LIVE Q & A  with  Rosalee Lahaie Hera

Full Transcript

Recorded January 14 2021

Okay. I’ll give everyone a few minutes to join and then we’ll get started.

If you are here with me, I would love for you to type in the chat and say, hello. So I know who’s here. And if you want to tell me how many kids you have and how old they are, that would be awesome to you. And I’ll do you.

Hi Tracy. Thanks for saying hello. Hello. Sumita. Awesome! Okay, great! So you can hear me. Hi, Anya. Okay, great. Awesome! All right, so I’ll let everybody pile in. Thank you so much. Great. And I hope that means that you can also hear me okay. Since you see me. Okay. Which is great.

I’ll do a quick introduction of myself, but really this time is for you. We’ve got an hour to get to your questions. I promise to get to as many as I possibly can, and I will try to go in order. Sometimes I might group questions together, but I will definitely get to your question.

So first and foremost, I’m Rosalee and I’m a mom of two. I’ve got Sophia who is now hard to believe, 7.5 years old, and I have Nadella, who’s my youngest, who is 4.5. She’s actually almost five. So really she would say she’s four and three quarters.

I am a certified pediatric sleep consultant. I covered the first six years of life and beyond in fact,
and I’m also additionally certified in newborn sleep in the first 3 months of life because I’m hugely passionate about helping in those first 3 months to gently correct current issues and prevent issues from happening in the first place. Love, love, love working in that period of time.

I am the co-founder of the Parent Playbook, along with my friend and pediatrician, Dr. Dina Kulik. Some of you here who are joining me today are members of our program. Our membership is closed right now, but just, you know, we do have a membership program where you can access a number of different experts. And some of you are not members. If you’re a member, when you ask a question, just let me know so that I can refer
you to some materials on the site. If that’s applicable, otherwise we’ll jump right into your questions.

All right. Let me scroll on up to our first question. I have some of you who have already typed so much. It’s so impressive. Okay?

So, Leah, you said you’ve got two kids in the same room. Youngest is almost 11 months older. One is 3.5. You’re looking for suggestions on how to wean the 11-month-olds off one nursing session. And Doc said it’s safe to do so. They wait for a feed between 3:00 to 5:00 AM. And then for the day, between 6:00 to 7:00. Sleep trained using check-in console method when originally sleep trained. Older child spent the night at grandparent’s place. Obviously, you can’t do that now. Any suggestions to night wean, but also not disrupt older child?

So Lea, the best way for you to night-wean the 11 month old is just to apply the sleep training method that you used before to the overnight waking, especially if your little one, like your doctor said, they’re eating well in the day. They’re gaining weight while they have good vapor output, they’re building up in their solids. That’s totally what you can do.

And since you’ve got experience with this sleep training method, that’s exactly what I would advise you to do in terms of disrupting the older child. A lot of times we, as parents are more concerned about that happening, but usually it’s not as big of a deal as you think it might be.
So the best thing to do to tell your older child is that you are going to be helping little one to learn to sleep all the way through the night. And she might hear some cry and it’s okay, I’m with them. And you should get right back to sleep. You can use additional noise machines and some area rugs to kind of, you know,
create some bouncing of noise if you’d like to do that. But usually honestly the older ones are much more resilient about this than we might think that they’re going to be or give them credit for. So hopefully that helps. That’s usually the easiest thing to do is just whatever sleep training method you used before. Just apply that to the overnight weekend.

Hopefully, that helps. Okay. Let me see what our next question is.

So Heather, you said my nearly 14-month-old is generally a pretty good sleeper for both naps and overnight, but we’re finding we have to wake her up in the morning so that they get started early enough. Plus we’re having to cap both naps to keep a decent bedtime. She does frequently take over 15 minutes to fall asleep, not upset, just rolling around, sitting and babbling. I love when they do that for naps and overnight, but once she’s asleep, she sleeps for 10 and a half to 11 hours overnight and an hour and a quarter to an hour and a half for each nap. Is it time to move?

I’m not sure what you meant. Maybe you meant to move down to one nap.
And I would say, no, this is exactly what we want to do at this age. You’re doing a great job. We want to hang on to two naps a day, as long as possible. And we typically do have to cap the morning wake-up time and shorten both the first and the second nap in order to fit them in. And you’re going to notice that your overall sleep totals in a 24 hour period are actually lower than they would be eventually on a one nap schedule.
And that’s totally okay. It’s okay to have lower sleep totals in a 24 hour period prior to nap transition because what that means is you’re priming your little one to accommodate longer and longer wakeful periods, which is exactly what we want to do leading up to a nap transition. So I far prefer to have shorter naps and actually your naps are not even that short.

A lot of times we have to go down to one-hour naps on a nap schedule at this age to keep them in into the day. I far prefer to have shorter naps and shorter conservatively windows, then moving to a one nap schedule before a child is fully developmentally ready for that. And you know, they have to be ready to drop an entire sleep period to accommodate a six-plus hour,
wake window in the morning. So really want to hang onto the two naps as long as you can. And so you absolutely need to limit naps and limit the morning wake-ups. So I’d say you are doing awesome.

Leah time to be able to end up. Okay. I saw your question at the bottom there. Yeah. So no, definitely not Heather.

So, Leah, you said suggestions for an 11 month old sleep schedule. Baby has started to not go to sleep as easily for the first and second nap, but does go to sleep and will sleep for an hour to two hours for each nap. We used the two, three, four method. Child has also recently learned to pull stuff up and started to cruise.

