LIVE Q & A  with  Rosalee Lahaie Hera

Full Transcript

Recorded February 23 2021

Any me here. I’m Rosa Lee and I am a certified pediatric and newborn sleep consultant. And I’m here to answer your questions today. So for anybody who’s here, can you just let me know that you’re here in the chat and if you have questions, pop those into the chat. Cause that’s how I’m going to answer them, whatever questions that you have.

Like I said, I work with newborns. I work with zero to three month olds. I work within the first year of life. I worked with toddlers. I work all the way up until six, seven years old plus. So any age group that you need my help with that, you know, and we’ll get started. Oh, somebody has already got their question all ready to go.

Okay, Anna, thank you very much for doing this. My pleasure. I love doing this. Okay.

You have a freshly one-year-old that is pretty well sleep trained her problem, or should I say my problem is she doesn’t speak longer than seven to nine hours straight at night during the night there during the day I follow your schedule, a three, three and a half, three and a half for an app’s awesome. Started a month and a half ago, two naps, but it’s really hard to get her awake for three hours until first snap, because usually after two and a half, she’s already tired. She sleeps about two and a half to three hours during the day. And at night, max is 10. (00:46)

Okay. Thanks for explaining all of that, Anna. So when you say she’s pretty well sleep trained, I would have a few additional questions around that. I’m going to assume that this little one is falling asleep entirely from awake and is able to self settle throughout the night. So I’m not quite sure what’s happening with the seven to nine hour straight at night. What’s happening at that point.

What are they doing? What are you doing? So, yes, correct. And okay, great. I have to scroll back and forth as you can imagine to see what your answers are to my additional questions. But anyway, if we go from that assumption that this little one is falling asleep independently and able to resettle independently, then what’s happening at that seven to nine hour Mark.

Now the thing I will say is that at this age, so just about 12 months or so, those second two week windows can actually be extended. So the second week, wonder if you’re getting any resistance with nap two, we want to increase that week. When do we can increase it to three and a quarter, sorry, three to three, three and a three quarter hours or to four hours.

If you need to. And then the final week window can be as long as four hours. However, that first nap absolutely needs to be at least three hours after wake up. If we make it earlier than that, we’re going to really just reinforce a shorter amount of sleep overnight. So here’s the thing we never want to over tire a kiddo, unless it’s before an app.

One to keep us out of an early rising cycle. Not one is the only time we want to push them to be a little bit over tired, to get the date set off on the right foot. I will tell you something. All kiddos seem incredibly over tired when they wake up from their native sleep. Even if they’re great sleepers, they have a great night’s sleep.

They’re so tired because their melatonin is still coursing. Their bloodstream it’s really high, their homeostatic sleep pressure. If any of you worked with me before or heard me talk, I talk about sleep pressure all the time, their sleep pressure super high before nap one. So it doesn’t matter if this little one is like falling down asleep, tired for nap. One.

We want to push them there and we don’t want to push them anywhere else during the day. Definitely not before bedtime, but that’s the time to push them to get the day off on the right foot. So distract, distract, distract, exposed to lots of natural light in the morning and get them to that nap. One start time no earlier than nine 30, the Sage even pushing to nine 45 to 10:00 AM for some little ones at this age.

So hopefully that makes let’s go in to you.

Another question, Vivian:

My son has been sleep trained, started solids, but recently he sometimes poops while he’s in his crib. But right before nap time, it’s not always easy to detect. He then misses his wake window. We have a hard time getting him to sleep. Any tips on how to discourage pooping around sleep. (03:38)

You can’t discourage grouping around sleep. That’s the bottom line. But what I want you all to remember is the poop. Doesn’t wake the baby. The sleep issue wakes the baby. So here’s what I mean, poop cannot happen unless the Oregon’s short of awake and alive, right?

So usually what happens is I’ve got a waking, my organs come awake and alive, and then I do the poop, right? So if we solve the sleep issue, we normally solve this issue that you’re talking about right here. So I’d look at how tight is your independent sleeping with this little guy? How tight are your wake windows? How amazing is your sleep environment?

What are the conditions around sleep that are making it hard for him to sleep? Because if it makes it hard for him to sleep, he’s more likely to poop. And that’s your issue. It’s not a coop issue. It’s a sleep issue. Hopefully that makes sense. Let me, I just see so many questions. I love it.

Okay, Camille, thanks for doing this again. My pleasure.

Do you have any tips to help help nine month old baby nap in his crib? He stands back up. Every time I lay him down and cries nonstop. If I leave the room at night, it’s not so bad, but I have to stand beside him. (04:42)

Okay? So if we want an independent napper, we have to have a fully independent nighttime sleeper. That is the absolute minimum requirement to have little ones who are happy to sleep in their cribs for naps in the day. That’s my strong opinion. So we need to first work on nighttime sleep. If we’re going to be able to work on independent napping. So that’s the very first thing to meal. Get yourself out of the room.

So then he’s fully independently. Self settling from awake at bedtime has a great night’s sleep. Then you can work on the naps, right? So whatever approach you take, there’s so many proteins you can take to doing this. You have to get to the point where you’re consistently putting them down a week, walking away and he’s able to fall asleep on his own.

Then you can work on naps. And I typically recommend working on one nap at a time, not one first assist for the rest of the naps. Once nap, one is going well, nap to assist for the rest of the naps. Baby sleep. Science is so fascinating. They don’t get confused if you do this, which is so cool. So work on nighttime to get naps happening.

Another thing we don’t want to physically lay them down at this age, if they are standing, we continue with our approach without laying them down. Physically, it’s usually few tiles. They usually just instinctively stand again and we’re not giving them the time, space and opportunity to remember sleep approaches are all about time, space, and opportunity to learn how to figure this out on his own practice in the day, give him obstacles to kind of stand up and down on physically, stand them up and down.

Even if you think he’s got this, keep practicing so that he understands, and he feels that physical up and down and he can do that on his own. The other great thing, about little ones who stand at this agency, we can actually incorporate that into our comforting techniques.

So whatever method we take to get them to sleep independently, we can actually comfort them while they stand. And if you’re going to take a super hands-on very gentle approach, you can actually just embrace them while they stand until they calm. Remember that crying exists. When a baby is frustrated, we want to actually eliminate other causes for crying, like being overtired.

Once we, excuse me, once we’ve eliminated all those causes, we know that crying is at a frustration. Crying does not mean that your method or your approach has failed. It means that they’re telling you that they’re frustrated that they haven’t figured out how to fall asleep on their own. It doesn’t mean that you’re doing something wrong. Okay. So hopefully that makes sense.

And you said:

You also have a freshly three year old that naps at daycare, not long max, 40 minutes, one hour, but not at home. She sleeps 10 hours at night, but because at home she fights the nap. I put her in bed at eight. She will nap just if we go for a car drive or if I get her really tired in the morning until at what age should they nap? (07:10)

So I don’t know what time your little one is awake in the morning, but she’s got a pretty late bedtime. And at this age, what I will tell clients is if that term’s becoming late, right? And they’re fighting naps, then drop the naps completely, or at least. So at this point, when you’ve got your nap at max 40 minutes to an hour, there’s not really much point in decreasing it even further.

