The Sleep Nanny Podcast

Why Does My Baby Wake Up So Early

The focus for this blog is why does my baby wake so early? Why, why, why, why, why, why? I know what it feels like myself because when my eldest was little, this was a big problem for me, in fact he’s a little bit wired that way. So I know firsthand what you’re going through if you have an early riser on your hands.
In this blog I’m going to go through everything to explain why this happens, to give you the insight and ability to overcome this problem once and for all.
Starting at the beginning, why does your baby wake so early in the morning?
When I say early, I’m talking pre 6:00 AM. In our general culture that we live in, where people work a nine-to-five job, we have our school hours etc, we’re talking 6am or beyond is actually perfectly acceptable. I know some people might not like to hear that.
But, if it’s pre 6:00 AM, it’s still nighttime and you do not need to start the day that early. So why is your little one waking up at that time? If you’re getting wake-ups before 4:00 AM, then it’s a night waking and that’s another kettle of fish. Wake-ups at 9:00 PM, at 11:00 PM, 2:00 AM, they could be for all kinds of reasons. But the typical early waking time is usually between 4 and 5:00 AM, maybe 5:30, but roughly between 4 and 5:00 AM. That’s what we call early waking.
If your little one is doing that, then the reason is they are overtired. Now, think about that for a minute. They’re overtired, so they’re waking early? Makes no sense, does it? You’d think they’re overtired, they’re tired. They need to sleep in. They need to sleep longer. That’s what you would think. But like most things with sleep, it’s completely counterintuitive, which is why our lovely instincts and intuition when it comes to this, lets us down because what actually is going to work for a little one’s sleep is usually counterintuitive. And that’s why it’s the hottest topic among parents.
So yes, early wakings are caused by being overtired. It’s to do with how it reacts in the body and how over tiredness creates actually a bigger influx of hormones that actually keep you going and keep you stimulated. And that’s why we wake up more.
You may have had this yourself when, if you’ve been traveling, maybe long haul and multiple countries and you’ve got to an airport and you’re like, “Oh my God, I just need to sleep.” But you can’t. And I’ve got to get that next flight and you power on and you power on. And then all of a sudden you feel, “I’m not tired anymore.” And you haven’t slept, but you’re thinking, “I’m over it. I don’t even feel tired anymore.” That’s because your body has released these hormones to keep you going and you push past that tired window and you’re actually overtired, but you feel wired. Little ones will often do this. They will zone out to sleep. They will have a certain amount of sleep, but then they’re awake and they can find themselves awake and wired because they’re overtired.
But why? Where’s this overtiredness coming from? That’s the first thing you need to look at.
I want to run through a few examples for you right now, so that you can start to understand, why is my little one overtired because it might not be obvious. Sometimes it is, but sometimes it isn’t.
First of all, let’s look at naps. How many naps a day did your little one ought to be having? And for how long should each nap be? Because sometimes you might think they’re napping a lot, but actually they’re napping very short like cat naps, so the quality of the nap isn’t great. So it’s about the length and the quality. Also, motion naps, so naps that are induced by motion or kept going by motion can often, not always, but often be less of a quality nap as well because they going into deep sleep and it’s like the motion is just keeping them down and keeping them dozing.
Like when you nod off in a car or on a plane, as a passenger. You do that whole head thing and it’s like, you’re sleeping, but you’re in quite a light sleep. A motion nap could be causing light sleep for little one. It could be that the nap’s too short and poor quality. So napping, generally, are they getting enough? Most little ones are not and if you’re unsure, then reach out to us because we have a sleep needs guide. There’s one in my book as well. If you want to get your hands on that and it will give you a pretty good ballpark as to where you ought to be with those naps.
The other thing that goes hand in hand with this is the wake window. The wake window is how long your little one can be awake for in between sleeps.We have an ideal target wake window based on the age and developmental stage. But what people forget, sometimes people get so hung up on the wake window and they’re like, “Right, wait window is this long, now it’s sleep time.” They wake up. Right, the wait window is this long again and they’re at sleep time. But actually what they’re not doing is reducing the wake window after a poor nap. So let’s say the nap would be best if it were 90 minutes long, but we’re only getting 30 minutes. Well, then we can’t do the full wake window. We need to reduce the wake window and bring the next nap earlier. So there’s a craft to that. And knowing that the optimal wake window only stands if we’re getting the optimal amount of sleep as well.
The other one could be that bedtime’s too late or inconsistent, moving around all over the place. And that’s another thing that people do when they are focusing too heavily on wake windows is they allow bedtime to just be all over the place instead of anchoring in a set time that is consistent every evening, which really helps little one’s body clock.
There’s one more thing it could be. There’s one more place that, if you’ve checked all of that off and everything is textbook. And you’re wondering, “But how is my little one overtired? Then and only then it could be that they’ve gone into such a habit with this early wake-up that it’s the early waking itself that’s causing this overtiredness.
Just to recap those for you. So maybe then you can have a think and spot, why, where is this overtiredness coming from?
Is it the naps? Not enough nap, too short naps that they’re not recycling for, or poor quality naps?
Is it the wake windows? Are they the right length, too long, too short, like timing? Timing’s a big piece of this.
Is it bedtime and that it’s too late or that it’s inconsistent each night?
Or is it the early waking itself, cutting their sleep short and meaning that they’re overtired before they even start the day?
The answer here is to find it. Once you find it, then you can fix it. Right now, your homework is to go look at where the overtiredness is coming from, and then you are ready to tackle and overcome the early waking.
Let’s get you all sleeping soundly.
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Dropping the Nap Completely

