A Parent Playbook Resource

Live Q & A with Rosalee Lahaie Hera

Recorded September 15, 2021

Rosalee Lahaie Hera, BArtSc, MBA, PhD(abd)

Certified Sleep Consultant

Rosalee Lahaie Hera is a Certified Pediatric & Newborn Sleep Consultant, a Certified Potty Training Consultant, the founder of Baby Sleep Love and the co-founder of The Parent Playbook. She’s also a Mom to two beautiful little humans.

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Full Transcript

Recorded September 15, 2021

Hi, everyone.

Hi, thank you for saying hello.

Thanks for joining me.

So I’m Rosalee Lahaie Hera and I am a certified sleep consultant for both the pediatric age groups, zero to six-plus years. And the newborn age group, specifically zero to three months old. I’m also a certified potty training consultant, but today we’re going to talk about sleep and I am here to answer your questions.

So if you have any questions about sleep for me, please pop those into the chat and I will, I will answer them. Okay. We’ve already got one from Wendy. So you said 8.5 month old having persistent, early waking at five ish. He stays in the crib blackout room and cries after waking. So we start the day at six following your week windows.

Oh great. Wendy. That’s great. 2.5, 2.5 2.75 2.5. First step at 9:00 AM he naps? 30 to 50 minutes. I kept to one hour when it goes longer, bedtime ends up being six ish. He’s an independent sweeper and seems happy and content during the day. How do we fix the morning? Wake up? What are the indicators that he’s ready for a to nap schedule?

So, Wendy, I am so happy that you’re following my wake windows at this age. Perfect, perfect job. And it also sounds like you’re following a three-nap schedule, which you’ve confirmed, which is awesome. Very much highly recommended at this age. Always remember to hang on to three nights per day, as long as possible. You didn’t talk about the length of the other nap.

So we do want to make sure on a three nap schedule. Those first two naps are no longer than an hour each. And the last app is no longer than about 30 minutes. Eat there 30 minutes at the end of the day as a bridge to bedtime. And ideally, his last nap should be ending closer to 5:00 PM. So bedtime should actually be later than six,

but if he’s not being consistently for 30 minutes at a time, I can see how you would get to an earlier bedtime. Now, do we move to a two-nap schedule to correction early waking? No, not necessarily. And especially if he’s only capable of sleeping for 30 minutes at a time, that would definitely not be a signal to me that he’s ready for two nap schedule.

I would not make that move. The 5:00 AM waking could be due to a number of different things. So first I’d like to know if he would, did you say he’s content and happy during the day, but he cries after waking. So I’d like to know if it is persistent crying or intermittent crying, regardless. This is probably more habitual or behavioral than anything else.

So there are a couple of things that we can make sure that we cover off for early makings. Number one, we want to make sure that the room is truly a hundred percent pitch-black and I really mean a hundred Pitt, a hundred percent. Pitch-black so blackout curtains and blinds. They’re great, but often not good enough. We usually need something flush against the window behind the curtains behind the blinds,

right against the window rolled down, blackout tape rolled down, blackout film. I should, or black coat paper, Bristol board, black coat tape. So many different things that we can use to make sure that room is completely blacked out. We want to make sure that the windows are closed and it’s cool enough. So hopefully we have air conditioning because those windows being open,

those birds are really loud in the morning. So we don’t want any of that. We don’t want any other disturbances or sounds in the morning, or we want to avoid those. If you have flooring without carpeting or rags, we want to make sure that we’re putting down rugs to make sure that we’re absorbing the noise, those kinds of things. We’re being really,

really mindful and careful about the sleep conditions and the sleep environment in the morning would, would be my very first place to start. Secondly, I would want to make sure that he is fully independent at bedtime. So nobody’s staying in the room with him. He’s fully awake during the routine. There’s waking him up. He’s not drowsy or sleepy going into the crib.

And he falls asleep completely independently at bedtime. Finally, I’d want to cover off if this is habitual in terms of being behavioral and being reinforced in some way. So it sounds like you’re not reinforcing it at all. You’re not going to get him until did he say you’re not going in getting him until six. I would push that to six 30, even if you want to push it in increments by five minutes,

every few days. But essentially we don’t want to expose them to food later conversation prior to six 30, otherwise we’re setting that really stubborn internal clock to keep waking early. The other thing that you could try, one last thing that you could try if you’ve done all of that is that, oh, and you said the crying is intermittent. Thank you for confirming that.

That’s good. That’s good. That’s good to, it’s not steady. And the last thing that you can try is to disturb his sleep wake cycles. So how do we do that? We can either do that with a dream feeding or a dream disturbance. So we would set our alarms at about 3:00 AM, go into the room, either feed him. If we suspect he’s hungry,

that could also be helpful to settle the tummy before the morning, wake up time, or we can disturb him so we can kind of tickle him or blow on him a little bit to get an intake of breath or movement in the limbs. Sometimes this can disturb the sleep wake cycles enough to push out that morning, wake up time. This is actually why,

by the way, although everyone wants their kids to sleep through the night, as long as, as quickly as possible, as soon as possible, sometimes having one feet per night, even as late as nine months old can help us push out the morning. Wake-up time for reasonably the time because it hands up shaking up the week cycles overnight to help us to do that.

So that is another option. And it also just makes sure his nutrition is on point during the days getting a lots of activity and that time and floor time in between naps. And finally, if within about a month from now, this has not improved. And you think that he could be capable of taking longer naps. Are they going to talk about longer naps in a second?

Then you could try a two nap schedule in terms of getting longer naps. Since it looks like you’re our bundle or better sleep bundle for babies. I hope that you’re also following crib hours. So crib Bauer is a keep them in the crib for those first two naps on a tune-up schedule until it’s been 16 minutes from when he first fell asleep, consistent application of crib hour will give you the longer naps.

And then we can prove to ourselves that he’s capable of moving to a, to nap schedule, but not before that, hopefully that helps. Let me know if you have any follow-up questions for me and let me go down this list, Vanessa, you said, how can I extend the naps for, for, for my five month old, he often takes 30 to 40 minute nap.

So Vanessa just talked about one technique, but I do want to say that a five month old is still in the midst of what we call the sleep wake cycle maturation process. So very, very common to get short naps, 20 to 45 minute naps between about two and a half months to six to seven months old because they’re going through this very important sleep wake cycle maturation process,

where some kids are just not biologically developmentally, ready to connect their sleep wake cycles. So what are the some things that we can do to make sure that we’re giving them the best conditions possible to eventually be able to lengthen their naps? Number one, sleep environment, a hundred percent pitch-black for naps extremely important. I cannot see my hand in front of my face,

regardless of whether it’s 11:00 PM or 11:00 AM. Number two, we’re using continuous noise. If I fall asleep, listening to continuous noise and later I stir through light sleep cycle and hear the same noise. I’m far more likely to go right back to sleep. At this age, I recommend pink noise, which is the sound of rain or the sound of ocean.

