The Sleep Nanny Podcast

Clock Changes and Baby Sleep

https://youtu.be/9ZpWUDoA2ro
In this week’s blog post I am going to be talking all about clock changes and baby sleep, I’ll share with you different strategies and different tips for how you can manage the clock changes, particularly this time, the spring forward clock change, where the clocks go forward by one hour, focusing on how you can do that in gradual little steps to make that change really, really easy.
Read on if you want to know exactly how to do it so that you are all prepared and equipped and ready for that spring clock change.
When you are helping your baby or young child to move with the clock change going forwards one hour, this is an approach you can take to make things gradual and subtle so that they don’t really notice it too much. This is what I like to call the gradual approach.
What we do is we start on the Wednesday before the clock change. Now the clocks change technically on the Sunday, but let’s just say it’s in the night, on a Saturday night. During the night sleep, the clocks are going to go forward an hour between Saturday and Sunday. So we’re going to start on the Wednesday. On Wednesday, we are going to move the bedtime earlier by 15 minutes. We’re going to do the same on Thursday and on Friday, so that by Saturday we have got to a whole hour earlier. Let’s break that down for you.
If bedtime as in sleep time is usually, 7:00 PM, we are going to move the bedtime on Wednesday night earlier by 15 minutes. So we’re going to move that to 6:45. Now we’re going to move it 15 minutes to 6:45 on Wednesday. We’re going to move it another 15 minutes to 6:30 on Thursday. We’re going to move it another 15 minutes, so we are at 6:15 sleep time by Friday. And then by Saturday night at bedtime, we are asleep for 6:00 PM instead of 7:00 PM. We’ve moved it by 15 minutes earlier each night. When we put a little one to sleep at 6:00 PM on Saturday night, during the night, the clocks are going to jump forward an hour, meaning that your little one will take the same amount of sleep to wake up at the usual regular wake-up time.
For example, if they normally sleep 12 hours, they’re going still sleep 12 hours and wake at 7:00 AM, even though the clocks went forward by an hour.
This is the approach that I would recommend you take if you have a younger baby, a baby that’s still taking several naps a day, or a little one to whom small changes make a big difference. If they’re very sensitive to subtleties and changes, then this is going to be a good approach for them because it is so subtle and gradual that it isn’t something they’re going to massively notice or massively impact them because just little increments. So that’s who this is for. It would particularly be the younger ones. Older children, probably we would look at one of my other approaches, which are coming up in the next blog posts this month.
If they are on the younger side or the particularly sensitive side, or really super alert, they’re going to need a very subtle gradual approach like this. So I hope that you find this useful and if this is the approach for you, you’ve got plenty of time now to get ready for that, when that clock change comes later in the month.
Take care and sleep soundly.
If you want help with your little one’s sleep to make sure they and you are getting the sleep that you need why not book in for a free discovery call with one of our Coaches to find out more and get a plan tailored to you.

When Will My New Baby Sleep Through The Night

https://youtu.be/4rOipotARoc
I’m going to answer the golden question today. “When will my baby sleep through the night?”
I know just how important the answer to this question is, especially when you have your first baby and you think, “Okay, waking in the night, waking the night, I know this is going to happen, but how long is going to happen for?” And when you start hearing friends or other new mums going, “Well, my baby’s sleeping through,” and you think, “Oh, why isn’t mine? What’s going on?” So right here, right now we are going to set the record and your expectations straight so that you know what to expect and when and how you can help things along a little bit as well.
First of all, let’s just acknowledge the fact that they are all different. All babies are different and some will be ready before others. That is true, but also sometimes a baby is ready and quite capable of sleeping for longer stretches if we just tweaked a little bit of the parenting strategy that we are doing. So it’s a partnership. It’s them being ready and us accommodating it as well, we want to work in harmony with our babies to help them to sleep the very best they can, as soon as they can.
So, yes they are all different, but I’ve known babies to be able to sleep through as early as three months. And I know that typically six months is the target that lots of people set their minds to, and there are reasons for that, that are to do with their body clock, their circadian rhythm development, all kinds of reasons, but tal babies are different.
You also have to ask what does sleeping through the night mean to you? Because that can be different too. You might be thinking, “Well, for as long as I sleep. I want my baby to sleep for eight hours through read the night and I don’t want to hear a peep.” Or you might be thinking, “Oh gosh, no, just five hours would be fine.” In actual fact five or six hours of continuous sleep is the technical term for sleeping through the night.
I personally would define sleeping through as when you put your little one to bed and you don’t hear from them, they don’t need your assistance until they wake up in the morning, which would be after 6:00 AM. That’s my definition, my personal goal and target. When I say I want to help a baby to be sleeping through the night, that’s what I’m setting my sights on.
We should also acknowledge the fact that we actually do all wake in the night so that won’t just be solid sleep. Not for you, not for baby, not for any living human being. We all have little wake-ups in the night. Sometimes they are micro wakings, we barely even know they’ve happened to us. We just settle back off into the next sleep cycle. Other times they’re more vivid or you fully wake up or you go to the bathroom or you shift your pillow. But for babies and young children, before they’ve developed the ability to put themselves to sleep and to put themselves back to sleep, which is a learned skill, it comes with practice. But before they have that, when they wake, they will cry and their cry is just a simple means of them saying, “I’m awake, come and help me. I’m stuck. I don’t know what to do here.” And they’re looking for your assistance.
Completely understandable, but it takes our time and practice and strategies to help them to get better and better at that. Just like we help them with learning to ride a bike or learning to use the bathroom or learning anything, we will help and show them until they’ve mastered it. And it’s the same with settling and resettling to sleep. So you can make a difference to this. It definitely lies with you. Will your baby eventually learn to just sleep on their own? Yes. But it might take seven or eight years in some cases and I’m not exaggerating. It might. They might get it within two years. Maybe you’ll be lucky. But if you take a conscious approach to helping them, to paving the way, accommodating their sleep as best you can, it’s going to stand them in a much better stead to get to the best of their abilities sooner.
You can make a difference. It’s not about preventing your baby from waking in the night. It’s about how you respond when they wake in the night. And how you respond to a newborn is going to be very different to how you respond to a two year old, it’s of course going to be different. And right now we are talking mainly about new babies and newborns, because we are talking about when can I expect them to be doing better and sleeping better? If you’re looking for strategies for older babies and toddlers and beyond, there are other blog posts and I also have YouTube videos that cover that.
For those of you with newborns and new babies, you are in the early weeks, you’re in those first couple of months and you’re thinking, “When are they going to sleep longer?”
It will depend upon their capacity to sustain their food. So they’ve had enough milk and they are not hungry for more than sort of four hours, because early on, they will be hungry between every two and four hours. But once they can sustain themselves for a bit longer and they don’t need milk, that will be one factor. And that’s going to depend on birth weight and efficiency of feeding. There’s going to be loads of factors that affect that part. And then when they have wake-ups anyway, because not every wake-up is hunger. So your baby might wake up not because they’re hungry. Maybe you just fed them and you’re like, “Oh no, they’re awake again and they’re crying. What is it?”It could be discomfort, could be digestion, could just be a waking. They’re just awake going, “Okay, I’ve finished that sleep cycle. How do I get into the next one?”
This is where they need you to come and reassure them and help them along a little bit. Learning what those wake-ups mean and the response that you need to bring is key. If you just, every single time, go and give them milk and rock them back off to sleep, they’re going to keep waking up really, really frequently and become reliant on that to put them back to sleep.
If you can start to distinguish, “Okay, this is hunger. I’m going to feed my baby.” “Okay. This can’t be hunger. Let’s try a little winding. Oh yes, it was wind. Now we are good. Okay. We can settle back off.” If it’s just, “Oh, I can’t get to sleep.” It’s really hard. It is really hard. And the longer you go through the night, the closer you get to morning time, the more difficult it is for a baby to fall back to sleep, because they’ve banked up quite a bit. It’s not easy.
They’re not just going to zonk out now because they’re shattered. They’re actually going to have to really work at it and that’s hard. So they need more help from you and soothing and reassurance is all fine. It’s all helpful. But just try and take a level of awareness, just be self-aware of, “How much am I helping them to do it and how much am I actually doing it for my baby?”
Don’t get me wrong, you’re going to do it for your baby. For a newborn baby, you’re going to rock them to sleep, you’re going to feed them to sleep, you’re going to probably do all the things, but just being aware of how much you are doing and how much they’re doing. And when you spot the opportunity of, “Okay, baby’s not fully asleep, but we are nice and calm, I’m just going to try and put them down and just finish off the soothing, maybe some little pats or little gentle strokes in the sleep space rather than on me.” That tiny little exposure to having that little bit of time laying in their sleep space will benefit them no end. That little bit of practice will go a long way. It will soon pay off if you keep that going.
In those early few months, it really is a lot about just awareness from you, awareness of how much you are doing and awareness of little opportunities you can give them just to have that practice and sensation and maybe they’ll get so far and then they’ll need another cuddle or they’ll need another little reset and a bit of soothing. And then they can try again. We are not expecting them to be self-settling or sleeping through, but we can just give them these little micro exposures to practice that in a few months time, you are going to see the fruits of your labor.
So enjoy practicing with your new baby and I wish you all the best sleep-filled nights.
Take care, sleep well and if you want help with getting a good night’s sleep why not book a FREE Sleep Discovery Call today.