https://youtu.be/9IueYK86oN
This blog is all about dropping the nap, when nap times are no more. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I know people have mixed opinions on that but we will go through when is the best time for this to happen, how you can make it easier on your little one and avoid having it unravel and just destroy nighttime sleep.
When are little one’s ready to drop the daytime nap?
Actually I would always recommend keeping it as long as you can, but certainly up to age three. Around age three, they may show signs of wanting to drop the nap and some are ready. Some may show signs and not be ready and others aren’t ready until they’re four or even over the age of four. So it’s quite a broad spectrum of time as to when they’re truly ready, but don’t worry, because I’ve got some answers for how you can make this a gradual thing, which sounds weird because you’d think it either has to be a nap is there in the day or it isn’t, but actually there are some little tricks you can use to make it easier.
Whilst your little one may need a nap or not need a nap, there’s also the parent perspective on this because for some parents, it’s a case of, “Oh no, please keep napping because that’s my little bit of time to do some things and have some head space.” Whereas other parents are like, “Phew, I don’t need to fight this battle every single day anymore. We don’t need it anymore.” So there are mixed feelings and I would love to know which side of the fence you sit on the nap going completely. Is it something you are excited about or dreading? If you are lucky, in some cases and especially if you have a little one who does already nap well, if they’ve got their nice nap rhythm in place, they’re doing their nice one nap a day, you’re most likely to be lucky and to see the nap very naturally get shorter.
This is the organic approach, naturally their nap times just become shorter. You know that they’re okay because they’ve been napping for two hours a day, it’s gone down to an hour and a half a day, maybe an hour and a quarter, and they’re waking up just as happy and rested as they were. They’re not waking up prematurely from a nap and crying and upset and cranky because when they wake up like that that’s usually a sign they’re not done, they’re not finished. Perhaps something disturbed them or they just woke too soon. But that’s a sign that they haven’t actually finished sleeping. But if they’re waking up quite happily in the same way they were when they were having two hours and an hour and a half, you just start to see it naturally get shorter. If you get that, then you are very lucky.
It’s a lovely way to just see it slowly, slowly, disintegrate and you know little one doesn’t need it anymore. When that happens, they usually also carry the stamina to go for the rest of the afternoon and through to their bedtime quite comfortably because they are comfortably ready and they’re showing that organically. Some little ones it’s less obvious and things are a little messier. Maybe they’ve never been a great napper. Maybe they’ve never really taken enough sleep. So it’s harder to tell because you can’t really see that the nap’s reducing because it was possibly too short anyway and you’ve maybe been doing backup naps and early bedtimes to compensate for as long as you can remember.
So it might not be quite so obvious. That’s when you want to use a little bit of that guide of age but also What else can we look for?
Look at how bedtime and nighttime sleep is going. If your little one is settling quite smoothly to sleep at bedtime and sleeping soundly all night long, obviously they do wake, but resettling quite easily with or without your help, if they’re sleeping well at night on the whole, then it is a good chance that they may be ready if you’re seeing signs like suddenly we’re finding it more difficult to settle at bedtime or we’re finding it more difficult to take that nap. That could be a sign that it is time for the nap to go or begin to go.
If nighttime sleep, however, isn’t great, if you’ve got a lot of difficulty getting them off to sleep, if you have really disturbed nights and wake ups and difficulty resettling and perhaps even early rising, then the nap is not ready to go. This is one of the biggest mistakes I see is, “Oh, nights are a wreck. We are going to have to get rid of that daytime sleep just to make sure they’re tired enough.” It’s like emptying out the tank just so that they can have that great big sleep at nighttime. That’s not the answer and whilst once in a blue moon that will work, once in a blue moon they will crush out and zonk out for 12 hours and you’ll think you’ve cracked it, but that’s not sustainable and that’s not going to be the norm. That’s going to be the rarity. The norm is going to be these cranky, restless, unsettled nights because they’re overtired.
So it’s important to keep that daytime sleep in there if we’ve got problems with night sleep and we’re overtired. If your little one’s overtired, keep that sleep. So what happens when they get to an age where they can’t really nap anymore, but you also know they’re not quite ready to drop it completely? That’s where quiet time comes in. So the nap ideally will get shorter and shorter and shorter until we don’t really nap, but we still have quiet time. If you present your preschooler with quiet time anyway, and actually quite often they do this in preschools, they have the opportunity if they want to curl up and nod off, but they don’t have to. I love things like having a quiet time bag, like a little drawstring bag with maybe a book, not toys, but a book.
There could be something sensory in there, like sensory books, touchy-feely things, a blanket perhaps, like a little or comfort thing. You could have a nap mat, the ones that have the little pillow and the covered thing, and set up this quiet time space. Or a beanbag, something like that. If you have this quiet time environment where you dim the lights or you pull the blinds, you make it a little darker, take away some of that daytime stimulation, kill the noise, no screens, TV sounds, distractions. Just make it nice and calm and zen-like, and create this space for them to have that chill time. Actually, it doesn’t matter if they fall asleep or not in quiet time. If they do, don’t wake them. It’s cool. That’s just telling you that they do still need a little bit of sleep and they probably won’t sleep for too long anyway.
If they don’t, that’s okay. It’s telling us that they may still need it and not take it, but they may not need it. But they’re still having that quiet time and that quiet time is still clocking up our little Z points. It’s still giving them a level of rest because it’s reducing all the stimulation and giving them some calm and that quiet time counts. It absolutely counts. So if you’re struggling to get your preschooler to nap, when you know they do still need to, but they are having some quiet time, then you’re still winning. It’s better than not bothering. It’s better than just going, “Oh my God, this is too hard. I quit,” and then letting your little one be starved of that sleep or rest or quiet time that they do so desperately need. So use that as part of the process.
If you do go without the daytime nap, but you find your little one is tired in the afternoon, a backup nap is fine. There’s no harm in going, “Ah, okay. Maybe today we do need a little bit of sleep,” and just slot a little bit of sleep in there. You can always limit the nap if you need a backup nap and you think, “Okay, they’re asleep now, it’s three o’clock, 3:30, but …” and I see this all the time with mums on the school run and it’s like, “Oh no, they’ve gone to sleep now.” Just let them have a little power nap, but don’t let it go on too long. 20, 30 minutes and just go, “Right. Okay. I’m going to wake them up now, just so that we don’t completely skew the bedtime routine.”
A sign that they’re not entirely ready to stop sleeping in the day is when you get the car ride at 4:00 or 5:00 PM and they go to sleep in the car and you’re like, “Yeah, see, there’s still some tiredness in there. Can’t quite resist that,” and you know that they’re not quite ready to go without sleep in the day, but probably are past the ability to settle in their cots or crib and take a nap as such. So it’s a good sign that they still probably need a little bit of sleep or at least quite time and perhaps an early night. Now, early nights. Early to bed is a brilliant piece to use throughout this time and this transit and most little ones will need an early night for probably some weeks, if not a few months, just to help them manage that whole day of not napping and bringing up the time that little bit earlier. It won’t stay there. It’s just temporary until they’ve built that stamina properly up.
I hope you find this helpful in what to look for and how to navigate this little bumpy road down the lane of getting rid of that nap completely. I hope it goes smoothly for you and if you have any questions, please do reach out. We’re always here to help.
You can book a free discovery call with one of our Sleep Coaches here:

Dropping to one nap a day

We are talking naps again today, this time we are talking all about the dropping down to one nap per day. So that’s when we’re going from two naps down to one nap. Now this one can take a bit of time and it can cause a few hiccups along the way, but don’t worry. I’m going to address all of that and give you the tools you need to make a smooth transition down to one nap a day.
The first question is when do our toddlers or little ones feel ready to drop down to just having one nap a day instead of two? Usually it’s between 13 and 17 months. Occasionally, we see signs around 12 months, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re ready to make the move. And sometimes little ones aren’t ready until closer to 18 months. But typically between 13 and 17 months, this nap transition will start to occur, but this transition is longer than 3 naps to 2 naps. It can take a while. So don’t despair.
If you do have a little one that seems to want to make this transition on the earliest side, at 12 or 13 months, you’re more likely to be in there for a slightly longer ride with this, where it might progress a bit and then go back a bit. Hold onto those two naps for as long as your little one seems to be needing them and taking them. If they are enjoying three hours a day, split over two sleeps in the day and sleeping well at night, then don’t change it. Don’t change it just because age changes or just because their friends are changing, stick with it because they’re telling you that that’s what suits them right now, when they are ready to make the change you will start to see signs.
What are the signs?
What you’re going to see is probably one or the other of the naps becoming a little bit shorter in length or challenging to settle. So it could be the first nap or the second nap. Quite often, it is the second nap, but it could be the first nap. It might be that they take the first nap and they don’t have quite so long. And then they really struggle to settle for the second nap. That’s quite a common example and you just know that something’s changing, something’s shifting.
Now I always like to give you what not to use as a sign and don’t confuse this with actually a timing issue because sometimes people think, “We are ready to drop down to one nap now,” when actually they’re not ready to drop to one nap, they just have the timing of the two naps a little bit off. And so if the timing is off, you might find that you have bedtime struggles and feistiness at bedtime. And it’s because the little one is either overtired or untied at bedtime. But that could be because the naps aren’t placed quite right for them at this point in time. And that they’re not having adequate awake windows or they’re too long or too short.
So always look at that first, whether it is timing related. On a two nap schedule, we’re usually looking for about three hours in total and no more than three hours a week between sleeps, assuming they’re having a good full nap. Short awake windows, if the nap is shorter than we would like, this can be a timing issue that can confuse us and let us think that actually little one’s ready to drop a nap. Which might be the worst thing to do. So be sure.
How do you go about it? And what steps you take?
Well, there are a few ideas and things that do work differently for different people, but I would definitely, recommend my favorite approach, which is where you nudge the first nap. So the morning nap later, so you extend the morning wake for window.
So instead of waking up at let’s say 6:30 and then nap time happening around 9, 9:30, we start pushing that out. Now we want to push it to as close to midday as we can get it. But sometimes especially if these are early stages with your little one making the transition, they’re not quite ready to go all the way to midday. And you might find that they are falling asleep on their early lunch. So it might be 11, it might even be 10:30. If you can’t get them to 10:30 or 11, they’re possibly not actually ready yet to make this move. And you do still need the morning nap, which means you’re going to need a second nap. It might just mean you need to do a good solid morning nap, a shorter afternoon nap for the time being and wait till they’re really ready.
But once they’re ready, if you can push that first nap out and get it as closer to midday, as you can see how long they sleep for that nap, if it’s more than two hours, you’re winning. If it’s less than two hours, they’re going to need another sleep. But if we are getting there, we’re consolidating their day sleep into one good big nap, then we may find that we don’t need an afternoon top up or a second nap.
So what options can you have with this? So if they go to sleep, you’ve pushed out that wake for window, they go to sleep and they don’t have a great nap, put a second nap in, just think, “They had about an hour. So let’s give it two hours and then we’ll try for another nap,” and just see what they do. There is a lot of testing and experimenting when you’re going through this transition and it’s like no two days are the same. You have to be prepared and armed with the knowledge of what to do if, and then take each day as it comes and go, “Okay, well this happens. So I do this next.” So take each sleep as it comes.
If the nap is great, say they do two and a half hours, three hours, then boom, you’ve got one nap and you don’t need to do a second nap. So just take them through to bedtime. If the wake window is good, fine, if they are exhausted, just bring bedtime a little bit earlier and that will work and that will be fine. And they’ll soon build on the stamina to go for those longer chunks of wakeful time either side of their one good nap in the middle of the day. It does sit best when they are firmly on one nap a day. It does sit best around 12 to 12:30 for it starting and for a good two, like two hours is the minimum. Initially I’d be looking for two and a half hours.
Some will do three, but I would still be looking for around two and a half hours until they’re at least two years of age. And once they’re age two, it might start to shrink down to two hours and a steady two hours throughout most of age two is perfectly, perfectly normal and suitable. The backup plan is always you can slot in an extra nap. You can slot in a power nap, a push chair nap, a motion nap or whatever you need, early bedtime, but no more than an hour earlier for bedtime.
There is another approach that you may find helpful to know, but it is a bit risky. And this is where you limit the first nap. So instead of letting them take their full first nap, you cut it a little shorter. You actually wake them from it in order to then get that second nap in but without them having too much and it slowly shifts.
Now, the reason I don’t like this approach and I find it risky is because if you wake a baby, a sleeping toddler from their morning nap, when they were quite happily sleeping and wanted to be asleep, not only will they probably be quite cranky, but they may have taken the edge off enough and then it might sabotage nap two from happening at all. And then you’re like, “Well, we might not get enough sleep at all today.” And so it can be a risky game. Likewise, if a little one nods off, say in the car on the way home from somewhere in the morning, even five, 10 minutes of a little snooze, you might think, “No, that’s just totally meant that the nap is now going to be impossible.” I’m sure we’ve all done. That thing where we get home and we’re like, “Okay, well we were going to go for nap time, but I know they won’t settle now.”
And you end up sitting in the car for a bit with them just to let them have a nice bit of sleep. So, capping naps and waking little ones up for naps, there is a time and a place for it. We call it nap manipulation. I would only probably do that under the guidance of a certified sleep specialist who can give you the clues as to when and when not to do it. Because like I said, otherwise you might end up cutting short on really well needed sleep.
I want to remind you too that an early bedtime is always, always, always a good thing to do. And you might find that for some weeks when you’re going through this transition that you are using an early bedtime, don’t worry. It’s not forever. You won’t be able to nudge back to the usual bedtime.
Eventually once you’ve got that solid one nap a day in place, but early bedtime up to an hour early is fine and it might just be what you need to do for a while. And if you know, people find it inconvenient because they’re like, “Well, the time I get home from work or we have dinner and it can sometimes be a little bit annoying,” just remember it’s not forever. And it’s for the greater good. It’s for the health and brain development of your little one. It’s for the peaceful night’s sleep for your whole family. So it’s kind of a little inconvenient, but it has a huge payoff.
Take care and sleep well.
Want to know more? Book a free discovery call today and get your little one napping like a dream.