It’s a low mix of high and low frequency sound that helps us get into and maintain deeper phases of sleep. So that’s the next thing. The next thing is to make sure you’re following age appropriate week windows at five months old, those are between two hours and two hours and 15 minutes. No more than that. And finally, you want to make sure you’re having a consistent prenup routine about five to 10 minutes long inside the prepared environment.

So the noise machines are already switched on. It’s already as dark as possible. So you’re starting to help him produce melatonin before the nap. And then finally it’s applying a nap, lengthening technique. So one of those, as I explained before is crib hour. So I leave my little one in the crib until it’s been 60 minutes from when they first fell asleep.

This all realized this all sort of presupposes. That little one is falling asleep independently. At the beginning of the nap from awake. If they’re not falling asleep from awake, they will have a much harder time connecting their sleep cycles. Cause if I don’t know how to fall asleep on my own, initially, it’s going to be very hard for me to fall back asleep on my own in the middle of a sleep wake cycle.

So however you got me to sleep is however I would like to return to sleep. So that’s also very important. Okay. Rafaela you said any thoughts on dream feeds? I feel like our seven month old is now waking up before his do dream feed. Should we stop? So Raphaela the technique of dream feeding and the technique of response feeding. So going to your little one,

when they cry at night, when you know, it’s reasonable a reasonable time for them to want to wake up and eat, both are reasonable approaches. You just have to be consistent with one or the other. So if you have been doing a dream feed for this long, and now they’re waking up before the dream feed will, then now it’s time to either move the dream feed earlier.

Or if you think this is becoming unreasonably early, like if it’s early in the evening, we want to make sure we’re on the right nap schedule. So three months schedule at seven months old so that we’re not putting a little one down over tired at bedtime, which means they’re far more likely to have post bedtime waking. So early evening wakings, or if it is a later dream feed past midnight,

you might just need to adjust that dream feed timing so that you’re catching it before he’s naturally waking up. Or you can simply throw that strategy out and just switch to a response feeding. So if he wakes up and cries and it’s a reasonable amount of time, so after midnight, usually at this age, you just go and you feed him and put him right back down.

Hopefully that makes sense. Okay, Chelsea, you said my eight month old always seems to wake up 60 to 90 minutes after we put him to bed and wants to play for an hour or so. Does this mean he’s over tired or under tired? So Telsey, I was just talking about this post bedtime wakings. There are a few main contributors to post bedtime wakings.

Number one, I went down over tired at eight months old. I would absolutely bomb beyond a three nap schedule. So that, that keeps our wake windows age appropriate conservative. So the amounts of time that he’s awake are conservative at this age is two and a half hours to two hours and 45 minutes maximum on a three nap schedule. The other thing that can cause these posts bedtime wakings is if they’ve gone down with some support,

so they’ve gone down drowsy, sleepy or asleep rather than putting themselves to sleep from a fully awake state or you have had to wake them in the routine that can cause inconsistent results overnight and post bedtime wakings finally is a true false start. That’s rare though, you have to cover off every other reason for that post bedtime waking to before you can determine that is that it is a true false start and a false start is really just the brain is going into deep sleep way more quickly than it should.

And the brain’s just sort of waking itself up out of safety to kind of prevent that from happening. But like I say, that’s more rare and you want to cover up other reasons for this post bed time waking. So to answer your question, very likely he is overtired. And the other thing I would say is if he’s waking up and just wants to play,

I would just leave him. There’s no reason for us to intervene or try to make him fall back asleep. If he’s just kind of content. That’s actually exactly what we want for our kiddos is to have independent rest time. So when we talk about kids sleeping for 10 to 12 hours overnight, we’re not always thinking about them sleeping like a log at night.

Usually that’s a misnomer, right? Sleeping through the night. There’s a big portion of that time or a significant portion of that time with just would just, which should just be independent rest time. So that’s all we want to see. Hopefully that makes sense. Okay, Erica, you said my 12 month old son has not slept through the night since birth.

He wakes up two to three hours for feeds. I think you mean every two to three hours feeds and has since he was born, he has one solid adopt during the day for about two to three hours. He’s strictly nursed. I’ve tried everything I’m in beyond exhausted and would love to get him to sleep through the night help. Okay, Erica. So number one,

I would definitely not be on one not per day at this age that doesn’t support the best sleep overnight in the least. So we want to be on two solid naps per day. And often people will ask me, well, why am I going back to two naps a day that are going to be shorter and give me less sleep in the day than if I would just put them on a one app schedule and they get much more sleep during the day.

And I know that sounds counterintuitive and a lot about infant sleep science and toddler suicides does sound counterintuitive. But think about it this way. What are your on a two nap schedule that forces your week windows to be more conservative, to be shorter? Whereas when you’re on a one-off schedule, even if you’re getting two, three hours at a time, you still have to have this baby week stay awake for six hours up to six hours usually before their nap,

right? So it’s better to have less so lower overall sleep totals in a 24 hour period and shorter conservative week windows versus having, you know, this kind of more sleep, but these massive wake windows. So I hope that that makes sense. Number one, secondly, is this little one falling asleep independently at bedtime. We can’t ask the little one to sleep through the night.

If they’re not initially falling asleep from an awake state, fully independent sleep at bedtime, they need to start from there. The tone is set at bedtime. And then finally, if we continue to feed, when he wakes up, he’ll continue to want to feed. When he wakes up, we’re kind of setting his, both his internal clock and his tummy to get used to this response,

right? This call and response. I wake up, I get fed. So I think that I need to wake up and get fed over and over and over again. So if we want the response to change, we have to change our response. So essentially, depending on what your doctor has advised in terms of overnight feeds, and most doctors will say by 12 months old,

as long as they’re feeding, while in the day, getting good caloric intake from milk or a milk source and also three solid meals per day, and a good variety of solids, they don’t really need to feed at night. And in fact, a big bonus at this age is usually when we move away from feeding overnight, they get an increase in appetite during the day,

which is really lovely to see them are focused on solids and eating a variety of foods, which is really great and eating with the family. So it can have this nice byproduct. So what we want to do is whatever we did at bedtime to establish independency skills. And we can talk more about that too. We would apply that to overnight. So whether you’re taking a very hands-on gentle approach at a time,

or whether you’re doing a traditional set, sleep training methodology at bedtime, you would apply that overnight and be very, very consistent about that. Babies, toddlers, preschoolers, aged kids, they’re all about routine and call and response. And so the more that you sort of understand or help them to understand, I should say the rules around sleep and you stay consistent about that.