Okay. I think when you say two, three, four method, you’re referring to two, three, four hour wake-windows, which is totally not evidence-based and not based on anything that I know in terms of infant sleep science. I know it’s bouncing around there on the internet, but totally not what I would recommend at this age. So generally speaking for an 11 month olds,
we’d be looking at around three-hour wake windows. So three hours before the first nap three and a quarter to three and a half hours before the second nap and about three and a half before bedtime. So that’s what I would use at this age. And every child is going to be different, right? So for those of you who aren’t familiar with wake windows,
we’ll just do a quick primer.

Wake windows are the amount of time, baby can spend being awake in one stretch before they get a shot of cortisol, the stress hormone, which makes it far more likely that they’re going to have a hard time getting to sleep and a harder time maintaining sleep. So basically if we don’t use the right timing for a lot of babies,
they’ll have a hard time falling asleep, and then they’ll wake up from a short nap and may not be so happy about doing that. So wake windows are magic. They really help us nail the appropriate timing. At this age the problem with this two, three, four wake-window schedule is that two hours is far too little for this age group. It also means your first nap is too close to your morning wake-up time,
which can potentially reinforce an early morning waking. And it means that your last wake window, the bedtime wake window is far too long. There’s a lot of toddlers that can’t even handle four hours of wake time before bedtime. And if they are going to bed too tired, so overtired with a shot of cortisol at the time, they’re way more likely to wake up frequently at night and wake up too early in the morning.

So hopefully that helps. I’m just going to pop down to the bottom here and then keep going with your questions. Okay.

Joyce, two questions. 11 month old. Oh, okay. Lots of 11 month old! Sleep trained. Sleep 11 hours nightly, three hours in naps lately. Been waking at 5:00 AM, averaging 10 hours nightly to three hours in naps.
Doesn’t cry right away at 5:00 AM. Will snooze for about 60 minutes before crying. What can we do to prevent these early waking?

So Joyce, if I’m understanding correctly, little one is not crying at 5:00 AM is actually maybe moving around or making some noise for about an hour. So, one thing to note is that sometimes when little ones are going through periods of developmental progression,
so they’re working on pulling up or doing something like that, they can have heightened brain activity, which makes them sound a bit noisy when they’re sleeping. So I want you to consider that in this period of time in the morning, your little one might actually be in a, just a very, very light stage of sleep, not actually awake. So that’s one possibility that could be happening.

The other thing is two is that a lot of little ones, if they’re sleeping for three hours in naps at this age, that could actually be too much for them. So they’re kind of filling up their tank on daytime sleep and they have nothing left to give when we get into the five o’clock hour. So at this age I would work with probably a two and a half hour max for daytime sleep to see if that helps. Always making sure that that last wake window is age appropriate.
So at this age, like I can see him more than about three and a half hours, right? So early wakings I could talk about for hours and hours, you know, and if you were a member of the parent playbook, I’ve got a, a full video lesson on early wakings. There’s so many different facets to early wakings, but one of the drivers of early wakings is that little one is going down over tired at that time.
Another one is that they’re getting too much daytime sleep. So they just don’t have enough in the tank for that 24 hour cycle. By the time they get to that early morning period. So that’s something to consider.

And you said, when did they, these drop to one nap and how best to manage that transition?

So I like to hang on to and Dr.
Dina does, to hang onto to next day, as long as you possibly can. So we always say at least until 16 to 18 months and if not longer. So Dr. Dina’s kiddos actually kept two naps until they were two. So as long as it’s still going, well, sometimes, like I said, we have to shorten the the two naps to get them to fit in,
to accommodate longer wake windows. We want to keep that two naps schedule for as long as possible. And if you have limited the first nap and you’ve extended the middle wake window before a nap to at least four to four and a quarter hours, and baby is still not falling asleep for nap two. And they’re close to that age range, that 16 to 18 month mark or later,
then you can start to make that transition. But not before that, I would definitely not recommend that. Okay. Let’s see.

Shannon. You said you have a seven-year-old who stays awake at night, thinking about philosophy. Oh my gosh, this, I think your little one would be good friends with my oldest one. They’re so philosophical at this age.
I love it. Okay. He ask us for suggestions of what he can imagine. Oh, I love this meditate about it to help him. Do you have any suggestions for us? It often takes them two hours lying in bed, for him to fall asleep.

Okay. So a couple of things first is that I would make sure that he’s getting enough of his energy out in the day.
So we want to make sure that he’s getting great periods of ideally outdoor physical activity. And I know sometimes it’s hard, especially right now, but outdoors for at least 30 minutes in the morning, at least 30 minutes in the afternoon. In fact, if we can even amp that up, I always aim for at least three hours of outdoor time for my kiddos,
the more outdoor physical activity we can all get as humans, the better we’re going to sleep at night. So that’s one thing to focus on another thing to focus on. I’m sure you’ve got a good bedtime routine and wind-down routine going on. So making sure that he’s got that nice period of wind down at the end of the day.

The other thing you want to think about if he’s not,
you know, falling over asleep in the morning is that he might only need that amount of time to sleep overnight. So whenever he’s eventually falling asleep until when he wakes up in the morning, that might be all he needs. So that’s something to consider. So you might want to actually shift that time later.And then in terms of imagining meditating and relaxing,
I would recommend looking on Spotify for meditations, bedtime meditations to listen to you. So it’s absolutely fine to listen to that as you relaxes in bed, or even as an activity before he falls asleep, while he does something with fine motor skills, like, you know, coloring or drawing or something like that, as he listens to kind of help him get in that zone.
And if you’re okay with it, he can also listen to it as he’s falling asleep, that’s not a problem, or at least as he’s relaxing into sleep. So that might be helpful. See how that goes. There’s so many different facets that we could look at.

So I always, when I work with a client, I look at 50 to a 100 different,
you know, things that relate to sleep. So you’d want to investigate to see if there’s anything else that might be going on, like stress or anxiety, which certainly would be totally understandable right now. And you’d have to address in order to address the sleep. But hopefully that helps for now in terms of sleep specifically.