Newborn Sleep Training Methods

https://youtu.be/-sctCzeeBRY
One of the most asked questions is how you can get your new baby to do the very best they can with their sleep.
Now, we all know that newborns aren’t going to sleep through the night. In fact none of us do, but what’s the best they could be doing and are they doing that? And more importantly, how can we instill some really basic strategies as a parent, actual parenting techniques, to encourage healthier sleep from them as they develop and they grow and as they’re ready? This is a really exciting topic and something I wish I knew when I had my first baby, in fact this should be in the New Baby Bible that we need to be given when we have a baby for the first time.
Now, it’s not really sleep training. Sleep training is something that I would reserve for the six month age bracket and beyond, maybe just before that. But when we’re talking about new babies and newborns, lots of people use the idea or the phrase, sleep shaping, and I think that’s more appropriate. I like to call it sleep prep because we’re just preparing them to become a good sleeper.
So we are going to do some sleep prep. And this isn’t about the baby really doing anything. This is parenting strategies that are kindly and lovingly going to just set the scene and show them the way and really just create that space and that environment for them to do the very best that they can with their sleep, which brings me nicely on to my very first point, which is environment.
The environment is absolutely key and the first and most simple thing that you can use to help your baby to recognize things, to give them cues and triggers, and it will even help encourage their circadian rhythm, which is their body clock, which will help them recognize night from day, sleep-time from awake-time. In time, they’ll get this, but by showing that from the beginning, that’s really going to help them get there sooner.
So how can you do that with night and day? Well, obviously you’ve got light and dark, so we want lights on or daylight coming in when it’s daytime and we want to black out the daylight or have all the lights off and have it nice and dark when it’s nighttime; that is a simple day/night differentiation. But also with naps, it’s fine when they’re having their daytime sleep to make it a little bit darker. If they’re in their cot or in their sleep space, in a bedroom, I would absolutely close the curtains and make it nice and dark because darkness promotes the production of melatonin, which is the sleepy hormone. And light is actually going to interfere with that a bit and make it a little bit harder.
Of course, they will still produce melatonin and they will still have a sleep in the light, new babies do. You’ve seen that, they’ll sleep anywhere. They’ll sleep in a pram or in a noisy restaurant. They will sleep anywhere, but by showing them this and by helping them along with those rhythms, it will help to create that rhythmicity in their body of sleep-time, wake-time, sleep-time, wake-time, rather than relying on things like the motions of prams or the bottle or the this or the that, to get them to sleep, so it’s just really good practice.
The other thing that is a factor in the environment is you. You are a part of the environment around them. When you are fully animated, making eye contact and directly engaging, that’s what I call daytime mode, full voice comes out and you might be sing-songy and you’re cheerful with your child, and you’re just all expressive; that’s a daytime version of you.
The nighttime version of you goes to just whisper. No voice comes out and just really bland and boring, trying to keep your facial expressions pretty neutral. You’re not cross or grumpy, but you are also not all animated and engaging. Think “Nothing to see here,” Zen-zone and quiet and calm. And I say bland and boring, because I think that’s the best way to explain it because as your baby grows, and as they become more aware and alert and into what’s going on, taking all these signals in, they’ll start to recognize that this animated, awake you is associated with awake-time, versus the bland and boring version of you that is associated with sleep-time. Bland and boring, nighttime you will mean that they won’t feel compelled, or you won’t be engaging them and stimulating them with that engagement from your awake mode. So if you can adopt those two modes, daytime mode and nighttime mode, you’ll find that that will actually pay off massively over the coming months. So do it from the beginning, get in that practice.
Second, bedtime routine. Now, you can start a bedtime routine with a baby right from the beginning. Once those initial couple of weeks have passed and things have settled it’s time to start thinking about what your daily routine at home will look like.
Now, routine at this age, babies, newborns, does not need to be rigid or regimented at all. It just needs to contain a couple of simple steps that are flexible, but that you do each evening. You are setting the scene, setting the environment and to prepare them that the nighttime is coming, which in time will be their longer stretch of sleep. That’s when you want it.
Remember though, at first it won’t happen like that. To start with we’re just showing them that this is nighttime now, this is different. I would highly recommend that whatever happens in terms of whether you are bathing them or not, or a quick wash or whatever you do in the bathroom, you then go to the room they are going to sleep in for the night, which is typically parents’ room. And you finish off your bedtime routine in that room. So that’s probably going to be the last daytime feed, because then they’re going to be night feeds. So once the last daytime feed is done, maybe you have a little lullaby and that they settle to sleep there either there in your arms or in their crib it’s not important where they settle at this point.
The important part is that it’s in that bedroom and it’s in that environment. Why? Because that’s where they’re going to wake up. When they have their stirrings in the night or when they wake up for a feed, we want them to see that, “Yep, this is where I was last,” and it will really help and create that nighttime sleep environment.
Now I know you’re probably thinking, “Well, yes, but Lucy that’s 6:00 PM, 6:30 PM. I’m not going to just stay in the bedroom all night long, all evening.” That’s okay. If you want to settle them into a carry cot or Moses basket or mobile sleep carrier that you can, then once they’re asleep, you can then take them to the sitting room or wherever you’re going to be, and I would keep it reasonably dim and not too loud and lairy, but being respectful that little one’s sleeping and have them close by so that you can obviously be with them and monitor them and keep a close eye on them. It’s just that going to sleep in the bedroom is really good practice right from the beginning.
Keep your nighttime mode that I talked about, keep that going through the night, so for example if you are changing a nappy, you’re doing it in nighttime mode. You’re very shush. You’re very boring. It’s matter of fact, it’s duh-duh-duh, nappy changed. Keep it as dark as possible, enough to see what you’re doing and then done. Don’t be all, “Oh, we’re going to change your nappy,” and then let’s have some fun. Even if they seem quite wakeful or playful, we want to show them, “Yeah, that’s lovely but it’s nighttime now,” okay? So keep your nighttime mode up because then when it’s morning, so when it’s beyond 6:00 AM, you then can respond to them and approach them with full animation, the lights can be on, and then you’re going to help again to encourage that circadian rhythm and that wake up time. It’s daytime now.
The final tip I want to give you, and this is a big one, and this is really important, is to try to get into a rhythm of feeding upon waking. So what I mean by that is they wake for the day, it’s morning time, we’re going to take them out of their sleep environment, into a wakeful environment and they have their first feed. We have some activity time, and then they’re going to have a nap. When they wake up from the nap, they have a milk feed, they have some activity time, then they’re going to have another nap and so on. And this carries on all day.
Then at bedtime, that’s the one exception. That’s the one time where they are going to have a feed before their nighttime sleep. That’s the one exception that is a little bit different because we’re preparing them to go for that longer stretch. But the reason that this really helps is firstly, that they feed upon waking, then they’ve got that food in them, they’ve got time to digest it. They’re going to move around, which is good for digestion. And they’ve got that energy to use up from eating.
Secondly, they’re going to settle to sleep without milk putting them to sleep, without there being the milk-drunk concept of knocking them out with milk. That’s not good for digestion and it can lead to a sleep onset association of milk and then almost like needing milk in order to get to sleep. There’s so many reasons why it’s not great for them to feed right before sleep during the day. It’s okay at bed time. Milk does contain – breast milk especially – really lovely sleep inducing hormones, and there are loads of benefits in that respect. But when we’re talking about a newborn, they’re only awake for about 45 minutes anyway, this is definitely a good rhythm to get into for them for lots and lots of reasons. So feed upon waking if you can, through the day, last feed at bedtime and then nighttime mode all night long.
I hope this has been helpful for you. Once they get a little bit bigger, you can follow my next level strategies that will help them even more to get into great sleep patterns and routines for really, really healthy sleep.
Take care, sleep well and if you want help with getting a good night’s sleep why not book a FREE Sleep Discovery Call today.