The less they’ll become confused. Often we’re giving inconsistent responses, or we’re not even clear about the rules ourselves around sleep and kids will pick up on that. They get confused, they see that inconsistency and we’re left with inconsistent sleep overnight. So we want to really be so solid about those rules so that they understand, okay, when this happens, then this happens rather than when this happens.

A variety of different things might happen. Hopefully that makes sense. Okay, Jessica, you asked, how do we transition from not being in the carrier stroller to not being in the crib? Baby’s four months old. Good question, Jessica. So first and foremost, it’s absolutely fine to take your kids on, on the go naps to get them the rest they need,

obviously, you know, within the same or within the age appropriately condos that we recommend. And let me know if you have questions about that at four months old, we recommend around an hour and a half of a week time, and that can be slightly longer before afternoon naps, but around that hour and a half is a great sweet spot for this age.

So as long as you’re following the age appropriate week windows, you can use on the go naps. But often we get to this point and we’re like, oh my goodness, how do I get off of these? Like you’re asking. So first and foremost, we need to establish independency skills at night. First, if we try to do naps first,

it’s far harder, more challenging to do it that way. It’s kind of like fighting an uphill battle and that’s because the sleep pressure, our homeostatic sleep pressure, our drive to speak during the day is far, far lower during the day. And there’s also far fewer environmental signals that it’s time to sleep during the day. So we want to establish independence at night.

Once we’ve done that, then we can return to this idea of independent napping. And I would try one nap at a time. So I always say focus on nap. One, the first app of the day put lots of focus on that. The sleep pressure is really high before that nap. Your chances of success are also higher. Just focus on that for about a week or so to get yourself going.

And really it’s the same as what you would do at night for nap. So whatever you did at night to establish independent sleep at bedtime, you would do the same for naps. The only difference with naps is if your baby isn’t falling asleep within 45 to 60 minutes at this age, you would take them out of the room. You would take a 20,

30 minute break and come back and do another 45 to 60 minute cycle. And most kiddos will fall asleep within that 45 to 60 minutes cycle. So the key is I’ve got a pre sleep routine and following each appropriate week windows, my sleep environment is in tip-top shape hundred percent. Pitch-black continuous noise, cool enough room. I’ve got my pajamas or my sleep sack or whatever on you’ve gone through the routine.

You’ve put them down fully awake and then you’re supporting them in whatever way feels best to you, but encouraging them to fall asleep independently. That will take some time. That is a process, but you can absolutely do it. But like I say, I recommend doing that at nighttime first, that will give you greater chances of success with that with naps and start with one nap.

The first app of the day what’s the first app of the day is going well, you can add another nap. You, you know, I don’t usually recommend doing naps three onwards at this age because the sleep pressure is so low by that time that usually it’s a lot of crying and fussing and, you know, getting frustrated and not a lot of sleep so better for naps three onwards to continue to do stroller and carrier.

And the amazing thing about babies is that they don’t get confused. So you can ask them to be independent at night and not during the day, don’t get confused. You can ask them to be independent for nap one and not for the remainder of the naps and they don’t get confused. So it gives you a bit of that flexibility in your life, which I know a lot of us as parents really appreciate.

Okay, Jen, now you said my one year five month old, oh, I got to calculate that. Okay. 17 month old is not sleeping as well at night. He sleeps from eight 30 to 5:00 AM. What should his wake window be? And how can I get him to sleep longer? Also, my three-year old refuses to take a nap during the day and sleep super late at night,

usually around 10. I think you’re seeing 10:00 PM. He won’t go to sleep unless you lay down with him and then we’ll need to sneak out. Then he’ll wake up once or twice throughout the night. And we have to go back in his room. Any suggestions? Wow. Jenelle. There’s a lot to break down in this one. Let’s take it one step at a time.

So your 17 month old in terms of his week windows. So some kiddos are on two naps a day at this age. And so, and that nap not nap schedule. Your wake windows would be between three to four hours and other kiddos are transitioning to one nap a day. And in that scenario, you would have about a six to six and a half hour,

a week window before nap one and a four to four and a half maximum week window after your nap before bedtime. All right, the 5:00 AM waking is probably an indication that he’s overtired. That’s usually what that means. If he’s actually waking up upset and or it’s a behavioral issue, I didn’t fall asleep independently at bedtime, or I’m exposed to food light or conversation consistently at 5:00 AM.

And so now my internal clock is really kind of set to that time or it could be, and, or it could be a conditions of sleep issues. So it’s not a hundred percent pitch black in the morning. The windows are all open. I can hear the birds. It’s not cool enough in the morning. I’m not cozy enough in what I’m wearing and to continue with stories is not playing.

So it could be those kinds of things in terms of the three-year-old refusing to take a nap during the day, most three-year-olds are actually transitioning out of a nap. Anyway, I wouldn’t be hugely concerned about this. We love to recommend a quiet time. If that little one is open to it and you’re ready to be consistent with that. So quiet time is about an hour in their room.

They can be playing with toys, quiet toys, reading books, but the expectation is they’re just in there, there’s no pressure to sleep. You can use a toddler clock so that they know how long they have for quiet time. And then you can get them excited about what you’re going to do after quiet time. So once you’re done resting, the whole family’s done resting.

We’re going to go to the park and play as long as you’re waiting until the clock comes up for example. But when they do drop their nap completely meaning they haven’t slept at all during the day, we do need to move bedtime quite early. So what might be happening is your little one is very overtired and now they get the second or third wind and they push through till very late in the night.

So I recommended this agent. They just dropped a nap that we’re falling asleep by 6:30 PM. Latest, because remember, we’ve got to compensate from that last daytime sleep and get them as much sleep overnight as they would’ve gotten in a 24 hour period with their night and nap, approximately right. Could it be a little bit less? So we want to account for that and using a reasonable morning,

wake up time of six 30 and a reasonable overnight sleep at this age of 12 hours. And in fact, many kids need more than that. Six 30 is a reasonable bedtime to expect. So, and, and I mean, like even my youngest and a couple of the kids that I’ve worked with as well, they’ll even pull 13, 14 hour nights when they’ve just dropped a nap.

Cause they’re really needing to compensate for that loss daytime sleep. So I think you might be missing that window in terms of needing to lay down with him. Again, this is all about consistency, toddlers, try to push that’s their job. They want to see how far they can push those boundaries. Are you really serious about the rules you’re setting around sleep?

