Fallon (00:37)
There are three core factors that influence nighttime sleep in babies and toddlers. With some babies and toddlers, you can address one or two of the three factors, and sleep will just come together beautifully. But for families who struggle with their little ones' sleep, it can be crucial to ensure that all three factors are addressed at the same time. If you leave one unaddressed, then progress might be very slow or non-existent.
Or you might see a temporary improvement before it all falls apart and you're back at square one and probably more tired than when you first started. If you've been on this yo-yo of like one step forward and two steps back, then this episode is going to help you identify which factor you need to address to finally bring sleep together.
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. Wow, this episode I feel like it's been simmering away in the back of my mind for a few weeks now. and is very much, you know, the content is kind of guided by a lot of the families that I've seen in clinic
lately.
if you've tried to get an appointment with me, you'll know that it's been very, very busy the last little while. so you know, whenever I'm in an appointment with someone, I'm always thinking through these three core factors. And any good sleep plan is going to have something in there addressing each of the three core factors as well. So I'm gonna talk you through these, and I as I go through them, I want you to really be thinking about your baby or toddler.
And how these three factors might apply to them. Because there's always an answer. Somewhere in these three factors, there's going to be an answer. what I would remind you of first is we have to rule out potential medical factors or physiological factors that can be impacting sleep. so you know, if your child is unwell, if they've got you know, persistent snoring, noisy breathing during sleep, if there's eczema that's not resolved,
What else are we looking at? Mucus or blood in their poo, signs like that or other major illnesses, then those factors may need to be addressed before you can expect to improve sleep. And I'd also keep in mind that this advice is mostly focused on babies that are four months or older. Because of course night feeds in particular are normal for at least the first six months.
So here are the three factors. Then I'm going to break them down one by one. So the first factor is how they fall asleep. The second factor is their sleep pressure. And the third factor is their overnight feeds, or for older toddlers, other motivating factors. So let's dive into factor one, which is how they fall asleep. So an example of where this one might not have been addressed could be
Let's imagine we've got a baby or toddler where their parents worked really hard on sleep pressure. So they they feel like sleep pressure overnight is is addressed and going along really well. Maybe they've even worked on dropping all overnight feeds. But this baby or toddler still needs parent help to fall asleep. So for this baby, that night waking is continuing because they're needing help to fall asleep. And no matter how high their sleep pressure is, and even though they're no longer expecting overnight feeds,
They are still waking up in the night multiple times, kind of going, what happened? How'd I get in my cot? Where did mum or dad go? They're still relying on that help to fall asleep. I always say to parents, really think about what your child is expecting during the night. So obviously, for some babies and toddlers, it might be something as obvious as feeding to sleep or being held to sleep.
So when their child naturally rouses in the nighttime, they spring awake and kind of go, my gosh, I was in mum or dad's arms and now suddenly I'm in my cot. That can be really confusing for them. But for some babies and toddlers, it can be really little factors. It could be that you were just present in the room. So maybe they self-settle, but you're still sitting in the room and overnight they're waking up and thinking, Where'd they go? Get back in here. You should be sitting over there on that chair.
Sometimes it's just a little thing like that that we need to phase out. you know, in some circumstances, it's that there's music playing when they fall asleep at the start of the night that's no longer playing during the night and they're waking up because they want that music to continue. So really have a think about what is happening when they fall asleep. And are they waking up because they're expecting that to still be present during the night? So this is a pretty common one, I would say. And look, a lot of sleep advice really just focuses on self-settling and
Babies and toddlers just not needing any help to fall asleep. But you still have to address the other factors to really see sleep come together. So have a little think right now. You know, is your child relying on some sort of support to fall asleep that's no longer there overnight? And is that part of the equation? let's move on to factor number two. Factor number two is sleep pressure. And I would say this is the factor that is most commonly not addressed.
And is causing night wakes to be really persistent and go on and on. there's a lot of parents online who I see who say, we just tried everything with sleep, absolutely nothing worked. We tried the self-settling, we dropped all the night feeds, sleep still didn't come together. And so often it is because sleep pressure hasn't been properly addressed. A lot of the really low sleep needs babies and toddlers definitely fall into this category because their parents are quite surprised by.
How little sleep they actually need. Often they're really, they may might even be in that overtiredness trap where the parents have really believed that they need to avoid overtiredness. So they're offering their child lots and lots of opportunity to sleep, but that can be wildly out of balance with how much sleep that baby or toddler genuinely needs to meet their unique sleep needs. So yeah, this is a good example, and I see this all the time, is a baby or toddler comes into clinic.