New Parent Sleep

https://youtu.be/cfv1Xt_Dbb8
New parent sleep – doesn’t that sound like a dream? This week I’m going to help you as a new parent with the coping strategies that you can use to help you with your sleep when you are dealing with the disturbed nights that you get with a new baby. I have some great tips for you to help you through this phase.
Now, the first thing that I want you to take on board is that rest is better than nothing. I know people say, “I’ll sleep when the baby sleeps.” And they do sleep a lot. You know they’re going to sleep quite regularly. They’re awake for 45 minutes. They’re off to sleep again. You would think that means you can get 14 to 17 hours a day like them, right? No, of course not. Because first of all, we can’t just switch off and fall asleep instantly the second they do. And second of all, we do have other things to do. We have bottles to clean. We have nappies to organize. We have grocery shopping, probably online, to do. There are so many things that we still need to do. It’s just not as simple as going to sleep when the baby sleeps.
Now, if you can, great. If you can take a nap, do it, but don’t put that pressure on yourself if you’re feeling like, “Oh, I just can’t.” Take a rest. And if the baby’s asleep and you can just sit back and put your feet up, literally put your feet up and relax. Close your eyes, if you can. Listen to a podcast. Just relax. If you can relax, you are going to be doing yourself a lot more good than you realize. But if you’re running around putting laundry on and cleaning the house and doing things that probably could wait, then you’re not getting that rest. So rest is better than nothing if you can’t get those naps and sleep, when the baby sleeps.
My second tip for you for coping, if you can, obviously, this is very difficult if you are a single parent, but if you have a partner, a spouse, or even a good friend that can come and help you out for a few days, or a family member, see if there is a way of taking turns in the night. I really like the idea of the two nights on two nights off night shift, which is great if there are two parents in the family, because you basically have two full nights to rest and know that I’m not getting up to baby tonight or the next night. You’ve got two full nights and it’s so powerful in how it helps your body to replenish, gives you the rest you need, and then gives you the energy to do your two nights on.
You could do one night on one night off, but it’s not quite the same effect. It’s easier to keep going for two nights and then have two full nights off. So two nights on two nights off, if you can. Breastfeeding mums might be saying, “But I have to do all the night wakings, because I’m breastfeeding.” Not necessarily. If you express and get your baby used to having breast milk from a bottle some of the time, it will open up huge amounts of flexibility for your family. Now I know there can be challenges with that and it’s not for everyone, but if it’s an option, why not take it? Especially if you are two working parents or you can share the load in that way.
Another challenge people come up with is, “Well, yes, but I’m breastfeeding and I’m on maternity leave and my husband has to work. So I have to do all the nights because he’s working.” Well, is that entirely true? And is that really fair? Because I understand if your partner’s working, and there are certain jobs where perhaps that is the case and that’s essential and they absolutely have got to get all that sleep. But you are working too during the day. Looking after a newborn baby is as demanding as a desk job, easily, if not more.
Come on, let’s see if we can weigh this up here. You’re both working. You’re just doing different things. Some might say that going to work is a rest from the busy-ness of looking after a new baby. So I still think that there’s room for sharing the load. It’s unique to every family dynamic. Have that conversation and see what you can work out.
The next tip I have for you is to accept help. Accept help, because especially as a first-time mom, I felt like this. I’m sure we all do. You almost feel like, oh no, my baby, my baby, I’m doing it, I’m doing everything. The family members might come along, “Ah, let me do this, let me do this.” And you think, no, I’m precious about it. Or maybe you just feel too proud to accept the help. Just get over it and accept the help.
If you can accept the help, you can choose to channel it to the things that you really need the help with. So instead of, “Oh, let me take the baby off your hands.” You might go, “No, no, actually I’m okay with the baby, but you could definitely cook us a meal, or I’d be really grateful if you’d sort that pile of laundry out and fold the things.” So perhaps if somebody is really, truly willing to help, they could help with the less attractive jobs and not take all the glory of the new baby, perhaps. So have a think about what it is you would really like help with and accept help if it’s offered.
My other massive tip for you as a new parent, especially as a first-time parent, is not to plan too much.
It’s really easy to get swept away by the idea of all these lovely baby groups and moms groups and going along to all these things. It’s really good for you to do that. Definitely. It’s good to get out. It’s good to be sociable. It’s good to talk to other moms that are in your situation. It is healthy to do that for sure. But don’t overload your diary so that you feel like you’re back-to-back with this class and then this group, and then this thing. Sometimes you just won’t feel like it and you don’t need that pressure. Maybe just have one thing a day. Each day, there’s one thing you do. It might be just going for a walk with a friend or it might be a group, but if you pile too many things in, you create an unnecessary pressure on yourself.
I used to have this thing, because I had my two quite close in age, so I had two little ones to juggle for a few years. It was where people would ask me to come to something and I’d go, “I’ll do my best,” or, “Please don’t count on me to be there. If I can, if the stars align, I would love to.” If it was a thing where they needed to know for definite, then I would just politely decline because I didn’t want the pressure of having to be at that place at that time. Because when you’re juggling two little ones, you’ve got a older baby, almost toddler, just about to go out the door and then the baby, and then you get to the door and you’ve got all the stuff, and then there’s a nappy explosion, and you’re like, “Wow, that’s another half an hour.” Shut the door, take all the coats off, and start again.
