Fallon (00:02)
I've seen a lot of parents of toddlers on social media talking about how their little one is just a bad sleeper, that they've tried absolutely everything and they've resigned themselves to having poor sleep for however long it lasts. And I get it because none of the advice these parents have had so far has truly met their toddlers' unique sleep requirements. They've taken one step forward, two steps back, and they've done it so many times that they are simply
done. But here's the thing, almost all of these cases involve a very low sleep needs toddler. And with a couple of very simple changes, their sleep can turn around often within just a few days. If this sounds really familiar to you, please stay tuned. It's a huge, but really helpful episode. We're going to dive right into this one together.
Welcome back to Brand New Little People, the podcast companion to the Sombelle Paediatric sleep clinic programs. I'm your host, Dr. Fallon Cook. Oh, it's so good to be back. I've been away sick and all sorts of things have been going on. Um, and there've been questions from Sombelle members flooding in. So I've managed to, um, to get back to some of you with a little voice note answering your question. I hope you found that helpful.
Um, but we still have a huge mountain of questions to get through today and they are really good ones. So do stick around for our parent question section of this episode. Um, it's a really, really good one, but yeah, on social media, I just keep seeing time and time again, the same sort of scenario pop up. And for a couple of months now, I've been thinking, I really have to do a podcast episode on this because I feel like this little topic.
is one that makes a huge difference for probably the toddler parents who are actually struggling the most. So often I'll see a mum on social media who says that their toddler is one of those super busy, super active, FOMO toddlers. They are full of energy. They've never slept well. um Often the parents are just absolutely pulling out their hair.
I often see these, it's usually mums on social media saying, look, we've tried so hard with cot settling, but it was impossible. The level of crying was completely out of control. They very understandably couldn't cope. And of course it got to a point where pretty quickly they gave up and stopped. And I do not blame them at all. uh It is way too hard to push through that level of upset. It makes perfect sense to me.
why you wouldn't want to continue pushing ahead when you've just had such a terrifying experience with trying to work on self settling or independent settling, whether that's a, you know, in a cot or a bed. with these cases though, when I, some of them do come through a clinic, thank goodness. Um, what we always find is that there is always a massive low sleep pressure issue that has never been addressed for that child.
And that's why I say no one can push through it because if a child has really low sleep pressure, you can't make them sleep. So if you are trying and trying to settle them, they're going to get really frustrated, pretty angry. Everyone's going to fall apart pretty quickly. Um, and often too, you're up during the night, you know, trying to resettle them for hours and hours on end. It's, it's just awful. Um, but this is what.
really pains me when I hear about these cases online. It's that these parents are often just so close to a breakthrough and they should have had, you know, better progress than they've had, but they've essentially been told to do things in the wrong order. They've jumped straight into working on self settling without first optimizing the daily rhythm to make sure that sleep pressure is high enough that their toddler actually can do well overnight.
That's a recipe for disaster and really severe parent burnout, I think is what we see quite a lot. um And I think that that is one of probably in a nutshell, one of the biggest problems that we have at the moment with the kind of advice parents are getting online. It's all about, you know, just settle them in the co-work on self settling, but
It's more complicated than that. If you haven't worked on a daily rhythm that fits your child's unique sleep needs, that's going to feel like an impossible step to take. And it's definitely not the order I would ever suggest parents do things in. We want to give you guys, you know, the easiest possible time of working on sleep. and it is something that is very slowly changing within the sort of sleep, um, sphere, I guess I'm seeing more and more people who are actually learning about sleep pressure and unique sleep needs.
You know, the word is getting out there, which is really, really hopeful. So let's talk about what low sleep needs look like during toddlerhood. So as the name would suggest, they are toddlers that need noticeably less total sleep than what you're going to see in a lot of kind of typical sleep recommendation charts. Usually what I would say is they've got a sleep need per 24 hours of under 11 hours. So usually they're sitting around sort of nine to 11 hours or so. uh
per 24 hours. And you'll identify one of these toddlers because usually a really long, you know, that sort of two hour lunchtime nap that the very lucky toddler parents will get, that's just not gonna work for a low sleep needs toddler. Or if they take it, their nights have been absolute disaster. We often see that the low sleep need toddlers, if they slightly overdo the day's sleep, can...
make for like an entire week of challenging nights. So they can be really, really sensitive to a little bit too much day sleep. They can also be really sensitive to changes in bedtime and wake up time. So if bedtime and wake time are moving around a bit, it often really doesn't work too well for these low sleep need toddlers. So things you might see would be things like really long bedtime battles. Split nights are really common where they're just
wide awake for more than half an hour overnight. Often there's really early waking, I'm talking four or five AM, like terribly early. Some of them will, you know, just absolutely refuse to take long naps or might drop their naps really, really early. A lot of the low sleep needs toddlers might drop a nap even just before they turn two years of age. But generally I would say most parents of low sleep need toddlers describe that they have a toddler who seems
pretty fine on less sleep, that they generally will power through the day. You know, they're not too bothered if they don't, you know, nap or sleep as much as other children their age. But I think let's talk through an example from the clinic, because I feel like when you hear about another family's experience, it kind of helps to really bring that thinking all together. So I'm going to talk you through an example that I see pretty commonly in clinic.
for a 10-hour sleep need toddler. So this mum came in and she was saying, you know, she's tried everything, absolutely nothing worked. You she'd been trying cot settling, she'd, you know, tried with a floor bed and tried to kind of reduce her toddler's reliance on her, you know, for sleep overnight. But nothing worked at all. She was completely exhausted.
and had started to just sleep with her toddler on the floor bed, so co-sleeping, just so she could stay horizontal during those really long night wakes. And this is such a common story. Often these parents feel really guilty and I'm like, no, really, they're a toddler and they're not sleeping well. Of course, you're going to try co-sleeping to see if that's the magic, you know, magic fix. Very understandable that you'd do that. And it is good that you can lie down and get a bit more rest during those long night wakes.
