharing the bed, but having the baby on top of them the whole night while they're sleeping.
Or sleeping on a couch with their baby on top of them. And there's no judgment, no shade from me. But I think as parents, we need to understand that that is one of the most dangerous things we can do with our babies is having them sleeping on us when we're asleep. And I know a lot of parents will try to stay awake to keep it safer, but if you're that level of exhausted, you can't actually control your ability to stay awake. When your brain reaches peak sleep pressure, it will put you to sleep.
no matter how much you want to stay awake. So, another good reason why understanding unique sleep needs can just really help to keep babies safer as well, because we're keeping parents safer too, and better rested. the other thing I find too is the reason why I would work on unique sleep needs and really understanding those is you would have heard of people who say, I've tried settling my baby in the cot and it was a nightmare. They cried for hours, they
vomited, they got so hysterical, and often parents will say it was traumatizing for all of us. It was just an awful experience. And then they really put off ever trying that again. Understandably so. But so often in those cases, the daily rhythm hasn't been catering to the unique sleep needs. And we're trying to cotsettle a baby that's not tired enough, which is an impossible thing to do.
So again, another reason why working on unique sleep needs is really important. So, how do you do this and how should you do it? To cater to your child's unique sleep needs, for starters, what I would say is if you're listening in and you're a Sondell member, work through the chapter called Unique Sleep Needs. We gave it its own chapter because it is so important and we put it right near the beginning of the program because we want you to work through that unique sleep needs chapter.
work on your child's daily rhythm so you know it's really, really optimized for your child before you even think about changing anything about how your child settles for sleep. It's really important and there's really great guidance in that chapter. It's one of the chapters I think I've done more updates to than any other chapter in Sombelle because it is so important that we get it right. So when parents give us feedback or have asked questions where they're unsure.
it's really I've I've made sure I've sat down and gone where in this program can we make sure we you know increase parents' knowledge around this thing so that you really do have everything you need. If you're not a member, I would start by tracking your child's sleep, all their sleep, all their wakes, and start to get a sense of how much sleep your child averages. That's going to give you a sense of their unique sleep needs, and then you can start to really think about how to best structure the day and the night so that they meet those sleep needs.
Without offering, you know, too much opportunity for sleep that they may not need. all right. The other thing I want to touch on on this subject is you would have heard people talking about how when they worked on cot settling, their babies started sleeping a lot more. And this is really important to pick apart. For some families, this is true.
There are some babies and toddlers, when they learn how to sort of settle themselves off to sleep in their cot, they actually do increase their total sleep. But that's not the usual. They're a bit of an outlier. And, you know, very happy for you if that happens to you. That is amazing. What we find from the research, and there's a great study that looked at this, is that even when we work on cot settling and develop those self-settling skills, the total amount of sleep a baby or toddler will have.
Per 24 hours stays more or less the same. They found that on average there's maybe, I think it was about 17 or 18 minutes more sleep per 24 hours. So not even a whole sleep cycle. So there might be, you know, tiny little gains, but for a lot of people, there's there's just not. Their baby sleep is still the same per 24 hours. But this is really important to know: humans are terrible at perceiving their own sleep.
So this is why when people say they have sleep problems, you know, often part of looking at what the sleep problem is is having a sleep study done where, you know, you have an EEG, they look at brainwave activity, and it's very clear when someone is asleep or awake when we're looking at brainwave activity. And so often people are really surprised to find that they sleep more than they actually realize. and it's because we are very bad at perceiving how much we've actually slept.
The reason I'm telling you this is because your baby is probably not waking up as much. You've worked on cot settling, maybe they're even sleeping right through the night. And when your sleep is uninterrupted, you perceive it as being more sleep. Like I had a great night of sleep last night. I got so much sleep. When actually you might not have had more sleep than what you would have had if they woke up quite often. You just had sleep that was unbroken. And it's higher quality sleep. It often makes you feel much, much better.
So keep that in mind. If someone says, just work on COT settling, their total sleep will increase. Well, it probably won't. It'll probably stay very similar, but it will be better quality sleep. I think that's really important to know. And in any case, if you have worked on your child's unique sleep need, you've built in a great daily rhythm. Maybe you had a whole sleep plan where you worked on COT settling, you've had all these goals. If you meet all of those goals, you know, your child's having great nights, but you feel like
Maybe they could manage a bit more sleep, then just try adding it back in. And this is what we do with every family that we see. We always say, maybe, okay, you've had great sleep for a week, let's try adding 30 minutes more opportunity to your child's sleep schedule for a full week and actually see if they take it. And if they do take it and their total sleep average jumps up by 30 minutes, brilliant. That is fantastic. That's what we want to see.
But for a lot of them, it won't. They'll start to take longer to fall asleep at bedtime, or they might start to be more wakeful overnight. And what that tells us is that we can give them more opportunity for sleep, but they don't actually take it. And that's because they don't need it. They're getting enough sleep already. So if you try to add more and the wheels fall off, sleep gets really wobbly, you can just go back to your old daily rhythm. Things will generally get bock back on track again within a few days. and then you're often away again.
But always test that out. It's always a good idea to see if maybe your child can manage a bit more sleep. We definitely want to give them that chance. Some babies and toddlers do have a gradual increase in their total sleep need over time. Most of them don't. Most of them have a gradual decline, but we always are thinking about not what the average baby does. We want to make sure we're always giving advice that applies to the whole spectrum of different babies. So no one is, no one's left behind.
Yeah, so that's my little summary of unique sleep needs. And look, if this is resonating with you, if you're thinking, yeah, I something is definitely out of whack with my child's daily rhythm, you know, we're getting false starts, sleep nights, settling's really hard, all those things, I really encourage you to join Sombelle and focus in on that unique sleep needs chapter. Look at the daily rhythm charts, really start to get a sense of what you can.