Let’s say to 30 minutes, because usually we just have a cranky kid who’s been crying. Who’s cranky from being woken up. So we just cut the nap two and a half to three. On average, if we’re starting to get bedtimes that are really late, if we’re starting to get lots of nap resistance, it’s really not worth it to keep the nap. What I will say is that bedtime might even need to be earlier.

Again, this depends on when she wakes in the morning, food bought an average six 30 to seven 30 waking in the morning at this age, then bedtime really should be no earlier, or sorry, no later than six 30 asleep by six 30, if they just dropped their nap.

Vivian you said:

How do you define success in sleep training? (08:23)

Well, it really depends on what your goals are, but if you’re talking about a little one falling asleep independently for nighttime sleep, there’s a bit of a checklist. I fall asleep from awake with minimal to zero crying. I fall asleep within 30 minutes, max, really the sweet spot should be five to 15 minutes, but if they’re kind of just like, you know, fussing around, playing around, moving around, it’s not really a big deal.

If you had multiple overnight weekends before those have dramatically decreased and you’re left just with feedings, if a little one needs beating still and feedings are easy and quick.

So I feed, I go right back to sleep. Hopefully that helps with naps. It would be, I fall asleep from awake consistently for the nap that I have been coached on and I sleep. It depends on the kiddo’s age I sleep for at least 45 minutes would be lovely on a consistent basis. Okay. Hopefully that makes sense. Again, the sweet spot is falling asleep from awake in about five to 15 minutes.

If a little one’s consistently falling asleep under five minutes, we worry about over tired. If they’re consistently falling asleep after about 15 to 20 minutes, even after they’ve got the skills that week window might be actually too short. Hopefully that makes sense. Okay.

My two year seven month old doesn’t fall asleep by herself and we were having issues with early rising, not wanting to go back to sleep. So is up for the day, way too early, for example, today three 45. (09:35)

Heck no, no way. You know, we’re not going to get, we’re not going to accept a three 45 in the morning waking. Definitely no way. So here’s the thing. When we have an early morning waking, it’s really about you setting the you’re setting the boundaries of that early morning waking.

So I will say to you, you know, would you accept a midnight waking as the start of your day? If you wouldn’t accept that and you’re going to treat it as an overnight weekend, you’re going to do the same thing for three 45 or four 30 or five 30, in my opinion, right?

My strong recommendation is no wake ups in the morning earlier than six 30. That being said a six o’clock hour waking for babies and toddlers. Totally 100% fair game because that’s aligned to our internal biological clock, our circadian rhythm, which is aligned to daylight, right? So six o’clock hour waking is totally fair game, but no earlier than six 30.

So what do I mean by no earlier than six 30? Cause a lot of parents are saying, well, I can’t control that. There are things you can control. The first thing is we treat any way, things that happen before that as a nighttime weekend, we don’t just say, Hey, good morning. Let’s start our day. Because when we do that, we ingrain, we reinforce that early morning waking.

We don’t want to do that. And early wakings, I will tell you they can get ingrained super quickly. They can get reinforced really easily. And once they’re enforced, they’re really hard to then fix. They’re not impossible, but they are the hardest sleep issue to fix. They take several weeks of a hundred percent consistency with my formula for early morning wakings now.

So avoid food lightened conversation until at least six 30. So we are keeping them in that pitch black room with the noise machine running, no food light and conversation. Unless obviously if a baby is younger and three 45 is an appropriate time to feed them, feed them and put them right back down, treat it as an overnight waking. Secondly, I mentioned this already before nap.

One is based on your ideal waking, never on your actual waking. If you’ve got, let’s say a five 30 waking and your kiddos, wake window is an hour and a half. You wouldn’t put them down for their first nap at 7:00 AM. Right. It would be more 8:00 AM because we’re basing it on that or that morning wake-up time of no earlier than six 30.

Hopefully that makes sense.

So are you hoping to get a bit of a refresher for newborns since I’m due to deliver a baby to any day now? (12:02)

Okay. I’ve got a great, a couple of articles, actually a series of articles on my website, baby, sleep, hell.com for newborns. I’ve also got my better sleep bundle. That includes lots of information for newborns that you will want to check out essentially the best things to do right from the beginning, our routine, after about week two, it really like, you know, get your, give yourself time to sort of survive and get feeding established.

That’s the most important right away for things for newborns and incorporate them into the family and all of that, but routine and following week windows, which should be no longer than 45 to 60 minutes at this age, if they’ve got DNA confusion.

So they’re clearly really sleepy in the day and really big, full at night. That’s the kind of basic definition of data confusion. Then we would nap them in noisy, bright rooms and bring everything down for night. So the lights down and the noise machine on and all of that, if they don’t have day/night confusion, they can also have the darkened environment for the daytime as well to get them good naps.

I cut naps off at no more than two hours each so that we can really be increasing the sleep pressure for nighttime sleep. We’re not getting so many wakings overnight, but really right away from the beginning, following week windows setting a routine before bed, that time’s going to be late at first. It can be as late as midnight at first that’s okay, but still have a few steps, but five to 10 minutes long that you’re completing every night before bed.

And again, I’ve got lots more information on my website and through my battles, better sleep bundle. I work with newborns. All the time.

Okay, Jennifer:

How do you manage a newborn sleeping with silent reflux? He’s three months. I’m a single parent. He’s currently on meds, but not sure they’re working. I hold them up for 15 minutes after feeding and burping. What else can be done as he’s waking every morning at four 30 in pain, arching his back and coughing. (13:36)

So Jennifer, this is a medical question for your doctor. We cannot improve sleep. If your little one is in pain from reflux, either he needs to be on a mix of meds or a different kind of med or increase his meds before you can actually start to work on the sleep.

Okay, Christa. Hello. Thanks for putting this together. It is okay.

Is it okay to wake baby up at 7:00 AM each day I have a 14 month old that starting daycare students. So we need to jump into a structured schedule. (14:05)

Absolutely. Yes. 100%. If you need to be up at 7:00 AM needed to be up at 7:00 AM and you just make sure that you’re following the appropriate week. Windows 14 months old, I would absolutely insist on them being on two naps a day. Hopefully your daycare’s not forcing them down to one nap a day, which many bakers do. And then we see lots of issues.

They need two naps a day at this age and an appropriate bedtime. So at this age you could do three hours before nap. One anywhere from three to three and a half hours before nap, one, anywhere from three and a half to four hours before and after two, and then anywhere from three and a half to four hours of awake time before bedtime.

Alice:

You have a five week. Well that doesn’t do daytime naps by herself. I swaddled her use a pacifier, but she always makes after five to 10 minutes, she can do longer naps. Only when I carry her. (14:52)

Perfect. Your five week old is doing exactly what she should be doing. I wouldn’t expect a five month old to be settling for daytime naps yet.