Dropping to two naps a day

We’re going to be addressing the change to two naps a day, three to two naps a day. When does this happen? How do you know your little one’s ready and how do you actually go about it?
First and foremost, when exactly is a little one ready to drop from three naps a day down to two naps a day?
Typically this is going to happen around eight to 10 months. Now that’s typically, of course, you will always get little ones that fall outside of this. Of course, you get little ones that are premature and might be working to an adjusted age and some are just not ready until a bit later, but it will usually, more often than not fall in the eight to 10 month area. What signs might you see that confirm that your little one is ready to drop from three naps to two?
Well, assuming you’ve got three naps established, it’s going to be a lot easier to see because you’ll know what normally happens and how you normally do your two core naps and probably your third shorter nap because that’s often how three naps look. If naps are already a complete and utter shambles and you’re like my little one’s nine months and still only cat naps for 30 minutes at a time, all over the place anyway, then it is going to be a little harder to see and you might have to go a little bit by age and developmental stage. But if you’re lucky enough to see the signs, here’s what you may see.
If you have three naps in place already, you might find the third nap, it becomes a little more difficult for your baby to settle for the third nap. So you find that the first two naps are fine, third one, more fussing, suddenly more fussing. And we’re eight to 10 months, good chance that they’re ready to get rid of that third nap. It could be that the first or second nap actually becomes a bit challenging too. Maybe they are struggling to settle for it or waking up a bit sooner from it than they usually do. And that could be a sign that they are ready to stretch that wakeful window. They’re ready to be awake for a bit longer in between sleeps, again, it’s telling us that their timings are shifting, the body clock you’re shifting and their needs around sleep are shifting, quite possibly to drop from three naps down to two.
What is not a sign is being cranky at bedtime. So if you are thinking, “Oh yeah, my baby’s become really cranky at bedtime. And bedtime feels like a real battle, maybe we need to drop one of the naps.” That on its own, isn’t a sign. And just be really careful because actually that bedtime crankiness could be over tiredness. And by taking a nap out of the equation, you may make that worse. So just be careful and look for other signs and cues along with that, because exclusively just being cranky at bedtime is not a reason to drop a nap.
Moving to a two nap routine, how do you do that? What does it even look like?
When we go down to two naps, we are ideally looking for 90 minutes each, about an hour and a half times two naps. But what we do want is three hours a day. So if we can get three hours total daytime sleep and the spread is roughly even, you are okay, just if one’s a little bit longer, the other’s a little bit shorter, that’s fine but we want them reasonably balanced. What we don’t want is one being really short and one being really long, but reasonably balanced would be good. When you’re making this transition and know the wakeful window, the wakeful window is around about three hours.
So about three hours awake, then nap one. If we have a full nap one, about three more hours awake, then nap two. If we don’t have a full nap one and nap one ends up going wrong or being a bit short, don’t go the full wakeful window before nap two, you want to shorten the wakeful window a bit, to make up for the fact that the first nap wasn’t long enough.
Whilst you’re making this move down to two naps and getting into a nice two nap schedule, you may find your little one is a little bit tired and you might find just because naps don’t always go perfectly, and because they don’t always take the two naps that equate to three hours a day and you are left with a chunk of afternoon before bedtime. And you’re there thinking we’re just not going to get through from here to bedtime without being really tired. So backup plan, either put in a third little catnap, power nap, which you could do by motion, you could do a push chair walk or whatever, or bring bedtime earlier. One of those two makes for a really good backup plan at any stage, really, but particularly when you’re making this nap transition.
If you bring bedtime earlier, only bring it earlier by up to one hour earlier at the most, any more than an hour earlier and you are really shifting their nighttime completely. They can tack on some of that day sleep to the front end of the night sleep. But if that’s just not really going to fit, then I would recommend a power nap, a motion nap, a little top up catch up nap. It doesn’t have to be really long, 20, 30 minutes can be fine just to bridge the gap between the last sleep and bedtime sleep if things haven’t quite gone to plan. So have that up your sleeve as a backup plan.
Things don’t go to plan with babies. There will always be that element of hoping that today is a good day, filled with the right amount of sleep. But when you know how much sleep your little one actually needs, and whether you are falling on par or below par of that, you can adjust. Knowing that you’ve got the tools to adjust, I can add in an extra catnap here, I can bring bedtime a bit earlier there, that awareness that you know if your little one is undernourished in the sleep department, then you can take those actions to top them up. And this nap transition from three naps down to two, doesn’t take too long, it’s usually only a couple of weeks, unlike the next one.
So I hope this has helped you. If you are going through the nap transition, then get in touch and let us know how it’s going, any challenges you have with it or book in for a free discovery call with one of our coaches to get a plan in place.