Um, so for this family, their toddler was taking a one and a half hour day nap. They were going to bed at about 8 PM and waking between seven and 8 AM. So a bit of variability there. Um, and those who've listened to the podcast a lot already would have calculated this in their head probably, but that means that this toddler was being given about 13 and a half hours opportunity for sleep per 24 hours.
even though they only ever averaged about 10 hours of sleep. So their sleep need was about 10 hours, but 13 and a half hours opportunity is a lot. That's three and a half hours extra opportunity for sleep that they essentially probably will never be able to do. I reckon a lot of listeners too will be able to guess what types of difficulties this mum was reporting. So.
This little boy was taking hours to fall asleep. So they might try for that bedtime at 8pm, but it was highly variable. Um, lots of pushback, um, at bedtime. They were having horrendous split nights where he'd be awake for one to two hours at a time. He'd be trying to go to sleep, but just couldn't, or sometimes he'd just give up and be playing and body slamming her and poking her in the eye and, oh, like all that kind of chaos in the middle of the night. Um,
And like I already said, lots of attempts to work on self settling had absolutely not helped at all. Their toddler was just way too, way too wakeful and would get so upset if this poor mum tried to change anything about how or where he settled for sleep. And this is exactly what happens when sleep pressure is too low. The daily rhythm is just giving way too much opportunity for sleep. The toddler simply cannot sleep that much, which means they're going to wake up overnight.
their circadian rhythm goes, you know what, we've met our sleep needs, we'll wake up for a while. And even if we wake for a while, we can sleep in a little bit and play catch up later on. So yeah, there's lots going on there. But let's dive into how we fix it. This is going to be different for every single toddler. So by no means is this example what you should go out and do with your toddler. This daily rhythm was worked out in consultation with the mom and based around what she felt would work best for her toddler.
So with this toddler, we wanted to get a 10 hour daily rhythm in place. So give him 10 hours of opportunity to meet his 10 hour sleep need to really help drive up that sleep pressure. So for this toddler, we decided to cap the day nap at one hour. This mum felt that he still needed his nap a bit longer. So we went with a one hour cap. We moved bedtime to 9 p.m. and then wake up each day at 6 a.m. Now I know for a lot of parents listening, that would sound
horrendous and not at all what you want. But you've got to keep in mind that within about four or five days to a week, that toddler's sleep pressure overnight is going to increase through the roof as they try to achieve their sleep needs. And that means that the overnights really quickly start to improve. The mum was getting much better sleep really quickly. So the 9 p.m. bedtime and 6 a.m. wake up pretty quickly actually felt really
manageable because everybody's sleep quality improved overnight. So it can feel really scary to change to a daily rhythm like that, but it is really worth it. We really want your toddler's circadian rhythm to learn, okay, there's not as much opportunity for sleep. Like if I wake up for a long time at night, I still have to get up on time in the morning and I can't overdo the day nap. And then I've got to make it to my bedtime. So we really want to teach the circadian rhythm that no, we sleep in
you know, these certain chunks now. um And then what I would say is for this family, after a week on that daily rhythm, sleep pressure was way higher overnight. And then she felt really confident and comfortable actually starting to withdraw her presence from that floor bed that they were sharing because she could see that he was falling asleep really quickly. He was sleeping much longer stretches. The split nights had completely stopped.
And so many parents say to me once we had a week on that daily rhythm, they felt like a different child. Yeah, because for the first time potentially in their life, they're really actually in a rhythm where that sleep pressure is building up the way it needs to. Yeah, so it's scary at first, but stick with it because it often does really quickly result in good nights. I would also say too that a lot of families just say, I could never do that because my toddler is so tired in the daytime.
They're definitely tired enough to which I will often say, look, for a lot of these toddlers, they are in a cycle where the nights are so tricky. They're waking up so much that they're not getting high quality sleep. So they do start the day on the back foot, really tired and cranky. And yeah, they seem like they really need a longer day nap or a really early bedtime or something along those lines.
because they genuinely are exhausted after that terrible night. And I reckon you as a parent know exactly how exhausted your toddler would be feeling because you're the one who's up with them in the night. So of course, if they overdo the day sleep, then the next night's tricky. And after that tricky night, they try to overdo the day sleep again or take a longer sleep in. We have this horrible cycle, poor night, too much day sleep, poor night, and it's just on repeat. At some point you have to bring that cycle to a halt.
So it might feel so hard to start shifting the timing of when your toddler sleeps, but keep that angle in mind. Once they've adjusted, they should sleep better overnight, they'll wake up more refreshed, and then it won't be so hard at all to get them through the day on a bit less day sleep or get them through to a new bedtime because they're getting good quality rest. What I always say though, is if you've had a couple of weeks of great sleep,
try adding a bit more sleep back into that daily rhythm, maybe an extra 30 minutes per day for a week and have a look. Do they actually take that extra 30 minutes or are they just waking up for 30 minutes in the night or taking ages to fall asleep? But test it out because it's going to help you feel really confident that you have given your child the opportunity they need for sleep. So that's probably a lot to digest. I'm sure that...
Um, for some parents you'd be going, my gosh, this is so my child. In which case, you know, really have a think about some of these things and whether they, um, you know, there's some adjustment you can make for your little one. Um, and I think, you know, have some hope, even if you feel like you've been battered around by all this different sleep advice and you've had the worst run of things. Um, don't even think about self settling or cot settling for now.
Just make it your focus that you're gonna work on the daily rhythm, a daily rhythm that is fitted to your child and give that some time. Because after a week you might say, you know what, they're sleeping better. I'm happy to keep co-sleeping. It works really well for me. That's fine. Or you might go, my gosh, I actually do feel ready to work on self settling again. Cause I can see my child is a really different child now. So yeah, there's always hope with these things
and.