And first and foremost, what I said earlier is she needs to be able to settle herself independently at bedtime and through the night in order for her to transfer those skills onto naps. If that’s not happening yet, then I don’t expect her to have neat daytime naps on her own. At this age, we want to use lots of movement and help, and we want to use the carrier.

When he’s a stroller, we want to hold her for naps, get her the best sleep possible in the day. So you can work on independence at night. And then once you’ve got independence nailed down at D at nighttime, you can then go on and work on nap. One. Now be aware that the swaddle, if you mean swaddling arms in couple things, that’s no longer going to be safe by eight weeks old.

So I would start to work on that or just keep that in mind. It’s not safe by eight weeks old, because little ones at eight weeks, we will can do their first role in their sleep with no indication that they were going to do that during the day. And you don’t want her to be in a compromised breathing position.

She can’t get her stuff out of. So we do want to take that swaddle transition. Eventually another thing is with the pacifier, I have a love, hate relationship with the pacifier. I mean, if you think it’s working for her, it’s helping her. You don’t want to, you don’t have to keep replacing it or like holding it in totally fine.

But if you have any inclination, it’s not helping her. And if you have to keep replacing it and holding it in, then we want to move away from that too. So those are things that I would work on over the next few weeks, solidifying nighttime, sleep, working on independence. They’re keeping continuing to help her in the day, give her snuggles and all that stuff and make sure she’s following week windows move away from the swaddle and the pacifier.

We think that’s a hindrance and then you’ll be able to work on now. So this is a step-by-step process that I work with on all my newborns.

Okay. Katrina:

I crib trained by 11 months old. He hates the Kirby cry so much and he vomits, how do I stop the vomiting? (16:50)

First of all, your baby does not hate the crib.

I hear this all the time. They don’t. We just have to create a calming, relaxing, positive environment. And then again, like I said before, crying doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve done anything wrong. If we’ve eliminated all the other issues with crying. So a lot of times when there’s this level of crying to the point of vomiting, there could be a couple of things going on.

I’m way over tired. My sleep conditions and sleep environment are maybe not appropriate. And the approach that you’re taking with me just doesn’t sit well with me. So we might have to tweak the approach. You can’t necessarily stop the vomit or prevent it from happening, but you can be more hands-on. So you may have to go to a more hands-on intensive approach where you’re being with your child a little bit more and intervening much more quickly, and then progressively moving away from that much support over time.

So essentially doing this more gradually so that you can monitor, once you do that, you should see the vomiting actually decreasing and maybe even being eliminated altogether. But essentially what I’m saying, Katrina, if this is bothering you, as I know it would, for many parents got to take it more slowly.

All right. And also make sure that all of the conditions for sleep are covered off that we’re not trying to, you know, do something highly inappropriate, like sleep him in a bright room or get him down to one affidavit this age or something like that. We have to make sure the conditions for sleep are really solid.

Okay. Yvonne, let me see here, Ana. Sorry. I have to go in order or I will get lost.

My baby’s almost six months. I was wondering, oops, here we go. I was wondering if she wakes at 6:00 AM in the crib, it doesn’t go back to sleep. And I get her out of the crib at 7:00 AM. Does week window before nap start at six or 7:00 AM. (18:27)

Great. Great question, Amanda. So really I wouldn’t be snap on off anything earlier than six 30, even if she’s clearly awake from six to six 30, in terms of determining or basing that one off of a waking of 7:00 AM, that’s totally up to you. So if you are really set on, I want a 7:00 AM waking, you would then base the first nap off that 7:00 AM waking.

I can’t promise you. It’s going to make her wake up at 7:00 AM every day, because again, baby’s natural rhythm is to wake in the six o’clock hour, but you can absolutely try by setting nap. One based on 7:00 AM.

Demi:

You’re wondering About weening night feedings four month old self saddle seats, great naps, well getting over a bottle of version, which has resulted in her taking more at night and then not wanting to eat in the morning.  She’s up twice to four hour, four to five hour trunks. And then when she wakes up for the day at seven 30, isn’t really interested in eating until 1130 to 12. So I think she’s getting too much at night, but I’m not sure how to ween nap. (19:13)

That’s very interesting because I would say that your little one is doing excellent. Two feeds a night overnight for an independent sleeper, as long as they are quick and easy, full feeds. And she settles right back to sleep. I wouldn’t consider night leading a four month old at this point. However, it’s interesting that she’s not eating until 1130 to 12.

I would think that this more is more to do with the fact that four month olds are highly distracted feeders. So you may want to take her to a dimly lit room, use some white noise, use a nursing necklace, or use a toy that she holds onto or something like that. You can use nursing necklaces for bottle fed babies too, by the way.

They’re very good distraction. And just try to see if you can get her to become a little bit more of a focused feeder, because that’s interesting to me, I don’t think that’s about the overnight feeds and to answer your question about night leaning at this age, I would just let it happen. Naturally independent sleepers. So sleepers who fall asleep from awake and know how to fall asleep on their own and back asleep on their own.

They will drop their overnight feedings far, sooner and much more easily than little ones who don’t have this set of skills. So it will happen. But independent sleepers can feed up to three times a night before six to seven months old, two times a night until nine months and one time at night until 12 months. That doesn’t mean they can’t drop them sooner.

Sooner. I’m just saying those are the maximum times that they can be feeding the number of times they can be feeding overnight. You can also just check in with your doctor about this to dummy, but it’s not particularly the concerning. It’s just interesting to me.

You know, you said:

How do we deal with early rising? How can we encourage independence sleeping? (21:05)

So I think I’ve already talked about earlier in a couple of times now independence sleeping is really a choice that you make in terms of the approach that you take. So this is what I work on with my clients. One-to-one it is based on your personality, your kiddos temperament, the approach you want to take, how hands on you want to be, how long you want it to take so many different factors.

I would say the key features of encouraging independent sleep is remembering that child has to be completely awake during their routine and on put down, okay, you can take gradual steps to get there, but if you want this to work, they have to be fully awake during their routine and fully awake. When they’re put down and then pretty much anything goes, there’s hundreds of different approaches that you can take to this.

You know, you could be picking baby up and putting them down. You could be using your previous sleep associations until they’re calm. You can be leaving the room coming back in. There’s like so many different approaches that you can take. And the point is to progressively move away. If you start with lots of support and frequent, frequent responsiveness, you want to move away from that over time.

You can move away from that quickly. You can maybe move away from that more slowly, but you have to eventually move away from all that cause you can’t keep doing that over and over again. We’re going to develop new things that they need to fall asleep.

Magdalena:

Your almost nine month old daughter has been a good sleeper. We follow your nine minute sleep schedule. Yay. And she naps well before she would wake once a night around 3:00 AM. I would breastfeed her. She would sleep until seven for the past couple of weeks. She’s not woken at 3m waking instead at four 30 or five. And we’ll not go back to sleep once breastfed. It takes us one hour plus to get her back to sleep. And then we have to wake her up at seven. (22:26)

Okay. So this is really common. That a little one at this age is not going to accept being fed in the four or five o’clock hour and then go back to sleep. It’s highly stimulating to feed at this age for a lot of kiddos. Not all kiddos. Remember everything I say is not an absolute, right? So, so for some little kiddos, this is what happens.