What you can try, because when we optimize that daily rhythm, it is an absolute game changer. It really does just change everything. It means settling's easier and it really opens the door to settling. If that's your goal, you're very likely to have a much easier time of it when you have addressed your child's unique sleep needs. All right, I'm gonna take a big sip of tea because next up we're gonna dive into
more parent questions than I think we've ever done in a podcast episode. We have twenty questions to get through and they're all so good.
Okay. First up, let's start with Emma. And I should also begin by saying some of these people, some of these lovely parents, have waited a long time for answers to their questions. And I'm sorry if the moment has passed. we'll address it anyway. and if you've got further follow-up questions, please do send them in for the next episode. And I will be much more regular with these episodes over the coming months.
So Emma has a four-month-old baby and she's preparing to start the quick fade approach. Her baby currently feeds to sleep and relies on feeding for resettling about three or four times overnight. Emma would like to know whether she should first reduce the overnight feeds before beginning quick fade or if this can be addressed alongside cop settling. She's feeling overwhelmed by the idea of tackling both issues separately.
and is eager to start cot settling as soon as possible due to the frequent night waking and co-sleeping? This is such a great question. So this is only a four-month-old baby, so night feeds are still pretty normal at this age. But three to four feeds per night is kind of a lot for a four-month-old. Like often more typically it's around one to two feeds overnight at this age. Emma, I would say that the feeding and the cot settling really go hand in hand.
and I think you can work on them both at once. I wouldn't I wouldn't try to reduce feeds first. I think just just work on them together. And it could be as simple as saying, okay, I'm gonna do a maybe a maximum of three overnight feeds. Decide roughly what time you would offer those feeds. So when your baby wakes up, you just look at the clock and you go, yep, it's past 2 a.m. or whatever you've decided it should be. so I will feed this time. And then if she wakes at other times in the night and you know isn't due for a feed.
That's when you'll just work on resettling using that quick fade approach. So I would work on both at the same time. You could work on three overnight feeds maximum for a few nights and then drop it down to two overnight feeds maximum. Lots of four month olds can get down to just one overnight feed, but maybe just see how you're traveling and then see how your baby's going with that as well. I'm a big fan in parents really taking the lead on knowing when their babies are ready to reduce the overnight feeds. So,
Yeah, see how you go, Emma, see how you're feeling, but just give it a few days between dropping another feed so that your baby's body's got time to adapt and adjust and take more calories on during the daytime. fantastic and well done. It's going to be a game changer when you can put your baby down and you don't have to feed them off to sleep. Often that really helps to reduce the overnight wakes as well.
Jess wrote in, Jess has a Nelly six-month-old daughter with an approximately 13-hour sleep need. They previously attempted the quick fade cot settling approach, which worked initially but resulted in prolonged crying on subsequent nights. So they stopped. something's yeah, when if it's not getting easier, something's up.
Jess says, as they're about to introduce solids, she's wondering whether to delay restarting cot settling to avoid introducing two changes at once. She also asks whether her daughter is developing a preference for mum, as dad finds settling more difficult, and she wonders whether mastering cot settling will make it easier for other caregivers like Granny to put her to bed.
a hundred percent yes. When we work on cot settling, often babies are then very happy to settle for whoever goes to settle them. and you can tell granny or dad or anybody who's looking after your baby Jess exactly what you do. You know, do you how do you pat and do you shush or do you hum? You know, really show them what it is you do. And when they start to do the same things with your baby, your your daughter's gonna know that it is time for sleep.
I wouldn't worry about introducing solids that doesn't need to change the time course of when you work on cot settling. It doesn't really have much impact, not from my experience anyway. so I wouldn't be too worried about introducing those changes all at once. yeah, but mostly I think what I'd be thinking is if cot settling got harder over the first few nights, I think there's probably a sleep pressure problem there. So I would make sure, you know, she's got a 13-hour sleep need.
Pull up the 13-hour daily rhythm charts and find one that works or create your own and then really stick to it because it does sound like sleep pressure might have been a little low, and that's caused that crying to be quite substantial. So to give yourself the best shot, maybe spend a few days working on that daily rhythm before you dive back into cot settling. Good luck, Jess.
Okay, we have Philippa who says she joined the zero to three month program when her baby was a few weeks old but didn't complete it at the time. Her baby's now approaching six months of age and she's wondering whether she should continue with the zero to three month program or switch to the four to twelve month program. She also asks whether her baby falling asleep while feeding shortly after waking from a nap indicates she's still tired.
or simply relaxed, and whether she should wake her to protect the sleep budget or allow her to continue sleeping if she needs the extra rest. Excellent questions. the zero to three month program, those approaches are really designed for little babies. So the older program, the four to twelve month program, gives you more options in terms of approaches. It doesn't mean the zero to three month options won't work. they will, but
Yeah, sort of they're they're very gradual, very, very gradual. So if you're looking for faster progress, I think the four to twelve month program would be your best bet. yeah, you can read a bit about it online and kind of compare the two programs if you like, but I would say she's past the four month mark, you're likely to find more benefit from doing the program for the four to twelve month babies. falling asleep while feeding shortly after waking from a nap.
Look for a young baby, it doesn't necessarily mean that they're still tired. It probably is like you suggest, Philippa, that she's really relaxed, it's really nice, it's just very easy for them to nod off when they're really young during a feed. So if you are working on a daily rhythm, you've started to make some changes and you know that you should be waking her up to protect that sleep budget to make sure she doesn't overdo the day's sleep, absolutely wake her up.
and get on with the day so that she's not overdoing that day's sleep. and should you allow the c her to continue sleeping if she needs the extra rest. Look if she was unwell, I wouldn't change that daily rhythm. But if you have set up a daily rhythm that you're working towards, it's fine to just wake her up. Some parents will even do the feed once they wake up from sleep, somewhere really noisy with lots of stimulation. They might even put the tally on or something.