They can self-settle. They often do it for naps and bedtime really, really well, put themselves off to sleep, no problem at all. They don't have any feeds overnight. Parents have been really good at kind of like dropping off any kind of motivating factors overnight. But parents will often say they wake up in the middle of the night for like an hour at a time. So they have this split night sort of thing. Or they have false starts. And often what that leads to is that child has that low sleep pressure in the night.
And of course they go looking for extra supports to try and get back to sleep. And that's sometimes when self-settling starts to to fizzle out and go downhill again and they start to lose that skill. And I really commonly see this after parents have been to an early parenting center or sleep school, as parents often call them. those sleep schools are very good at working on self-settling skills and sometimes they also work on dropping night feeds as well.
but I often hear from parents that there wasn't work done on that daily rhythm and catering specifically to their child's unique sleep needs. So often that's it's so disappointing. It's this one little piece of the puzzle that's not addressed. And those families sometimes come home from sleep school, and a week later, all this amazing progress they've made has fallen away because sleep pressure was so low overnight that the skills and the approaches they learnt for settling just don't.
work anymore because their baby has really overdone the sleep for a week and now they're gonna undershoot that mark before they kind of overshoot it again. So so they're sort of they're chewing and froing. They're having a bit too much sleep and then a bit too little. They're not really sitting at that that midpoint of the their sleep need that they actually have. So that is a really, really common one. And anyone who's listened to this podcast for a while will be sick of hearing me say, sounds like sleep pressure's too low.
It is really, really common. And that's what we see when we've had for gosh, probably a decade now of parents being told, don't let your child become overtired, it makes their nights worse. It's terrible misinformation and has led to so many parents really trying desperately to have their children sleep more. And then of course we see the sleep pressure get too low and yeah, things get very wobbly from that point. So that's our second factor, sleep.
Pressure. Let's move on to the third factor, which is a bit of an interesting one. Maybe a bit of a less common problem that I'd tend to see. But this is the third factor is the night feeds. But for toddlers, it's also other motivating factors. So an example of what this could look like, it could be that you have, let's just imagine it's a toddler, they self-settle, they absolutely know how to put themselves off to sleep, so they're not looking for lots and lots of hands-on help through the night.
they've got maybe a great daily rhythm that really meets their unique sleep needs and sleep pressure overnight is nice and high, but their child is expecting milk feeds during the night, or if they've dropped the milk feeds, for some toddlers they're expecting a snack, or there's another motivating factor, like it could be they know that dad's gonna come and co-sleep in their bed from 3 a.m. or maybe they're gonna move into the parent bed part way through the night.
So it's sort of night feeds and other motivating factors. You can have a baby or a toddler who knows how to self-settle, who has a great daily rhythm, but if there's something exciting and enticing enough happening overnight, they will still wake up really wanting that thing to happen. I would say this is more relevant to older babies because often with younger, sorry, older toddlers, often with the babies, if we address
Self-settling and sleep pressure, they'll just naturally start to reduce their overnight feeds when they're ready. but yeah, definitely we see this a bit in the toddlers. If there's something that motivates them to wake, they think something interesting enough will happen, they will just keep waking. So have a think through those three factors. If you have had a bit of a tenuous relationship with sleep, if it's been
you know, you make a little bit of progress and then suddenly something comes along and derails it or it's just not quite coming together, especially if you've worked on self-settling, but it just doesn't seem sticky, then it's gonna be, you know, the answer is in one of these three factors. And I really hope that this episode helps you identify what that factor is, because that's groundbreaking. Once you figure out the missing piece of the puzzle, you know where to really devote your energy towards.
so if you are a Sombelle member, you already know that our sleep and settling action plan that's provided with your membership already guides you through all three of these factors. It probably wasn't a big surprise listening to this episode. but that that sleep and settling action plan allows you to really come up with an approach that addresses those three factors that is completely fitted to your
very unique little baby and your own preferences as well. So if you're a Sombelle member, go through that plan and really think about whether you've got each of those factors addressed appropriately. If you're not a member, then Sombelle is the program that covers all three of those core bases. So much other advice just looks only at settling or, you know, only at dropping night feeds or only at sleep pressure. But Sombelle really addresses all of them because we want you to have
Progress that sticks. We hope that you never see us again because you're on your way and sleep is solved. That's always our pro our our goal and what we're really aiming towards. So if you're needing that support, of course, you know where we are. Also, sometimes sleep is so complicated. You know, we see a lot of very unusual cases and really challenging, tricky, complex cases as well.