Okay. So sorry.
I’m just going up and down and hearing lots of questions. All right. I’m going back up to Camille. Where are you, Camille? Okay.

Hi Rosalee, We have a seven-month-old. He refuses to sleep in his crib in the day, but at night, no problem. All the sleepy cues are there, yawns, rubs his eyes. Wake time is about two hours for the first nap and two and a half to three hours for the afternoon nap.
He will only sleep if rocked in his stroller and just won’t fall asleep in his crib, cries, stands up. He’s already standing good for him. Okay. So daytime and nighttime sleep are totally different. What do we need to have in order to get great naps in the day? We need a little one who’s falling asleep completely independently at bedtime.

So from awake and sleeping well at night. Okay. So those two things have to be in place before we can work on naps. Second thing we need is a 100% perfectly sleep conducive environment for daytime naps. The reason is the sleep pressure is so low in the day. There are so few environmental signals that it’s time to sleep. And so we need perfect conditions.

A 100% pitch-black room, continuous noise, cold enough. So 20 to 21 Celsius, 68 to 70 Fahrenheit, all the conditions in place. Then we also need great wake windows . So at this age, I don’t know if he’s a fresh seven month old or a mature seven month olds, but usually around this age, we’re looking at two and a half hours before the first nap.
So I wake up and two and a half hours later, we’re aiming for him to fall asleep. I want you to understand that sleepy cues is yawning, breath, his eye rubbing his eyes. And all of that means he’s already overtired. So we’ve already missed the great timing for him. sleepy cue is, are unreliable. And they often mean they’ve already got the shot of cortisol,
the stress hormone. So we don’t want to wait for sleepy keys. In fact, if we get them, we’re usually too late. So 2.5 hours and two and a half hours before second nap. And at this age, he should absolutely be getting a third nap in his day. If he’s not getting a third nap, you might be in an overtired cycle, which means it’s harder for him to settle for naps in the day. So two and a half hours before the first nap, two and a half before the second nap and two and three quarters before the third. And we have to keep naps short. So an hour and a quarter in the morning, an hour in the middle of the day, 30 minutes at the end of the day to fit them all in.

So, but I do want to say that daytime sleep is harder than nighttime sleep. You have to have all those elements in place, lined up all the foundations of sleep, really going well for you, for you to move on, to being able to put a little one down a week for nap. So hopefully that helps for now.

Tracy said, What’s a normal nap length for a four month old?

Well, so they’re right in the middle of a sleep wake cycle maturation process at that age. So anywhere from about three amounts to about seven months, they’re maturing their sleep wake cycles, which means that they’re learning to Connect those 20 to 45 minutes points in time when they’re actually sleeping more deeply and then going into a light period of sleep and then figuring out how to connect into the next cycle.
It’s easier for them to do that at night when the sleep pressure, the drive to sleep is much higher, much harder for them to do it in the day. And even if we’ve laid down all the sleep foundations, they’re sleeping independently, all is good. A four-month old still have, might have a maximum nap length of 45 minutes. And that’s okay
, as long as you’re following wake windows and you’re doing all the good things, they will eventually lengthen I promise.

Marina, he said, I have an eight and a half month old son. His wake windows are two to two and a quarter hours, three naps per day, sleeps five to seven hours per night. Any suggestions, how to adjust him sleeping through the night he nurses every three to four hours during the day at night,
every five to six hours self soothe, no problem for his sleep. I would like to start him at 10 to 12 hour night sleeps, please advise.

Yeah. So great job getting him three naps a day with his nighttime sleeping so short, it sounds as though you’re using your really late bedtime. I can’t know for sure, but if that’s the case,
then we actually want to cap all the naps so that they’re no longer than about an hour each. So that the time isn’t too late. And wake windows at this age, those are not too bad., but you can also have a wake window at the end of the day. It’s as long as two and a half hours. So, you know,
that’s something that I would work on is making sure that bedtime is early enough so that you can actually fit in those 10 hours of sleep. If you want to do it more gradually, you can move it by minutes earlier each night or every two nights to kind of gradually move it earlier. But that’s really what you need to do, right? Because you only have so much time in a 24 hour period,
if you’re sort of front-loading the day with naps and then having a large wake window at bedtime, you’re inevitably going to get a short, a short night of sleep. But if you cap naps and you use an appropriate wake window of bedtime, you should have no problem at this age getting at least a 10 hour night. Hopefully that makes sense.

Megan, looking for suggestions for my three-year-old, he wakes every night and sleeps with us. He also has trouble falling asleep. He tried some sleep training, but he would get out of bed as soon as I left the room for about an hour and a half to two hours with no improvement after five nights.

So three-year-olds are so many things going on with three-year-olds.
First of all, it sounds like he’s out of the crib. Unfortunately I would keep this little one in the crib for sure at this age, but I don’t know what the reason was for getting him out. So assuming he’s in a bed, there could be so many things going on. So one is that the nap in the day, if he’s having a
nap, it could be too long. It could be ending too late. And so his sleep pressure could be really low at the end of the day. So I would be looking at schedule. Absolutely. And at this age, when you’re asking them to fall asleep independently, you have to expect that they’re going to get out of the room and not want to be falling asleep independently,
especially if they’ve had no experience with this before. So you really have to keep at it just like with anything, with changing habits, for both humans, for both adults, for all humans, for both adults and for children, we really want to stick to it and be consistent if he keeps getting out of bed. And he eventually realizes that you’re just going to let him come into bed with you.
Well, then he’s achieved what his end goal was and you have not achieved what your end goal is. So we want to kind of pull from, you know, Janet Lansbury. I love jail. Be there, calm, confident leader. So you tell him what it is that you expect and you follow through. I mean, it’s really that simple.
It’s hard for sure. It’s hard at the beginning. He might be coming out of bed 300 times, but that will decrease the more that he understands that you mean what you say and you’re saying what you mean. Hopefully that makes sense.