Exactly. Magdalena is that they’re just overstimulated. You’re now in this very precarious time of sleep where they’re going through very light periods of sleep. And if she doesn’t have super solid independency skills, it’s going to be hard for her to go back to sleep. So I would say is your little one’s self settling at bedtime from fully awake, able to resettle herself throughout the night.

If she is then here’s what I would do. I would go in and either give her a dream feed at 3:00 AM and see how that goes. If that helps you with a later waking. If so, keep that for a couple more weeks. Then see if you can remove it. If you get the same situation or not.

The other thing that you can do is instead of going into theater, again, this all kind relies on you setting an alarm, which I know is not the best, but it’s to help you correct this early waking go in and sort of you’re going to reset her sleep wake cycle, essentially. So you kind of Jostle her, get an intake of breath and a movement of limbs and see if that helps to reset the cycle because see what the feeding was doing before was interrupting her sleep wake cycles, which can actually be quite beneficial for pushing up the morning, wake up time now that she can go longer without a feeding.

She’s not getting that reset. And so she’s readier for the day earlier, right? So try those two things. See if that works. Eventually you will not need to do that.

Ashley, thank you so much for this. My pleasure.

I have a six and a half month old. Who’s sleeping from seven to six to seven in the morning straight. My question is with Dana apps, the transition from three to two naps and early morning wakings, he can do long daytime naps. So wondering when I should transition, as we’ve been getting a few really early morning wakings recently, I’m limiting my daytime sleep to two and a half to three hours. Week windows are at present two and a quarter to nap, one, two and a half to nap, two, two to two and a half to nap three and then two and a half to bed. (24:20)

Okay, Ashley. So I would first and foremost be following my six month three nap schedule, which is going to give you different timings.

I would not transition to six and a half month old to two naps a day, no matter how long their naps are. Honestly, we want to hang on to three naps a day. And that means that we limit the first two naps. So my schedule for a six month old is two and a half hours before nap.

One, two and a half hours before not two, two and a quarter hours before nap. Three, two hours before bed, not two and a half, two and a half is what’s leading you to your early morning wakings, not the fact that they’re getting three naps a day. Okay. And you have to limit the first nap to no more than an hour and a half.

And the second app to no more than an hour and a quarter in order to keep pressure high for nap three. So that’s how I would correct this early morning. Waking again, likely has nothing to do with three naps a day. Certainly if you go down to two naps a day at this age, we’re going to reinforce and worsen an early morning.

Waking not make it better. So hang on until at least nine months, if you can.

She tell a 16 month old goes to sleep independently has for a long time, still waking once a night and feeding high badly, want to drop this feed. He naps twice a day at daycare, roughly two 45 minute naps, 10 to 11, three to four Palatine, seven 30 weeks around six 30. (25:48)

So first of all, your schedule is awesome. I love it. Good job and great job. Keeping two naps a day at this HTA for the overnight eating, you can drop it if he’s healthy and I’m eating well and your doctor has no concern, which I’m sure they don’t, you can drop that. So you really just take whatever approach you took to get them to sleep independently and apply it to that middle of the night.

Waking. So usually at this age, it goes really quickly. If you make the message clear and you stay consistently really should not take more than a week to drop the speed again, whatever you did to get him to learn to fall asleep independently at bedtime, you just apply that to the middle of the night, to make yourself feel better and make sure he’s getting great meals.

The day, lots of iron rich foods, lots of protein, rich foods, and he will be fine.

All right, Ashley, you said:

How do I make the shift to six 30 to seven week up in the morning? I’ve been leaving him in the crib until six 30. He consistently wake six to six 15. Is it possible to shift that leader? (26:48)

Yeah. So I just addressed that. I think your last week when it was too long and that’s going to help that being said six to six, 15 is fair game. So five 30 is not, but 66 15 is I would still leave him til six 30.

Okay.

Melissa daughter’s 11 months old, sleeps around nine to 11, nine to 10 hours a night. And I can’t seem to get her to sleep longer than that. Wake up so regularly happening. Well, lots of early morning wakings in this group today, four to 5:00 AM, regardless of what time you put her down at night, how do I get her to wake up later? She’s on two naps, both of which are typically an hour and a half in length. One occurs around nine to 10 30 other from two to three 30. Bedtime varies between six 30 to seven, depending on when she wakes up from last night. (27:12)

So Melissa, again, review what I said before. Is she falling asleep completely independently from awake at bedtime, awake at bedtime, awake through the routine and awake at bedtime are key for early morning wakings because that is the hardest period of time for them to get through.

So if they don’t have super solid independency skills, they won’t be able to get to through the early morning waking independently. So that’s one thing. Secondly, your schedule looks okay. However, for a lot of little ones, this is too much daytime sleep. So they kind of run out of sleep in their tank. By the time it’s four to five in the morning.

Another thing I want to say about early morning wakings, I don’t know if all of you who say that you have early morning, makings are talking about a little one. Who’s waking up super upset in the morning. Or if you’re just talking about a wakeful kiddo in the morning, I hope you will know if they’re just kind of wakeful. Even if their eyes are open, but they’re moving around, chatting, whatever they could still be in a very light phase of sleep.

And two, we do not do anything about that. The other thing is if you’re still room sharing with any of your kiddos early morning, wakings are much more likely, okay? So moving them into their own room is a key strategy for solving early morning wakings in that case, or if you don’t have another room creating some visual and audible barriers between your beds.

So hanging a curtain that safely hung, not in danger of falling on them or a room divider, putting the noise machines between you creating some sort of barriers because the morning period is so precarious that sleep that you could be making sleep sounds and interrupting them and vice versa.

And it just kind of, we always see more early morning wakings with room sharing. So that’s another thing. Okay. Going back to you, Melissa. So you could be giving her too much daytime sleep. So 11 months old, usually I’m saying no more than two and a half hours max, for little ones at this age. Yes. Some little ones can accept three hours a day, but at the same time, if you’re following all the week windows that you’re following, she’s saddling independently and she’s getting three hours a day.

I’d pull that back to two and three quarters. See if that helps pull it back to two and a half and see if that helps. Also make sure you are not reinforcing this early morning, waking in the ways that I said before.

And remember everybody a hundred percent pitch black in the morning, it’s got to look like it’s 11:00 PM at 5:00 AM. Okay.

So it’s really a, that’s very, very important Vivian:

What’s the best way to detect their wake windows. (29:52)

Not sure what you need. If you are not following my sample seat schedules, look at my better sleep, bundle on my website.

I’ll write it down here too for you. But really those are really, really magical week windows. If I may say so myself, they’re honed in on working with over a thousand clients at this point. And then my mentors and coaches, you know, really looking at their data and we sort of all kind of aggregate our data. So those weekends are really magical.