Just so that their babies are a little bit more alert and less likely to drift off. And that can really help you kind of get a bit of traction with the daily rhythm that you're working on.
Awesome. Next question is from I'm not sure if it's Ciara or Ciara because I have heard it pronounced a couple of different ways with this spelling. So I hope I've got it right. I'm gonna go, let's go with Ciara Okay. Ciara has a 10 and a half month old who previously achieved excellent night's sleep using the supported accelerated approach.
Her baby self-weaned overnight feeds and was sleeping right through from about six and a half months. After disruption from jet lag at seven and a half months, her baby now wakes one to three times per night, often within three hours of bedtime, with a long and difficult first wake and usually requires one breastfeed after 1 a.m. Her baby is otherwise settling well for sleep.
has appropriate solids intake, sleeps in her own room, in her own cot, and has an estimated 11 and a half hour sleep need. She naps for up to an hour and a half each day. Ciara is seeking advice on whether this is developmental, whether night weaning would help, and how to restore consolidated night sleep given upcoming return to work. Ciara, you've done so much of the hard work already and I think there's probably two things going on.
the first one is you're describing some false starts and split nights with that long first wake. And that tells me something's a little out of whack with that daily rhythm. so if there's an 11 and a half hour sleep need and she's napping for an hour and a half each day, make sure you're giving just a 10-hour opportunity for sleep overnight. That's going to keep that sleep pressure high, and it might even just resolve the overnight wake altogether. since that you know she can self-settle, she does have those skills. so that's the first thing I would look at.
The second thing, yeah, is the night weaning. I mean, I'd start with the timing changes and she might even drop that night feed all on her own accord. You certainly know she can go through the night without the feed because she was doing it months and months ago. I'd be tempted to eventually, when you're ready, work on dropping that night feed because there are definitely babies who find a night feed so motivating that for as long as there's one on offer, they just keep waking up for that night feed. And that could what could be happening for your baby.
So I hope that helps, Ciara. Good luck. Christine has a nine month old baby who recently co-slept and returned to feeding to settle overnight during a two week holiday in Bali. Bali sounds nice this time of year, Christine. I'm a bit envious. Christine says since returning home, he's been difficult to resettle after waking from around 2 a.m. unless he's breastfed, despite still self settling in the cod at bedtime.
Bedtime is 7 30 pm. Overnight sleep averages 10 to 11 hours, and he has two daytime naps of around 30 minutes and 60 minutes. Christine is wondering whether his nap should be shortened and if she should persist with COT settling during the early morning wakes instead of feeding him back to sleep. Yeah, so this is a great question to follow up after Kira's, because in this case I would say for Christine's baby.
it's the motivation to feed overnight that's probably causing those wakeups. So Christine's baby had this lovely two weeks where they were co-sleeping, feeding back to sleep, and they're pretty switched on at nine months. They remember and often parents will say, we got home and they just thought that that was the new normal. so I would say, you know, offer plenty of solid foods. If weight gains fine, you know, he's otherwise well, I would work on dropping that breastfeed and just resettling.
using whatever approach you originally used to work on COT settling, go back to that again. Or something like the supported accelerated would be fine since your baby can already self-settle. I don't know that I'd be shortening naps necessarily, but do check in on the total, you know, the unique sleep needs of your baby, Christine, and make sure you're really catering to those closely, just in case there is a bit of low sleep pressure that's come into play. Maybe they've had a drop in sleep needs since you travelled and
that's actually what's causing some of those wakes. so yeah, a couple of things to work on there. Good luck. Alrighty, now we have Jay. Jay says, What do you do when your baby is allergic to the portico? no. Jade says she's done all the things. They use the same sheet, the same comforter, dummies, the sleep sack, the white noise.
Her boy is nine months old and she says she's been practicing naps in the porter cot, which have gone fine, but she's tried the overnight and he woke up early after just three hours and screamed the house down. Jay says she could not resettle in the porter cot no matter what she tried. she said he usually sleeps for two one hour naps and from 7 p.m. to six a.m. with one feed or just no wakes at all.
she says we had a disaster on our last holiday, but thought now with all the right sleep foundations he'd be fine. We leave in four days and my anxiety is through the roof. Jay, you poor thing. And I'm sorry, because I'm sure you've you've probably been on holiday and you're already home by the time I've gotten around to answering your question. I hope it went well. What I would say is this: practicing in the portacot for day naps is enough, generally. Like generally it is. They get a bit of practice in there, they realize it's fine.
And then when we travel, their days are so much busier. Often they are run off their feet. Maybe they're seeing family or they're just somewhere new. They're so much more physically active that often they sleep pretty well in the Portacot overnight because they've just worn themselves out so much. Plus, you've done that work of doing a bit of practice for naps in the Portacot. So I hope it went well.
Yeah, gosh, send us through an update. I'd love to know how you went, Jay. I really hope that you got good overnight sleep so you could really enjoy that holiday. yeah. Alright, great, let's move on to Amber. Amber has a daughter who is turning 12 months old and has an average sleep need of about 12 and a half to 13 hours per 24 hours. She independently falls asleep at bedtime and her first nap using the quick fade approach.
She sleeps from around 7.30pm to about 6 or 6.15 a.m. and she has two to two and a half hours total day sleep across two naps. Amber says, however, her first nap only lasts one sleep cycle unless she is held, and the family currently holds her for the entire second nap to ensure adequate daytime sleep.