So I didn’t like that stress or pressure of, “I must be there at that time”. So I didn’t put that on myself too much. I learned that the hard way. But once I learned that, it was a really valuable thing. So I pass it onto you. Don’t plan too much and don’t put too much pressure on yourself to be everywhere.
Finally, I wanted to say to you that this time will soon pass. And so where, as a new parent, and you’re not getting enough sleep and everything feels like a bit of a blur, and sometimes you’ll have days where you just think, I don’t know how I’m going to manage this, or you just think, how can I operate on no sleep? You feel for a moment like this is my life now and you’re not sure if you’re okay with it. Let me just reassure you that this will pass. When you are in it, it feels like this is your life. It’s weeks, it’s literally weeks and you can be on the other side.
Our next blog will be all about how to help your new baby to very gently and gradually practice little strategies that will help them to be capable of the best sleep they can. Not trying to get them to sleep through the night before they’re ready, but get the best possible sleep for them and get them sleeping at their best. I’m going to share strategies on how you can do that. If you follow these things, your little one will be sleeping to a better level sooner than if you just leave things to chance.
Take care and make sure you come back next week, let’s get your healthy sleep back as soon as possible. Well, let’s get your baby’s healthy sleep set up really well, right from the start.
Take care, sleep well and if you want to know even more about sleep before then why not download my Sweet Dreams videos full of tips and tricks for getting your little ones to sleep soundly.

New Baby Sleep Patterns

https://youtu.be/mIzMraIdRV4
What does new baby sleep even look like? This blog will look at new baby sleep patterns and take away any of the guesswork or wondering if what your baby’s doing is typical, or not. We will cover it all.
Let’s start by setting your expectations, new babies sleep a lot. Newborns sleep roughly 14 to 17 hours per 24-hours. So in every 24-hours, about 14 to 17 of those are asleep. Some babies will do even more, so don’t think that’s the limit either and they are only going to handle being awake for 45 minutes at a time. So if your new baby is awake and you have got visitors who have come to see the newborn and that awake time goes longer than 45-minutes, then be aware that baby is going to end up going into an overtired place, which you don’t want them to do. When you’ve got a newborn keeping one eye on your baby, and one eye on the time is quite handy. Of course, they’re going to give you some signs and cues, but knowing if they’ve been awake for 45-minutes or more is going to absolutely help you out.
New babies tend to want to eat, i.e. consume milk roughly every two to four hours. Now, that will depend upon things like their birth weight and what capacity they have for onboarding milk. Some will struggle. They may have tongue-tie, they may have reflux, they may only be able to take on a little bit at a time and therefore need to feed more frequently. Others will perhaps feed very efficiently and be able to go good, three or four hours between feeds right from the get-go. But as a ballpark, every two to four hours, a new baby is going to need to eat. So to set your expectations, if this is the first baby you’ve had, just know that there’s not going to be any sort of sleeping through eight hours a night anymore, because your baby is going to wake and they will need feeding. But don’t worry, that’s not forever. It is short-term.
(I have a blog coming later this month, which will help you with coping with newborn sleep and wake patterns, so keep an eye out for that one!)
Now, what else can you expect from newborn sleep patterns?
So they’re going to sleep a lot. They’re going to be awake for very little pockets of time, and they’re going to need to be fed every two to four hours. What can you do to help with this? A bedtime routine is the one thing that I would suggest you can do or implement right from the get-go that will help to get your little one into really good, healthy sleep and wake patterns. A routine will show them that, oh, this part of the day is different to all the other 24-hours. And these are the things we do, essentially you set the scene for nighttime, to show them the difference between night and day. That can be easier when daylight is on our side and it gets light in the morning and dark in the evening.
But there are certain times of year where that just doesn’t happen at the ideal time for their sleep. So we have to use black out curtains/blinds, or turning on of lights, or whatever way round it is at that time of year to just help them. What this will do is help their body clock, their circadian rhythms, and it will encourage them to begin to understand that there is a routine, we do the bathroom stuff, and then we go into this room and we do these things, this is when they’re going to do their longer stretch of sleep. And you’re just going to start encouraging that, it’s not going to happen straight away. Don’t expect it to happen straight away. Don’t expect to do a lovely bedtime routine at 6:00 PM and then your baby sleeps for four hours. Maybe they will, maybe they won’t, but they will be more likely to get there and do their best stretch of continuous sleep if you set the scene with these “cues” and triggers to show them that this is nighttime, now bedtime is coming.
During the day they’re having their little naps and wake times, and then there’s this different thing that happens and helps to set the scene for that longer stretch to come in, when they’re ready. So that’s really how newborn sleep patterns work. Of course, they are all different and there are variations, but this should give you an overview of generally what newborn sleep is like, waking up and sleeping frequently.
Next week I will give you some tips that are great for the new parent and coping strategies for when they are waking frequently in the night and how you can manage. Because they are fine, they wake up, they get fed, they go to sleep. Everything’s easy for a baby, but for you it can be really tough. It can be a real shock to the system and our bodies are not used to not getting those big chunks of sleep that we actually really want, so my tips will help you through those early weeks and quickly smooth things out so that you are getting those sleep hours back where you want them.
Take care, sleep well and if you want to know even more about sleep before then why not download my Sweet Dreams videos full of tips and tricks for getting your little ones to sleep soundly.