If you have questions about Anita week windows, let me know for specific age groups.

Alison, please help.

My son is four years old. Hasn’t slept a full night ever. (30:25)

Oh boy. Alison. Okay. You must be tired.

He’s constantly tired. Won’t nap has been, time is seven 45. (30:25)

We do not want a four year old napping, especially if you’re having issues with him sleeping a full night, don’t even bother with that.

What’s ideal nap in bed tens 15 month old. Okay. Your daughter tends to wake around 45 minutes after sleep. (30:25)

So you’ve got two little ones. All right. I don’t know much about what’s happening with your four-year-old, but I would not nap him in the day at four years old. If you’re not getting a full night’s sleep and need to know more, I don’t really know what’s going on 15 month old tends to wake up after 40 minutes after sleep.

Again, I would really be looking at are these little ones settling independently at the time. That’s the key driver for good sleep over night and my settling independently without needing somebody whose presence or support or something to happen very specifically, because remember the way we fall asleep at bedtime is the way we expect to continue to return to sleep.

Whether that’s for naps or bedtime. I should say when I stir through a light period of sleep later on, so moving them to more independent sleep at the beginning of their bedtime or nap time is really key. So I don’t know if that’s happening here.

You can. You need to give me a little bit more information.

Moon or moon at Muna. I don’t know how to say your name. Sorry if I mess up in your names. I’m sorry.

I have 15 week old twin girls. Who’ve been having a rough time with sleep lately, baby A having issues sleeping at night due to bad congestion from GERD. Oh, I’m sorry. Tough time breathing then asked for a pacifier only to spit it out because she can’t breathe. Oh. And then ask for it again, goes on all night, baby B from six weeks old has been screaming initially for hours looks like night terrors, but she seems too young for that. (31:37)

Yeah. Nightmares. She’s definitely way too young for that is too young for that at this age.

So for baby, a GERD needs to be addressed medically. Like I said to somebody earlier, if they are in pain or uncomfortable, you’re not going to get much progress with sleep until that’s addressed. So usually that is through medication that is through diligent, burping and bicycling massages. After every feeding that is through some specific feeding techniques that either I’m an LC or a doctor can help you with, but that needs to be addressed before you can improve sleep.

Baby B, screaming in her sleep. Is that like a minute of screaming and then going right back to sleep, is that sustained screaming again, this could be so many different things, but more than likely it’s not anything that she is afraid of or anything like that. It’s more than likely asleep skill set issue.

So her sleep skills need to be primed right at this age. They’re also going through the sleep wake cycle maturation process, which a lot of people talk about as the four month sleep regression or progression. I like to give it its biological scientific name. Even though you will see me referencing my four month sleep regression, foremostly progression on my website and you’ll see that on the parent’s playbook website as well.

But because it is really just a maturation process, I like to call it what it is. What does that mean? So it means that your babies are now coming up through a very light period of sleep about 45 minutes or so after they’re initially asleep. And if they don’t know how to get themselves back to sleep, they’re going to cry out and need your help in some way.

So remember the way that I fall asleep as the way that I expect to return to sleep. So if we work on the independence at the beginning of the night, only for baby B, cause baby A, we wouldn’t do that until medical issue is addressed. Then that’s going to help with the rest of the night. I’d also make sure that they’re not over tired because a lot of that screaming and sort of noisy cycling overnight can happen.

Even if a little one is independent sleeper, but is over tired from the day. Okay? So helping them for sleep and helping them to follow week. Windows is really important.

Sam, your 18 month old used to sleep on his own at six months, once he hit 17 and a half months, he’s had multiple wakings only sleeps while holding our hand. Once we leave the room, he cries again and it continues four to five times a night. At times it takes a few hours of going back and forth until he can see for a good two to three hour stretch. It’s been a few weeks since we’ve been back from a two month holiday with the five hour difference. He’s also back at nursery and teething. (34:07)

Yeah, so we really just need to remove our support in our presence over time. You can do that gradually. You can do that more quickly, but he will catch on. This is all about consistency, everybody, right? If we don’t want to provide so much support overnight, we just need to be consistent. We need to pick a plan.

We need to pick an approach. We use apply it at bedtime first because it’s not fair to, for us to ask our toddlers or babies to return to sleep independently overnight. If they haven’t learned policy independently at the beginning of the night, without your presence for support or something that needs to happen every single time. Not fair for them to do that for us to expect them to do that overnight.

If they’re not doing that at bedtime. So pick an approach, stay a hundred percent consistent with it and progressively get to the point where they’re falling asleep completely independently, and that will help any, any overnight wakings are going to be helped by that. Okay. And you know, obviously the conditions for sleep so a can sleep conducive environment following week windows in the appropriate schedule, having a consistent routine before bed.

All of these things are just as if not more important, but really if your little one is really relying on you for something at bedtime, we can expect them not to rely on that overnight for multiple overnight weekends. So it really does start at bedtime. Okay. This is going to be like the same, the same issue over and over again.

Right? The same response. Okay. Avon, baby’s almost six months old. I was wondering if she wakes at six in the crib, it doesn’t go back to sleep and I get her out of the car. Oh, I already answered this. I think you copied it again.

Michelle. Hello Risley.

My baby’s 10 months, almost 10 months to nap schedule three, three and a quarter and three and a quarter week window schedule. He’s been playing around in his crib for 30 to 45 minutes or so usually before going to sleep, he just learned how to stand. So he does that until he falls asleep. He’s not crying, but is there anything I should be doing differently. (36:00)

Michelle, so this is a really common development as you can imagine.

And this is great. He’s just kind of practicing his skill and he’s got a high level of brain activity right now, which makes it harder for him to settle down. So what I would do is I would increase your nap routine by about five to 10 minutes, even five to 15 minutes before you put him down for each of his two naps, extra cuddling and singing and telling stories in that hundred percent pitch-black room, a little bit of dim lighting noise machine going just to see if you can help them relax a little bit easier, a little bit more easily into his sleep.

But right now his brain activity is just like on high alert with all of this development he’s doing. I would also help him to practice this skill outside of CP time. Every time he’s awake.

Okay. Physically kind of set up a little what’s it called? Now that left my mind, but Oh, like a little obstacle course obstacle course helped him to physically stand and sit and stand and sit, help him feel what that feels like. And he will get over this. Eventually this is very temporary.

Okay.

Marina, son is 10 months old, goes to bed seven to seven 30 since birth three naps a day, wake windows three to three and a quarter hours. Total sleep per day, 12 to 13 and a half hours breastfed every three and a half hours. And two times solids wakes up at night, one to two to 3:00 AM and stays awake for one to three hours room, dark noise machine. When he wakes up at night, he’s well rested in a week. Hard to put it back to sleep earlier than one, two, three hours weeks up at four 35 30 6:30 AM. How can we make him fall asleep faster at night? How can we extend early morning wakings to 7:00 AM. (37:16)

Lot of information here, Marina is this little one and independent sleeper.