I've never seen a toddler be disadvantaged from us working towards a daily rhythm that actually fits their sleep needs. It's always a really positive step in the right direction. So if this feels super, super relevant to you, here's where you can go for help. Our Stomp Bell programs have our unique sleep needs chapter. If you remember, you will know this chapter. It's like the, the Holy grail of the
program. It's like the most important bit, I reckon. That unique sleep needs chapter talks you through how to work out your toddler or your baby's unique sleep needs and importantly gives you some guides around, you know, if their sleep needs this much. This is an example daily rhythm. We give you lots of examples as a bit of a starting point for how to shape up that daily rhythm. um It's super, super helpful.
we also in Sombelle have a huge range of settling options. So if you work on that daily rhythm for your low sleep needs toddler and then think, yep, I actually do want them to be a little bit more independent around sleep. We've got strategies for cot settling and for settling in a bed that can be completely tailored to your little one's unique temperament, what they respond well to your own parenting goals and your parenting style. Um, all designed so that you can really truly come up with something very tailored.
that works for you and your family. And that's what we want every single family to have. So if you're needing support, don't forget um that Sombelle is there to help you. Now, before we dive into parent questions, we've got a lot of parent questions and I'm going to start with our toddler questions because I know a lot of parents or toddlers will be tuning in. Can you please leave us a review in your podcast app? Whatever app it is, there should be the option to leave a review. Please give me a five star review.
It's super helpful, helps get the word out to everybody. If you're a listener and you would like to buy me a coffee, I would love that too. I'll put a link in the bio if you are able. And don't forget about our parent question index. We've answered, oh, I can't remember the telly now, 600 and something parent questions over the last however many years, few years now. I can't even recall off the top of my head.
uh But this index is so great. You can search for different topics and find the exact point in a podcast episode where the answer is given to that question. it really is an actual treasure trove of information in there. And there's a link in the show notes for that as well. So go and check it out. All right. Parent question time. I have a big sip of tea before I dive into this one.
Okay, Sarah is first up and she says, thanks for your amazing program. It's been great. And it's helped me understand that Richard's sleep schedules are not one size fits all. Love that Sarah. think that's like the key takeaway. want every parent to have from Sombelle So that's awesome to hear. Sarah says my two year old has always worked on a lot for comfort, but at 15 months, he's sleep got much worse.
frequent night wakes and early rising between 3 and 5 a.m. She suspected low ferritin and his blood test confirmed it. And once this was treated, his sleep improved significantly. And I also just quickly have to say thank you, Sarah, because it's made me realize we really need a uh more detailed lesson on ferritin and iron in Sombelle. So I've got it on my list now of things to add to Sombelle because we always want to keep updating and improving it.
So thanks so much. It's really important to consider if your child has low iron, it really can impact sleep. So Sarah says, now that he's two years old, he's in a bit of a routine where he has a short morning nap, a longer afternoon nap and a later bedtime. And this has helped reduce the early rising. He manages about a nine and a half hour stretch at night, sometimes longer if they lie beside him.
He self settles for naps and bedtime, but overnight he demands to be picked up and held back to sleep. He's waking several times per night, wants us to sleep next to him and is waking early again. So things have started to fall apart a little bit. says, I want him sleeping in his cot. On days we lie with him, he wakes closer to 6 a.m. and on those days I just do one midday nap. One nap or two seems to give the same result and I don't want him over tired.
Sarah's wondering if giving him a short end along nap isn't working for him. But when she just gives him one nap, it's just the same issue again. So should she just stop the cat nap despite him waking early or should it continue? He's waking at a better time of around 6 a.m. now that we sometimes lay with him on those days. And she has on those days just tried a midday nap. She says making him overtired is not good for him as it makes sleep worse.
All right, Sarah, this is such an important question. I think that when your child's ferritin levels were low, they were really tired. It makes us feel absolutely awful when iron stores are low. And at that point, he probably really seemed to need two naps, but I would say now we really have to get rid of the two naps and move to one because he's three years old and a lot of two year olds even thinking about dropping their nap altogether. So I would do a big
push, you might need a full week of him just having one nap for him to really start to realize, okay, I have to consistently sleep till 6am because there's never a chance for a catch up nap. So I would really go all in on that. I would not be worried about overtiredness at all. Overtiredness, you know, there's all that, that sort of myth around it increasing cortisol and interrupting sleep. It doesn't, it's just um not a thing.
but your child will be very, very tired and they might be way harder to settle. And for the first week of adapting to one nap, they really might wake up more. It often happens. We change something in the daily rhythm. The nights go terrible, but we give it a full week. And then more often than not, the nights settle down and they're on track. So don't be afraid to push through some really cranky behavior because your child is absolutely well and truly past that sort of, you know, 15 month mark.
absolute latest where we would drop to one nap and I would say go all in on it. It's likely to really help things. Definitely do a check-in on what his sleep needs are though and just ensure that whatever daily rhythm you're going with, it is a really good fit for his sleep need. But yeah, good luck Sarah. It sounds like you've been through the ups and the downs and it might just need a little bit of tinkering now to really pull it all back on track again.
Okay, our next question is from Mette Mette has a 20 month old toddler who suddenly seems to be needing more sleep uh each day. We're slowly introducing more sleep in 15 minute increments to see how this goes, says Mette. He's currently sleeping through the night from 7.30 PM to 6.45 AM and having a 1.5 hour nap from about 12 to 1.30 PM.
Is it normal for sleep needs to increase or should we be checking if something else is going on? This is such a crucial question meta and I'm so glad you raised it. Look, sleep needs sometimes do increase a little bit in toddlerhood as they get really busy and really active. Some of them will add a bit more sleep, but it's a little bit of a red flag for me when a toddler's starting to need
a lot more sleep per 24 hours. So I would just check in on two things and this really kind of um relates back to Sarah's question as well. Are iron levels too low? If your child has low iron they're going to be extra sleepy and tired and cranky and might go looking for more sleep all of a sudden. The other thing is is there snoring or noisy breathing overnight?