Okay. Ivana, let me scroll down. There’s a lot of questions. I hope I get to them in this whole hour.

Thanks for joining me everybody.

Okay, Ivana. What’s the best bedtime for 4.5 month old. She falls asleep and wakes up 25 minutes after. Treats it like a nap and it takes a while to get her back to sleep. Should I watch wake windows before sleep?

So Ivana that’s called a post-bedtime waking. So the two biggest culprits for a post-bedtime waking.
So the things that contribute to post bedtime, waking up, waking up within 30 to 60 minutes after bedtime, it’s not that they’re treating it as a nap. The first culprit is that the wake window is too long. So at this age it would be no more than two hours from rising from the last nap. The second big culprit is they didn’t go to bed from a fully awake state.

So they didn’t self settle completely independently. So I would work on those two things because once you work on those two things, the post bedtime waking should disappear. So hopefully that helps.

Erica, you said my three month old is super hard to put down to sleep and crib for naps For overnight he’ll fall asleep in our arms, but wake screaming in the crib. He’s not able to fall asleep on his own in the crib for nap or at night.

So Erica, unfortunately these transfers are incredibly different, difficult and unreliable at this age. So by about two to two and a half months old, this is why I love working with newborns because we don’t even get into this by three to four months old. Those of you who’ve worked with me in the newborn stage,
you know this to be true, but unfortunately, if they don’t yet know how to fall asleep on their own at three months old, that transfer of I’m in your warm, tired arms, and you transfer me into a different surface, it doesn’t go well. So it’s totally normal to go through what you’re going through. If he doesn’t know how to fall asleep on his own yet.
So I would work on all the foundations of good sleep, so perfectly sleep conducive environment. Like I mentioned before, age appropriate, wake windows, a solid routine, 20 to 30 minutes every night, same routine, same activities in the same order, a fully awake child throughout the entire routine. And at the end of the routine and starting to get practiced with putting him down awake.

There’s a couple of different ways to do this at this age. I mean, actually there’s a lot of different ways to do this at this age. You can try with putting him down as he’s just falling asleep, just to kind of get him used to that and then try to settle him while he stays in the crib. You can try putting him down fully awake and settle him while he stays in the crib,
pick them up when you need to put them back down when you need to. But it’s really about consistency and practice. If he’s going into the crib asleep, he’s more likely to wake up upset because he doesn’t know how he got there, what happened? And he didn’t know how he got to sleep, right? So once we get a little one in their crib awake,
they’re able to scan their safe environment, understand how to get themselves to sleep and understand how to get themselves back to sleep. It’s a process it’s not easy, certainly, but it is a process. And if you stick with it and stay consistent, you will get it.

Okay Deepa, you said my 2.5 year old will do anything and everything
some days to extend the bedtime routine? Oh yes, that’s definitely common at this age. Coming out of her room, she’ll say she needs to go to the bathroom or needs water. Also, I have a seven-month-old and naps are shortening. How long should her wake windows be?

Okay. So for seven-month-olds, like I said before, 2.5 hours before a
nap. one, two and a half before a nap. two, two and three quarters before nap three and two to two and a half hours before bedtime, but not shortening at this age is actually very common. They’re starting to shorten because your little one is starting to accommodate longer wake windows and get ready for her two nap transition, which I wouldn’t advise doing until at least nine months old.

But it’s actually a good sign that they start to shorten it this age for your 2.5 year old. Extending their routine is so common. What we need to do is create limits and limit choices. So I’ll give you an example, a lot of little ones at this age, they want one more book, one more book, one more book,
or I need a glass of water or one more step or one more trip to the potty or whatever it is. You have to be really clear that, okay, we’re going to the potty now. And that’s the last time, that’s it? Right? So make sure you get a good pee and then that’s it.
You can do a visual chart to kind of move them along. You can do an egg timer or a sand timer to move them along at each step of the routine that works really well. The other thing is to remove barriers. So if you’ve got like a bookcase in the room, where they’re going to pull a whole bunch of different books or get distracted. Remove the bookcase. Only bring in the books that you’re going to read for the night and think about that philosophy for everything else that they can negotiate on. Limit their choices. You’ve got a drawer full of pajamas, and they can’t figure out which pajama they want or they keep changing their mind. limit that take all the pajamas out of the room, pick one yourself before you come into the room for the bedtime routine and that’s it or pick two and they can choose limit choices at this age when little ones get too many choices.

And we’re kind of going along with whatever they’re saying bedtime, they actually get more anxiety around bedtime. So we want to be really clear about our boundaries and really consistent. So they feel nice and calm and reassured. They understand you’re in control. You’re, they’re calm, confident leader, and there’s only so many choices that they have to make. Okay.
But it is difficult that this agent is to be expected, but you will get there. Okay. Let’s see what else here. I’m getting lost in all these questions. There’s so great too. I love all of them.

Okay. Leslie, how to get a 20 month old to go to bed. I know he’s tired, but just doesn’t want to sleep too much playing to be done.
He just started sleeping through the night, 75% of the time, about one week or so ago. Okay. So how to get him to bed. He’s tired, but just doesn’t want to sleep.