So if you have had a go at working through your sleep plan and you just feel like something's missing, it's not coming together, please book a coaching call. Often it just helps so much to really sit down together and nut out what it is we need to change. Makes all the difference for progress. And like I said earlier, medical factors can really play a role. So if your child's snoring, noisy breathing, eczema, blood or mucus in their poo, other health conditions.
Those things really need to be addressed before you go and address those other three factors. Have a chat to your GP. they will have some advice for you on managing those other factors. and if things are a bit complicated in terms of health, working one-on-one with someone is definitely a good idea because we can kind of take into account symptoms that your child might have that need to be managed. All right, I really hope that was helpful.
I think now let's dive into some parent questions. And of course, there's lots of instances in these questions where I was thinking, that's the factor that this parent needs to work on. So we might be able to kind of put that knowledge into practice with these questions. I think we've got eight questions today, so a really good number. Okay, let's start with Alicia. Alicia has an eight-month-old daughter who was previously feeding to sleep, co-sleeping.
Contact napping and waking six or seven times overnight with regular false starts. my gosh, yep, that's that's exhausting, Alicia, you poor thing. Alicia says since starting Sombelle six weeks ago, adjusting her daily rhythm for a 12-hour sleep need and using the quick fade approach, she now sleeps independently in her cot and initially slept through or woke up only once. However, she says she's now experiencing
A repeating pattern of six or seven good nights, followed by seven or eight nights of multiple wakes coinciding with developmental changes and teething. Alicia would like to know whether this is normal developmental variation, separation anxiety, or whether the daily rhythm needs adjusting again. She also wonders whether her falling asleep quickly in the car suggests a higher sleep need and is seeking advice on managing cot settling now that her daughter sits up when placed down.
which can make settling take 20 to 25 minutes. And finally should like guidance on transitioning her daughter from their bedroom into her own room and whether there is an ideal age or appropriate or approach rather for doing this. Okay, there's a lot to unpack here. So look, when there are when there's teething, just use pain relief to address the pain. And usually you can just carry on as usual with your sleep plan.
I would be making sure with the quick fade approach, I see a lot of parents who work on padding and shushing all the way to sleep in the cot, but never quite phase it out. So their babies still expect to be padded and shushed back to sleep multiple times overnight. So make sure you get to that point where you can pop them down, say goodnight, wander away, and they just know what to do. That is when you'll see a really permanent reduction in the overnight wake-ups.
In terms of the sitting up in the cot, it is a really tricky phase, but thankfully Alicia often resolves in, I would say generally a week. And the trick with that is if she sits up, just hold your horses. Let her sit for 30 seconds or a minute or so. She'll probably start getting a little bit frustrated and thinking, what am I going to do now? I'm sitting up and I don't know how to get back down again yet. Let her feel a little bit of frustration and then after that minute or so, wander back over, lay her down once.
and then if you're at a point where you are able to wander away and just see what she does, then do that and and see what happens. What we don't want to do is hover over the cot and keep laying her back down constantly because often they realise, as long as I sit up, you know, mum will do something to lie me down again. And it's a bit of a jack in the box scenario there. so yeah, definitely be just holding your horses if she does sit up, letting her feel a little bit frustrated and then lay her back down again.
look, I think these ups and downs are are really, really normal. I would keep an eye on her total sleep needs. if she's really, really super wakeful for a whole week and then sleeps better, it makes me wonder if she's overshooting the mark with her daily rhythm. Maybe one week she does a little bit extra sleep, the next week she under under shoots the mark. What we want to do is try and kind of get her to a similar amount of sleep every day so that there's nice predictability to her daily rhythm.
when to move it into our own room. Look, it might be a good idea to do it now, anytime from six months onwards, is is fine, especially when there is a bit of night waking. Often parents find when they move their child's cot into their own room, there's much less waking because we don't realize how often they wake up because we've shuffled around in bed and we often don't realise how often we're woken up because of the little grumbly noises that they make. and often when they're really close to our bed.
when they wake up overnight, we're very quick to reach over and do something. And that can get in the way of them learning how to get themselves back to sleep. Whereas if they're in another room and you hear them make a few little grumbles and drizzles, it's a bit easier just to wait and kind of listen. Like do they really need me or are they, you know, about to put themselves back to sleep again? so yeah, there's a few things there to consider, Alicia. Also falling asleep quickly in the car doesn't mean that you know, she's sleep deprived or anything like that or you haven't got the sleep needs right.