Cause some toddlers do have sleep apnea where their sleep is interrupted. Their deep sleep is often really interrupted and that can cause them to be extra tired in the daytime and they seem to suddenly have an increased sleep need. I had another parent write in about this actually a couple of months ago. So it's on my list too. And yet another great thing to add to Sombelle as soon as I get time to. So just check in on those two things. If you're worried about iron, noisy breathing, snoring,
see your GP and explain that you really want blood tests to check for iron and if there's snoring or noisy breathing ask for a referral to an ENT to get things checked out. uh But great question Metta, thanks so much for sending that in. Our next question is from Kim. She says my two-year-old son has recently started crying out in the morning at around 5 or 5 30 a.m. usually crying or screaming out mummy.
we all know that sound at 5am. Kim says this has been happening over the last few weeks. Prior to that, he would usually wake between 6 or 6.30. Sometimes he'll go back to sleep on his own. Other times I talk over the monitor to reassure him and tell him to get back to sleep. But it's inconsistent as to whether he will go back to sleep or not. His nap is cut right down to one hour and he's usually in bed by about 10 past eight.
Any tips on how to stop the early wakes? How to get him, help him get back to sleep? And she wonders, is two years too early to drop the nap? uh No, two years is definitely not too early to drop a nap. There are some toddlers who are just really ready for it. You could try dropping it back maybe to just half an hour or so and seeing if that means he then more easily makes it through to morning. When it comes to dropping the nap, I often suggest cutting it right down for a little while and just seeing.
You know, if that makes a difference, if it means I can keep the nap a little bit longer. Um, I really love your approach, Kim of just giving him that verbal reassurance over the monitor. It's not time to wake up time to go back to sleep. And it might be that with some consistency just over time, he starts to go, what's the point in calling out, you know, nothing exciting happens. And I'm actually pretty tired. Um, you might find that this is just a little phase where he's wondering if it's time to get up yet, but with enough opportunities for you to say, no, it's not.
we'll hopefully see that he starts to, um, just sleep into a morning, but if he doesn't, if it's really hanging around, I would, yeah, look at the unique sleep needs. Maybe they've dropped a little bit, or maybe it is time to, to drop the nap. sounds like you're doing a good job though, Kim. You're absolutely, yeah. On the right train of thought there, um, in terms of thinking about whether it's time to drop the nap. Um, yeah. And love that you're just using the monitor to give that reassurance as well. How handy are monitors?
I feel like if you went in the room, would probably be game over. He'd be like, yay, we're getting up. Um, but just having that bit of verbal reassurance. Yeah. Can be really helpful.
Okay, next question is from Jo Jo says, I'm unsure how to proceed with dropping the last nap for my two and a half year old daughter. Her current sleep need is about nine and a half to 10 hours, but she thinks it's trending down to nine and a half hours. So a very low sleep needs toddler, very relevant to this episode. Jo says her current schedule is about an 8am wake up.
She has a one and a half hour nap and bedtime is between 11.30 PM and midnight. So this is a child whose daily rhythm is really pushed quite late in the day. Before I go on with this question, I will say this will shock some parents, but there's nothing actually wrong with this. If you really like a very late bedtime, more of a sleep in, you can work out whatever daily rhythm you want. So yeah, do keep that in mind.
Jo says she very rarely wakes overnight. She attends daycare four days per week. On her home day, she often won't nap until at least 3 p.m. and often needs a car ride to get to sleep. Without the car ride, she'll often stay awake until about 5 or 6 p.m. and can be very difficult to wake from the nap. At daycare, she typically naps at about 1 p.m. but sometimes refuses the nap and falls asleep in the 10-minute car ride home.
Jo says, believe she is ready to drop the nap. And we decided to try this this week um on her three at home days, uh but she needed a bridging nap or a little power nap at around dinner time on two of the three days. She says, at daycare, I told them what I was doing and was immediately met with a discouraging attitude. oh And she has had roughly one and a half hour naps each day in care since.
So Joe's wondering, should I continue trying on the home days and hope it starts flying into the daycare days or should I wait until she's moved into the three to four year old room? Oh, such a good question, Jo. If she's moving to the three to four year old room soon, you might just have an easier time of things if you wait until then. Given she is sleeping right through the night, the nights aren't a problem at the moment.
Um, but it does sound like that day nap is getting really hard to have. She probably takes it at daycare because at daycare they often just run ragged, you know, they are so physically busy. And then when they see all the other toddlers having a nap, they're like, I may as well do that too. So that could be what's happening there. Um, another option would be to say to daycare, you know, explain to them, she goes to bed very, very late. Would like to be able to bring, if this is true, would like to be able to bring the bedtime a bit earlier.
You could say, look, how about if we try and do a 45 minute nap maximum at daycare? You know, you do the same thing at home, maybe pop her in the car and just try and get her to have that 45 minute nap. And that might allow you to bring bedtime a little bit earlier. Um, and then you kind of walking towards that point where you would be able to, to drop that nap maybe in a couple of months. Um, time, I'm guessing that she's probably moving up to that next room in January, given the time of year it is and how they all shuffle rooms that.
around about that time. But yeah, it's really hard when daycare has that kind of poor attitude towards changes that families want to make to NAPs. I think just have a really honest conversation around why you want to make those changes and you know, the impact it has on your life. Often they just really need to hear that because they don't know a lot about what happens at home.
Yeah, but that's a tricky situation, Jo. Good luck. She's two and a half years old, so chances are she will power through the day fine without a nap. But yeah, she's probably going to need a bit of practice and bit of consistency with that. You might even find over the Christmas break, if you're home a lot, it might be a great time to just really get her into a pattern of no nap. So then when she goes to that three to four year old room, she's really ready for it. So yeah, good luck to Jo. All right, next up is Jessica.
Jessica says, my daughter just turned three years old and still has a 45 minute nap. We have multiple signs she needs to drop the nap, but have delayed because we have a five week old and didn't want to cause additional disruption ahead or after her sister's birth. Jessica rather says, my question is about how to start quiet time. Ideally, we would like her to do quiet time in her bedroom, maybe giving her some books and cuddly toys to play with.