Again, let’s go back to that. Is he falling asleep independently at bedtime? That will absolutely get you to the point where a little one is falling asleep faster and then being able to fall asleep more quickly in the middle of the night. When I see prolonged overnight Wekings this is typically an issue with the daytime sleep schedule. So you gave me a little hint here that some of these naps are up to two hours long.

We do not want two hour long naps at this age. We want to, to nap schedule at this age, three naps only if he can’t get over 45 minutes for each nap, three apps is fine in that situation, but if he can, we want two naps a day and we definitely don’t want them anywhere close to two hours because that is decreasing your sleep pressure for overnight sleep.

And it’s going to leave you with long, overnight wakings. Okay? Wake windows are fine. There can be a tiny bit longer at bedtime and in between naps. So if you could get down that two solid nap schedule with maybe three, three and a half, three and a half hour week windows and make sure that your naps are no longer than an hour to an hour and a half each you’ll likely solve this issue.

But it also depends on him being able to fall asleep independently and fall back asleep independently. And depends on you not reinforcing the early morning waking by just saying, okay, great. You’re up at 4:30 AM. Let’s get started with our day or by helping him back to sleep in some way, which will only reinforce that waking.

Okay.

Victoria, your daughter’s two and a half. She’ll fall asleep in her room, but we’ll end up in ours in the middle of the night. We’ll scream. If we try and get her back into her room, we have an eight month old. So we just let our sleep in the room. We do not know what to do. (39:13)

Okay. So again, at this age, at any age, it’s about making sure the beginning of the night starts off on the right foot with her falling asleep independently.

If her nap in the day is too long or ending too late, you have a gut feeling that that’s happening and resistance at bedtime is happening. It could be because of the nap. So we might need to shorten the nap or eliminated altogether at three and a half.

And then overnight, as long as she’s fallen asleep independently at bedtime, again, it’s not fair to ask her to return her room overnight. If she’s not falling asleep independently at bedtime. So you have to work on that first, once she’s doing that, then overnight, it’s just about returning her over and over and over again to her room. This could be a hundred times the first few nights, then it will get easier and quicker.

I promise usually it takes only a few days as long as you’re consistent. Okay? And at this age they will pick up on any wishy washiness on your part. So you have to be firm and you have to be common consistent. This is not about being mean just calm and consistent and wordlessly bringing them back.

No negotiation, no conversation right at this age too. You can also, you know, talk to her about what you’re doing and what you’re planning to do. You can use a toddler clock to set the expectation that this is the time for sleep. This is the time the whole family wakes up and that you can come into our room or call for us to come.

This is also the age when we can use reward systems. So not like giving them a reward every morning, like a little chocolate or something, nothing like that because usually they don’t really care for that, but our reward system. So we kind of create a chart seven to 10 days every morning in the morning when she’s done a good job. What a pretty bird in my backyard.

Sorry. There’s a morning dove in my backyard. Okay, distracted. So every time in the morning when she wakes up and she’s done a good job and you are, have to be, you have to be clear with her about what it means to do good job. I’ve stayed in my bed all night until the clock told me it was time to get up.

Then she gets a sticker on that chart at the end of the seven to 10 days, put a picture right on that chart of what she gets, something that she would uncommonly receive something she’d be really motivated by. That’s called extrinsic motivation or reward system. You also, if you’re going to use extrinsic motivation for this age group, you also need to use intrinsic motivation, which is I’m internally motivated to make a change.

This is like I get to call my grandparents in the morning and tell them how great I did or I get to get excited about telling my older cousin who sleeps independently, that I also do that too. Right? I’m going to be just like them. So you’ve got to combine those things.

Krista, how long do not have to be or total of DHMC for a 14 month old right now she does nap one and hour and a half nap to 45 minutes to an hour. Is that too much? That time keeps getting pushed later and wake winter before bedtime is four and a quarter hours. (41:53)

Sometimes I keep both naps to no more than one hour. So now one cut it off at one hour.

Not two could be 45 to one hour. And then hopefully that helps you nail that four hour a week window at bedtime Krista. And that should help you to continue to keep a two nap schedule for as long as possible, which is absolutely what I would recommend. Okay.

He’d all you said to your seven month old, what? Our ideal week windows before her nap and after sometimes she resists so on no nap days. What time should bedtime be? Or how many hours after morning? Wake-up time should bedtime be? (42:25)

Yeah. So two year seven month old, we’re looking at a nap start time. So I in general am looking at a regular morning, week of time at this age, anywhere from about six 30 to seven. That means nap time is starting around. It could be anywhere from 1230 to one at this age nap at this age, really depends on the kiddo.

Some kiddos could have a two hour nap at this. Agent’s still settled, low problem for bedtime. Lot of kiddos, they can’t have any more than an hour and a half in naps in napping at this age for them to maintain a reasonable bedtime. So if she did get whatever, but whatever nap time, it is an hour and a half to two hours, bedtime might be looking like anywhere from seven to eight at this age, if she doesn’t nap at all asleep by six 30, again, that’s based off of a morning.

Wake up time of about six 30 to seven.

Nicole, two year four month old has been refusing to nap for over two months. Now it falls asleep for bed at seven. Sometimes she’s sleeping until seven. Sometimes she’s having wakings or early wake up, no idea if I need to give up for the day and whether that’s healthy. (43:26)

Yeah. So Nicole, this is exactly when it starts happening. You can start to, you can actually implement quiet time. If she’s open to that, you can use a toddler clock in the way I talked about earlier for both the nap to set the expectation that this is the hour you stay in your crib and the early morning waking.

And the way that I talked about before you can also induce that intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. I talked about earlier before for the early morning waking and 7:00 PM may be too late for her having just given up the nap. I see lots of little ones who need to be asleep by six 15 to six 30 at this age, in order for them to get closer to 13 hours overnight when they’ve just dropped a nap so they can make up that difference.

So that could be something that’s happening here.

Ashley, you said:

Do you want a long second nap of the day or long for snap of the day? I can’t remember old. Your little one is I’m so sorry, Ashley. It really depends. Why did he advise long week one is early in the day and then gradually reduced the wake windows. I know some schedules do the opposite. (44:23)

Yeah, I know. So, Oh, okay. I remember years. Six month old, right? Yeah. So when I see these schedules that have longer week, when does that go on during the day? And honestly just shocks me a little bit at certain ages because it doesn’t follow the sleep pressure that we know exist before these naps and before bedtime at that age, it’s so sort of counterintuitive with sleep science.

So I don’t really know where these schedules come from, but they certainly don’t come from a scientific perspective of the sleep pressure that happens. So I actually really specifically create week windows that are based on the amount of sleep pressure that little ones need and can handle at specific ages before specific time periods, before specific sleep periods throughout the day.

So with the six month old, we want higher with longer week windows in the day, in the morning before nap one and two to induce higher sleep pressure and create locker naps. Then we want to compensate for having done that with shorter frequent as, as we go and especially before bed. So we’re not over tiring them that only really happens in the six month.