Okay. So for this age group, and I’ve said this before, too, it’s about getting a lot of their gigglies and wigglies out earlier in the day.
So lots of physical activity, lots of fresh outdoor air. And then at the end of the day, having a nice big chunk of time where we’re just winding down. So at this age, I would suggest maybe 30 to 45 minutes before your bedtime routine even begins. Dimly lit environment, hush tones, as much as we can really kind of quiet playtime.
And then the bedtime routine. If he’s having a really hard time getting to sleep, extend the bedtime routine to you can even extend it to another 45 minutes and just spend as much of the bedtime routine in the prepared environment. So in his room, dark environment, dimly lit noise machine already going. The other thing that can happen at this age is there not could be actually too long or their wake window is not long enough.
So he might’ve just recently increased his wake window without notice it’s to say this without notice, because before he was maybe falling asleep within four hours, maybe now he needs closer to five hours. So that’s also a possibility is increasing that pressure for him. So he feels more ready for sleep. Okay.

Carla, you said you have an eight-month old, 7:00 to 7:30. Is that considered a late bedtime?

No, actually not at all at eight months old, especially throwing three naps a day. Oh, you said she’s on two naps. Okay. So if she’s on two naps a day, then that 7:00 to 7:30 PM bedtime might be pushing it, Carla, because the only way you’re really going to be able to do that is either by pushing the wake window out in the morning,
which you could do, but she might be quite overtired. And then you might end up getting a short nap or pushing the wake window at the end of the day, which I totally would not advise doing because she will be going down over tired. So the 6:30 PM bedtime is much more appropriate. If she’s already on two knots today, it will get later.
I promise.

Okay, Joan. You said, we have a seven month old that does not sleep for more than 30 minutes at a time and stays up for four to six hours. She’s cranky all the time.

So Joan, this sounds like your little one’s in an overtired cycle. Once you get into an overtired cycle, you really have to spend some time getting that little one to sleep in.

However you can, in order to catch up on the sleep and then really looking at, do they have the habits to fall asleep independently so that they’re not doing this because most independent sleepers prefer to sleep and are not getting cranky. So I don’t know if your little one is falling asleep independently. I’m going to say probably not. Or there’s some area that needs to be tweaked there.

So what I would do is follow so seven month, wake windows, I mentioned earlier, get three naps a day in. If you have to help them sleep longer than 30 minutes at a time, I would absolutely do that to get the sleep they need in the day and keep that bedtime wake window to no more than two hours at this point to try to get them to sleep for longer periods.

Once that schedule is going well then I would shift to encouraging this little one to fall asleep independently. Independent sleepers, like I said, prefer to sleep for the most part. And we’ll, you know, be happy to sleep and accept that a little bit more easily. There could be other things going on, but with the information that you’ve given me,
that’s what I’m going to say to do. So catch up on the sleep. So you get out of the sleep debt and then move on to either tuning up reteaching or teaching independence skills.

Okay. Neck, a baby, seven and a half months old. Does the wake window change depending on how long my baby naps?

Yes. So my rule of thumb is if your little one is,
it takes a nap that’s 30 minutes or shorter cut the next wake window by 15 minutes. If you ever get a really crappy nap at 15 minutes or shorter cut the next wake window in half. Okay. I do need to take a break and take a second One second. Okay. My almost

Rosemarie. Yes. My almost two year old is skipping nap. So hard to fall asleep at night and I keep waking her up and still keeps waking up during the night. I tried everything.

So Rosemary, I don’t know if your little one is a fresh two year old or a mature two year old, but this is common at the age. If they’re a fresh two-year-old, this could actually just be a behavioral progression.
That’s very common at this age, usually due to a behavioral progression. So just kind of, you know, getting a spurt of new language that’s coming in or starting to exhibit toddler behaviors saying no pushing, back resisting. So if you just stay consistent, very likely they’ll start to nap again. But if they’re a mature two year old, so closer to three years,
they could actually just be phasing out the nap. So it really depends on which end of the two-year age group that they’re in. And if they’re phasing out naps, then you just want to know that time earlier. So on any day that she doesn’t nap or he doesn’t nap, you would just put her down early for the night. So depending on when she wakes in the morning,
you want to calculate bedtime based on about 12 hours overnight and some little ones, and even more, a lot of the little ones that I work with when they first drop a nap, they need up to 13 hours overnight. So always base bedtime off of that.

Okay. Mina, my 22 month old daughter sleeps fine in their crib at nighttime but refuses to sleep in her crib for a nap.

So I think I just addressed that soon enough. If she is, you know, just getting into that to your age group, it can totally be a nap progression, very common at this age. And if you stick it out and stay consistent, that nap will come back.

Leslie. Suggestions on weaning the bottle before bed, it’s the best way I’ve found to get him to sit still and wind down,
but wanting to wean.

Yeah. So you can replace the bottle with some water. Like I would do a cup of water rather than a bottle. So that association has gone. You can do a glass of milk or a cup of water at dinner. Instead, you can do so many different things. You can replace it with extra cuddles and singing and songs.
You can do extra books, just replace it with something. And usually it’s just a few days and it’s totally fine. You might not get that same, like real kind of relaxed look from your little one, but that’s okay. They don’t need to be like that before bed. That’s a common misconception that we somehow need to get little ones to be drowsy or sleepy before bed.
We don’t want that. Actually. We want them to be alert and awake. So anything that just gives him that connection time with you and relaxation time is totally fine inside the prepared environment.

Kristin, three-year-old not napping anymore, but waking up earlier than normal and cranky.

Yes. Super common. So again, what I said before is going to apply here,
Kristen calculate his nighttime so that he’s getting 12 to 13 hours overnight. That might mean a very early bedtime. Make sure that you are doing some quiet time in the day, whether that’s independent, which Dr. Dina would absolutely recommend. And I do too, if they will tolerate it. So independent quiet time for about an hour each day at their regular nap time,
if they’ll tolerate it and then low key activities for the remainder of the day, sometimes we can sneak in a little cat nap at the end of the day. Maybe if you take a car ride or a stroller ride, you can get a 30 to 45 minute nap late in the day, and then try for bedtime at around the same time or a bit earlier than it would have been when he was napping.
But this is so common and he’s going to get out, he’s going to sort of grow out of this over time. Okay. Let me see other questions here.