It's just a lovely place to fall asleep. And even a really well-rested baby will often nod off in the car because it's just warm and there's movement and I mean, put me in a car for half an hour and I start to feel pretty sleepy as well. So I wouldn't be too worried about that. so there's a few little things there to consider, Alicia, and hopefully one of those will really help to to bring it all together. Awesome. Next up we have Sophie, and I think we answered one of Sophie's questions last episode actually.
Sophie says she's recalculated her daughter's sleep needs across two weeks and found she averages around 13 hours rather than the 14 hours she initially thought. Her daughter consistently sleeps no more than 9.5 hours overnight and wakes around 5.15 to 5.30am regardless of bedtime, including after later bedtimes. Sophie is planning to adjust her daily rhythm to suit her lower sleep need, but is struggling with the early waking.
She's been attempting to resettle her daughter until 6 a.m. to avoid reinforcing the early wake-up, but finds it really difficult as her daughter is awake, wiggling and squirming without seeming to have enough sleep pressure to return to sleep. She'd like to know whether she should persist with attempting to resettle until 6 a.m. And if so, how long should she continue trying each morning? It's just such a great question. I saw something funny from someone in the sleep field the other day saying that.
559 a.m. is the middle of the night and six a.m. is morning. And I I laughed at that because I really feel like if the clock starts with a four or a five, it's just not acceptable. But if it's six or later, you know, we can generally cope with that. look, I would say, Sophie, whatever changes you make, you'll need to make them for a full week to see if it results in an a longer sleep in.
So do keep that in mind. Some parents will try a later bedtime for a couple of nights and then go, it didn't work. You need to give it a full week. I would work out that new 13-hour daily rhythm, plan for a 6 a.m. wake-up. So you're allowing 13 hours of opportunity, which accounts for a 6 a.m. wake-up, and then go all in on that daily rhythm as strict as you can for a week. And we should start to see her sleep until 6 a.m.
and it's when you've on that new daily rhythm that I would be trying to just keep it really dark and really boring until 6 a.m. If you can't keep her in the cot, that's fine, but do keep the room dark. Try not to offer the first feed of the day, keep it very boring. And that's a great way to tell her circadian rhythm this just isn't wake-up time. and then at 6 a.m., bright lights, lots of activity and playtime. It's really going to help to send that signal to our body that you know this is the time we should be waking up for the day.
so yeah, it's gonna take a bit of practice across a week, I would say, to start to see her wake up at 6 a.m. There are some babies that are just real morning larks, but I would say they're pretty rare. Often it just takes the consistency. We need her circadian rhythm to figure out okay, I really have to sleep until 6 a.m. or I'm not gonna meet my sleep needs because I'm not gonna have an extra long day nap or an extra early bedtime. And that's what really helps to drive the the longer sleep in in the morning.
So good luck, Sophie. I hope it goes well. Let us know how you go. Next up we have Lizzie. Lizzie has a seven and a half month-old daughter who she believes needs around 13 hours of sleep with two naps. She's working on establishing an appropriate daily rhythm and would like advice on how to fit milk feeds and three solid meals into the day.
her daughter is used to feeding before every wind-down routine, including naps, but Lizzie's finding the traditional feed, play, sleep, repeat routine difficult to follow with only two naps, and would like guidance on creating an optimal feeding and sleep routine. Okay, I would never suggest anything super rigid with feeding. And with the feed, play, sleep, repeat routine, it is just a rough guide. So
You know, even with my own children, I would set out and I think, yeah, I'll sort of do feed, place, sleep, repeat, something along those lines. And there'd often be like a wake window where I'd go, I'm gonna feed again. You know, they seem hungry. That's completely fine. So don't feel like you have to be in this like really rigid pattern. It's fine to just apply this flexibly. on two naps per day, the solid meals work out pretty neatly. They tend to be awake at the right time for breakfast, the right time for lunch, the right time for dinner.