I’m not really sure. I’m going to see I’m going to push and see if I can actually trust you and believe you or not. That’s their job, right? So the more that we can be there, calm, confident leaders defined very clear rules and boundaries. Stick to them with consistency. That’s really the ticket. It’s really about our confidence and our clarity around rules and boundaries as parents and how committed we are to staying consistent.

That is the ticket with these little ones. Now, if you, if you are laying with him at the beginning of the night, again, we expect that he’ll wake up overnight and need the same thing, right? Because it’s very disorienting to them. You’re laying with me at bedtime to fall asleep and then you’re not there in the middle of the night when I wake up,

I’m scared. I’m anxious about that. So of course I need you to come back. So it has to start from bedtime. The process of getting them to sleep independently at bedtime is what’s going to help you nail the rest of the night being independent as well. So you’ve got to be consistent and clear about rules and boundaries with little ones at this age,

it’s their job to push, but it’s your job to set the rules and boundaries and stay consistent. I promise you that toddlers feel safer, more reassured, more secure when they clearly understand boundaries and we’re not inconsistent about it. That can cause a lot of insecure feelings and secure attachment. Hopefully that makes sense. Okay. Torchy, you said, what do you do about babies?

Who think it’s a game to go to sleep. As in they pop up and try to climb my 10 month old used to fall asleep on her own. Now, as soon as they put her down, she pulls up. Now I’m holding her back to sleep. Sheesh. So we don’t change our response to her. She doesn’t matter. They have their own prerogative.

They can stand up if they wish great for them. But if we then change our response and go back to holding her to sleep well, now we’ve created a whole new set of habits that we’re going to have to wean off of eventually. So if this starts to happen, let them stand up, let them stand up for as long as it takes for them to figure out how to fall back asleep in from that position,

I don’t recommend forcibly laying them down or staying with them to get them to lay down. You can crouch down beside the crib and pat the mattress to get them to lay down, to indicate they should lay down or tell them it’s time to lay down. But mostly this is just about them figuring out their new skill. They’re going to practice it for a few weeks potentially,

and then they’re going to get over it. You can also practice it with them during the day, build a little sort of what’s it called the obstacle course in the living room, for example, the family room and get them to practice, pulling up and standing down and pulling up and standing down. I was sitting down. I should say, you can do all of that practice with them,

but that at the end of the day, it’s staying consistent with our sleep approach, regardless of what they’re doing. Like I said, you create the rules and boundaries. They can do whatever they like. That’s their prerogative. That’s their choice. That’s their job. But you stay consistent when we change the response, then they relearn a new set of rules and boundaries that maybe we didn’t want them to learn.

Hopefully that makes sense. So get back to independent sleep. Let, let her pull up to stand. She’ll figure out how to sit down eventually for sure. Promise. Okay. Let me just take a sip of water. Jennifer. You asked Jennifer, you asked hi are 10.5. I’m assuming month old. Hasn’t slept through the night, wakes up three times for feeds.

She’s also refusing that she stands in her crib now and just calls out for us. We’re so tired. Second baby. We did your course for our first. Oh great. Hi Jennifer. So in terms of, again, this is a little one pulling up in their crib at this age. So again, we got to go back to first principles.

Jennifer is this little one falling asleep independently at bedtime. If they are, then we really shouldn’t be responding with three feeds overnight, right? Especially if we, they don’t need those three feeds overnight. Is it reasonable to have one feed overnight at this age? Yeah. If you really think that they need it, but three feeds it out. Right?

So again, if we keep responding with a feed, they’ll keep waking for a feed. We’re just, we’re teaching them the rules, right? We’re teaching her what she should be doing at night. And so if we keep reinforcing this with this, we’ll just keep going on. So what we want to do is we want to create a different response.

So whatever we did at bedtime to create independence, we apply that overnight. Maybe minus one feed. So one feed could be a dream feed. If you think that they’re, she’s going to get confused by you responding to some crying and not other crying in that way in terms of feeding her, or it can be response feeding anytime after midnight, if she wakes and cries,

I go and feed her. If it’s before midnight or after that feeding, I don’t feed her, but I choose one consistent response that is not making her fall asleep, but it’s encouraging her to fall back asleep independently. This, this is actually a kind of stormy time for sleep for a lot of little ones. It’s I call it a triple whammy.

So there’s separation anxiety that is coming about there is the three to two nap transition. That can be a very Rocky one for lots of babies. And there’s the milestones that you’ve just noticed. So usually I’m crawling and pulling up to standing can be quite disruptive to sleep at least temporarily. So a couple of things we can do, let them practice all these skills during the day,

as much as possible. And then ignore what they’re doing in the crib. If they’re pulling up, we still stay consistent. In our response, we don’t change our response because they have changed the way that they’re behaving. We stay consistent. And then for separation anxiety, we want to play lots of peek-a-boo peek-a-boo during the day. So they’ve developed object permanence,

which means that they understand that you’re gone, but you still exist when you’re gone. So if you do peekaboo lots during the day, they understand that you’ll come back, that you can still come back. Even though you’ve disappeared, you haven’t fully disappeared. You will come back. So playing lots of that will help as well. But really I suspect in your case,

Jennifer, this is just choosing an approach and staying consistent with it. Again, if we keep feeding all those times, she’s just going to keep waking to feed all those times. I always say to my clients, if we want to see change happen, we have to make change happen, right? So you’ve got to sort of buckle down and, and get that done.

And I know that you can, since you took my course before, so I know you know how to choose a method and stick with it. Okay? Francesca, you said my daughter will be three next month. And getting her down for the night is a messy one and a half hour ordeal. She does everything to avoid bed, thirsty, read another story,

press for musical angel on and on. Once she’s down, she wakes up multiple times a night. She complains about knee pain, which I have had needs x-rayed and everything is fine. I give her a warm bath and massage nightly to ease growing pains, but a full night’s sleep is rare. How can I switch her to a big girl bed? So Francesca and everybody else I’ve already spoken to two or three three-year-olds this week.

And I say this to every parent of three year olds. This exact situation is exactly what every three-year-old is going through when they’re going through Seca. She, so every single three-year-old that comes to me for help with sleep is going through exactly this, right? All the excuses, all the delays, long bedtime routine, multiple wake-ups asking for this, that,

and the other thing, super, super common. So again, going back to first principles, right? We need a conducive environment. We need an age appropriate schedule. We need a consistent routine and we focus on independence and that will solve it. I know I make it sound easy. It’s not easy. It’s a process, but those are the magical keys to good sleep.

So first and foremost, I’d asked you about her nap at this age, the napkin hugely interfere with homeostatic sleep pressure at bed time. So if there’s a nap any longer than an hour at this age, it can really mess with nighttime seat pressure. So I’d either be cutting the nap out completely and moving to a six 30 bedtime or cutting the nap to one hour maximum.