New Baby Naps

If you are ready to overcome nap challenges and win a good night’s sleep, then you are in the right place! This is all about new baby naps. We’re talking about how napping looks in those first months, 0 to six months and everything you need to do to get your little one napping to the best that they can in those early few months.
First and foremost, I just want to say that napping in the early weeks is pretty disorganized. It can be really quite haphazard. They’re napping. It feels like they’re almost napping 24 hours a day, and taking little sleeps on and off all the way through the 24 hour cycle. And that’s normal. So if you’re in that phase right now, don’t worry, it will get better and it will become more organized and more rhythmic, but it is quite common for it to be a little more disorganized in those early weeks. However, there are things you can do to help to get it a little bit more rhythmic and a bit more organized. Some little ones do fall into this quite naturally really early on. And I find that’s often when they are either on the larger side. So they have the capacity to sustain a bit more of their milk, and they’re not waking up so much from hunger.
If that’s the factor, it can play a part. So their capacity, their weight and their size can have a role in that. That said, there is no reason why a smaller and breastfed baby who obviously we know that breast milk doesn’t keep you feeling as full for as long, but there’s absolutely no reason why a purely breastfed baby on the smaller side, can’t sleep just as well as a larger baby or a formula fed baby. They all can do it. It’s just that there are sometimes factors that can play a part in how easy or how challenging it comes.
They may sleep little and often in the beginning and that’s okay. What we want to look for is, when can they do their longer stretch and ideally we want that longer stretch to be in the nighttime, not in the daytime. I’m sure some of you can relate to this concept of’ my baby is awake all night, but sleeps all day’.
You can help shift that. We want to get their body clock and their circadian rhythms firing up so that it recognizes, the system recognizes when it’s daytime, when it’s nighttime. And you can do that with environmental cues, just things like making sure it’s light and bright in the day and dark and dim at night. Those are simple signals to the brain as humans to know nighttime sleep, daytime wake up and light gives us stimulation and creates all kinds of chemical releases in the brain that we don’t have so much when it’s dark. Those things will help your little one to sleep better at nighttime and to feel more stimulated during the daytime. But that said, we do still want the daytime sleep to be there as well.
Other things you can do are to really think about rhythms and cues beyond just the light and dark. And you are one of those things, yourself and how you act and how you relate to your little one. So when it’s time for sleep, being in your kind of sleepy mode, which is to be calm, maybe quite placid, softly spoken to a whisper, quite subdued, sort of like nothing to see here, just one person, one on one, not lots of fussing and calm. You can be a sleepy influence on your little one, as opposed to when it’s wake time and you’ve got your full voice. And usually we talk quite rhymingly to our little ones and your face is probably animated with eye contact and all that energy that creates a stimulation and interaction with your little one. So that differentiates when it’s time to be awake, to interact, to play, to be stimulated. And when it’s time to cut the stimulation out and calm down, they will take a lot of that stimulation influence from you. So it’s important that you can adapt to which mode you need to be in.
Another thing that happens a lot with the younger babies with the naps is they often happen on the parents or on the go. And we hear from lots of parents who say, oh, I can’t get my baby down for the naps. They’re on me, on me all the time. Or they end up using slings and wearing their baby for all the naps because they know they can’t get anything done or have a life because they’ve just got to hold their baby the whole time. It’s very common and not in any way wrong at all, but what you can do if you’re finding that it is difficult, bearing heavily on you, or perhaps it isn’t giving your little one the sleep that they truly need, because perhaps they’re disturbed quite easily. For whatever reason, if it’s not perfectly working for you and you want to break away from that and find a way to get your baby to be okay, being placed down then working on that is really, really key, practicing.
I always say, practice. It doesn’t need to be perfect. It’s not to hold your baby to sleep or put them down and leave them to it. Whether they cry or not. It’s not that at all. It’s practicing, helping them to adjust to a safe, comfortable sleep space where you are too. You’re right there. You’re physically there. You’re audibly there. You’re visually there and they’re reassured. They feel safe. And at first of course they cry or fuss because it’s new. It’s different. It’s weird. What, where am I? This isn’t what we normally do and you’ll get resistance. But if you persist while showing that loving, calm, and comfort, they do get used to it. They go, oh, oh okay. Yeah, this isn’t so scary after all. Yeah. I’m okay. Because at no time have they got any sense of fear or distress, at no time do they feel abandoned or ignored because you’re right there, soothing your baby.
So practice putting your little one down for naps. And even if you only get a little bit of put down nap time, it counts. That’s another notch. That’s another bit of practice. And slowly that adds up and becomes something and the fruit of your labor will turn up. So my closing message to you on this is practice doing that. It is doing more than you think it is. So when you’re doing that, I remember doing this with my youngest and I remember going, I put her down and then I soothe her for a bit, but then she fusses.
So I have to pick her up and then I calm her and she’s calm. And then I put her down again and then she’s fussing. So I pick her up. It’s so easy to think well, what’s the point? It’s not working anyway. I’m just going to have to hold her or rock her. It’s so easy to think that, but actually the more intermittent I got with the pickup and calm, the longer those little stretches of see you’re okay. You’re right down here. It’s okay. The longer those stretches became, the better she got at it, the more she adapted to it. And as the weeks went by, I was like, oh, hang on. She’s all right for longer and longer and longer. And then amazing, she’s got it. Just like riding a bike.
So keep going even when it feels tough. You can do this. Naps can be crazy, but have a strategy, stick with it and you will get your little one napping really, really well.
Take care and sleep well.
Why not book a free discovery call if you want to get a plan in place for a better night’s sleep?

Baby Nap Routine

In this blog I am talking about all things baby naps, the routine behind them and why they’re important, we’ll be leaving no stone unturned!
When it comes to napping, why is it so important and why do so many of us get tripped up by these and spend our lives feeling like we are just trying to get the little one to go to sleep?
It feels exhausting just thinking about it, to be honest. First of all, let me just explain that all of us, but particularly babies, we can only be awake for a certain amount of time, in any one stretch, before we need to have a sleep again and top up the tank and replenish ourselves and be ready to go again. As adults, that’s usually in one block, in one chunk of the day, or in some cultures, napping is still a big part of life throughout adulthood as well. But babies, and particularly the younger they are, the shorter the amount of time they can go between sleeps and in between their sleeps, they need a nap. They need a chance to catch up and refresh.
Without having those naps what’s going to happen is a little one will get over tired and over tiredness is honestly the root of all evil when it comes to sleep, because being overtired actually causes a bigger deterioration in sleep as a whole. So we want to avoid them getting overtired, but also being overtired can cause crash out sleeps, so it can go two ways when you’re overtired. It can cause a crash out, zonk out and you think you’re winning. You think, “Oh, that is easy. My baby went to sleep easily and had a really good one.” Yeah, that’s an occasional big crash out catch up. But more often than not, what you see is more crankiness, more difficulty settling, more restless sleep, more disturbed sleep and more premature waking up from the sleep, so we need the naps.
How do you get into a good nap routine and how does it all work?
It’s always changing and that’s the thing. It’s an ever evolving thing as they grow, because as they grow, they can go longer stretches between the sleeps and the sleeps can change in their shape and length. They start smaller, they go up and they go down again, so a new baby, a young baby, will sleep little often, whereas an older one will have maybe one or two longer naps, until they start to drop it completely.
I’m going to be covering all of those stages in the next few blogs, so make sure you come back and check those out as I take you through the different stages. You might find that you are at one stage now and you want to come back and watch one of the other episodes a little later when your little one gets to that age.
For now though let’s think about nap rhythmicity and why is this important.
Right from the beginning, if you can tune in to when your little one needs to sleep and how long they can be awake, you’re going to help them to create that rhythmicity with their sleeps and with their naps. Knowledge is power with this. Knowing how long your little one is going to be optimally awake, before they need a sleep, is such a key bit of information because they don’t tell you and we can’t rely on them to show us and tell us. We talk about cues and signals, but usually with sleep, when we see the signals that they’re tired like eye rubbing, yawning, crankiness, it’s actually too late and we’ve missed the window.
The ideal sweet spot, there’s a 30 minute sweet spot, a 30 minute window where, if you can get your little one to settle to sleep in that 30 minutes, they’re more likely to settle with less difficulty and they’re more likely to sleep for longer, or for the length of time that they truly need. If you miss that 30 minute sweet spot, you may try too soon and they’re under tired. They’re not ready to go to sleep yet. But if you miss it the other way and you’re too late, they’re overtired and it looks the same. They fight it. They resist the sleep because they’ve gone past that sweet spot. They’ve released loads of cortisol. The adrenaline is flooding back through the system to keep them going. It’s the body’s natural reaction, and so then they’re like, “Oh, well I can’t go to sleep now because I’ve got all this adrenaline going around my system.”
You’ve got a 30 minute sweet spot. Now, it’s not always easy to find, but don’t give up. It’s a case of knowing, getting those rough approximate windows, so you know roughly where it’s going to be, and then just tweaking and trial and error to get it just right. But you will get it right and when you do, you’ll find that your little one will sleep better. Okay, so naps are crucial. They are absolutely vital. Please do not listen to any old fashioned myths about, “Oh, well, if you keep them awake more in the day and when you tire them out, then they’re going to sleep better at night.” It’s just not true and it’s actually really not healthy. They need that sleep for their brain development, their immune systems, their whole entire replenishment comes from those naps as well. So it’s very important to get them in there.
Next time, I’m going to go a little deeper on the new baby nap phase. The 0 to six months and what’s going on there.
In the meantime, you take care and sleep soundly.
Why not download my Sweet Dreams videos series full of tips and tricks to get a good nights sleep?