Catarina. Any suggestions on how to keep a three-year-old to stay in their bed overnight?

Yeah, so really the thing with toddlers is, and if you joined Dr. Dina’s session a few days ago,
she would have said this as well. You know, for all humans, the way that we fall asleep, as the way we expect or need to return to sleep. So if a little one at this age is falling asleep with you beside them, it’s going to be difficult for them to stay in their bed overnight. So that’s the first thing is making sure they’re falling asleep independently at bedtime overnight.
It’s about reinforcement. So walking them back to their bed over and over again, even if we’re exhausted and it takes us three hours to do it on the first couple of nights, it’s far worthwhile because they will catch on and they’ll understand, okay, the bed is not an option there. Your room is not an option anymore and they will get it.
The other thing to do is you can introduce a toddler clock so that they’re understanding that, okay, when the toddler clock is black, I don’t recommend a toddler clock by the way, that has a blue light on all night because blue light absolutely disrupts the production of melatonin. We do not want that in our room environment, but if the toddler clock is black at night,
that’s still time to sleep. When the sun comes up, it is time for the whole family to get up and I can now get up and just reinforcing what toddler’s sleep and behavior. All of it is about reinforcement. It is about being very clear about boundaries and staying consistent with them. If they see that you’re not being consistent, they understand the little cracks that they can kind of move themselves through.
So you have to be consistent. Say what you mean, mean what you say, follow through Leah. You said, thank you very much for your help and advice. My pleasure.

Ivana, how much a wake time should I give my 4.5 month old before bedtime? What’s the best bedtime?

So the best bedtime for to
4.5 month old is going to be based on when they wake up in the morning, what their overall schedule is. So wake windows at this age, like I said, before bedtime, it should be no more than two hours. Okay.

Veronica, my little ones, almost two and a half years old, he wakes up at 7:30
am bedtime is 830. However, it takes 30 or more minutes for him to fall asleep. He also has his nap from 12:30 to 2:30. He’s struggling to fall asleep by himself always required to hold his hand for 30 to 40 minutes. How can I break this habit? So I can have some time to do my errands in the evening?

Yes, so two and a half year old with a two hour nap in the day that is taking a long time to fall asleep at night. Absolutely, we want to cut the nap. So at this age, what I would do is either a 2:30 to 2:30 to two naps. So no more than an hour and a half, or a
1:00 to 2:30 nap or even just a one to two nap. So a one hour nap. And then see if you can aim for him to be asleep by 8″30 that should likely help with the drive to sleep, which also can help with, you know helping to get him to sleep more independently. Because if he feels ready for sleep, he’s more willing to accept that,
you know, that process, at this age have talked about a few different ways that we can get little ones to follow suit more independently.

You know, there’s so many different ways that we can do this at this age one way. And it really depends too, if he’s in crib or in bed, but one way is to feed out your support over time.
So let’s say he’s requiring to hold your hand for 30 to 40 minutes now. Okay. Then maybe the next few nights, we’re only holding his hand for 20 minutes and we’re just sitting beside him for the remainder of that time. Maybe giving some reassuring words. So we’re, we’re fading that out. Maybe the next few nights, we’re doing it for 10 minutes and then five minutes.
And then just sitting beside him and then sitting beside further away from the crib and then at the doorway, and just sort of fading out our support that can work really nicely at this age. Another thing that can work nicely at this age is the excuse me gain. So you come up with a bunch of excuses that you need to leave the room and you’ll come and check on them.
So I gotta go do the laundry. I’ll be right back. And the tricks outside the room could be super short. And then you say, okay, when I come back, I’ll give you a kiss. Right? Great job. Every time you come back. And so the theory is, is that they’re getting reassurance. You’re giving them a promise.
They’re getting reassurance, you’re coming back. And over time, you’re making those excuses longer and longer. So ideally they should be falling asleep without you in the room on the first night, if you’re using this method by the way, but you can build up to longer and longer periods. Okay?

Adriana, my baby is three months since he turned two and a half months,
he’s been sleeping seven to nine hours straight at night. Once he wakes up in the morning, he just takes one nap of one to two hours maximum. And then he stays awake until 11:30 PM, which is the time he usually goes to sleep. Sometimes he’s awake 12 hours straight, no naps in between. And I read babies at this age to sleep 12 to 15 hours.
So he’s sleeping 11 to 12. But my concern is that he stays awake for very long period with no naps. Is that okay?