And usually that’s a one to 2:00 PM nap aiming for sleep by eight 30, so one or the other, but we’ve got to adjust our expectations depending on what side of the coin, where we land on, right. That’s number one, secondly, in terms of, so that can help some of that pressure. So if we can increase pressure for bedtime,

she’ll be ready or for sleep. And the fight for sleep becomes lessened. So that’s a good thing. Secondly, we want her to be really understanding the steps of the routine. We can use a visual chart to understand, to put up pictures of the routine in order. And we can also use a timer for each step of the bedtime routine so that she clearly understands we get two minutes for each stop or whatever it may be by the way,

bedtime routine at this age. And mostly all age groups should be about 20 to 30 minutes long. So if you time your steps accordingly, and you’ve got a timer on, she knows ding, ding, ding. Once that timer goes off, after that first step, we have to move on to the next step. And it’s we blame it on the timer,

not on mum. It’s it’s time to move on to the next step. The other thing that we want to do with this age is eliminate or limit choices I should say, and eliminate eliminate boundary or eliminate, oh gosh, what is it called? Eliminate barriers and limit boundaries, limit choices. Sorry. So limit choices. What does that mean? So for example,

I’ve got lots of three-year-olds who they fight with their parents about the pajamas that they want to wear for that night. So they’ve got 20 different pajamas in their drawer and I don’t want this one. I want this one and it takes us 10 minutes to decide on pajamas. No, we don’t want any of that nonsense. Right? Take all the pajamas out of the room,

right? So we’re eliminating that barrier and we’re limiting choices. Here are two pajamas, pick one of these for the night. And if that’s still a struggle, then we’re the ones that pick the pajamas. And that’s the only pajamas that comes into the room. So we want to do that with every single thing. So if I wake up thirsty overnight,

okay, I’m going to give you an independent way to solve that problem on your own. I’m going to role play with you. Lots. I’m going to have a water bottle right beside your bed that we’ve practiced. You know, how to manipulate it open and closed. You know how to drink it at, at the end, in the middle of the night,

close it and put it beside your bed. Every little thing that comes up, you want to create an independent solution for that. So you’re removing yourself from the equation and they’re getting encouraged to solve this issue on their own. So lots of different things, a lot of little ones, they, their, their excuse is that they have to be tucked back in the,

the blanket is all, you know, kind of messy on their bed. Okay. So the solution is we show them how to talk themselves back in or tell them that it’s okay not to be tucked back in. We all get messy overnight and it’s fine. Or if it’s really causing a problem again, eliminate that barrier, take all the covers off the bed,

switch her to an extra layer and just say, you know what? The sheets aren’t really working for us. So we need to take them out until you can learn to them on by yourself. And we’re just going to Adelaide your sphere nice and cozy at night. So never make it seem it’s not a punishment. So never ever make it seem like a punishment.

It’s just a solution to an issue that we’re having simple. Right? It doesn’t feel simple though. I know. So those are some things that we want to do. So eliminate barriers, limit choices with these little ones, and then finally for getting to sleep at night, a really good technique that can you can use at this age is to help them to listen to something that distracts them and reassures them.

So toddler meditations, there’s lots of these that you can find online on Spotify or anywhere that you listen to podcasts, you can find toddler meditations and just switch them on for her to listen to you get a little bit distracted as she’s falling asleep at night. All right. So hopefully that’s helpful. There’s lots more we can do with three-year-olds, but those are some of the key things that I work on with three-year-olds all the time.

And like I say, they’re all pretty much the same in the issues that they’re facing at this age. Okay. Aubrey, you said my little one is two. She’s still waking up at least once in the night for comfort. Should we stir her before we, as parents go to bed? I’m not sure what you’re asking here. Opry, should we stir her before we go to bed?

Oh, I think I know what you mean. You mean to kind of disturb her sleep, wake cycles. You can try that, but again, make sure that you’re going back to first principles. I’m falling asleep independently. I have a sleep conducive environment. It’s cool enough. It’s dark enough. All the rest of it. I’m on a sleep,

an age appropriate sleep schedule. So at two, we do still want to nap in the day, but you know, we might have anywhere from an hour and a half to two hours in the day with a week window before bed, that’s maybe around five hours or so. And, and we’re making sure that we have that consistent pre bed time routine.

I would cover those things off first and make sure that, that those aren’t the reasons for her waking before trying to disturb her sleep wake cycles by perhaps rousing her a little bit before you go to bed. Hopefully that makes sense. And hopefully that was your question. Okay, Kristen, you said, when is the right time to move from a four and a half,

two or three nap schedule? My son will be five months next week. He sleeps through the night, but as an early riser, he’s usually up by five 30, but I don’t get them until six. His naps are very inconsistent. Sometimes an hour, sometimes 30 minutes. It’s hard to keep him up for two hours during the day, but I’m finding that his cat nap for that is often happening late at five 30 and pushing bedtime back.

Got it, Christine. So this is very, very common. So I find that most kiddos are ready for three nap schedule at five and a half months old, some a little bit earlier than that, but most are hitting that exact five and a half month mark. Now, in terms of those, those week windows being two to two and a quarter hours,

you’re right at first, they feel like they can’t handle that, but it’s actually best at that point to start to push a little bit on those weak windows, because that often helps us get longer naps. If we just push pressure just a little bit helps us to get into those longer naps, which helps us to land on that three nap schedule now,

because he’s just turning five minutes next week. And because he’s an early riser, assuming he’s waking up upset in the early morning, he could be on the overtired side. So it wouldn’t push him just yet. But one thing that you could do as a gentle entry into a three nap schedule is to make the first make sure the first app doesn’t start before eight 30.

Now all of your little ones will seem incredibly overtired before nap one. And that is because their melatonin, their sleeping hormone still coursing through their bloodstream. And so that pressure is still really high. So they see really tired, but that’s actually the time when we can push them a little bit. We don’t want to push them before bed ever, but we can push them before nap one.

So that would be your gentle entry into that three nap schedule. And then what I would do is I would cut off his second, last nap by no later than about 3:00 PM. Even if that means that nap is short to squeeze that last nap in from five to five 30 until he’s ready. These next few weeks are going to be a little bit tricky as you transition.

But once you’re on the two to two and a quarter hour a week, when is in that three nap schedule, it’s going to feel so nice and it’s going to help him to really consolidate his full sleep in a 24 hour cycle. It’s just not there yet, but almost, oh, I lost my thread here. Let me scroll back to down.