Is quiet time in the bedroom realistic and how should we implement it? Is it okay in the cot or not advisable um due to the association of the cot and sleep? And she says, how much quiet time should we start with? Given we have a newborn, it would be great if she could still have some downtime. I love that Jessica, you've really thought about this and it's such a good idea to not rock the boat or change anything when you have a new baby being added to the family. It's a really nice thing.
you've done in just keeping that consistency. I would say the majority of toddlers just really feel the need to be in amongst everything and probably wouldn't happily go to their room for their quiet time. Jessica, you might have a unicorn toddler who's happy to do that, but for a lot of them, they really insist on being quite close to their parents in the daytime. So you could try the bedroom. You could have a special box of toys that you just bring out for that quiet playtime.
I would definitely not do it in the cot. You're exactly right. The cot should just be for sleep. But see how she goes. If she wants to be out amongst what's happening in the fan, the area, and it's hard to keep her quiet. Look, at three years of age, there's nothing wrong with some of the really like we have amazing programming. So if it takes a few episodes of Bluey for your three year old to just have a physical rest stop in the middle of the day, that's not the end of the world. And it might help her get into a pattern of expecting to have.
bit of a rest over lunchtime. uh You've got a five week old baby, so if a little bit of screen time is just going to help you to kind of manage all the moving parts of a pretty busy household, that would be totally fine. uh Yeah, or a box of toys that your toddler knows is only for that special rest time. Those little kind of like pop-up tents you can get for toddlers can be a great way of creating a little bit of space that's just for resting our bodies. And there's some really nice like talking meditations and things like that.
that some three year olds really get into where they're imagining, you know, they're lying on a fluffy cloud or other very, very cute things. So that would be something to explore as well. So yeah, but love your thinking there, Jessica. It's really sensible that you're just trying to keep things pretty steady with your new baby in the house. All right, so that kind of rounds up our toddler questions. Now we're gonna dive into some questions about babies.
So Nicole wrote in, she said, we've started the support and accelerated approach with my six and a half month old. And for three weeks, he settled independently for naps and woke just once overnight for a feed. But sleep has gone downhill over the past week. His total sleep has dropped from about 11 and a half hours to 10 and a half hours. And he's crankier during the day. Nicole says he goes to bed at about 8 PM, wakes up for the day at 6 AM.
So there's a 10 hour window overnight and he's recently dropped from three naps down to two. Nap one is at 9 a.m. from somewhere between 45 to 60 minutes and he settles easily. She says we aim for nap two at about 2 p.m. but he often doesn't fall asleep until 4 p.m. We try the accelerated approach for 20 or 30 minutes then the pram and often I end up feeding or holding him to sleep.
By then he's been awake for four or five hours and he's very cranky. He falls asleep feeding, but wakes when we put his sleep sack on. Overnight he's waking more often. So for wakes before 1 a.m. Nicole is using the supported accelerated approach in the cot, but if he hasn't settled after 30 minutes, she feeds or rocks him. And she's offering a maximum of two overnight feeds at the moment.
So Nicole is wondering what's causing this change in sleep. She doesn't think he's teething or sick. uh She's wondering how they should adjust wake windows and handle that second nap. And how do they manage to increase night wakes when the accelerated approach was working so well? This is a real mystery, Nicole. Often when I read out these questions, I just kind of know straight away, I'm like, yeah, they need to do this. But I was reading over your question earlier and thinking, this is a bit unusual. Like he's really pushing back against
that second nap, which is a bit odd. think when, when things are confusing like this, I tend to go, okay, let's take stock and let's think through the daily rhythm, the settling approach and the feeding. those three core factors that really influence sleep. So take a reading on what his current sleep need is. Is it 11 and a half hours? Is it 10 and a half hours? Look at the average across one to two weeks, if you've got the data. And then once you know that average lock it in.
that is going to be what you build the daily rhythm around. And it's going to help really build sleep pressure and you'll probably find the settling gets back on track really quickly. Hopefully that second nap becomes a lot easier as well. And you'll start to find everything kind of clicks in place. Now, if you're worried, cause you sort of say, he's crankier during the day though, it might be that the nights are pretty low quality sleep with all those wakeups. So he's crankier during the day. It doesn't necessarily mean that he's needing more sleep than what he's getting.
It might just be that he needs fewer wakeups to kind of have that better mood again. So if try out that daily rhythm, and if you think after a couple of weeks, no, he's still really cranky. Try adding a little bit more back in. Um, just test that out. Like in the unique sleep needs chapter, it talks you through how to do that. yeah. So tighten things up just knowing that you can always start to add a bit more back in later on if it's not going uh well. That's what's causing that change in sleep.
Look, he's at an age where sleep needs to really quite sharply. So often he's just a drop in sleep needs that really kicks it off. Also, he's at an age where he has very strong preferences. So if he's figured out, well, when I absolutely kick up a stink, I'm really likely to be fed or held to sleep. Often they're like, right. cool. I've got the memo. Thanks, mom. Now I'm going to absolutely how for that afternoon nap, because I know that sometimes
I get to have this lovely, you know, feed or hold to sleep. So you might even just decide, look, you know what, that second nap, let's just do it in the prayer for the next couple of weeks. give yourself a bit of a get out of jail free card while you're getting the daily rhythm back on track. Um, so there's a few things to consider there, Nicole, but I think, tighten the daily rhythm, work on the same settling approach. You'll probably find that it starts to work well and things settle back into a pattern again. Um, yeah, excellent.
Okay, let's move on to Georgina. So Georgina has a couple of questions. She wants to know how important is consistency in nap timing throughout the day? Is the priority to maintain relatively consistent nap timings, or is it more important to ensure that the overall amount of daytime sleep is appropriate and allowing for a consistent bedtime and morning wake time? Let's touch on this one first. I...
pretty much don't care what time your baby or toddler has their naps. I really don't care that much and it can change day to day. I'm not even that bothered. Definitely the total amount of day sleep is the number one most important thing. The second most important thing is making sure the naps aren't pushing too close to bedtime. So as a general rule, I would say at six months of age, absolute minimum of three, if not three and a half hours awake before bed.
tends to be what works for most babies. Obviously that varies if they're on two naps, it's gonna be a lot more. Some babies do fine with less time awake if they've got a really high sleep need. But yeah, overall I would say the most important thing is that total day's uh Georgina asks, how do you distinguish a genuine change in your baby's unique sleep need from temporary sleep disruption caused by external factors?