After a period of only one overnight feed, she experienced a developmental disruption around 12 months and began waking two or three times overnight, sometimes staying awake for up to one and a half hours unless she's held. While nights have improved, she continues to wake to breastfeed overnight and often wakes a second time before morning. She has also recently begun resisting naps despite seeming to still need two naps.
With four different caregivers following slightly different routines throughout the week, Amber's wondering whether the inconsistency between caregivers is contributing to the ongoing night wakings. What should be prioritised first and whether these challenges are likely developmental or related to sleep habits? Okay, there's a lot to unpack here. Alright, so what would I start with? What would I prioritize? Look, definitely the unique sleep needs.
Do a check-in in the last week. What has that average sleep need been? And when you say 12 and a half to 13 hours, what is it actually? Like average it out over seven days. Is it actually 12 and a half or is it 13? Because being really precise with this can actually make a really big difference. If you're adding, you know, 30 minutes too much sleep opportunity per day, sometimes that's enough for sensitive babies to be really, really wakeful. So really nail down exactly what that sleep average is like. And I want you to spend
Maybe even a whole week, just really sticking to that schedule and optimizing sleep pressure. Then I would be thinking.
I'd be thinking about, yeah, really bringing in some consistency to the settling. Because what you've described is sometimes she's held for naps to make them longer. Sometimes that can artificially inflate the total sleep requirements as well, because they're just kind of dozing in arms. you know, you've got different caregivers doing slightly different things. I would have a chat to all the caregivers and really come up with one approach that you're going to use for every single settle. And yeah, the first few days of
cot settling for naps probably won't go really well. She might just have two really short naps and be exhausted, but you're just still going to try and get her through to bedtime. You're going to show her circadian rhythm. Can't do that. You know, we've really got to try and have longer naps. I would just go all in on whatever cot settling approach you're going to use. Do it for every single settle and just know there will be some very, very tired and cranky days.
until she starts to extend out those naps, if she needs longer naps, that is, because sometimes we do this and we find out actually they don't. They didn't need it. so I think that consistency and settling approach is really key. It's going to mean that when she wakes up overnight, she finds herself in the cot, she knows how to fall asleep in the cot. Nothing's changed since she fell asleep at bedtime. She's really likely to have higher sleep pressure as well. So she should be able to get back to sleep much more easily. And I think you'll see a big improvement.
You could also look at dropping the night feeds at this age. You could also, I'd be thinking about maybe dropping to the one nap pretty soon too. Two to two and a half hours of day sleep just might be a little bit too too much as well. so it's a few things to think about there, Amber. good luck. I hope it goes well. Okay, let's move on to Megan. Megan has an 11 month old boy who sleeps in his own cot and room.
But is still fit to sleep at bedtime and for all overnight wakes. After improving his sleep by adjusting sleep pressure and daily rhythm, he's recently regressed to multiple false starts each night. There's three to four overnight wakes, and prolonged wakes between 2 to 4 am, where he will only stay asleep if held, waking within minutes of being transferred back to the cot.
He currently has around 10.5 hours of overnight sleep and one and a half hours of daytime sleep across two naps, but still seems very tired and difficult to wake from naps. With major surgery and an expected prolonged recovery approaching shortly after his first birthday, Megan is wondering whether it's worth attempting night weaning beforehand to allow her husband to help with overnight care, or whether feeding is likely to remain his main source of comfort during recovery.
She's also asking whether these concerns are suitable for a podcast discussion. And here we are. Or whether a 25-minute coaching call is best, or should they just wait until after recovery to do an appointment? This is such a good question, Megan. Look, without if we just take the surgery out of the equation for a moment and just sort of considering everything else you've said, sometimes we can try and increase sleep pressure all we want. We can optimize that daily rhythm.
And we just don't see a great change. And it's because, you know, some babies are so sensitive to how they fall asleep. You can have this sleep pressure through the roof, but if they're fed to sleep, their little internal alarm system, which does its systems check at the end of every sleep cycle overnight, is more sensitive than other babies. It doesn't care if sleep pressure's really high. It's like, hang on, where's mum? I need to feed. What happened? How did I get here?
it triggers them to wake up and call out. And it just doesn't matter how high sleep pressure is, they need to be able to fall asleep independently before they can have better sleep at night. I love these questions today because we're really seeing some really drastically different cases. So this is the thing with you, you know, every baby being unique. For some of them, you can feed to sleep, and if you optimize sleep pressure, their nights are brilliant. And for others, you can optimize sleep pressure all you want, but until you work on cot settling.
nights just remain terrible. And I'd say that's what you're getting, Megan, is you're getting, you know, you're trying to increase sleep pressure, but then you're still having these really terrible nights. So then he is really moody and probably pretty challenging to deal with. It's a really tricky cycle. But then we add into the equation the surgery. I would say that if you've got a month or so before surgery, I would work on COT settling.
But if it's less than a month, I probably wouldn't touch it and I'd relax the daily rhythm until he's back home and completely recovered and you've got the all clear to work on sleep again. I think you know, surgery makes things complicated. It is, it would be good to talk through things in a coaching call and really come up with a really clear plan. but I also think too, it's got to be led by you. If it feels like too much to work on this before surgery.
Just don't wait until surgery's done, relax the daily rhythm until after the surgery. And then when you've sort of got a clean slate to start from, you can dive in. And you'll probably make progress quite quickly at that point. So I hope that helps and all the best for the surgery. It's really tough when we're sending off our little ones, you know, into hospital to have procedures done. It is a really tough time. So really consider your own capacity there, Megan, and whether it's the right time or not.