so that should just fit in. The meals really should be offered when they're kind of happy and awake. So I often think of it as being part of playtime. We want them to be pretty relaxed, focused. We don't want to be offering solid foods so close to the next sleep that they're just grisly and tired. Because eating solid foods requires a lot of energy, a lot of concentration. It's a really complicated skill for babies to learn. So we want to be doing it when they're really in a good space and have the capacity to yeah, have
the coordinated motor movements that they're going to need and just feeling really settled and ready for the feed. So you could try to do feed, you know, milk feed play, you know, with a solid feed in there as well. And then sleep and kind of repeat that across the day. But give yourself a bit of a break if you need to offer some extra milk feeds. I wouldn't be too worried at all. Around this age, Lizzie, a lot of parents are trying to move away from using a feed to get them
drowsy enough to then fall asleep for their next nap, just because it can so quickly turn into a feed off to sleep and often parents are trying to move away from that. So if you are trying to move away from that, yeah, then working towards a bit more of a feedplace sleep repeat pattern you might find quite helpful. I hope that helps Lizzie. Emma has a six month old son whose sleep needs have dropped from around 15 hours at three months to 14 hours at five months.
And now approximately 12.5 hours. She would like to know when sleep needs typically begin to plateau rather than dropping rapidly. She's also seeking advice on preparing his daily rhythm, excuse me, for the daylight saving time change over the October long weekend. Identifying the key signs that he's ready to transition from three naps to two, and how to structure nap lengths once he makes the transition. All right.
Emma, you're probably feeling like you're on this plummeting roller coaster when it comes to sleep needs. Really common. sleep needs drop off a heap in the first six months. Generally, you know, I would say at about six months, they're starting to plateau. So given the huge drop you've had, Emma, I my best guess, and it is just a guess, I think he's probably going to sit on about 12 and a half hours for a while now. But, you know, keep an eye on it.
You know, they're they're all different. They all do things their own little unique way. but hopefully things will stay a little bit more settled from now on. in terms of like looking ahead to daylight savings, we tend to do a social media post about a week before the clock changes with a day by day guide on like how to change the daily rhythm. We tend to work in about ten to fifteen minute increments of change in the lead up to daylight savings beginning. So
If you don't follow us on social media, go and do it right now because we put all sorts of useful stuff on there on Instagram. It's at infant.sleep.Australia. Pretty easy to find. If you're on TikTok, it is, I think it's just at Sombelle. yeah, pretty easy to find. But we do try and like really put extra useful, helpful stuff on there, especially things like daylight savings adjustments. So yeah, go give us a follow.
now the transition from three naps to two, look, generally parents will find that over the course of a week they're noticing that that third nap is really tricky. Like some parents will say, we have to do it on the go in the pram. There's no way they'll do it in the cot. or they're pushing that third nap so late that it is starting to really impact bedtime. Or maybe the three naps are fine, but suddenly bedtime's pushing really, really late or just taking forever to get them down.
some parents will find the naps and bedtime are fine and it's purely they're just feeling it overnight. Suddenly there's a heap of night waking or early rising, false starts or split nights. If you notice that any of those shifting for the course of a week, and you know, he's yeah, six months old now, so that it'll be coming pretty soon, probably in the next few weeks or so.
That would be a sign that it's time to move to just two naps. The good news is once they're on two naps, Emma, they settle into a daily rhythm that usually sticks around for about six months. So you're about to enter this lovely settled period. but yeah, and how to how to kind of structure the nap lengths. I would be thinking in terms of what his sort of sleep cycle length tends to be, and then really planning the nap lengths around that.
you might aim for the same amount of total day sleep as he currently has for three naps, but you're instead dividing it across two naps. but yeah definitely look at the unique sleep needs chapter. There's lots of advice in there around how you might structure a two nap schedule. So yeah, good luck with that change, Emma. It's a it's a big one. It's often a bumpy change going from three naps to two, but it's well worth it. You're about to enter that nice settled phase, which is always such a relief after
you know, pretty chaotic first six months. all right, let's move on to Zara. Zara has a six and a half month old who was previously fed to sleep and co-slept after the first night wake, but has been using the supported accelerated approach for the past week. He successfully transitioned to sleeping in his cot overnight and no longer needs feeding to sleep, with only one feed offered overnight. That's a massive change, Zara. Well done. I bet that was hard work.