She says, for context, my son is four and a half months old and has had a fairly consistent sleep need of around 13 hours and 20 minutes. He previously had long overnight stretches of up to eight and a half hours, but over the past month, his sleep has become considerably more fragmented and inconsistent with false starts, waking at the end of almost every sleep cycle with some rare six and a half hours stretches of sleep overnight.
His total sleep has become quite variable, generally ranging from about 11 to 13 hours, largely due to increased overnight waking. And she says it's been this way for a couple of weeks now, at least. This is another ripper question, Georgina, and I'm so glad you sent it in. This is why we always look over a week or two when we're thinking about sleep needs. We'd also be considering, you have they been really unwell? Have they, you know, changed time zones, been traveling, something like that?
It's definitely worth thinking about those things, but I would say four months of age, all babies are on this bit of a slew, you know, a slide where the sleep needs are dropping and dropping and dropping. And I would say your baby has, is going through that change where their sleep need is starting to reduce. Um, so I would say, yeah, how do you know when it's like a real drop in sleep needs? You're seeing a pretty consistent trend across a few weeks where it's dropping off and you're seeing things like what you described Georgina.
increased night waking, you might find it takes ages to settle. They're wanting more hands-on support. They're waking really early, refusing naps. That's when you go, okay, sleep pressure's not there, you know, where we really want it to be. Have sleep needs dropped off and we need to quickly adapt that daily rhythm. So yeah, um that's how I would be thinking about it, Georgina. Do another bit of an assessment of that sleep need.
Awesome. We're powering through. Question number eight is from Emma. Emma says, my eight month old sleep has suddenly fallen off a glyph. Emma, you poor thing. she says his sleep need is 12 hours, 45 minutes, and he's been on a 13 hour daily rhythm. He moved to two naps at six and a half months and the last six weeks have been very interrupted.
She says, he's waking up at 7 a.m., has a nap at 10.30 a.m. for an hour, another nap at 3 p.m. for an hour, and an 8 p.m. bedtime. So yeah, that's 13 hours of opportunity. Emma says he's been a chronic catnapper since eight weeks and rarely links sleep cycles. He now cries hysterically after 30 minutes of a nap, then puts himself back to sleep after a few minutes to complete the hour. oh
Good on him. That's he's really working hard at that, isn't he? And he's managing to do it. That's really good. But she says he struggles with long stretches of sleep at night. At night, after a week of false starts and split nights, she cut his sleep to 12 hours, 45 minutes total opportunity with a 6.45 AM wake up. But he wakes on his own at 6.15 AM every day. And from about 4.30 AM, he calls out a lot for his dummy.
Before this, he slept through until 7 a.m. and they've also recently stopped using the heater overnight. So Emma's wondering, has his sleep need actually dropped or could he just be cold without the heater on? ah How can I help him consolidate his naps and get back to sleeping through the night? All right, yes, his sleep needs sound like they've dropped. I really reckon they have. ah I would take the most recent average Emma and adapt the daily rhythm to it.
And as for your question about, he cold? I'm wondering the exact same thing with my own kids at the moment, because there are some nights that are quite mild and you don't need the heater on. And then all of a sudden there's a freezing cold night and it's like, do I leave the heater on or not? Have a bit of an experiment. Maybe try leaving it on tonight, see if he sleeps better or even just adjust what he's wearing and see if that helps. In terms of consolidating the naps, he just needs to keep practicing. So it is
perfect that he sleeps for 30 minutes, cries a few minutes and then he's back to sleep. That is him working hard to link the sleep cycles together. And over time, you'll probably notice that he'll stop having that cry out. And yeah, I think that's going to be really key. Like he's getting the practice of resettling himself during the day. That's really likely to then flow over to the night, especially if we've adapted that daily rhythm to whatever his new sleep needs are.
We should see higher sleep pressure overnight and him starting to work harder on the resettle overnight. One thing I'd be really keen to check in with you about is when he wakes up overnight, make sure you're not rushing over at the first noise. Really important to just hold off for a few minutes and see if he can manage the resettle. The more he practices that the quicker and quieter he's going to resettle himself. But if we run straight over to try and quickly get him quiet and back to sleep, he'll keep relying on some form of support from every sleep cycle.
So yeah, build that sleep pressure again with a new daily rhythm and then go all in on the settling approach. And I think you'll see that start to come back together again, Emma. Good luck. I hope it goes well. Okay, our next question is from Joy. Let me just check how we're tracking for time here. Oh, we're going pretty good. That's awesome. All right, so Joy wrote in and she says,
I'm worried my five month old isn't getting enough total sleep. At four months he averaged about 14 hours. Daylight savings cost us an hour overnight that we just never got back. And he now averages between 11 and a half to 12 and a half hours of sleep per 24 hours. She says at four months of age bedtime was at 7.30 PM where he mostly self settled.
He'd wake at 6.30 a.m. and overnight he'd feed back to sleep maybe two or three times and then take three to four hours of day sleep over four to five carrier naps. So quite a lot of sleep. She says, now bedtimes at 8 p.m. The target wake up time is 6.30 a.m. He wakes at 5.30 a.m. for his usual feed, but feeds less than he used to.
He falls asleep briefly, then is awake about five minutes later. Classic low sleep pressure. just spring awake again. Joy says, I leave him to babble until about 6.30 AM. He sleeps in our room in the dark with white noise. We recently dropped to three naps and moved from the carrier to the cot at the same time. Cot naps are going reasonably well, but he wakes crying between cycles and tops out at about an hour and a half hours of day sleep, unless she rescues
rescues a nap with a feed. He handles two to two and a half hour wake windows well and wakes happy in the morning. So she wants to know is the 5.30 a.m. causing or reinforcing the early waking? um If he's just having the one, I'm gonna answer them one at a time. If he's just having the one feed overnight at 5.30 a.m. and he is five months old, look that's pretty typical to have one feed overnight.