Probably not Adriana, but that’s okay. We’re going to get this back on track. So what I would say is it’s very likely to his bedtime and his morning wake up time has gotten too late. So you’re kind of a shifted late schedule.
So what I would do is start waking him in the morning no later than seven 30 in the morning and start to follow wake windows. So even if he doesn’t show signs of sleepiness every hour and a half or so, get him to sleep. If you need to use the stroller or the car or the carrier, whatever it is, get him some amount of sleep every hour and a half or so,
and start to move his bedtime earlier 15 minutes earlier, every few days until you get into that eight o’clock hour, you’re going to see his sleep really mature over that 24 hour cycle. And you’re going to be giving him the right amount of sleep that he needs developmentally. Okay. Hopefully that helps Janet five and a half month old is sleeping in two hour blocks at night.
She’s graded initially falling asleep at night. I put her down awake. She very rarely cries, but she wakes almost two hours on the dot every night. I’ve been doing four nights because her naps are usually short 45 minutes with three naps. That time is so early. Yeah. So for sure at this age, if she’s not sleeping well at night and she’s also taking short naps,
then four naps are absolutely appropriate. You’re using great wake windows here, Janice. So that’s great. I feel like I know this name. Maybe you’re maybe you’re following my sleep schedules or something anyway, but you’re using great wake windows here. And so good job on that in terms of overnight sleep. Sometimes even if we put down a baby awake at the beginning of the night,
they also need some teaching of independence throughout the night as like a separate project, let’s call it. Okay. So if she was waking every two and a half to three hours, it actually might even be hunger every two hours though, unless she’s really just snacking in the day or you haven’t started building up her iron rich solids, you know, potentially this is not a hunger issue.
So every two and a half hours could be appropriate for hunger at this age, every two hours, not so much unless there’s a waking issue or feeding issue in the day. So first I would look at distracted feeding and making sure she’s getting full milk feedings through the day that you’re starting on iron rich solids soon, if not already and building up on those.
And then during the night, however, you got her to fall asleep awake at the beginning of the night, we would work on that at night for at least one of those wakings. Because if he’s waking every two hours, that’s more than four weekends overnight. We want to get those down to a maximum of three feedings. So whatever process you used at bedtime use that if she wakes too early in the night,
that is what I would do because your wake windows are quite good and she’s falling asleep independently. And, and a fourth nap is totally fine. I should say. As long as the last one ends, the fourth, one ends by 5:30 at this age. Sometimes we have to cut the nap in the three o’clock hour to get that one to happen.
Not too late. Hopefully that helps. All right. Let’s see. Okay. Let’s see. Where are we? Oh,

Anna. Okay. My daughter is 9.5 months. She was a decent sleeper before, so we can at night, but we could put her down awake and she would go to sleep in the crib. The last three weeks have been awful.
We have to rock her. She only wants me. She screams when my husband picks her up, this was never an issue. And she keeps waking up at night from 4:00 to 5:00 AM. And it’s impossible to get her back down until 6:00, just to have to sit rocking and holding her. And she screams and chumps you away. She goes to bed by 7:00.

So, and I, you know, there could be so many different things going on at this age. A lot of times there’s developmental progression like crawling and pulling up and standing and that sort of thing. There’s also a big peak of separation anxiety at this age, for that you want to do a lot of peek-a-boo games. You want to smother them with your affection and love all throughout the day.
Kisses, cuddles, loving words, especially during the routine before sleep times. I don’t know if she recently dropped to two naps because often we get these issues with dropping to two naps before they’re ready. And even though most babies are ready at nine months a lot aren’t so could be that she needs an extra nap in her day, especially if her naps are short.
So that’s something to consider as well. And then whenever they’re getting this kind of upset before bed that they never got before, I always like to extend the routine and give them extra wind down time inside the prepared environment in case that actually helps to bring down the nervous system for everybody, including yourself. Overall, if she was an independent sleeper, we do want to stay consistent with independent sleeping.
So if you are going back to rocking her, then it may not resolve fully until we’re actually able to put her down awake, walk away and she falls asleep on her own. So keep working on that and the ways that you did before, so that you don’t get too off track at this point. Okay.

Ebony, my 16-month old won’t drink milk is very dependent on being breastfed to sleep. I tried to do cried out and she started throwing up repeatedly. I have to nurse her to get to sleep at night, but still waking up at 3:00 AM and won’t sleep. Unless I nurse her again also, won’t take naps in the crib, have to drive her to sleep in the car seat or nurse her to bed and let her nap on my lap.

Yeah. So, I mean, this is very common. If, if she hasn’t learned to fall asleep independently before she’ll be upset about it, right? So that’s very common. You don’t have to do cry it out or any of that, that that makes you uncomfortable. And certainly if she throws up and that’s not something you’re good with with most,
most parents would not be. That’s not about that, that you need to use. You could slowly fade out the nursing session. So moving it earlier in your routine until she’s fully awake at the end of it. And then he was something else to get her to sleep and then slowly fade out that support. So if you switched to rocking, you could slowly fade out the amount of rocking that you do every night until she is going down awake.
That process can take a few months at this age, but if you stick it out, you will totally get there. And naps in the crib are not really going to happen until you’re able to get her down independently at bedtime. That’s usually the thing that needs to happen first before we can move on.

Anna just to add to my nine and a half month question,
she has two naps, 9:30 to 11:00 or 10:30. And then again, 1:30 to 2:00 until 3:30 to 4:00, and then bed is by 7:00. Okay.

So I’m not sure if you mean that each nap is an hour and a half to two hours. If so, that’s pretty good. The only thing is, like I said,
sometimes when we just moved to a two nap schedule, even if they seem to be taking great naps, they may not have been developmentally ready. And so I know this is so counterintuitive because you’re like, but they’re getting more sleep on a two nap schedule. Sometimes we actually want them to get less sleep in a 24 hour period and keep their wake windows conservative rather than going to two nap schedule where they’re getting more sleep.
But their wake windows are also bigger. So I’d have to really understand a little bit more, but that could be a possibility Okay.

Devin, you said 2.5 month old would love your tips on what I should be doing now to set her up for success. I also have a 2.5 year old unrelated.

Yes, really, but unrelated. Okay. Two and a half months old. So again, it’s everything that I talked about before age appropriate wake windows, perfectly sleep conducive environment and a consistent routine. Don’t worry about naps being independent at this age, work on independence at bedtime. So you get the best sleep possible overnight. And if you can get little one to fall asleep,
awake at bedtime at this age, you could then move on to naps. And if you are able to do that at this age, you were very likely to avoid all those completely, if not significantly. So avoid that three to four month old sleep disruption that happens with the sleep wake cycle maturation process. So what people call the four months, the progression or progression.