Okay, question number nine. I'm doing my best. How am I doing? We're kind of powering through these. all right. So Catherine has a 28-month-old toddler who has an approximate 11 and a half hour sleep need, who has a one hour daytime nap, a 7 45 pm bedtime, and they wake at around 6 a.m. After previously learning to self settle in his bed using the parental fade out approach, he has spent the past three months.
protesting at bedtime. He's stalling with repeated requests and requiring a parent to lie on the floor while he falls asleep. He also wakes up one to two times overnight and comes into his parents' room, but will return to his own bed and fall asleep within five or ten minutes if a parent lies on the floor beside him. Catherine has already reattempted the parent fading approach and adjusted his daily rhythm, but this resulted in a lot of protests and emotions.
sounds like it's really tough, Catherine. so Catherine would like advice on how to help her strong-willed toddler regain the confidence to fall asleep independently and reduce his reliance on parental presence at bedtime and overnight. It's such a good question, Catherine. And we don't get enough toddler questions on the podcast, so I'm really excited to unpack this. great. All right, so what I'd be thinking about is
sometimes they cotton on to the parental fading approach and just decide, nope, I know what you're trying to do, mom or dad or or gran or whoever's settling them, and I'm just gonna have none of it because they are switched on, they're bright as button. and there's lots of factors we want to consider. So at some point, so this is a this child's two years and four months old, the things I'm thinking about are this. It may be that he's approaching the time to drop his nap.
So at bedtime, sleep pressure is just not high enough. So he's got all the energy in the world to faff about, make lots of demands, be a bit cheeky, have a bit of a think around whether it might be the right time to drop that nap. you can check the Sombelle chapter on dropping naps for the signs to look for. then I would also be thinking once you're really sure you've got the daily rhythm right, so maybe you do drop the nap for a week or so if you think it's needed.
Is this a child who's old enough to respond better to motivating factors? So it might be that the reward chart approach is better, that we move bedtime to the time when he's usually falling asleep as well. So we know, you know, you say he's averaging a falling asleep at maybe 8 p.m., not 745. Start to make bedtime 8 p.m. Really match his circadian rhythm with that point where it's falling asleep. And maybe it's bringing in the reward chart. So saying to him, maybe the first goal is
he can call out as much as he wants, but he's got to stay in his bed and not actually get out of bed. And if he can keep his bottom in his bed, then you know he gets this reward. Anyway, I'll let you work through that approach, Catherine. It's really detailed in lots of detail in Sombelle. Really important to just pick really little easy to achieve goals so we're not overwhelming him too quickly. But sometimes that's switched to a more motivating approach where we're appealing to their internal motivation if they're working towards a treat or a toy or something they really want.
can really help to establish a you know better bedtime behaviors. So there's a bit to unpack there. and yeah, toddlers can be tricky, but yeah, work I'll I would definitely check out that reward chart approach and have a think about whether it's easier just to drop the nap. Awesome. Question number 10, holy moly. Okay, we're getting there. Hopefully there'll be a few quicker ones coming up.
We have a question from Barbara. So Barbara is a couple of weeks into the program with her almost nine month old. Since starting COT settling, his night's sleep initially improved dramatically with six to eight hour stretches after previously waking four to eight times overnight. That's a big change. Well done. She says, but this week he started waking twice overnight again, despite getting less than two hours of daytime sleep and appearing very tired.
His estimated total sleep need has dropped from around 12 hours to 10.5 hours, though he has previously averaged closer to 11.5 hours. Barbara is wondering whether they may have reduced daytime sleep too much, or whether the night wakings are more likely related to feeding to sleep associations returning. She also asks about breastfeeding before sleep, as her baby often falls asleep feeding despite attempts to keep him awake for cot settling. She finds this especially difficult when trying to reach the next nap or bedtime.
She wonders whether it's more important to focus on total daytime sleep rather than rigid wake windows and how best to manage a baby who consistently falls asleep while feeding. Barbara, 100% that re-emergence of night waking is because you're feeding back to sleep during the night or there's occasional feeds to sleep at bedtime. So if you've worked on, you know, you've you've been working on some self-settling, it's gone really well, but now you're occasionally feeding to sleep. For a lot of babies, they just go, well, if sometimes I can feed to sleep, that's now
The only way I'm gonna fall asleep. So we see them start to wake and call out more and more often. I would move the bedtime feed much earlier, it might be 20 or 30 minutes earlier than it is currently, and do it somewhere bright, you know, maybe the tallies on in the background or some music's playing, and then start your bedtime routine so your baby's going into their cot awake. I would also consider maybe switching to just a very loose feed, play, sleep, repeat,
Type of routine that repeats across the day. So you're not feeding right before the next nap. That can really help to reduce the odds of falling asleep during a feed. Yeah, that should help a lot, but good luck, Barbara, and do reach out if you need more support. Emma has a 16-week-old baby with approximately a 14 and a half hour sleep need. They self-settle independently for all sleeps.
His current routine is 7:30 p.m. bedtime, 7 a.m. wake up with one overnight feed between 4:30 and 5:30 a.m. He's awake for this, usually for around 30 minutes, and there's three naps for about an hour, two hours and 30 minutes. Emma's wondering if he's ready to drop the overnight feed, given that his weight gain is fine, and she wonders how she should adjust his daily, his daytime sleep to support an uninterrupted 11.5 hour overnight sleep.
She's found that four shorter naps resulted in more overnight waking despite the same total daytime sleep, and is seeking guidance on whether to keep the overnight feed for now. And if so, when would be a more appropriate age to phase it out? Emma, it's brilliant that your baby's just having the one overnight feed, and given they're 16 weeks old, they need it for a little bit longer.
So I would keep it for now. You might even try and put them back down awake after the overnight feed. Some parents really want to do that just so that they're only ever falling asleep in their cot. and when they're six months old, they've started solids, then I would go ahead with dropping that feed when you're ready. There's also a chance your baby will just drop that final feed on their own accord when they're ready. And that might even happen before six months of age. So if that happens, that's fine.