Bedtime Routine for Siblings

https://youtu.be/cTWZnV6Pm5A
Bedtime routine for siblings is our topic of focus for this week. When you’ve got more than one child and you are trying to juggle that bedtime routine and sometimes it just feels you are trying to do something for one and then you need to go to the other and then this one needs you and that one needs you. So of course it can all just feel too much. Well, don’t panic, we’re going to get that all streamlined for you and make it so that it works!
Now, this is going to be particularly helpful for those of you who are usually doing the bedtime routine with more than one child by yourself. It is a little bit easier when you have another pair of hands on deck. So if you have your partner, your spouse, or another family member or somebody that can help you out, then, of course, it can help. Because one could be reading a bedtime story with one child while the other is making sure that the other one’s having a bath or brushing their teeth or whatever it might be. So of course it is easier when there are more than one parent or caregiver to lead the bedtime routine. But if you are on your own, and I’m sure all of you will be or have been at some stage or another, it is a juggle.
There are things you can do to make that easier, and this is my advice as a mum whose children are 21 months apart, so I’ve juggled this from babies/toddler time right through to nine, 11 year old children. I know what this is like, both doing it by myself and doing it with my husband to help. So I completely know where you’re coming from.
One of my top tips for you is getting them ready for bed at the same time. Now, they do need to be age appropriate, there’s no point in asking your 15 year old to get ready for bed at the same time as your two year old. That’s quite an extreme example, but be sensible with that. More often than not, even if you’re talking about a two year old and a seven year old, even if their bedtime might be slightly separate, there’s still no reason why they can’t get ready for bed at the same time.
And here’s why. If you do the bedtime routine at the same time, so they go to the bathroom, there’s bathroom activity, maybe a bath or a shower, whatever it might be or a wash, there’s probably teeth brushing involved, and getting changed, getting ready for bed in the bathroom. If that stuff is done at the same time, even then if one is going to go to bed and the other is going to go and read a book quietly or do a puzzle, that’s absolutely fine. But what it means is the bedtime routine has begun for both of them.
When your juggle is more with two very little ones, that’s when it is the hardest and the biggest struggle. So if you are talking about a very young baby and older baby or young toddler and it is a big juggle, what can you do when you physically need to be holding the baby? How do you do that on your own?
Let’s start with bath time, if you can have a toddler safely in a bath, you are right there by their side, and you’ve got a baby bath next to the big bath and you can be bathing baby there with one hand, you are also there in case toddler needs you at the same time, that’s one way you can do it. You can also get safe baby bathing equipment that you can put into the bath next to the toddler and then you can bathe both of them at the same time. Or you can let them go in one at a time, you can use a baby bouncer seat or a baby safe play mat zone where you can have baby safely in an area on the floor near you and be hands on with one. And then you can swap them over that way if you need to. But having them in close proximity is going to definitely help you because then you have your eyes and your hands there to keep both of them safe.
Of course safety is the main thing when you’re juggling little ones and water and bath times especially. This is if you are bathing them both, you might not be – that’s also easy then to have them in teh same space and one in while the other is happily distracted but near you and safe.
Once bathtime is done, you’re going to get them ready and changed for bed. What can the older one do for themselves? That’s a great time to encourage that, make sure it is an encourage rather than commanding to them. You don’t want to come across as if it’s a case of, “I’m too busy with the little one, you need to do it yourself.” That will create jealousy and resentment. But just, “Oh wow. You managed to put that on yourself.” And looking at the little one, “You’ll be able to do that one day when you are bigger.” Making it very positive and reinforcing that positive encouragement for the older one. “Oh, you put your pajamas on by yourself, well done. Can you get your toothbrush?” All that positivity around it will encourage them further and of course, you’re there and you can help both if they need it.
Now for the tricky bit, once they’re going to bed. You’re going from the bathroom activity to the bedroom and you are in the bedroom. Now, this could be siblings in the same room, which we talked about recently, or it could be that they’re in different rooms. Whatever that looks like, decide who needs your attention first. Who do you need to put to bed first? This is where it can be a bit of a question. Because if you have a toddler that settles or preschooler or a young child that settles quite well to sleep and a younger one, a baby even, that maybe needs more help from you, maybe you are using my fade out approach and you need to be sat there with them, then put the easier one, the older one to bed first.
Baby can be in a bouncy chair, maybe a bouncy chair or a safe seat or something within your eye. This means that you can then sit with the older one, do a bed time story, say good night, tuck them in. So they’ve had the turn from you, that one on one time and then you can take the baby on through to the baby’s room and do the fade out approach and implement the sleep plan that you’re doing with them. That can be one way around.
The other way is if the baby is fairly easy to put to bed, you can give your toddler a couple of books or a puzzle, again have them in earshot, even maybe in eyeshot, but in a space of their own whilst you then put the other one to bed, get them settled. And once they’re settled, then you can go and take yourself to the other one and give them your one-on-one time.
Always try to make it one then the next rather than trying to do it all at once. It will just fall apart and feel overwhelming for you and neither one of them really gets the attention they need. And that can leave them feeling like it’s rushed, which could lead to not being very well settled as well. So giving them that time with you, they can wind down and settle in nicely. So one then the next and I hope that really helps you with your bedtime routine strategy. Of course, this thing goes on to more than two children. It could be three children, four children, five children, just add it on and make sure that each one it’s an age appropriate approach.
I hope that helps you to get a great routine going that feels less like you are juggling and more like you are staying in control.
Take care and sleep well.
If you want to learn more about any of the sleep training methods mentioned above, book a free Discovery call today to find out how we can help you and your little ones sleep better.