And then at seven months, we can increase that bedtime week window to as much as two and a half hours slowly. Once they’ve gotten used to the longer week windows for naps and they’ve consolidated naps one and two. So the other thing that’s happening at six to seven months old is their sleep wake cycle. Maturation process is wrapping up. So at that point we can slowly increase the wake window before bed to longer than two hours.

Not before. If they’re still going through the sleep wake cycle maturation process, why would we increase that wake window beyond two hours of bedtime? It doesn’t make any sense to me, hopefully that makes sense. But again, you know, everything for me comes from a scientific perspective. Infant sleep science is really important. So I really follow the steep pressure at different C periods in the day.

Okay. Flaviana:

11 month olds gave me a hard time when he was a baby, he would sleep 11 hours straight during the day or surge in the night. However, once he turned around eight months old, he started refusing sleeping during the night, I’m failing to make him nap. Sometimes he only gets one nap during the day. He sleeps around 10:00 PM weeks at 4:30 AM sleeps. Again, only if I put him in my bed wakes at 8:30 AM. I’m worried because in two months I’ll be back to work and he’s going to the daycare. He’s still breastfeeding. (46:27)

Totally. Okay. If he’s still breastfeeding that you know, many of the babies I work with are still breastfeeding, including my own when they were little and sleep just fine.

So, I mean, it really depends when you’re going to daycare. I’m assuming he’s going to need to get up earlier and then have an earlier bedtime as well. So really for his age, I would say awake by no later than seven follow the Wakeman does that I’ve recommended for this age group. So anywhere between three to three and a half hours between apps,

give them a solid two nap schedule, make sure the first step isn’t too long because that’s going to decrease your pressure for nap too. And so that may be why you’re only getting one nap. So first nap I would limit to one hours the weekend to make sure you get that second nap about three and a half hours later, and then bedtime about three and a half hours later.

Also work on independence. You know, if that doesn’t help, we want to work on himself, settling from the beginning of the night. Again, we can’t expect him to not want support in the middle of the night. If he’s getting that support at bedtime, that, you know, babies only know what we teach them, right? So if you work on the independence at bedtime, that’s going to help the overnight.

Nicole:

Is it possible to teach independency to a strong-willed two year old co-sleeper yeah, absolutely. He was also trained till seven months old. And since then we’ll go to sleep without me laying next to him. It’s exhausting. (48:00)

Absolutely. Nicole and I work with a lot of highly sensitive children. I work with a lot of colicky babies and post colicky babies.

These are babies that parents always call strong-willed or opinionated, that sort of thing determined. It doesn’t matter what temperament your little one has. You can always work on independent sleep. That path to success might look really different for these kiddos. It might take a longer, it may take more of our effort and time. It might take a little bit more lost sleep in the beginning, but you can absolutely get there.

How do you help an almost four year old, independently sleep and handle sleep separation. We’ll only go sleep with parent and comes looking for us during the night. (48:47)

There’s so many different ways to get a four year old to fall asleep independently. It really depends on their personality, on your personality, on your parenting approach and style, a lovely way to do it for a four year old would be the excuse me method, which is coming up with a list of excuses to leave the room.

At first, you don’t even need to leave the room. You could just kind of go to their closet sale. I got to hang something up in the closet. I’ll be back to give you a kiss.

If you keep trying to fall asleep and over time, you build longer, longer excuses. You could even have funny excuses. Like I have to go poop and you know, build the time outside the room so that eventually they’re falling asleep with you outside the room. Then this is a process. I mentioned another one before where we’re kind of just returning little one back to sleep or back to their bed.

I should say, without kind of, you know, instruction or negotiation. The other thing you can do at this age is you can use toddler meditations that they can listen to so that they have something to focus on and something that makes them feel calm and safe as they’re falling asleep. So a couple of different things to keep in mind, but again, it’s all individual to your family circumstances.

There’s no one size fits all kind of thing for these situations of increasing independence.

Melissa, sometimes we play music through the baby monitor. When she wakes too early at times, it calms her down. When we leave her in her room, since we try to wait until a more reasonable hour to get her, we sometimes use this music trick to help extend her naps. It often works, but isn’t always successful. Do you recommend stopping the music? And you said there’s already white noise coming from her sound machine. (50:03)

I mean, if it works for you, like I’m not one to say, I always say don’t fix, what’s not broken. Right? So if you think it’s working for her and keeping her calm in the morning, I don’t really see an issue with that. To be honest with you.

Thank you, Rosie. My pleasure, Marina. Serene. Hi there.

We’ve been putting oops, putting the son to sleep in our bed and transferring to the crib. When he fell asleep, he was sleeping while we would come to bed. And then once, usually in the four to 6:00 AM window, he’d wake up. We’d bring him into bed and give him a little bit of water to fall asleep. Fast forward to 20 minutes, the crib was moved to his own room. We have been putting him to sleep on the futon next to it, and he’s gotten heavy. Oh, I don’t see the rest of your question. Hold on, sorry. Oh, sorry. Regardless of which one puts him to sleep on the futon next to it and he’s gotten heavy. So regardless my husband has to transfer him to the crib recently within the last week or so. It’s been impossible to keep him asleep in the evening. Then at 21 months, we suddenly do not do the transfer from futon to the crib without him waking. (50:38)

Yeah. So that transfer just, you know, screen. It’s really unreliable. I’m actually shocked that you’ve been able to do it for this long. Usually after about two to three months old, the transfer doesn’t work anymore. It’s not reliable because it’s quite disorienting to wake up in a different area, different place than you fell asleep in. So again, you have to work on him being able to fall asleep independently with full awareness of where he is in his crib in order for him to not sort of wake up and need you to do the same thing over and over again.

That’s the ticket here. Okay.

Alison what’s the max nap for three and a half nap during the day. Do you mean three and a half year old during the date of assist with proper night’s sleep currently working on independent seat facing fading ourselves out, but feel two hours. Preschool naps are too long. Okay. You must be three and a half year old by the time eight 30 on school nights with wake-ups around three. (51:53)

So three and a half a year old. Absolutely. I’d cut the snap out at this point with your situation. Now, if they are not going to do that as for a 45 to 60 minute nap and see how that goes,

you should be able to get them to sleep by eight 30, if not eight, let’s hope that may not help your overnight sleep though. Your overnight sleep may not improve until you cut that nap out completely.

Melissa. Thanks for all the great tips.

Is there any way you can please send a link to your ideal nap schedule? (52:40)

Yeah, I’m going to just put that up.

Actually. We have that better bundle on the parent playbook now choose. So I’m going to link that for you. Sleep on. Okay. Serene. I did that. Thanks. Rosa Lee from Nicole. My pleasure.