Zara says, however, he still wakes three or four times each night, although he settles himself quickly with only brief fussing or crying before returning to sleep. Zara believes his 13 hours' sleep needs and current daytime sleep of one and a half to two hours across two to three naps are appropriate and would like to know if there is anything else she can do to help reduce the number of night wakes. this is you've made awesome progress, Zara.
it is really, really common when a baby has had such a big change in how and where they fall asleep. It's really normal that these little brief night wakes hang around. And that's because all of us, all humans, even you yourself, Zara, you'd be waking up five or six times overnight, but more often than not, you just rouse very briefly and then go back to sleep, and you don't even remember it the next day. and your baby's doing that, but
They're doing it with a bit of a cry and a yelp and you know, making some grizzly sounds, and then they go back to sleep. It's really common after working on COT settling that they still make grizzly noises when they rouse, when they're sort of doing that check of like, is everything exactly as it was when I fell asleep? the fact that your baby's getting themselves back to sleep within moments is unbelievable. It's really, really good. What I would be thinking about is it might be
Time to consider moving them to their own room. This is a really personal thing. You can keep them in the room longer if you want to. Some parents find that their own quality of sleep increases so much when they're not having to hear those little grumbles and grizzles during the night. And it can mean you wake up much more refreshed. But it's not for everyone. Just something to think about. If that's something you're thinking of doing soon, might be the time to do it. The other thing to think about is.
If you just stay a little hands-off during those brief wakes, like really try and stay still, don't reach over, just wait and listen. There's a very good chance, even just across the next week, that he or she will start to resettle silently without making those grumbling noises. so just try and really pause, don't really do much. Often they're working through it, they get themselves back to sleep, and with time they start to resettle more quietly.
Yeah, and if that's not coming together, if the night wakes start to increase again, Zara, you're gonna find the answer in that daily rhythm. Cause you mentioned sometimes it's two naps, sometimes it's three. Bit of variability in the total day's sleep. And sometimes over time that results in the night wakes increasing and things start to get a bit wobbly. so then yeah, I would address the daily rhythm, make the move to only two naps, and you'll probably see it all really solidify and come together. So yeah, well done, Zara. You've come a really long way already.
Alright, question number six is from Claire. Claire has a two and a half year old who had previously been sleeping through the night after successfully using Sombelle following two years of frequent night wakes. you've been through the ringer, Claire. he currently has a 45 minute nap, an 8 pm bedtime, and a 7am wake up. Since welcoming a new baby five weeks ago, congratulations.
Claire introduced a reward chart to encourage independent settling, and he's been falling asleep on his own most nights, although it can take him 30 to 45 minutes. Over the past two weeks, he has started waking at least once overnight, needing help to resettle, and is often upset before 7am. He continues to fall asleep easily for his midday nap and seems tired at both midday and bedtime.
Claire is unsure whether just the the disrupted sleep is related to the new baby, the change to independent settling, or whether he is ready to drop his nap and would like advice on what to do. Okay, you've got a lot going on in your household, Claire, and it could be a little bit of all of these things. at two and a half years old, he will be really close to dropping that nap. Given you've got a new baby, probably try and hold on to the nap a little bit longer if you can. But look.
If he's ready for it, you're gonna find that he goes you know, drops a nap pretty quickly, he'll have amazing nights, and that could be worth it too, just knowing that he's down for the whole night without waking. it's really normal for toddlers' sleep to be disrupted after a new baby arrives. They hear, you know, the baby in the night. They also are often looking for extra time with you. They might be feeling a little unsettled that hang on, this baby's come along. Suddenly there's a little bit less time for me.
and I wonder if at 2 a.m. mum's more available or dad's more available. so often they do call out a bit, thinking, well, maybe this is my chance to get a bit of one-on-one time with that parent. So I'd suggest in the daytime start doing special play. So say to your toddler, hey, we're gonna have some special play just you and I right now. Do it when your partner's around or someone else can take the baby. And just have 10 minutes of dedicated playtime where your toddler fully leads the play and you are so immersed in everything they're doing.
so phones away, no distractions. And then at the end of that 10 minutes, say, that's the end of our special play. Let's do it again tomorrow. And do that every day at the same time. Your toddler's gonna realize they still get their feel of your attention and they don't need to go seeking it out at 2 or 3 a.m. in the morning. they're much more likely to just go, cool, yep, I get my one-on-one time with each of my parents every day. That's my dedicated time.
can really, really help to stop with those overnight wake ups if it is that they're kind of seeking out that bit of closeness overnight. so look I'd start with that and then if that's if you've done a couple of weeks of doing a bit of special play each day, you're not really seeing a change in the overnights, I'd be tempted to to drop the nap. you'll have a bumpy few weeks when he adjusts, it can be a rough one. but that sleep drive overnight would become so high, you're really likely to see him sleeping right through again.