Getting Twins to Sleep Well

https://youtu.be/_mfEsjXWjcc
Our blog this week is all about twins and how we can get twins sleeping without disturbing each other and perhaps without tag teaming you as well. Have a read for my top tips for getting twins to sleep well.
1. Try to keep twins on the same schedule. Yes, you might have one that’s quite a good sleeper and one that’s not such a good sleeper, but if you go along with one seems awake right now and the other needs to have a nap, it’s going to leave you in quite a pickle and it could be pretty messy to juggle. I’m a big fan of meeting the individual child’s needs however there are also times especially, if you are a parent or a caregiver of twins, or multiples (you may have triplets) it is really difficult if you’re trying to manage two or more different schedules. It’s hard enough when you have two young children close in age that aren’t twins, like I did and where they have different sleep schedules. I had a time where I had one on two naps a day, one on one nap a day.
This meant it seemed like someone was always napping which means you are then trying to accommodate something all the time. I think that’s harder when you have twins so if you can get them onto the same schedule, it will make life a lot easier. Keep them on the same schedule as much as you possibly can, obviously give or take a number of minutes, but on the whole, you want to have roughly the same time that you start the day. Roughly the same time for nap times and absolutely for meal times as well. Getting into that rhythm with them is key and they will soon get into a rhythm if you lead the way with that. Sleep schedule is absolutely number one.
2. If your twins are disturbing each other a lot in their sleep, is it possible to temporarily separate them? Now I’m assuming that they are room sharing. It may be that they’re in the same room with their parents, or maybe that they’re in their own room together. Is it possible that they could be in separate rooms to sleep in the short-term, particularly if you’re working through some kind of sleep shaping method and implementing a particular process with one, or both of them. It can be beneficial to temporarily separate them, work on that, improve things, and then bring them back together.
This also can work really well for nap times. So it might be that at bedtime, they have their room, they have their sleep spaces and that’s fine, but for naps, it might be that one is a better napper than the other. It may feel more manageable for you to have them napping in two different rooms. That’s absolutely fine, don’t worry about, “Well, what if it’s not the same room as sleep?” It’s fine, put the easier sleeper in the other, different location and keep the usual sleep location consistent for the one who finds sleep more challenging.
3. Help one, then the other. If they need your assistance, you’re not superhuman. You can’t stretch yourself between them constantly. So if you need to, for instance, change one nappy and the other one is crying and there’s nobody else to help you, they will be okay for a few minutes. As long as they’re safe, you know they’re in a safe space, you can deal with this nappy and then you can make sure that one is safe and then go to the other one. Don’t worry about them waiting a few minutes for you. It won’t harm them. They will learn that they just have to wait and then you come. And so long as a baby realises, and this is particularly about babies now, so long as a baby does know that you do come, they won’t get into a place of any kind of distress or fear.
They might get a bit frustrated. They might be a bit impatient, they might get a bit wound up, but it will just be a healthy, “I’m trying to tell you that I need some help here.” And that’s all it will be. It won’t be anything more than that. Then you can be at the point of thinking, “I’ll be right with you.” You finish helping that one and then you see to the other one.
It’s ingrained in us, it’s like we are wired to respond immediately, “Baby’s crying.” “Quick, fix it” – it’s what we do. So sometimes it’s important just to remind ourselves it’s okay, my baby will be okay, I’ll be right there. Because when you’re dealing with two, they do learn to wait. And actually, it’s good for them, it teaches them the art of waiting their turn, they do have to wait sometime and it helps them to develop self-regulation.
Those self-regulatory skills will go on to help them and benefit them as they learn to develop the skills for falling into sleep and going back to sleep. So right from those early stages, don’t panic, if you cannot be dealing with both simultaneously. It will be okay. When they’re going to sleep, if you are working through some kind of sleep training approach, maybe they’re a little bit older and you have toddlers for example, and they’re in two separate cots. You go to one, you do what you need to do there, go to the other, you do what you need to do there. If you alternate, you might be back and forth, sure. But just take a breath and take care of one at a time and you help them, and you reassure them, and you will get there.
Try to be consistent in how you respond every single time.
I hope this helps with those of you who have twins, or triplets, or more.
Next week we will be going into detail about routine, bedtime routine and how this can be done when you have got more than one child, especially if you are juggling on your own and you’re trying to do the bedtime routine for multiple children by yourself.
Take care.
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Sibling Jealousy

https://youtu.be/VToFODxuqWc
If you have or are currently experiencing sibling jealousy between your children you know only too well how that can impact everything in day to day life, including a little one’s ability to sleep well. This week I’m sharing with you my top tips and tricks to help you to relieve some of that jealous feeling that can happen between siblings. Hopefully by the end of this blog you will have a plan for how to get your children to a stage where they are a lot more harmonious in spending their time together.
First things first, is that this can come up at any age. It can be something that happens right from birth when, let’s say, a toddler has the arrival of a new baby sibling, and they’re like, “Huh, who’s this that’s getting all the attention?” That’s really common. It can also crop up later on in childhood, and especially with siblings who are relatively close in age, because they may feel like they are competing for the same attention. Sibling jealousy is probably going to come up at some point, but what can you do about it?
I have two really big ideas for you on this that I’ve found work and actually having two quite close in age myself, I’ve found these things really, really do work. Quite often, that jealous behavior, or almost probing or lashing out, winding up the other one, it’s actually really just a cry for your attention, and if they had your attention, they wouldn’t be doing it.
What can you do? One on one time. Give your children your time one on one, at least once a day.
Just find that special time that you can have where you can be fully present with them and completely indulge them in whatever it is they are doing, and what they’re about. Tap into who they are. Now, this doesn’t matter whether they are a tiny little one, little toddler, or a five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11 year old. It really doesn’t matter. Teenagers and beyond. Doesn’t matter what age they are.
What is it that you can discover about them? What can you ask them? How can you show a massive interest in who they are as a little human being, and spend time with them one on one?
Maybe you have a baby who’s napping and you can then spend that time with the toddler. And of course the baby’s going to get plenty of one on one time, because they get all the cuddles when they’re feeding and all those other bits of one on one attention anyway. Quite often it’s giving the extra focus on the older ones, ones that are past the baby stage. If you have children who are both older, maybe six and eight or something like that, then great. Spend one on one time with each of them.
One on one time is always key, but especially at bedtime. Having bedtime one on one time is so important. Quite often, little ones keep everything in until bedtime, and then they let it out. So when they become of school age, it could be bedtime when they reveal things to you. Worries, thoughts, or just sharing good things that happened, quite often they do save it up to that time of night. If you can allow time for that in each of the bedtime routines, as well as the during the day one on one time so that you can have that little bit of chat one on one, and then say goodnight.
When they’re little babies and toddlers, then it’s probably going to be a story, a book, a bit of wind down time and can form part of that routine. But if you can give that full focus to one child at a time, then they’re going to be less likely to feel that jealousy or envy over the other one.
Be aware on the flip side, if you are trying to read a story to this one and then you have to say, “No, no, no, don’t do this,” or, “Wait over there,” or, “One second, I just need to get the baby.” If you’re trying to juggle multiple children at once, and one child feels a little bit dismissed because of that, that could lead to that envy. “Oh, it’s not fair. They get all the attention.” They don’t necessarily compute that it’s the other child getting the attention and that they will get their own time too. They just have this almost subconscious resentment towards those interruptions that are coming their way.
If you are on your own and you’re thinking, “That all sounds great, but how do I do that when I’m juggling more than one child by myself?” There is a blog on it’s way this month all about that, how to juggle more than one child through a bedtime routine, especially if you are doing it by yourself. For now, start to think about how you can build little one-on-ones in. It can be a baby safely in a cot whilst you’re giving a toddler a few minutes of your time or asking the toddler to wait a few moments. It can be done, it’s about finding the ways that you can do it.
My other top tip for overcoming sibling jealousy is what activities can those siblings do together? So it’s not just about the one on one time with you, but what can they do together to build that bond, and to help them like each other? And to want to spend time together so that they’re not seeing each other so much as a threat or an annoyance or someone that gets in their way. Instead they see each other as somebody they enjoy spending time with. So what activities, age appropriately, can they do? There will be something. There always is. Have a think about that and how they can bond and spend some time together.
I hope these ideas really help you, and help you to focus on how your children can overcome any sibling jealousy.
Take care and sleep well.
If you’re looking for help now with your children’s sleep and would like to find out more about sleeping soundly then book a discovery call. today