Okay. Alicia, you asked our three month old, usually wakes up every two to three hours at night. How do we lengthen his stretches of sleep at night? So Alicia, even for a solid eight plus independent steeper waking two, every two to three hours at night to feed at this age, it’s totally normal and developmentally appropriate. There are lots of three-month olds that can sleep directly through the night.

Lots that can sleep and only have one or two feeds overnight. But a lot of little ones, like I said, even independent sleepers could have up to three feedings per night at this age, as long as it’s a full feeding and they go right back to sleep independently. We’re not too concerned about it. So again, we want to cover off our four magical keys of great sleep.

Does your little one have a sleep conducive environment in a crib in a hundred percent pitch-black room with continuous noise playing a cool enough room 20 to 21 Celsius, 60 to 70 Fahrenheit. And does he have an age appropriate steep schedule? So at this age, we’re looking at four to five naps per day on about an hour and a half week windows and hour and a quarter to an hour and a half week window.

So never being awake for longer than that in one stretch, does he have a consistent bedtime routine, same activities in approximately the same order every night, 20 to 30 minutes long, mostly done inside the prepared environment, meaning that it’s a hundred percent pitch black with a little bit of light on noise machines already switched on. And are you working toward independence?

So I am specifically certified in newborn sleep, which means that I help even zero to three month olds learn to sleep independently. As you can imagine, we’re not using any sort of traditional seat training methodology in the first three months, but we can gradually move them toward more independence. So I’ll give you an example of that. If you’re currently rocking your three month old to sleep at bedtime,

let’s think about making a plan over the next couple of weeks to gradually reduce the amount of rocking we’re doing to eventually switch, to swing, to sleep, to eventually slip switch, to holding, to sleep without movement. Cause remember you want them eventually to fall asleep on their own without movement, and then non-moving crib. So you need to eventually put them down as they’re just falling asleep to eventually put them down.

When they’re fully awake, once they’re fully awake, you have the best chance possible of them lengthening their overnight sleep. But until you get to that point, it’s going to be tough to get them to do so. And like I said, lots of little ones are still, even in that situation, waking up to three times a night to eat. There’s a very common growth spurt in the third month and again in the sixth month.

So even if they do drop feeds, they could pick them up again. Later on. I do find though that the earlier you introduce allergens, which is very good for them, solids, as well as introducing iron rich solids, the sooner they are ready to, to sleep a little bit longer though, that doesn’t make a difference. If your little ones are already getting the calories that they need.

Okay. Hopefully that makes sense. Okay. Let’s talk to you sharp. Sorry. Your question is my seven month old wakes up every 30 minutes during day naps and every 30 to 60 minutes through the night, he’s not sleep trained. We’ve been trying faded out, but he still needs one of us around and touching him. We’re skeptical of doing cried out what to do if he wakes up in the middle of the night,

when we do cry it out. So Sheree. So your seven month old, just want to cover off some basics at seven months old, we do want to make sure that he’s taking three naps a day. That’s absolutely 100% required at this age. Especially if he’s taking only 30 minute naps, I would also do whatever it takes to get those naps,

to extend closer to 45 to 60 minutes, at least the first two. So whether that’s going in a stroller or an a carrier or rocking him or whatever, I would actually put that work in while you’re teaching him to sleep independently at night, because that’s going to support your efforts at night is to get him the rest he needs in the day three 30 minute naps,

not the best at this stage. So whatever we can do to calm the nervous system and get him to sleep longer safely in the day, the better off we’ll be at night in terms of the nighttime sleep approach for independency, you’re kind of have to, you kind of have to decide what you’re going to do. Are you going to use faded out or are you going to use more of a traditional set speed training methodology?

I don’t know what you mean by cry it out. This is a term that lots of people use for so many different to represent so many different things in my mind, cried out is extinction training, which means I put my baby down a week. I walk away. I don’t come back to a morning. That’s not often what other people are meaning by that though.

So you could mean something else. And then in between faded out in full extinction, there’s like a huge amount of different methods that we can use hundreds of different methods that we can use. So it’s all about finding something that works best for you, but whatever you land on, you will have to be super consistent. And as I’ve said before, until your little one gets to the point where they’re falling asleep independently from awake at bedtime,

we will not expect that overnight weekends to improve much other than improving our sleep hygiene, like our sleep environment and our sleep routine and the rest of that. Hopefully that makes sense. But whatever you pick, you asked about what to do in the middle of the night. Whatever you do at bedtime is what you should do overnight. So that has to be consistent.

Other than for feedings, for feedings, you want to discuss with your doctor, what’s appropriate for your little one, either do a dream feed where you’re going in and picking a little one up while they’re steep and feeding them. Or you do response feedings where you predetermine, how many feedings are going to happen during the night. And when approximately they’ll happen,

those are the times I’ll go and feed. If they wait crying, if they wait crying at other times, I’m going to apply the same method I used at that time. Okay. Hopefully that makes sense. Chelsea, you said whom the week windows are working though. The last one’s a bit long, but we’re still struggling to get them down independently.

We’ll try to work on that. Thank you. My pleasure, Chelsea. Good luck with that. Okay, Patrice, you said, is it possible to seek train a 23 month old without using the cryo method? My little one needs us initially to fall asleep and sometimes sleeps through the night, but often wakes up in the night crying. So again,

the, this cryo method, it actually, isn’t a method that any of us trained in sleep learn about. So again, on one end of the spectrum would be what we call extinction sleep training, which would be I put my baby or my child down awake. Oh, walk away. I don’t return to the morning on this end of the spectrum,

which is what I help a lot of clients with is I want to be very hands-on. I wouldn’t be very Grodule. It could take me three months. I don’t care. Cause I want to minimize crying and frustration. And then a lot of clients and people that I counsel are somewhere in the middle. So I never feel as though I either have to do this thing that I’m uncomfortable with and don’t really,

you know, know about or really feel good about, or it have to continue doing what I’m doing. And I feel very sleep deprived and not very good about it. There’s no, there’s no binary decisions in sleep. Don’t let anyone ever make you feel that way. There’s so many different approaches. So yes, it is possible to use any kind of method that you land on.

The keys are. As I’ve said before, sleep conducive environment, age appropriate sleep schedule, very consistent pre bedtime routine and being extremely consistent about the rules and boundaries that you set around sleep very, very consistent about that so that your child understands clearly what’s expected of them. And so they’re not getting an inconsistent response. All right, hopefully that makes sense.

Angela, you said my daughter is three. Now still has her one and a half hour nap, but we’re waking her as she could sleep more. When it comes to bedtime, I want APM. She wants to stay up later, usually sleeping by 8 30, 8 45, but waking her up in the morning at six 30 is rough. What can I do get rid of nap time or shorten?