But generally we don't try to drop the final feed until after six months. And then we check, you know, weight gain's fine and that they're really ready for it. So yeah, enjoy that sleep, Emma, because that sounds like a pretty a pretty good place to be for a 16-week old baby. that's really fantastic. You're doing all the right things. All right, Kimberly has a nine-month-old baby who has around an 11 and a half hour sleep need.
who follows a set routine of two naps totalling one and a half hours, an 8 p.m. bedtime and a 6 a.m. wake-up. Kimberly says her daughter self-settles independently for naps and at bedtime, but wakes three or four times overnight, usually requiring feeding or padding in the cot to resettle. Kimberly finds her very difficult to wake from her naps with prolonged crying afterwards, a tendency to fall back asleep during feeds or in the pram or car, and increased clinginess throughout her wake windows.
She is wondering whether this suggests her sleep timing or total sleep allocation is incorrect, whether she should allow longer naps with a later bedtime or earlier wake-up, and how to improve her daytime mood while reducing the frequent overnight wakings, particularly as she prefers to avoid approaches that involve crying due to her two older children. Alright, I would first up be looking at what the length of a sleep cycle is for your baby, Kimberly.
So at nine months of age, often they're sitting on around about a 40-minute sleep cycle, sometimes 45 minutes. You're doing an hour and a half total day sleep across two naps, which doesn't necessarily neatly fit. If they're doing, say, one hour in the morning and 30 minutes in the afternoon, you'd be waking them up before they've completed a sleep cycle, and that can lead to that really prolonged crankiness.
So it might be that it's, you know, if their sleep cycle is 40 minutes, maybe you're doing two 40-minute naps instead, or if it's 45 minutes, two 45-minute naps. That could make a massive difference to daytime mood. So do check that the nap lengths are kind of in alignment with the length of the sleep cycle. So you're never waking them up before they've finished their sleep cycle. If they're needing feeding or padding in the cot to resettle, I think that's probably where I'd spend some time working on it.
So adjust that daily rhythm to so that the naps are the the length of a sleep cycle. yeah, and I would go all in with making sure every resettle overnight is in the cot and using that exact same approach. Because I would say within a few nights they'll just start to resettle themselves without needing your support. and then often that just really helps everything. They fall into a better rhythm, their nights improve, and then they're less likely to nod off or be cranky in the daytime because they're getting better quality night's sleep.
and you might just find it then they fall into hopefully a really lovely groove at that point. good luck, Kimberly, and do reach out if you want to talk that through. Kelly has a 16-month-old toddler with low sleep needs who's sleeping through the night on a routine that appears to work well. She wakes at about 7.15 a.m., has one nap from about 11.30 to 12.45, and then stays awake until 9.30pm bedtime.
This results in a relatively short morning wake window of around four hours, followed by a very long afternoon wake window of nearly nine hours. Callie is wondering whether this unusual daily rhythm should be left alone since it's working, or whether she should aim for more balanced wake windows by shifting the nap later. Callie, I wouldn't touch it. I would leave it exactly as it is. If it works, it works. And that's where.
You know, this is a perfect example. If Callie had been listening to too many people on Instagram who would be saying, no, they need a you know, this nap at this time and in bed by this time and all that sort of thing. well then Callie's toddler would probably have atrocious sleep. Callie, you have really recognised what your toddler needs and you're seeing that it's working really well for them. So I wouldn't change anything at all. if you notice the wheels are falling off, well then you can adjust it at that point. But for now, I would say
you're doing really well, so why change it? Okay, Bella has a 16-month-old who's been waking every one to two hours overnight for over a year. Bella, you poor thing. She says they currently co-sleep and breastfeed, and Bella would like to wean the breastfeeds and transition her to her own bed in the parent bedroom.
But she's wondering whether it's better to have her toddler sleep in her own room to reduce overnight wakings and minimize disturbances, or whether she's likely to sleep well in her own bed alongside the parental bed. This is a million-dollar question and a tricky one to answer. Generally, I would say it's best if they're in their own room. When they know that you're nearby, they just think, well, you're right there. Do something to make me fall asleep. So if you're trying to stop the breastfeeding to sleep or reduce overnight feeds,
gonna be pretty tricky because you're right there. It might be better to have her in her own room and have the non-breastfeeding parent go and do a lot of the settling and help her with that transition to her own space. Generally I see that working best but there are exceptions. If you really think she will be better being in your room, try it. And if it doesn't go well you can always rejig things, move the cot out and work on the sleep in her own room.
good luck with that, Bella. lots of changes for you, but yeah, you're gonna get your bed back, you're gonna get your boobs back, and hopefully you'll be, yeah, well rested and it will be will be worth the hard work. All right, question 15 is from Chelsea. Chelsea has a seven-month-old who recently started the Sombelle program. After establishing his daily rhythm, his night wakings reduce from 10 to 15 wake-ups. my goodness, to just a few.
Plus just two feeds overnight. Chelsea, that is massive. You must feel so much better. Chelsea is now deciding which cot settling method to use, so she believes he still relies heavily on parent assistance to fall asleep. Her baby has a 13 hour total sleep need, gets around 10 to 10.5 hours overnight, and two and a half hours of day sleep. Because of his history of frequent night wakings, he has struggled to stay awake for more than two and a half hours, though this is gradually improving.