At least I’m curious how to deal with the three-year olds who watched a movie that, Oh, that scared her now she’s waking in the night and having a hard time being alone in her room. (52:58)

I’m so sorry to hear that. So, I mean really with fears, you can try to rationalize with the three-year-olds, but you know, you might actually just need to hear her out. So have a conversation away from CP time about what’s what scaring her. You can, you can reason with her to tell her it’s not something to be scared of because of whatever you can tell her.

Very simply at this age, you can just tell her that you won’t let anything happen to her. She has nothing to be afraid of. Sometimes really simple things like a monster spray Can be really easy. Just say, you know, we’re gonna, we’re going to spray your room with a water bottle, right? Just with some water, we’re going to spray your room and make sure that none of whatever it is, she scared of monsters, whatever ghosts can come into your room and you can actually help her to do that with you, but really she’ll get over it.

It’s usually just temporary. It just kind of ride it out. You can also use toddler meditations. As I talked about earlier on Spotify, there’s dinosaurs and Indigo dreams, lots of different ones that you can use to kind of just help her relax a bit time.

Hopefully that helps. Thank you as Lee from Hito my pleasure, Alison. Thank you. Rosalie. Appreciate the advice. My pleasure, Jennifer. Let’s see here. Oh yeah.

Jennifer, my six and a half month old will sometimes have short naps between 30 to 40 minutes. If he wakes up early, do I use the week window from the tiny weeks up or put him down for his next step at the time as if he had a one-to-one and a half hour nap. (54:13)

Really good question. So my rule of thumb is if the nap is 30 minutes or shorter, we’re going to decrease the next week window by 15 minutes. If an app is ever like a really crappy nap, 15 minutes or shorter, we’re going to have the next week windows cut it in half. There’s a few sort of differences in that, depending on the age group, but at this age, that is what I would do.

So always use the wake window from the time he wakes up. So week windows are always calculated from eyes open from last period to eyes closed at the next time period. The only exception to this is what I said earlier about nap. One. We always based on often ideal waking of no earlier than six 30.

And I, we share the room with 12 month old. Do you think that makes her not go back to sleep when she wakes up during the night? (55:12)

Yes. That’s definitely a contributor, definitely a six at 12 months old, you know, at about anywhere from four to six months old, this can become an issue with room sharing. So we just need to be, you know, in terms of a safety perspective, I should say, we always follow the ABCs of safe sleep to dramatically reduce if not eliminate your risk of SIDS.

So I’m alone. I’m always initially placed on my back to sleep. If they roll to their tummy on their own in a hundred percent safe sleep space, it’s okay to leave them that way on a, from infant mattress, with a sheet and not swaddled, all those caveats and I am in a crib, right?

So at those things are covered off room sharing then becomes just a protective factor. So yes, it adds a layer of protection before six months, but it doesn’t mean that you increase your risk of SIDS. If you move them out earlier than that.

Vivian:

Can a child be sleep trained and still need an occasional night feed? (56:07)

Absolutely. Yes. Refer to what I said before.

Ashley is a 40 minute naps because they’re not tired enough sometimes by six and a half month old wool Connect sleep cycles, day nap. (56:13)

It really depends. So six and a half months old. They’re still in that CPQ cycle maturation process.

We want to be making sure they’re going down a weight for each fab. We’re following week windows. We’re giving them enough time to settle within that week window. So you don’t put them down at the week window, put them down 15 minutes before this. So they settle within that week window before it closes. And we want to use a nap, lengthening techniques if they wake up and they’re not crying, keep them in there for a full 60 minutes from when they first fell asleep.

If they are crying, you can apply to receive coaching method. Again, until that 60 minute Mark, or you can scoop them up and help them complete their nap on you. But they have to feel what it feels like to Connect sleep, wake cycles at some point where they don’t know what to do.

So you can coach that a little bit, but usually by seven months old, they’re ready to start consolidating their naps. So you could essentially do whatever you want to do during those 60 minutes, but they have to kind of eventually learn to get back to sleep. And we don’t have an extra room. I have my three-year-old in the other room. They can’t share it.

Yeah. So like I said before, you can create audible and visual barriers. That will be at least one step. The other thing that you can do to experiment with this is have yourself sleep outside the room for a few nights while you’re working on this. And then see if you can incorporate yourself back into the room. At least thank you for answering my question.

Did you say three and a half year olds don’t need naps? My daughter isn’t napping at daycare falls asleep around seven 30 weeks around 3:00 AM and is up for an hour and then falls asleep and wakes up around six 30 and seven. (57:34)

Yeah. So three and a half year olds who are pushing their bedtime late, who are resisting their naps, who are having overnight weekends or early morning wakings, very likely they don’t need to nap anymore. And the nap is actually counterproductive to your nighttime sleep.

Remember we always want to emphasize nighttime sleep is the most restorative. Yes, we want to, well rest a child in the day, but by this point, we want to induce as much overnight sleep as possible. And we’re less concerned about daytime sleep.

We still want quiet time for about an hour. We still want low key afternoon activities, but we don’t necessarily need to have sleep in the day. Your daughter is probably falling asleep too late. If she’s just dropped a nap again, we want asleep by six 15 to six 30 at this age, and that might help you to eliminate the overnight waking as long as she’s independent and you’re not reinforcing the waking anyway in any way.

And she’s not overstimulated in the day. Sometimes daycare can be overstimulating. So again, quiet time in the middle of the day, low key activities at the end of the night and an early bedtime.

And I you’re asking quite time could be watching TV or just lying, doing nothing. (58:50)

So you’ll get different opinions on this. Dr. Dina will say quiet time should not involve watching TV, but it really depends on your little one. So, you know, quiet time technically is I’m in my crib for an hour. At the time I usually or would have napped before doesn’t have to be full darkness. They could have toys in the crib or books or whatever it is, but they need to be in their room space for about an hour.

If they’re in a bed that’s a bit harder to enforce, but you can still enforce it and use a toddler clock to do that. When and where can we expect the recording to become available? Well, we’ll send that out soon. Hopefully that helps. And I’m right at time and I’ve got to go attend to my kiddos now.

So, Oh, Ashley, best time to do three to two naps transition. Sorry, last question. Don’t say, sorry. (59:38)

I would hang on to three naps a day until as close to nine months as possible.

All right. Is it still possible to sleep train 11 month old? (59:47)

Absolutely five yadda. My website is baby sleep lab.com. Our website is parent playbook dot C O and you can get different types of sleep support depending on which website you go.

You go to, I do private one-on-one coaching with parents and families. Individualized, customized support. Parent playbook is a membership we’re not open right now. We will be open in about a month from now where you get access to a number of different experts who are experts in sleep and feeding and health. Dr. Dina and I have started this together and you get access to experts as well as courses on the various topics that you’re interested in.

So feeding behavior, sleep and health, our four pillars, we’ve got a number of experts across all of those areas. I’m in there every day, answering questions in the Facebook group. So if you’re looking more for that sort of support, parent playback.co, if you’re looking for more intensive one-on-one support, baby sleep, lab.com. All right. Thank you all so much.

I hope you have a wonderful day and we’ll do this against you. Okay. Bye.