Siblings and Room Sharing

https://youtu.be/lVgfPnFz1WY
This weeks’ Blog is all about siblings and when they’re room sharing and the effect that that can have on your little one’s sleep including the all important; how you can make this work harmoniously and have siblings that share a room and sleep as well.
The first thing I’m going to get you to ask yourself is why, why are your siblings going to room share first of all? Is it because it sounds lovely? It might just be that idea of, I want them to share a room. I would love for them to be together. And if we can make that work, brilliant. But you’ve got to ask yourself whether it’s a nice fantasy idea or whether it’s necessary. In some cases, it’s going to be necessary. It’s going to be a case of there are not enough bedrooms and the siblings have to share. And that’s fine.
But if you’re battling with trying to get two siblings to sleep soundly and share a room, just ask yourself, is it worth it right now? And would it be better to actually work on improving their individual sleep in separate rooms until they’re sleeping a little bit better and then bring them together to room share. II think it’s really important to ask yourself a question and just think that through first before we delve into actually conquering sibling room sharing.
In the longer term siblings will become quite resilient to each other especially when it comes to noises and sounds, things that might wake them up. Try to bear in mind that what might disturb them in the early days or initially when room sharing, they will get used to it and once they’re in a deep sleep, they’re not going to be disturbed by much at all. It’s only really during light sleep that things, outside noises and things like that can actually wake us and rouse us from sleep. So they will become more used to each other. That will generally happen with time,but there may be a period of going through the pain barrier to get there, at which point until they are used to the noises of their siblings and the room they will wake up a little bit.
This is another great time if it’s an option to have them in the same room or separate that you can ask yourself, is it worth that? Is it worth paying the price? Is it worth going through that to get to the outcome? Because ultimately, at some point, if you want them to room share, you’re probably going to have to go through that.
Is it costing them precious sleep?
Are you pushing them to do this at the cost of having an exhausted child, exhausted family and/or being miserable?
Again, if it’s essential and your children as siblings have to share a room and there’s no other way around it, then let’s make that work.
So what can you do? Well, one of the most important things you can do, and this doesn’t really matter, whether we’re talking about a young baby or an older child, is to set up some really clear rules and boundaries.
When I say that with babies, of course, they don’t necessarily understand the rules or boundaries that you are implementing, but by setting the scene for those, and by having a consistent response to things, they will soon learn.
For example, when lights are out and it’s dark, shh, there’s no talking. There’s no voice. It’s just whispers. You can begin to teach them that from baby stage by doing it, by making sure that when lights are out, nobody talks out loud, everything is just a whisper. It becomes nighttime mode and calm, and you can signal this simply by having the lights off. As they then get older from around 20 months, having a sleep wake clock in the room can really, really help. Sleep Wake clocks show when it’s daytime and when it’s nighttime. And when it’s nighttime, we all can comply with nighttime mode. And when it’s daytime, and time to be awake, it’s a good idea to use exaggerated animation in our body language, our voices and our expressions just to really differentiate the two and show a big, clear, significant difference between daytime and nighttime.
This also means that you’re showing them that when it’s nighttime, we sleep. We lie down, rest our head, close our eyes, we go to sleep, you can show them that from a very early age. Siblings are also a great way to help their other siblings. So if you have an older one who is maybe a better sleeper and a younger one who’s maybe up and down or a bit more restless, ask the older one to be on board with you and say, “Hey, I need your help with this. Can you help me? We’re going to get him sleeping well, and then he won’t disturb you anymore. So let’s show him what to do. Come on, let’s lie down. Shh. Let’s go to sleep.” And get them on board, role play a little bit with it so that it’s not just a big battle parents versus children.
Praise them, reward the really good behavior around sleep. The compliance of, “Oh, yes, I’m going to lie down now. I’m going to settle to sleep.” reward that however you can. Obviously, age appropriately. With an older one, you can have more conversations. With little ones and babies, it’s going to be more through the soothing, the reassurance, putting them down, they’ll just get used to that if you keep doing it. With babies, if they’re up in the night, follow my tips for how to respond consistently to night wakings in my previous Blog and that is going to help you at least reduce the night wakings to the best stage they can do for their age, because we all wake in the night! Little one’s, babies in particular do need some help sometimes, but we want to get the very best out of them. So we want to optimize their sleep and have them resettling to sleep as best they can.
Essentially, if you want your children to room share, if you want the siblings to settle nicely and go to sleep in the same room, it’s all about setting up that lovely routine around bedtime and the rules around sleep time, what that looks like, and then consistently responding to any disturbances that happen between them in the nighttime.
January is our ‘Siblings’ month, coming up over the next few weeks, we’re going to be covering jealousy between siblings and the whole bedtime routine and how to do that when you have more than one child in getting them both to bed swiftly and smoothly without any major battles!
If you’re looking for help now with your children’s sleep and would like to find out more about sleeping soundly then book a discovery call. today