She is wondering whether three hours awake before bedtime provides enough sleep pressure or whether she should be aiming for a longer wake window at this age. a seven-month-old, I would say at least three hours. I'd even be trying for three and a half hours awake before bedtime. That typically, I mean, this is just typical, so everybody's different, but at around about seven months, I would say three and a half hours awake before bed is pretty good, or even longer to answer that question. In terms of
cot settling method. You're right. You've done all you can by kind of optimizing that daily rhythm. It's now going to be time to work on how they're falling asleep. look, I think read through the approaches, but importantly read through the case studies. When you hear about how other families have impl implemented a an approach, it can really help to to really kind of imagine yourself in their shoes and
I feel like for most parents, once they do that, there's a particular approach that just seems to resonate best for them. Then of course you can look through the different modifications, maybe apply some of those for your baby if you feel like they're gonna help to kind of ease the the progress along the way. yeah, well done Chelsea. You've come so far and you're you're so close. So go for it. It's gonna be gonna be brilliant.
Okay, Carrie is currently tracking the sleep of her almost five month old to determine her unique sleep needs. She's noticed that her baby sometimes stirs overnight for five to fifteen minutes, rubs her face, sucks her fingers, thumps her legs, briefly opens her eyes, sometimes let out a few little cries, but then resettles herself on her own. She's wondering whether these episodes should be recorded as night wakings in her sleep tracker and whether this type of overnight stirring is likely to become less noticeable as her baby gets older.
Yes, it is. That is your baby really practicing soothing themselves back to sleep. They've woken up, they've gone, I'm not hungry, I don't really need anybody's help. And they're using some of those very classic things, the sucking the hands, the leg thumping, to soothe themselves back off to sleep. And it does get quieter as they get older, so it won't always be quite so noisy. I wouldn't count them as night wakes in the sleep tracker unless they're really long and your baby is very obviously awake.
Simply because often in these sort of periods of time where they're resettling, they're kind of in the lighter stages of sleep a lot of that time. anyway. So I would only really count the night wakes where you've got to get up and go and do something because they're really awake. amazing. Then we have Freya who has a six-month-old. Freya has been using the slow fade approach for the past two months. Her baby sleep is improved with four to five hour stretches at the start of the night.
And a reduction from three overnight feeds to two. However, after the second overnight feed at about 4 to 6 a.m., he's very unsettled and requires frequent resettling every 5 to 20 minutes until his 7am wake-up time, with occasional co-sleeping to get through the early morning. His estimated sleep need has reduced from 13.5 to 14 hours to around 12.5 to 13.5 hours as they've worked on increasing sleep pressure.
They've recently adjusted his schedule to 7.30pm to 7am overnight with three naps. They've got two one hour naps and a 30 minute cat nap. They're seeking advice on how to extend that final sleep stretch until 7am. They also ask about transitioning him into his own nursery. They've already phased out padding but still use shoshing, and if he remains upset after 5 minutes, they're doing a pickup for a couple of minutes before returning him to the cot.
They would like advice on whether they should move him into his own room before phasing out the shushing or vice versa, and whether continuing the brief pickup is appropriate during this transition. yeah, the pickup is fine. you might like to just gradually wait a little longer because he's going to get better and better at resettling himself over time. but there's a lot to unpack in this question. I would nail down that total sleep need. So at six months, often they have a
reduction in sleep need. So it sounds like he's might be slowly declining. Try to figure out exactly what he's averaging and then be really firm with that schedule to really ensure we've got the sleep pressure there until morning. It does sound like sleep pressure's really low in those early hours because even with lots of support and co-sleeping, he's really wakeful, not able to really do a full sleep cycle. He's just dozing for five minutes or so and then waking again. So probably is something off with that daily rhythm.
I'd be tempted to move into his own room. Sometimes when they are really close by, they hear us, we hear them, and then that wakefulness just keeps going. could be worth trying it, trying a different room, seeing if that helps. And you can phase out your shushing from that room. usually shushing can be phased out pretty quickly. and it's probably worth doing. Maybe he's, you know, sort of waking up thinking, well, why aren't you shushing anymore? so when we phase that out, he's less likely to really need it to get back to sleep.
But you've done really well, Freya. Well done. and good luck over the next couple of weeks. Okay, next up, question 18, we have Natalie. Natalie has a 14-month-old with an 11-hour total sleep needs. They sleep from 8 30 pm to 6 a.m. with two 45-minute naps. He settles independently for all sleeps. After working through the program, listening to the podcasts, they reduce the overnight wakes from every 45 to 60 minutes.
To around one wake per night, and after dropping night feeds and breastfeeding to sleep, he even slept through the night on multiple occasions. But over the past two weeks he started having longer episodes of crying overnight. These used to last for just a few seconds before he would resettle himself, but now they continue until the parent replaces his dummy, after which he settles immediately. He usually replaces the dummy himself and often sleeps without it.
Natalie is wondering whether this change could be related to night terrors, being ready to transition to one nap or something else, and would like some advice. Look, probably not night terrors unless they're happening really early in the night and he seems really quite unresponsive to your attempts to soothe him. It doesn't sound like that's the case. he's 14 months old, so my money is on him needing to drop to one nap, and he's looking for that dummy more lately because he's really needing.
Sleep pressure's low. That second nap's taken the edge off his nighttime sleep pressure. And when sleep pressure's low, they often go looking for extra comfort to get back to sleep. And I think that's why he's seeking out the dummy Natalie. so yeah, I'd make the move to one nap. and I think that will probably fix everything. And maybe it'll be really nice to just have one, one sort of hour and a half nap in the middle of the day might give you a bit bit more of a a longer break as well, Natalie.
Awesome. Question 19 is from Sarah, who has a 15-month old with low sleep needs who recently transitioned to one nap. Historically, every nap transition has significantly improved his overnight sleep. However, since dropping to one nap, he is now sleeping around 11 and a half hours total. So he does 9 p.m. to 7am and he has a one and a half hour nap.
But he started waking three or four times overnight, despite previously having just one brief feed at around 4am. Sarah believes the night waking is due to insufficient sleep pressure and is confident her son now needs less total sleep, but she is unsure how much sleep to reduce and whether to reduce it from the daytime nap or overnight sleep. She notes that she has always needed to cap naps and wake him in the morning to prevent split nights and suspects he has a late chronotype.