It's great. He's making it through to 5.30 AM and probably pretty soon he'll just make it right through the night without needing it. I wouldn't say it's reinforcing the early waking unless you are getting him up at that time, which you're not. You're keeping it dark and he's hanging out in his cot having a little chat by the sounds of it. So I would say that's not really the problem. I wonder with the history of things described there, Joy, if he's thinking, well, sometimes I can feed back to sleep and that's quite nice. And that can sometimes mean that they're
Really wakeful and, um, you know, don't take long naps because they're like, where's my feed. I want to have another feed. that's something to think about as well. Um, and she wants to know, did I take on too much by dropping a nap and moving to cot naps at the same time? should she go back to carrier naps for now? I would say, no, don't look back on the carrier naps. They're a hard thing to move away from. And he's doing a great job in the cot, which is really, really good. Um, it's not too much to drop a nap and move to the cot.
at the same time, often uh it's the perfect time to do it. You drop a nap, the sleep pressure's a little higher and then they find that transition a little easier. And she wonders, she missing anything in the schedule or the setup? Look, I would be, I'd be checking in, really working out what exactly is the sleep need, because you describe between 11 and a half to 12 and a half hours. uh A whole hour of range is quite a lot. So if it's, you know, 12 hours,
work to a daily rhythm that allows exactly 12 hours and you'll probably start to see those nights really come together and maybe he'll even yeah drop that night feed all on his own accord. Once you've optimized that daily rhythm um really do a push for the cot settling for him you know settling himself you've done a bit of practice towards that and then I would keep going with that.
we're likely then to see things start to come together. But yeah, look, I would say like a lot of babies this age, he's had a drop in sleep needs that's really common. And often at least parents kind of grappling for like, what went wrong? What do I need to do? Just check back in on that sleep need, adjust the daily rhythm. And I've got everything cross joy that it will all come back together again, beautifully.
Alright, next up is a question from Felicia. Felicia says, have an almost seven month old girl. She has a 12 hour sleep need. She can only manage about 10 to 10 and a half hours total sleep overnight. And she has three naps a day of around 30 to 40 minutes each with three hours awake before bedtime. Felicia says, we aim for a 730 PM bedtime and 6 AM wake up with two feeds overnight.
We were doing the quick fade approach which worked really well for her initially. But after recent illness during which we co-slept, she now doesn't respond as well to the quick fade approach. She will wake up two to three hours after bedtime and then three hourly. We have to resettle her for up to two and a half hours after the first feed if we try to resettle her without a feed.
Ah, so if you don't offer that feed, she's like, I'm not going back to sleep. Felicia says she also wakes up at five to five 30 most mornings and we aren't even getting the 10 hours of night sleep anymore. She wonders, is this a sleep pressure problem or a resisting the cock problem? Do we need to look at dropping to two naps? Do we need to switch switch to the supported accelerated approach since she's fighting the quicker fade so much?
And when she wakes early and trying to resettle her until wake up time, when 6am rolls around, should she just get her up at that time, even though she hasn't gone back to sleep? Got you. Yes. Okay. uh Is it a, let's start at the beginning. Is it a sleep pressure problem or a resisting the cot problem? I would say it's both. It's a little, little bit of both. So fix the sleep pressure problem first. So do the assessment of her sleep needs as it stands at the moment.
adapt that daily rhythm for a week and get that sleep pressure back where you want it. Um, but yeah, of course she's thinking, hang on a minute, the other week when I wasn't feeling well, I got to sleep in your bed. What do you mean? I've got to go back in my cot. Um, so I think, you know, she's definitely old enough that she'll be thinking, no way you're not dare putting me back in there. Um, so yeah, it's a bit of a two prong problem there. but start with the daily rhythm for a week, then go back in on the cot settling. Um,
Yeah, I would think about dropping to two naps at this point. She's seven months old, so most of them are moving to two naps. That's also going to really bump up that sleep pressure overnight. Might be why the nights have gotten so tricky as well. The supported accelerated approach is absolutely worth considering if you're finding that that quick fade approach is just not doing it anymore. Some of them respond a lot better to supported accelerated. So that's definitely something you could try out.
Um, and yet with your wake up time, if you've got a set wake up time, your goal is to keep things dark and boring until that wake up time. And then once it's a wake up time, get them up lights on, carry on with your day. So even if, if you've got to wake up time of 6 AM and you know, she wakes at 5 30 AM, but you know that this daily rhythm is suited to her sleep needs. Then get her up at 6 AM and carry on with your day. Don't add extra day sleep. Don't.
to have an early bedtime, really try and push through, just show a circadian rhythm. We really need to sleep till 6 a.m. because if you wake up early, we're not going to play catch up later on. And that's how we really help them to kind of get into a groove. If you just can't get into that groove, it might be that we have to make further adjustments at some point. But yeah, thank you. Thank you for sending in that question, Felicia. It's a really good one.
Okay, second last is from Rachel. Rachel says, my baby is now four and a half months old and his sleep need is about 13 and a half hours. now Rachel wrote in previously. So this is a little bit of an update. um So yeah, four and a half month old baby, his sleep need is now about 13 and a half hours. Rachel says, we've used the slow tapered approach and he now settles in his cot at bedtime and overnight with padding and shushing.
taking about 10 minutes to fall asleep. Well done, Rachel. That is amazing progress. So really, really well done there. Rachel describes a daily rhythm that is a great fit for his sleep needs. She is finding that from 11 p.m. he stirs roughly every hour and more often after the 4 a.m. Sometimes he resettles on his own or with his dummy, but every morning she ends up holding him for the final stretch.
He seems tired and falls asleep quickly when held. She transfers him back to the cot before 7 a.m. so he wakes up there. He doesn't cope with more than an hour, 50 minutes awake and shows strong tired signs at the end of his wake time. So she doesn't think he's ready to drop the fourth nap. uh If he's held, he falls asleep in under five minutes. Rachel has started settling him in the cot for naps the same way as at night.