So Angela you’re in a situation that many parents of three-year-olds are in. If they’re still having a one and a half hour nap, we can expect the time to be as late as eight 30 to 9:00 PM. So if we still want that long of an app, we have to adjust expectations around bedtime. We just don’t have enough sleep and our sleep tank at three years old to produce all the sleep that parents want.

So we either want to cut the nap down to one hour and see if you can achieve an eight 30 bedtime or even an eight to 8:00 PM. Or we want to eliminate the nap altogether and move to a 6:30 PM at that time. Okay. And we can switch to quiet time during the day other than, rather than nap time. But it’s still about keeping that little one up so that their sleep pressure’s high enough for an earlier bedtime.

So we kind of have this choice at three years old, would we want to do so we either ex adjust our expectations or we choose a different path. All right, let me just see here, huh? And this, I get this question all the time. Six 30 bed. Ten’s hard for two weeks working parents. What can be adjusted if seven 30 is really the earliest that’s possible.

So really we have to adjust our expectations. If there’s no way to get that kiddo down by six 30, we have to adjust our expectations that that little one may be going down over tired, that we may have more issues at night that they may not be getting the full amount of sleep that they needed a 24 hour period. So in that case,

it might be better to keep a nap in the day and push bedtime out later. Right? So we have to kind of work in terms of trade-offs. If you want to drop the nap and move to an earlier bedtime, but seven 30 is the earliest that you can do. Then you might want to think about a late cat nap in the day,

like a 30 minute to 45 minute nap at around three o’clock to see if that’ll help bridge the bedtime, the BR bridge, the bedtime gap. The other thing that we can do as parents is to plan ahead. So meal prep on the weekends, making sure that we have everything ready to go. Once we get home from work to go and immediately mobilize into that time,

that sort of thing. So planning ahead. All right. Next question from Alicia, what’s the ideal bedtime in a week time for three months old right now we’re putting baby to sleep between eight 30 to 10. He’s waking around seven and then he naps again from eight 30 to 10:00 AM. So for three months old, I would be switching over to more of an eight to eight night leading up to a seven to seven night at four months old.

So this means that we still might have feedings overnight, but it just means that, you know, bedtime is around eight, 8:00 PM. And morning, week of time is around 8:00 AM or so on one half hour week windows. So I’m asleep every one and half hours during the day and before bed bedtime is around 8:00 PM morning. We kept time is around 8:00 AM.

Hopefully that makes sense. So we do want to aim for about 12 hours overnight. Right now you’re a little bit is getting shorter than that. And I suspect that just means that, you know, your last nap is very late and social is kind of pushing that time out. So there’s, trade-offs, we’re getting more daytime sleep, but we’re losing nighttime sleep.

I like to kind of get rid of that final nap, add that onto nighttime sleep, give you a longer period of sleep overnight. Even if that means a few wakings overnight for eating, I’m just going to have some thing to drink here. Okay. Rafaella Rafale you said, I read that week windows for seven months, plus is three to four hours,

but my little can’t seem to stay awake that long. He has 2.5 hour a week windows right now, and he’s seven months. Do I need to adjust right away? Raphael? I definitely don’t recommend three to four hours at seven months old, no way at all, that doesn’t follow any sleep science that I know of. You’re right on track two and a half to 2.7,

five hours a week when it was maximum on a three nap schedule at seven months old. So definitely don’t even consider a three to four hour week windows at this age. And it sounds like he’s a great napper, as you said. So I would not change that. And two wakings overnight, in terms of him to feed that’s pretty normal at this age,

you could go down to one feed overnight. You would just apply the same method that you use together to sleep independently at bedtime two, your overnight waking. All right. But otherwise you’re on a great track with those weak windows. All right, Mesa, you said for my three-year-old toddler, should I skip the nap time? And what age do you think is better to change to toddler bed?

So it depends. There’s many three-year-olds that can not in the day and still have a reasonable bedtime. In that case, I always say, don’t fix, what’s not broken, but if your bedtime is becoming unreasonably late, and that’s usually for most of the parents that I work with eight 30 plus, then we want to consider cutting the nap or skipping it altogether,

moving to an earlier bedtime in terms of the toddler bed, Dr. Dean and I both recommend to keep the crib as long as possible, at least until two and a half to three years old. But even later, if you can, if there’s no curb jumping and even in the case of crib jumping there’s things that we can do to keep them in that crib,

like switching to a sleep sack, turning the sleep sack around, making sure the crib, if it has one side higher than the other, the higher side is away from the wall, putting the criminal corner, making sure that mattresses as low as possible. We do everything we can to keep these kids in cribs as long as possible. If you’ve done all of that and they’re still climbing,

then it can be time to change to a toddler bed. But please push these transitions as late as possible, including now transitions, you’re going to be so much happier that you waited for this transition to happen. Okay, Jen, you said our six-month old seats about 12 hours per night at her own in her crib, but some random nights wakes up in the middle of the night and screams for an hour or two.

She doesn’t seem to need anything. I tried to let her put herself back to sleep, but on these occasions it doesn’t work. I ended up coming to check her diaper and make sure she’s okay, leave again. And she screams for another hour. Any idea why this would randomly happen or what we can do? We’re afraid facial wake for two year old sister.

So Jen, I mean, there’s so many different factors that can be contributing to this. I would make sure that she’s gotten the age appropriate sleep schedule three naps per day, for sure at this age, wake windows between two to two and a half hours. So not awake for any longer than that, particularly before bed, no more than two hours of awake time.

And also, could she be hungry overnight? So lots of six month old that’s six month olds that I work with are still feeding two to three times overnight. So there could be times, and particularly in this month, they go through a very well-documented growth spurt where she could be hungry. So I don’t know if you’ve tried that or not. One thing I would caution you against though,

is waiting a long period of crying and then feeding. Cause then we’ve just taught her to cry for a feed, which we don’t want to do. If you were going to try a feeding, you would wait no longer than 25 minutes max, to go and feed and see if she takes a feed. If she takes a nice full feed, it goes right back to sleep.

Then we know that that was hunger. So that’s something that I would consider that also consider discomfort. If the room is too hot, that is often the case for getting really upset overnight is the room is way too hot. Overheating is a risk for SIDS and is not good for safety, but it’s also not good for good quality sleep. So do a little bit of troubleshooting there to get down to it.

But if it is happening sort of infrequently, I wouldn’t be too concerned. I would just track what’s happening on those nights. See if you can also connect it back to anything that happened in the day, for example, kind of rushing back home before bedtime often for really sensitive kids that overstimulation can lead to a poor night of sleep. So think about things like that and track that over time and see if you can make any connections.