With a possible genetic predisposition through his father. this is so interesting. We should do do an episode on chronotites at some point. her question is when reducing total sleep to increase sleep pressure in a low sleep needs toddler, how much should you reduce initially? And is it generally better to reduce daytime sleep or overnight sleep first? This is a great question.
Sarah definitely track sleep and really peg down if you think he's had a drop in sleep needs, what is he sitting on at the moment? that's gonna guide you on everything. When you're trimming sleep, look, generally over time children drop day sleep, so day sleep reduces. So I'd probably be inclined, you know, generally I would be dropping it from the day, but that's not for every single toddler or baby either.
I think you've got to look at when they're sort of most tired and cranky and what's gonna feel most manageable. Yeah, so that's what I would be thinking that yeah, if you're gonna reduce it, reduce it from the daytime. and then I would be working in increments of the sleep cycle length. So I think yeah, at the moment he's having an hour and a half total day sleep. If you think he needs less day sleep.
drop it down to just one sleep cycle, which might be sort of 45 minutes, could even be 50 minutes at his age. Yeah, and then just see how that goes. But I love that you're really thinking about unique sleep needs, Sarah, because you've got that history of split nights. You really know the importance of keeping on top yeah of the unique sleep needs. So well done. All right, lucky last question number 20 is from Sage who has a five month old who has recently started the Sombelle program.
She's already seeing significant improvements in sleep. Her daughter is able to settle independently in the cot using the supported accelerated approach, usually within five minutes. Her question is about cot settling for a baby who rolls onto her tummy. When placed on her back, her daughter immediately rolls onto her belly as soon as Sage removes her hands. She's wondering whether during the one-minute wait between intervals,
She should roll her back onto her back each time before continuing or leave her on her tummy and continue the settling there. She's noticed that returning her to her back upsets her more and seems to delay settling, but is mindful of the recommendation to put babies on their back for sleep. So she wants to know: should she continue returning her to her back, even though her daughter always rolls onto her tummy and ultimately falls asleep in that position? Okay, so if she can roll both ways.
then you can leave her how she is. That's the current red nose recommendation for reducing the risk of seeds. If they are confident rolling both ways, often they just find a sleep position that they prefer and there's nothing we can do. you can put it down like definitely put it down on her back for sleep, but if she's just rolling over and she can roll both ways, it's fine to just leave her like that. But you really want to make sure all other
factors are kind of addressed. So nothing loose in that cot, no toys or anything in there. Like really go through the red nose safe sleep guidelines and make sure you're addressing everything else. but yeah, I think a few years ago, people started to realise that, you know, if you've got a baby who's decided that they're gonna sleep on their front and they can confidently roll both ways, there's very little you can realistically do about it.
Except for just making sure that cot is super safe and clear of anything that could obstruct their airway. amazing. Thank you to those amazing 20 Sombelle parents who sent in these fantastic questions. They are so good. And my apologies, you had to wait so long for an answer, but I hope those answers are really, really helpful. we also got some really lovely feedback from Fiona that I want to read out quickly. this email just
means the world to me. It was so lovely. She said, I just want to say thank you with absolutely all of myself. My family are the beneficiaries of your amazing, clear, and empathetic expertise. I'm a first-time mum and the first six months of my baby's life was astonishingly hard. I would sometimes get an aggregate of 90 minutes sleep in a 24 hour period. my goodness. And she says that was in snippets of 20 minutes or so at a time.
She says I would spend literally hours trying to resettle my baby during the day for his naps because everything I was previously told said he should have been linking sleep cycles. it's so relevant to today's episode content. Fiona says, long story short, I was barely coping and very distressed. Then I found Sombelle. I subscribed to the four to twelve month program and read every word bookmarking the key take homes. It changed everything.
Within four days of making changes, my son slept through the night for the first time and he hasn't stopped since. that gives me cold shivers. She says we do no settling whatsoever for his naps or his overnight sleep. We just tell him we love him and pop him in his cot and he takes care of the rest. What you did for me and my family saved my mental health, put less strain on my marriage, and allowed me to be the present, patient,
energized mum I want to be for my little boy. He is also such a happy, curious and settled little boy now that he gets good sleep. He often even tells me when he feels tired and needs to go to bed. I just don't know what to say other than that you changed my life and I will be forever grateful. You gave me critical knowledge and skills and empowered me to make all of our lives better. I recommend your programs to absolutely anybody who will listen because I know what you can do for people.
I'm sorry it took me this long to get around to such an important message of appreciation, but thank you from the absolute bottom of my heart. You saved me. my gosh. That makes me really teary. Whew! I've already cried in a podcast episode. We can't do it twice. Thank you so much, Fiona. That is that is amazing. And I think that's why I kind of I personally set out on this journey and wanted to work in the sleep space because I really believe that
Have babies are little for such a short time, and it can be the most precious time in your life raising a little baby, but it can also be the most challenging and devastating. And I think if my life's work is helping parents to, as many parents as possible, experience real joy in their babies and to not miss out on all that joy that that first year can bring, then
Like what a what a thing to do. And it's an absolute honor to do this work. I it is an honor. And I thank all of you listeners and our Sombelle members and the parents who come to clinic for trusting us to help you with your little ones. what a privilege to do that work. Anyway, getting too emotional. If you need help with sleep and settling, you know where to find us. We've got the programs, we've got the clinics and all of that.
If you love today's episode, please share it with a tired parent who just might need to hear all of this about unique sleep needs. Please leave a review. It makes a big difference to how many families we're able to reach. And on that note, what might be a record-breakingly long podcast episode, I will bid you farewell, take good care of yourself, and I'll see you next time.