So good luck, Claire. yeah, bringing a new baby home is always just so tough for toddlers and so tough on parents as well. It's a lot to juggle. I hope it goes well. Okay, question seven is from Jess. Jess has an eight-month-old daughter who has been independently sleeping in her own room for the past two months and usually sleeping through from 7:30 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. amazing. Good job, Jess.
Jess says they are travelling to Australia next week and will be staying with Jess's mum for a month, during which her daughter will share a room with them. Jess is concerned that their presence may disrupt her sleep and lead to more night waking or feeding to sleep, particularly as her daughter self weaned from night feeds when she moved into her own room. They plan to bring familiar sleep cues, including white noise, and would like advice on minimizing disruption while sharing a room.
She also wants to know how to respond if her daughter wakes crying, whether she should briefly pick her up to calm her before putting her back down and using their usual phrase without repeating the entire bedtime routine. I love that you're thinking ahead, Jess, because you have an opportunity to really prevent a big increase in night waking by just planning ahead a bit. First up, the white noise is a brilliant idea. We don't want your eight-month-old to hear every time you or your partner roll over in bed.
That white noise can really help to mask those little sounds. If you or your partner snore, please do not share a room with your eight-month-old. Whoever, if there's a snorer out of the two of you, they get evicted to the living room or somewhere else because that will definitely cause your daughter to wake up wondering what on earth the noise is. but yeah, white noise for masking environmental sounds is a great idea. With the feeding to sleep, do not reintroduce it, Jess. Okay, you can do something else if you need to.
Don't reintroduce overnight feeds. At the moment, your baby knows, their circadian rhythm knows that calories happen in the daytime, and that all the calorie allowance has to be met from daytime feeding alone, and that there's no calories available overnight. So overnight, your baby's circadian rhythm is slowing down digestion so that her body can really focus on sleep. We do not want to start reintroducing calories and kind of waking it up.
Because it will start to think, okay, we'll dial back the daytime calories because we know we're gonna have some overnight calories. and also your daughter might find that really motivating. She probably would love an overnight feed and might think, yeah, I'm gonna call out for more and more of those because they're really nice. I would prepare your mum and just say, look, we really don't want to take any backward steps. So she might wake up a bit upset at times thinking, where am I? This is all a little bit different. I would wait a few minutes to see if she gets herself back to sleep again.
With all the travel and the busyness, there's a good likelihood she'll be pretty tired and hopefully after a few minutes where she might have a little fuss, she'll put herself back to sleep. If she doesn't, I would go to her and do something really repetitive and reassuring. I would probably take a card out of the supported accelerated approach where you have one action and one phrase that you just keep repeating. Nothing changes, you just repeat the same thing over and over again.
So your daughter knows you're there, you're going to support her, and everything's okay, but you're not introducing new sleep associations that she's then gonna develop this big expectation to keep once you're back home again. so yeah, I would that that's how I would think of it. I'd really try and hold firm on not reintroducing night feeds, word up your mum that there might be a little bit of
noise overnight. But honestly, your mum had had you at one stage, Jess, and I reckon she knows that babies just sometimes make noise overnight. And hopefully she'll be really understanding of that. yeah. So good luck. Enjoy your trip. Welcome to Australia. And yeah, have have a great time. I hope it is a really good time. If you get back home and things have fallen apart, you know how to get things back on track. Use the program materials. Before you know it, you'll be back on track again and it'll all be okay.
But yeah, importantly, enjoy your trip. I hope it is fantastic. Okay, and lucky last question is from Katie. Katie has a 21-month-old daughter who previously had a predictable sleep routine, but has recently started resisting both naps and bedtime. She now stays awake until around 9 pm, despite attempts to bring bedtime earlier.
And often refuses to get up in the morning, although she remains happy and sleeps through the night. Her nap has reduced from one hour at around 11 a.m. to just 30 to 40 minutes, but on home days she often resists it until about 2:30 or 3 p.m. But she does fall asleep easily in the car. Katie has tried an earlier wake time and shorter nap, but this has resulted in a very cranky morning.
She would like to understand what may be causing the change, how to establish a more consistent routine, and whether it is possible to maintain a bedtime no later than 8.30 pm. this is a tricky one, Katie, because it sounds like your daughter really knows what she wants. Her circadian rhythm is really pushing for, and it's great, really wants a long consolidated overnight stretch, which is a really good thing. But it sounds like that day nap is sometimes pushing a bit late, and it is probably pushing bedtime later.