Hopefully that helps. Okay. Jessica, you said can a four-month old seat, too many hours overnight. We often have to wake ours at 13 hours. Nope, not at all Jessica. My little one did that too. My second little one, she would sleep 13 plus hours overnight sometimes. Totally fine. And count yourself lucky. So that’s not a problem at all.

If you ever have any concerns about your kiddos being, you know, lethargic or not being able to focus on developmental milestones or tasks during the day or falling asleep at odd times, like when they’re eating or something like that, when they get older eating like a dinner time. I mean, for example, then obviously go and talk to your doctor about it,

but this is not something to be too concerned about. Okay. Junior question is three-year-old and night terrors wakes up screaming and cat comfort her, what do we do? Okay. So night terrors night terrors are a confusional event. Sorry. I need to drink water. And then I will reset one second. Okay. Jane, you said three-year-old in night,

terrors wakes up screaming and cat comfort her. What do we do? So nightmares are confusional events. They are not like nightmares night terrors usually happen in the first three to four hours of the night, little one wakes up. They don’t know that they’re awake. They don’t register that you’re there. And most importantly, to distinguish nightmares from nightmares the next day they do not remember this.

Okay. So if that’s happening, that’s a night terror, couple of things that contribute to night terrors, one is being over overheated. So make sure that room is cool. And I’ve 20 to 21 Celsius 68 to 70 Fahrenheit. They’re dressed lightly and like hot and clothing or maybe just to pull up diaper and just to sheet. So make sure there’s not lots of blankets and things like that.

They’re not sweaty. And the other thing that can cause night terrors is going to bed over tired. So make sure that they’re either having an app in their day with a reasonable bedtime, or they’re not napping that they’re in bed early as early as six 30. And the other thing that country can contribute to nature is, is screens two hours before bed and particularly any sort of anxiety or fear provoking screens or stories.

So make sure that you’re addressing that outside of the sleep environment, in terms of when she wakes up, all you can do is stand by and make sure she’s safe. So you don’t want to wake her. You don’t want to try to get her to acknowledge that you’re there. You just want to stand by as hard as that is. As a parent,

you can try to comfort that usually don’t accept comfort and just wait for it to pass. Making sure that she’s safe. Another thing that you can do for nightmares is take her onto the toilet. If she’s toilet trained, see if you can get a PO, sometimes that actually can disrupt the night terror and they’re ready to go back to sleep. And finally there is another cause of night terrors,

which is chronic pain. So if you suspect any, like if you haven’t gone to the dentist, for example, to check her teeth in a while or any kind of pain that you might suspect, little ones don’t really register pain and interpret pain, the same way that adults do. So they may not be able to verbalize that they’re in pain or even show you that they are during the day.

But there may be something kind of nagging at her that could be contributing. That’s not as common as the other reasons that I talked about, but it is worthwhile covering this off, taking a trip to the dentist, for example, hopefully that helps. Okay. I’ve got time for maybe another question and I will see what I can do here. Meg.

You said, how do I know when it’s time to transition from two naps to one, my 15 and a half month old, it started resisting one of his naps. Usually the PM nap. We tried capping the first app to an hour and usually have about a three hour week window between apps. When he’s refused as am nap, we put him down earlier than usual in the afternoon,

and then he’ll sleep for two to three hours, which makes me wonder if he could just do one nap from what I’ve read. This might be early for one nap. Do I just keep trying for two? So great job Meg with tapping the first app in an hour. That’s exactly what I would recommend you to do. But then I would use a four hour week blender for an app to before deciding he’s ready for one nap schedule,

most little ones that they, that each are not fully ready. So I would, like I said, cap the first app to one hour. That’s usually like a 10 to 11 nap and then use a four week window for four nap to usually a three to 4:00 PM nap. Cut it off four and use your four week window or whatever week wind or you’re using before bedtime do that first.

And if that still doesn’t work, cut the first snap down to 45 minutes again with a four to four and a quarter hour, week window before nap too. And then see what happens. That will usually be the ticket along with waking them a bit earlier in the morning. Like if they’re waking after seven week then by no later than six 30 to seven as well,

better to stay stick to that to nap schedule as long as you can. Okay. Let me use the five can just, oh, Patrice says it does help. Thanks. There’s hope. Okay, good. I’m so glad to hear that. Let me see. Shavera you followed up and said, thank you for your suggestion. What’s the ideal bedtime and wake up time for seven month old.

So usually 6:30 AM a three nap schedule based off two and a half to two hours and 45 minutes of awake time. And then bedtime is anywhere around seven to seven 30, really dependent on how long the naps are, but the last half of the day should really end by five Mesa. So thank you so much. This is very helpful. It’s my pleasure.

And oh Bellini. Good question. Do you recommend a toddler? Mine will be three in December to transition to a bed before potty training. He’s currently still in a crib and not toiletry. No body training is not needed. Doesn’t need, sorry. It doesn’t require little ones to be in a bed. They can absolutely. And should absolutely still be in a crib.

Why? Because we don’t do nighttime training. As I said, I’m a certified potty training consultant as well. We do not do nighttime training. Nighttime training is a misnomer. Nighttime dryness is physiological. We don’t train at night and you’re going to cause a lot of sleep disruption at night for no reason at all. So daytime train for potty. Absolutely.

But keep the pull-ups and diapers on overnight. There is no need for little ones to have access, to wash more potty overnight. We take that pressure off their backs. You can still pee and poop, whatever you need to do in your diaper overnight. It’s totally fine. Train for daytime. Nighttime dryness, wait for two solid weeks of dry diapers in the morning before transitioning out of diapers,

little ones can still need a diaper overnight until they’re six, seven years old sometimes with no medical issues. And that’s fine. We don’t need to worry about nighttime dryness for a long time. All right. Hopefully that helps then shove our, you said you’re awesome. Oh, you are awesome too. Thank you for joining me. And Rafael said, this was amazing.

Thank you so much for taking the time. It’s my absolute pleasure. We will follow up with a replay of this and just as a refresher, I’m Rosalie Dr. Dina and I she’s a superstar pediatrician. We started the parent playbook. We do have a parent membership. If you’re interested over at parent playbook dot C O a, we support you just like this inside of a private Facebook group.

And also we have a big team of child health professionals that help you with things like feeding and you know, physical development, any health issues and concerns. Dr. D is always talking about, you know, COVID right now in the COVID world. So lots of different opportunities to ask questions of our experts as well. Again, you can go and look@thatatparentplaybook.com.

Otherwise we will send you those replays. And I thank you so much for joining me today. I hope you all have a great day. Thanks all bye-bye.

 

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