Putting Baby Down To Sleep

In the final part of my little bedtime series, this blog is all about putting a baby down for sleep when you just can’t even get them from your arms to down. I know that problem and I have got the solution!
You often find that you are stuck with your baby in your arms or on you and you know they need to lay down. Your arms are aching, you need a bit of free time too. Perhaps you need to express some milk or you’ve got just a few jobs to do or maybe actually you just deserve to put your feet up and have a rest but you can’t relax because babies asleep again on you or perhaps you’ve even tried the sling, the carrier and they have to sleep in there and yep, you get a bit more space with your arms but let’s face it, it’s not ideal and it’s not sustainable.
It’s okay now and again but what I don’t want to see is you being in this place where you feel like it’s the only way. It’s fine if it’s a way but if it’s the only way and you feel like you actually cannot put your baby down for sleep, that’s who this is for. Here are my micro steps for getting a baby down to sleep. This is something that I would recommend people do if they have a heavy reliance.
If baby has got a heavy reliance on being on you to fall to sleep and if you do put your baby down, that’s it, they’re awake, they’re crying again and you’re like, ugh, it’s just not worth it. This is something that I would also recommend for some people prior to starting my fade out approach because, the micro steps are what you need to do first. Once we’ve got through these steps then we can start step one of the fade out. What do we do? First thing you do, change the hold.
If your baby typically falls asleep being held in your arms, try the shoulder position. If it’s a shoulder position, try a side position. Change the position in some way. We want it to be noticeable. We want baby to be, hang on this isn’t right. If they don’t really care, try something a little bit different. It’s not a big enough stretch of their comfort zone. Try something that’s enough for them to be, hang on a minute, I’m not sure if I like this. We want them to notice it. Why? Because as I say, it’s stretching the comfort zone. It’s showing them that, hey, look, I’ve changed something but you are still okay. I’m still right here. You’re still with me. You’re still touching me. I’m still here for you. So they’re realizing that, oh, there’s a small change but I’m still safe. This is okay, I’ve got this. So make it subtle but significant. That sounds like a complete contradiction doesn’t it, subtle but significant, but there’s a reason, subtle but significant enough that they are aware of it.
Next?. Think about creating a small amount of distance, small bits of distance each time. Perhaps you change the hold. We’ve now stretched the comfort zone there. Now can we create a bit of distance. Can we hold them in a way that’s slightly further away. If it’s a chest thing, can we get away from there? Sometimes people will do the lap hold so you’re sitting and you’re holding baby, cradling them but in a forward feet to tummy and head in hands way across the lap so there’s a bit more distance there. Can you find a way to hold in a way that creates a bit more distance?
When changing the hold and creating distance, you could also change parents. If it’s always mummy that does it try daddy, if it’s always daddy that does it try mummy, that can also be an option to make a small change but whilst still giving that comfort and reassurance. Whilst you’re doing that, whilst you’re changing the hold and creating that little bit of extra distance we want to reinforce other forms of comfort. A great one is the shush. The shush sound, it’s a white noise sound that’s reassuring. So reinforcing shushes, even if you don’t think your baby needs it, you’re going to use it later. By reinforcing the comfort of shush or whatever sound you want to make, really whispers, means that as you change things, that thing stays. So they start to go, well, hold on, that’s still there. Oh, that’s still going, okay, that’s still there. It’s a comfort they can take with them through these steps.
Makes sense? Now the next stage of this is to lay your baby down so you’re going to put them down in their sleep space and this time with your hands still there. Whatever your current hold position has been, you’re going to move to the next step, which is to place them down but keeping your arms on them, around them in some form for a few minutes, you need to be in a position where you can lean into the crib so that the difference isn’t too huge. You may get a “Hang on, I’m lying down in here, I don’t like it, I don’t like, oh, but you’re still there. You’re still touching me. You still have your hand, ok…”So it’s almost a subtle step but this is by no means the first step, I would take these steps over a number of bed times.
I wouldn’t do this all in one night, start the change of hold for one or two nights. I would create some more distance as I go. Then on maybe night three or four, I might try putting them down but if it doesn’t feel like it’s time yet you can take as many bed times as you need to make these differences. Try not to get stuck and plateau in one position or in one hold, make sure you keep moving along piece by piece.
Once you lay your baby down and you have achieved the goal of putting them in their sleep space and you’ve got your hands on and hands in there for comfort but they are falling to sleep there, then you are ready for the fade out approach.
Use these micro steps, take your time with it and get to the point that you can place baby down even if it does involve lots of shushing and hands on comfort. Once you are ready to move on check out some of my videos on the Sleep Nanny YouTube channel or my book for the Fade Out approach.