I think she's gearing up to drop the nap. I hate to say it, but if you're already only doing 30 to 40 minutes, it's getting pushed later in the day sometimes and bedtime's quite late. I would say it's yeah, not going to be long until that nap needs to go. But you know, it's what she's genuinely needing by the sound of it. So it's likely that that adjustment will go okay. what I would be thinking is for now though, we'll try and keep that nap a little bit longer.
If she sleeps easily in the car on the days when she's home, and a lot of parents say they just find this the easiest path of least resistance, is just to plan a car nap at about midday for those 30 minutes. if you've got any errands to run, you're gonna run them at that time. When you know that she can just have the nap in the car, it's out the way and it's not pushing to 2 30 or 3 p.m., which is likely to muck around with bedtime. So I would aim to do that.
And then I look part of me thinks, I don't know how long she's sleeping into in the morning, but you know, you've always got that option of trying to kind of phase shift everything a little earlier. And it should happen, but often it just means like for a week, you've got to hold the line on getting her up on time in the morning, not letting the nap be too late. And that will eventually drag bedtime a bit earlier. but I think do it in a really methodical way. Like I would literally sit down with a pen and paper and go, Okay, well if
you know, bedtime's 9 p.m. and wake up's, I don't know, 8 a.m. or something. then every few days you're gonna pull everything forward 15 minutes. And as hard as it is to wake her in the morning, once she makes that final adjustment and gets into that pattern, she'll be meeting her sleep needs and her mood should absolutely improve. But it's just a little bit of a struggle to get there. So there's a few things to think about there. but Katie, I'm just so glad to hear that her nights are really consolidated, even though things are pushing later.
Her body's prioritizing having one glorious big long stretch of sleep overnight, which is a really positive thing. So if those nights started to become wobbly at all, that's when I'd go, okay, we're we're really gearing up to drop that nap. And I'd rather you did that and kept the consolidated nights than waited too long and had the nights really fall apart. So at 21 months, she's a little young to be dropping the nap, but it is not unheard of at all. especially she has a lower sleep need.
often they are the toddlers that drop their naps quite early. So there's a bit to think about there, and of course there's tons of guidance in Slumbal around when to drop naps and how to adapt the daily rhythm when you do it. So thank you to all the parents who sent in these excellent, excellent questions. It works so nicely to talk about those three core factors that influence night's sleep and then have eight brilliant examples of how we consider those three factors when trying to improve sleep. So
Thank you, lovely parents. And a lot of you sent in lovely feedback on Sombelle with your questions as well, which I absolutely love reading. I got some beautiful DMs on Instagram from parents this past week as well, talking about how much Sombelle had really changed their lives for the better and how they felt so much empowerment as a parent, having that knowledge around those three factors and kind of as their child grew, they were able to consider those three factors and you know what needed to happen next to really keep sleep on track.
and nothing makes me happier than hearing that parents have really like got their own expert knowledge in their child and they know how to apply that to their child. Like, what a terrific thing. So, have you left a review yet? If you love the podcast, please leave us a review right now. Just go into your app, tap the five stars, write a few lovely words. It makes my day, but importantly, it helps other parents who are struggling. Maybe they're caught in that.
crossfires of the overtired debate or there's so many l horrible little cesspools we can fall into in this infant sleep space. We want to get really good evidence-based advice out to as many parents as possible. So when you leave a review, it means the podcast is recommended to more people through the algorithm and the apps and all that jazz. So yeah, really appreciate it if you can do that. And tell your tired friends about the podcast too. Hopefully it can help them as well.
If you're needing extra support, you know where we are. We've got the Sombelle Sleep Clinic programs. We also do appointments. you know, book in, join the program. We can work together and really work out what the next steps need to be for your unique situation. We also have our parent question index. It's been up there for a bit over a month now, and there's been huge traffic to that page. You know, it's so cool. I was showing someone the other day, I was like, look at this. You can just put in like, you know, a few keywords that you're looking for help with and
Bang, you can see every episode and the exact question that was answered. And I just think that is so fantastic because there, you know, there's lots of parents going through the same struggles. We might have actually answered a question that's really similar to the one you've got. So yeah, go and have a play with that. I hope you enjoy it. Take good care of yourself and you'll hear from me again in another couple of weeks. Thanks for tuning in.