Why is my baby awake for hours at night

https://youtu.be/XA3ONxvt-ZY
In this week’s blog we continue our series on night wakings, looking specifically at long periods where your baby is awake for hours at night, what causes it and how can we prevent it.
What do we mean when we talk about long, wakeful periods in the night?
Some little ones will go to sleep, they’ll sleep really well for a number of hours, and then they wake up. But they don’t just wake up for a bit, they wake up for perhaps three hours, and it has us as parents scratching our heads. Wondering, why? What’s going on? Why are they awake? What do they need for that length of time? And quite often, they’re not actually upset, they’re not seeking anything in particular, and there’s no obvious reason for the waking. They don’t seem hungry. They don’t seem like they’re looking for their parents or looking for any help.
Sometimes, this can be that they just wake up and they’re quite content. They’re quite content and happy. They’re just lying there, sometimes babbling or cooing if they’re a baby, or maybe even sort of chatting or singing if they’re a bit older. They’re just awake, for no real reason.
And sometimes if they’re awake for long enough, possibly heading into hours awake, they might start to get a bit fussy, because they can get fed up. They want to be back asleep. They don’t really know why they’re awake.
Sound familiar? Have you experienced this with your little one? If so, let’s see if we can overcome this once and for all.
Why does it happen? There are a number of possible reasons for this, and there are even some medical reasons, which I’m not going to go into here today, because that’s not my job. If you think or suspect there could be a medical reason, or you’ve exhausted all the possible behavioral reasons that I’m going to talk about, then definitely go and seek some help from the relevant medical service that can explore that a bit further for you. But when it’s not medical, if it is behavioral, what could be causing it?
What might be going on? One of the possible reasons, weirdly enough, can be over-tiredness. So it would be really easy to look at a little one who’s just wide awake and doesn’t seem sleepy and think they’re not tired. They’re just not tired. Maybe they’ve had too much sleep during the day. Let’s cut that nap out, or, oh, maybe we should put them to bed later. That’s almost like the obvious and easy answer. But be careful with that idea, because quite often, this wakefulness in the night is the complete opposite. It’s because they are overtired. So why would they be awake if they’re overtired? Surely, if they’re overtired, they should be zonked out, but that often is not the case. They wake up because of the amount of stimulation they may be having.
If they’re having extra stimulation because they’re awake too much, perhaps they’re not getting enough daytime sleep or nap time, or they’re awake too late and not going to bed till too late, for whatever reason it may be it means they are consuming more daylight, activity, engagement, possibly screen time, all kinds of stimulants that could be causing this. So they get tired, they fall asleep, but then, they suddenly are like, “Oh, I’m awake again now.” Which then means they don’t feel sleepy. This has probably happened to you. You’ve probably experienced this yourself, it happens to all of us at times. You’re bound to have had one of those nights where you wake up and then for no apparent reason you can’t get back to sleep. As adults we know full well that it’s not because we are under-tired. We know we’re tired. Generally it happens because you’re over stimulated and that can also come from dietary reasons, things like too much sugar or caffeine.
Caffeine and sugar in particular, while they may allow us to fall asleep remain there in your system, when we wake up they can kick back in and still have the same effect as when you were awake, providing stimulants. So consider dietary elements as well. Are there caffeine, sugar, or other stimulants that are going into that diet more than maybe necessary? Or it could be that the circadian rhythm is a little off whack. What’s your circadian rhythm? That’s your body clock. It’s your internal body clock. So if your baby or child, or even yourself, if you are not quite on track with when it’s day and when it’s night and when we should be sleeping, that could be a reason why you’re awake in the night.
Both babies and young children will experience this. They go to sleep, they sleep for a patch of time, and then they’re awake. Almost like the sleep, at the beginning of the night, was a nap to them and now they’re awake thinking, “Yep, I’ve done that sleep. Now I’m awake again. I’m going to be awake for a while.” And then they’re awake for ages, and then they go back off to sleep. It’s exactly like during the day, that was a nap, this was an awake bit and now I’m going for a nap again. So their circadian rhythm is off. Why is their circadian rhythm off and what can you do about that? Start to look at their patterns in the day. Are they in a good pattern? Do they have a good pattern of wake up, play, sleep, wake up, play, sleep, and so on.
Are they in a good rhythm? Are they getting their daytime sleep at the optimal intervals for their age and developmental stage? Or are they not? Are they just awake all day long or not getting enough sleep or vice versa? Are they asleep all day long, like it’s nighttime, and therefore they’re napping in the night. So it could be a body clock thing, and it’s worth looking at that and just gauging where they ought to be for their age. Not every child is going to be exactly the same, but there are ballparks to work to that will really help to guide you.
Those are all really good reasons why it could be happening, and reasons worth exploring. But what should you do in terms of responding to it when it happens? Because if we address those reasons why we might be able to overcome them, in the meantime, when your child is waking up and they’re awake for two or three hours in the night, what do you do? Do you try to get them to go to sleep or do you leave them to it?
Well, the truth is, it depends, because if they’re content, if they are awake, but content and happy, and they are not seeking your assistance, so there’s no kind of, “I need you,” kind of cry coming from a baby, just cooing, maybe a bit fussing mildly, but they seem okay, or a child that’s a bit older that could call out, but they’re not. They’re just lying there and they’re just awake, and you are aware of it for whatever reason. If they are content and they don’t need something from you and they’re not looking for your help, then don’t intervene, because your attempts to go, “Oh no, come on now. You should be asleep. Back to sleep now. Back to sleep,” you’re just going to create more stimulation.
They’re not going to just go, “Okay, we’ll go back to sleep then.” They’re obviously trying. So holding back and not interfering is more helpful. Of course, if they are of an age where they’ve perhaps turned lights on and got up or created an environment that’s no longer conducive to sleep, absolutely, you need to pop in, reset, nighttime lights off, lie down, well done, and give them all the signals that it is time to be asleep and it is time to still settle back down.
A great aid in this can be a sleep/wake clock. By having one of these clocks that show some night and day, that really can help, because you can just point to it and remind them and make sure they’re aware, when the clock says this, we go to sleep. That can help them and act as a good trigger and reminder as well. So if they don’t need you to respond, hold back. If they do need you to respond, respond quickly and calmly and quietly, and in ways that I described in my previous blogs. But ultimately, just be consistent with that response. Don’t have a response where one night you ignore the thing, the whole situation you ignore, and the next night you go, “Oh, come on. Why don’t you come sleep in my bed with me?” And the next night you go, “You’re not sleepy? Oh, no, why don’t we read a story then?” Just a whole mixed bag of responses. That will prolong the problem. They won’t know whether they are coming or going.
If you do that they won’t know whether they’re meant to go back to sleep, whether it’s okay not to, whether, “Ooh, can I change beds tonight?” Just keep it really clear. This is the time of night. This is where we sleep. This is how we go back to sleep. And this is what you’re going to get from me. Nothing more, nothing less. Just keep it simple and keep it consistent.
So I hope that gives you some tools to understand why your little one might be waking up for a long time in the night, how you can deal with it, and hopefully, how you can also overcome it.
Take care and sleep well.
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