Settling Baby To Sleep

https://youtu.be/GR1o5o1pPhE
This blog in the bedtime miniseries is all about how you settle a baby to sleep at bedtime. I will be revealing what settling to sleep actually means and what it looks like. Why it’s important and how it’s going to help you with the whole picture of sleep all around and how to actually do it.
Settling a baby to sleep. When we settle to sleep, us, children, babies, we call that part of sleep, the sleep onset. Meaning exactly what it says, it’s the onset of the sleep, it’s the beginning of the sleep, and it’s how sleep comes about. So a baby will go through sleep onset several times a day because they’ll go through the sleep onset at bedtime, then they will go through sleep onset for their naps. That’s what sleep onset is, and so to settle a baby to sleep, we need to help them to get good at their sleep onset.
But why? Why do we need to do that? Why is it important? Why can’t we just rock them or push them around in a pram until they go to sleep and that’s fine?
Well, if that’s fine and it works for you and you are happy, then that is fine. But here’s why it’s important to help a little one with their sleep onset. When a little one knows how to go to sleep and they can put themselves through that sleep onset effectively without needing you to do it for them, they’re more likely to take the longer, more substantial stretches of sleep that their body actually wants and is ready for. Then when that cycle of sleep comes to an end, they’re more likely to drift off into the next cycle of sleep like a miniature sleep onset. They’re likely to repeat it almost subconsciously and go into the next sleep cycle, meaning to you is an even longer stretch of sleep. But for them it’s lots of small stretches pushed together.
They’ll get better at falling back to sleep as well when they wake between cycles or partially wake. And it will also help with naps because when they settle to sleep at the start of the nap, they’re more likely to take the full length of naps that they need rather than waking up after 30 minutes and going, “Hang on, I’m stuck. I need to do that sleep onset thing again.” It’s really important for all round health of a baby’s sleep, and it’s one of the first things you can teach them in terms of self-regulation. Because as they fall to sleep and they go through their sleep onset, they’re actually calming and soothing in ways that you don’t even see.
So how? How do you do it? It sounds blissful, but how? It’s not that simple, is it? Well, it’s all about practice and you can practice from very early on. But the more you practice, eventually, they’re going to get good at it like anything. They can’t just do it all of a sudden, one day, magically, it takes practice. For people who have this sense that, “Well, they’re not going to have a hard time falling asleep forever. They’ll get up eventually.” Yeah, they will, but through practice, and whether that’s practice that you are consciously helping them to do or whether they just get there eventually through their own practice, then it’s still practice.
But it could take years, and I mean years, if you don’t consciously help and guide them.
Here’s the best message I can give to any new parent and any parent of a baby, but also if you have a toddler or a slightly older one, you can still take this on board and you can still do this.
It’s as that parent, as that caregiver, when it comes to the sleep onset, think about not doing the whole job for them, and that’s it. Don’t do it all for them. Help, assist, guide, support. Those things are all great, that’s your role, but don’t just do it for them. Think about that and further on in childhood, you’re not going to just do the homework for them when they find it hard. You’re not going to ride their bike for them because they haven’t got that skill yet.
You don’t do things for them, you help them, you encourage them, you show them how, you support them as they learn. It’s no different. So when your little one lays down to go to sleep, if you’ve done it for them, you’ve rocked them off to sleep, you’ve fed them so much that they’re passed out on their milk, or they’ve been walked around in their pushchair and fallen asleep with the motion lulling them off. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a time when we use those things as a backup plan because we need the sleep and so do they. But if you can at least practice this once a day for naps, and if you can definitely practice this every bedtime for the onset of sleep, not doing it all for them, but helping them along, helping them along.
It comes down to how you show them and guide them, sooth and reassure them. Help them, create the space for them to actually get that practice themselves. Then their little bodies can feel the sensation of falling to sleep, and their brains are going through these amazing, amazing learnings that, “Oh, okay, I’m safe here. This person responds to me. I’m not alone. This is a safe place. I can relax and I can go to sleep.”
They learn then to do this happily. This is not something that creates stress or frustration. Well, it can be frustrating, it can actually be frustrating when they’re like, “I’m just so tired and I really want to go to sleep and I just don’t know how to do it and you’ve always done it for me. Do it for me.” You’re like there going, “Okay, look, I’m not going to do it for you because that’s actually not helping. But I’m going to help you. I’m going to help you as much as I can and you do a bit too. We’re a team.” Like that’s the message you want to send. But they shouldn’t be fearful and they shouldn’t be distressed, and crying does not mean that they’re fearful or distressed. It often just means they’re tired and fed up and they just want to go to sleep.
As long as your list one is fed so they’re not hungry, they’re clean and dry, they are not poorly or unwell in any way, then your support, your comfort and your guidance is all they really need to settle peacefully to sleep.
I hope this has given you a good idea about what sleep onset is and why it is important and how that’s the key to settling a baby to sleep. In the next part of this bedtime series, I’m going to be talking all about how you put a baby down for sleep.
We’re here if you need us, and you can book a free discovery call if you want to know more about getting a good night’s sleep even with the clock change.

Toddler Getting Out Of Bed

https://youtu.be/zTY5iPdjwl8
This is the second in my mini series about bedtimes, and we are going to be delving into what you do when you have a toddler who is getting up and down at bedtime and they just won’t stay in their beds. You know what I mean? I’m sure when we’ve all been there. I’m going to be answering the key questions to help you overcome that exact battle.
A toddler, particularly, getting up and down, getting out of bed repeatedly at bedtime when you know they’re tired and you know they just need to go to sleep, it’s so frustrating. All you want is to have that blissful little bedtime story, say goodnight and have a bit of an evening for yourself as well. Or maybe you have other children to tend to, but this one is dominating and taking up all of your evening. And then you end the day feeling stressed and fed up and resentful about the whole situation, rather than feeling fulfilled and satisfied, and having that lovely bedtime that you and your family deserve.
What can we do about this? How can we stop a little one from getting up and down from their bed?
We’ve told them. We’ve asked them. We’ve tried reward charts, and they still do it. Why? Why, Why? Why? Well, there is the question and this is the answer. The likely reason that your little one is getting up repeatedly and not staying put in bed is probably to do with the response that comes when they do it. What do I mean by that? What happens when your little one gets out of bed? Do you walk them back and tuck them in? Do you walk them back and tuck them in 10 times, then get cross and end up frustrated and telling them off. Or do you end up finding it funny and having a laugh? Do you show any forms of frustration or any forms of a game? Because likely your toddler either thinks it’s a game or they’re getting something out of an interaction.
Now, when I say getting something out of it, it doesn’t have to be positive. Little ones will enjoy any kind of interaction. They’re not really so bothered about whether it’s positive or negative. Whether you’re praising them for it or telling them that’s not what we want to see, they don’t really care. They’re getting that response from you so they’ll keep doing it because they’re getting the engagement. So what does your response look like? Now, some might say well, what then? Shall I just ignore them? That’s not likely to work either because they’ll just keep probing you and they’ll just keep coming, and they’re not really getting a direction from you.
So how do you give a consistent and appropriate response to actually getting that little one to stay in bed? Well, the key word I said there is consistent. It needs to be consistent. The likelihood is, and we all do this, is that you send a big bunt of mixed messages. So the first time it’s, “Come on now, back to bed.” The second time it’s, “Shh, shh. Lie down, get into bed.” The third time you pick them up from the landing and carry them back and then tuck them in and say “Enough now. Go to bed.” And you’re sounding firmer. Maybe the third time they’ve asked for water so you’ve gone off and got them a cup of water. Maybe the fourth time mummy’s had enough so daddy’s come in and had a go. And it just is all mixed, mixed, mixed. Okay. And then little one might start testing other things like oh, what if I play with these toys? Or what if I move these things around? They like to strip beds, demand different pillows and all kinds of things to delay things and mix it up.
And what they’re doing is actually completely normal and part of intelligent brain development. They’re testing if I do this, then what do you do? If I change my behaviour, will you change your behaviour? And they’re testing to see well, when I do, what’s this action going to get as a response? So your role as the parent is to give a consistent response, no matter what the action. If it’s just a little get up, same response. If it’s throwing teddies around the room, same response. It needs to be the same. And I describe this like, you need to have a steady hand. You need to have a steady hand with the same response every single time. That way they know well, there’s no point mixing it up and trying anything else because I’m going to get the same response. The response itself is key though. It needs to be completely clear every time, no mixed message. It needs to be firm. It needs to be firm without being cross, but also without being fluffy. Just firm and clear, and of course it needs to be consistent.
What could that look like? With little ones you might need to guide them to bed. Don’t pick them up. Don’t give them a carry or a cuddle or anything else. That’s too much of an incentive to do it again. Just guide them back, “This way.” If they’re big enough to be in a bed and get out of it then they’re big enough to get back into it. So just guide them back. You could use a simple keyword like, “Back to bed.” Guide them. No chit chat along the way. If they start trying to engage in conversation just “Shh, shh” or “Sleepy time”. Have a little cue key word or phrase that you can whisper. And they get into bed, “Night, night.” And then walk away. It’s as simple as that. The more we try to do the worse we make the situation, especially with toddlers, and especially with these alert little ones. So consistent response, clear message and be firm with the message so that you’re not giving them any false hope or incentive.
Now, I want to give you a really important extra piece of information on this. If your little one is in a bed and they are under the age of two and a half, so they’re no longer in a crib or a cot with sides, but they’re actually in a bed, even if there’s bed guards, if they can get out themselves and they’re under two and a half, you could be in for a long session of doing this night after night for many, many weeks, if not months returning them to their bed. Why? Because under the age of two and a half they’re not really cognitively ready to understand this. So this process of being consistent and clear with your messaging, they don’t really get it effectively until they’re over two and a half. So it could be that you’re fighting a bit of a losing battle for a while.
That’s not to say some little ones won’t adapt and get it. And it’s not to say that the hard work won’t pay off eventually, but be prepared to be doing it for a long time, because you could be doing all the right things and thinking, but I’m not getting anywhere and it’s because they are just not cognitively ready yet. So really do consider that if you are miles away from age three, could you bring back the cot or crib? Could you put them back in? And oh, but they climb out I hear you cry. Well, I have a whole other episode on that and things you can do to prevent and avoid that from happening. And if it is, just sometimes it’s just a fear that they might, so maybe they won’t. But if they are under two and a half I would recommend considering going back to a cot or a crib, if this is a problem for you and you are fighting this battle over and over again.
I thought I’d give you that little bit of ‘bonus’ of information hopefully to help you along your way, I hope that this helps.
Sleep soundly and take care.
We’re here if you need us, and you can book a free discovery call if you want to know more about getting a good night’s sleep even with the clock change.