Excellent move Rachel, really good idea. She says his best cot nap was about 38 minutes but he often wakes at 25 minutes and she can't see a consistent cycle length. That's a very good clue. She hasn't tried cot settling for his 30 minute naps yet. He won't nap in the pram. Rachel is happy to keep some contact naps but he starts daycare in January. All right, I would say Rachel that there's two things here.
The fact that he won't do full sleep cycles is usually a pretty clear sign that sleep pressure is a little low. So it might be that the nights have gotten a little tricky. He's waking up on the back foot, chasing a bit of it, you know, seems really tired, chasing a bit of extra day sleep to make up for it. So he does seem genuinely tired. It's that whole cycle I was talking about earlier. Um, but then that leads to another broken night. So I think there's some changes to make to the daily rhythm there. Check in on what his sleep need is.
right now. I might have just dropped off just a little bit. Might need a little bit of um adapting. um Yeah that's where I would be, um that's what I would be starting with. um And then I would say too in terms of the settling, I would go all in on the cot settling. So if you really want the nights to come together, it's often at this age that they have really strong preferences for how they fall asleep.
So if you're able to kind of standardize what you do in the day and the night, often everything settles down. There's one way of falling asleep and they understand what that is and sleep really starts to improve. For some babies, if they fall asleep one way at one time, a different way another time, they can cause confusion and overnight they're just like, well, why can't I be held back to sleep? So if you're really wanting to improve the nights, that's where I would put your energy.
um is into adjusting the daily rhythm and then maybe pushing ahead with all the naps in the cot for a little while and then it will help when he starts daycare in January. I've just realized, Rachel, you've actually got four questions here that you've sent in. Yeah, so you ask about if it's a sleep needs dropping again, I'd say, yeah, for sure. um How to tell if he's awake at the end of a sleep cycle. uh
whether awake at the end of a sleep cycle. I'm not making any sense. How can I tell whether a wake up is at the end of a sleep cycle or something else is waking him early? Look, if it's, he's waking up at 20 something minutes, I'd say he's not quite through a sleep cycle. And it probably is due to low sleep pressure. With tackling the cot naps, I would use the exact same approach that you're using overnight. So just really create that consistency around the clock.
uh And you asked, can you move to the final stage of the slow tapered approach while he's still having some contact naps or should we wait until all his sleep is in the cot? There's no hard and fast rules on this. Generally I say babies cope better when it's just consistent around the clock. uh But I think you've got to consider your own capacity as well. You wouldn't be the first family who's worked on the cot settling really hard overnight and then just worked on naps at a later time.
So yeah, you can make a call on what you feel is the best bet, Rachel. But you're doing an awesome job. That is phenomenal progress. So well done. All right, our very final question is from Karen. So Karen says, my baby is now six weeks old and we're finding it harder to settle her to sleep, specifically reading her tired cues and working out her wake windows.
Karen then describes a bunch of different scenarios where they saw tired signs, tried for a nap, and then got really different results each time. So sometimes her baby's settling really quickly, and then at other times it's taking ages and ages. Karen says, I'm finding it quite difficult as we also have a toddler to look after at home. She also wonders when I'm logging her sleep, does dozing kind of count as sleep? Where they're not fully asleep, but they're not quite awake either.
and does it lower sleep pressure? um Yeah, let's start with that one, Karen. Dosing is asleep, especially in a six week old, they enter sleep through light sleep, which can be quite sort of active. They can be moving a bit and it just seems like, you know, very light sleep, but it is still sleep. So I would, yeah, absolutely include that in the diary. And it definitely does lower sleep pressure. um So.
I think that I would love Karen to be able to say, this is the magic ingredient for exactly when to settle your six week old. But the reality is that six week olds are so up and down and everything changes so fast. What works one week won't work the next week. Um, and you've got an older child. So I reckon, you know, that, that tricky roller coaster that you're on as well. I would be doing.
you know, my best to look for things like those early tired signs. So if your baby wakes up from a nap, they're probably going to spend a bit of time being pretty happy and awake. They'll look at your face. That might, you know, really make lots of eye contact and they have fairly smooth bodily movements, but at some point that will shift and their stare will go off into the distance. Cause looking at your face is now just too exhausting for those poor little eyes. So they'll often do that long distance sort of stare.
The movements of the arms get a little bit more sort of jerky and the legs as well not so fluid They're more sort of sudden and jerky They're kind of the early tide signs and it's around that point I'd be like, okay Let's start preparing for a nap and that's about the best you can do is keep looking for those signs Trying to settle and seeing how it goes because over time it's gonna change a lot But with practice, you're also gonna start to notice. Oh, okay at this time of day
you know, settling her at this time tends to work better. Um, and it is just a lot of trial and error. So you're approaching it the right way, Karen, you're kind of monitoring, you know, when you put her down at different times and thinking, well, which sort of worked over the next six weeks, things are going to start to really fall into a lot more of a predictable pattern, especially as she heads towards 12 weeks of age. Um, so hold on tight, Karen. We're all here cheering you on. You got to get through it. It's so tough.
But hopefully the next few weeks things really do start to become a bit clearer and a bit easier as well. What a massive episode this has been. I have loved it. I missed it. I really love doing these episodes. It's a lot of work, but it's just really fun to dive into these little scenarios. I absolutely love it. um Amazing. So don't forget being a Sombelle member means that you and I can work together one-on-one. So if you're listening in and thinking,
Geez, I'd love it if Fallon could just look at this sleep diary and just tell me exactly what to do. Well, that is absolutely an option if you're a Sombelle member. If you're not, go and check out the site. We've got various programs and there's lots of support there for you and lessons on all the things that we talk about in the podcast as well. And yeah, together we can work up an amazing sleep and settling action plan. So you've got everything that you need ready to go.
Amazing. Thanks so much for tuning in. Be sure to share the podcast around, leave us a review if you've got a minute and take the very best of care. See you next time.