Kids Bedtime Routine

https://youtu.be/QCYdKWfdK3s
Do you find yourself dreading bedtime every evening and feeling like, “Oh no, bedtime is coming again.” It’s a battle, it’s exhausting, and you just want your little ones to go to sleep happily.
In this blog I’m going to be talking about routine, particularly the bedtime routine. Why it’s important, when you can start it, and what it should look like..
Routine. Bedtime routine. What should that look like for kids? And why is it important?
The thing with a bedtime routine is it sets the scene that sleep time is coming and not just a nap, but that big, long sleep time. So even for us, as adults, teenagers, older children, we all really benefit from having that routine at bedtime. It also really helps to encourage the circadian rhythm, which is the body clock to stay into a nice, healthy rhythm. Meaning we tend to know instinctively when it’s night time, when it’s daytime. And studies have shown that even as adults, if we have a consistent bedtime every evening, we go to bed at the same time every evening, start the day at roughly at the same time every day, we are more likely to get better quality sleep, fall asleep more easily, and just feel fresher and brighter when we wake for the day. So it’s important to instil this in our little ones right from the get go.
Bedtime routine with children, it’s like an instruction. It’s like a trigger. It’s a cue. So not only does it give them that rhythmicity, it’s time to go to big sleep now, we have a big sleep, we start the day, we have meals, we have naps maybe. It’s time for that big sleep again. It creates that rhythmicity and health in sleep. So it’s really important and you can actually start a bedtime routine from as early as just a couple of weeks. So once you have your new baby home and you feel like you’ve got over the childbirth part and you’re starting to think about these things. It’s not really too early because a bedtime routine with a newborn is just going to be simply setting the scene with a few triggers and cues, a darkened room, perhaps that last milk feed, a lullaby, maybe a gentle rock or a placing down, the steps you do to put that little one down for sleep at bedtime is a bedtime routine.
It doesn’t matter how subtle it is, but those little triggers and cues from the environment can make a huge impact on a new baby and set them up really, really well for healthy good nourishing sleep. You can never start too soon.
What actually can you put into a bedtime routine?
Well, that is going to change and evolve as your little one grows. I’m sure what you do in your bedroom routine has changed over the years as well. So it will change. But with children, the key thing to remember with bedtime routine is to do the same steps in the same order at pretty much the same time for bedtimes. So for example, once you decide bedtime is coming, that’s the start of the bedtime routine and it ends with them going to sleep. So everything we do needs to be leading towards sleep.
We want to come away from the normal busyness of the daytime and the atmosphere of daytime, which might mean we go from being downstairs in kitchen, living room, busy areas to we say goodnight to any other family members and one person so that it’s less stimulating, take the little one to the bathroom. You do your bathroom activity, whether that’s a bath or a shower or just a little wash, whether it’s baby massage, applying lotion or kick about with no nappy, again, whatever stage your little one is at, your routine steps may look slightly different, but bathroom activity will happen. They’ve all got to brush their teeth at some point. So we’re going to have our bathroom activity and then from there into the room that they will sleep in. Now this bit is important. So many people will go and do the bathroom a bit and then go and watch some TV or take them to another room or then see another five family members and it’s all stimulating again.
We want to use the bath time piece as the beginning of this wind down and of this calm ready for sleep. So from there to the bedroom, in the bedroom we have those last few steps of the routine. So that may still include a milk feed. The last milk feed of the day. It may not. The little one might have a little bit of water. They may have a bedtime story. Depending on their age, it can start with a little feely touchy book thing, pointing at things, to short stories, to sort of bigger stories as they get older. But again, with stories, limit that to what feels comfortable. Is it one story? One story’s good. I would go for one, but just make it the ideal length for the little one’s age. If the story is too short pick a longer one, rather than having two or three short stories. Because little ones, especially toddlers and preschooler age are going to go, “Oh, one more, one more, one more,” and try and delay and keep that going. So sticking to one is a really good idea.
What’s next? Do you tuck them in, say goodnight? This will evolve at different ages and stages. With a baby, it may be a lullaby and a place down. With a young school-aged child or a preschooler, it might be a bedtime story and a tucking in and a little goodnight ritual. The most important message that I want to get across though, is whatever it does, what it will evolve, but whatever it looks like, keep to those same steps in that same order. So your little one comes to know exactly what to expect, what’s going to be next, and that the end result is night-night, lights out and time for sleep.
We really hope this has helped you understand the importance of routine, why we even do bedtime routine. What’s it even for? How soon you can actually get started with this. It’s never too late either by the way if you think, “Oh, we’ve never had a routine and my little one’s three.” That’s okay. Start now. Just start implementing it from tonight and what you can include in your routine.
Next week, I’m going to be going deeper into what to do when you have a toddler who’s getting up and down and getting out of bed at bedtime.
We’re here if you need us, and you can book a free discovery call if you want to know more about getting a good night’s sleep even with the clock change.