Okay. Diana, my two and a half year old is requiring one parent in the room, on the floor with him for an hour to an hour and a half at night before falling asleep has dropped nap on weekends, but still naps one hour at daycare, he refuses to wake up and get out of the crib before 8:00 AM. That’s her drop-off time hard to settle him before 9:30 PM.

So as your current one parent in the room for an hour to an hour and a half, yes. So the other thing is too. I know it’s hard to know until you’ve got your little and falling asleep independently, but once you get your little one falling asleep independently, you’ve removed the distraction of you being in the room and they actually will fall asleep so much faster.
So even though it might feel a bit Rocky and challenging working on these things, it actually gets your little one to fall asleep far more quickly. So when we’re still in the room with them, they’re more likely to take a long time. It’s quite distracting to have someone there right. While they fall asleep. Okay. So still naps one hour at daycare.
So on the days that he naps, you’re gonna likely notice a later bedtime on the days he doesn’t nap. Like I said before, calculate that based on what he needs overnight. When you said he refuses to wake up and get out of the crib in the morning, it sounds like his bedtime could actually be too late. He, if he’s really that tired,
right? I’ve already mentioned Diana, the processes that you can follow to get them to sleep more independently, that will also get him more sleep overnight. Okay. So as he’s going to be settling quickly more quickly, and he’s going to get the sleep he needs so that he can actually wake up and go wherever you need to go in the morning, okay,

Somara you have an eight week old. She only wants to sleep in our arms. When I gently put her down, she seems to understand. And we expect up within five to 10 minutes, how best to transition her from sleeping in our arms to independently sleeping in her crib on her own.

So some are, I mentioned before about the transfers and they do start to become unreliable.
At this age, I would feed out your support. So if she’s falling asleep with rocking or withholding, you know, you’re going to fade that out over time. So every few nights do a little bit less of that and then put her down and then try to settle her while she stays in her crib. It’s a process, but you will get there if you stay consistent.
And she will understand. The best thing to do is get to the point where she’s going down fully awake. So she understands her surroundings, knows how to get herself to sleep, to give yourself two to three weeks, write out the process of how you’re going to fade out the support every single night.
So I’m going to rock a little bit less tonight.
Tomorrow, I’m going to just sway the next day. I’m just going to hold and so on and so forth. And I’m going to try to get her settled while she stays in her crib, as much as I can, rather than picking her back up. So that’s what we do at this age. Very, very age appropriate, very gentle and respectful.
And it’s just about practice, right? It’s about putting money in the bank account. Every time you try putting a little extra money in the savings account, okay.

Semina, my 22 month old also wakes up at five 30 every day, asking for water. When I give her water, she wants to be picked up and brought into our bed and doesn’t want to sleep in her crib.
Any suggestions?

So Sumita, if she knows that this is what you’re going to do in the morning, she’s going to keep asking for it. Right? So it’s, it’s totally habit. If you’re okay with it. That’s one thing. If you don’t want her to come into your bed, then you just simply have to say, no, it’s not going to happen.
Right? So we create boundaries and limits at this age and we stay consistent and you make it clear that the bed is completely off the table as an option. And you stick it out and you stick it out for a few days to a couple of weeks and you will get there. Okay? So it really, at this age is about being super clear about what the limits and boundaries are and staying consistent.
If you continue to bring her into bed, she’ll continue to want to come into bed. But remember that you are the one in control. You are her calm, confident leader. Yes, you are.

Jen, I have a seven month old on the three nap schedule. We sleep trained at five months and is finally taking longer naps and sleeping through the evening.
Over the last month, he will wake and play in crib, naps in morning. I think he wakes early, but just leaves there till we get him. So I don’t wake any more to no reason. I think this is because he did this when he cried, when he woke and we only make it to 8:30 as he’s showing sleepy cue. His naps range from one in a quarter to two and third, 30 to 45 between 5:45 to 6:30.

So all babies seem incredibly tired before nap. One that’s because their homeostatic sleep pressure is super high. Their melatonin still coursing through their bloodstream. Not a concern to me. I would still push him to nine o’clock for his first nap falling asleep by then distract him, expose them to loads of natural light.
Don’t worry. We can overtime a baby before nap one, but nowhere else in the day without negative consequences. So it’s totally fine.

Okay. T your son is almost three years old and we’re expecting another baby soon. Congrats. Our son is still sleeping in his crib, wearing a sleep sack. Since COVID, our son lost the ability to sleep by himself.
The only way he’ll sleep is with his room door open with light turned on. We want to switch them to a toddler bed, but we’re worried he may leave his room in the middle of the night and climb up the stairs to our room, how to get them to sleep with door closed and light turned off.

Honestly, with everything going on right now,
I would not be concerned about this. Let him fall asleep with the door open and the light on, and then go and close the door later on, because that is for fire safety, right? With baby coming and COVID and everything else. I would also keep them in a crib. There is no reason to switch them to you about at this point.
So definitely keep them in the crib as long as possible. This is going to be your saving grace, especially with the new baby arriving soon. And you can try to coax him into having a red hue nightlight at night, rather than full lights on. But honestly, it’s not a concern. If he needs the door, open the light on and it it’s working for him,
let him do it.

John, we have an eight month old who cannot fall asleep on his own. We’ve tried a couple of different sleep training methods going in after 10 minutes seems to make it worse. So we tried letting them cry it out, which doesn’t seem to be working either. He makes no attempt to self-soothe nor does he lay down,
showing us that he’s tiring himself out. Is there a method we could try that will help him to learn to self-sooth?

So methods are they’re so individual to each family. And so I don’t often give you like a specific one just based on this, because I need to know so many more details. What I would say is whatever makes you feel comfortable and that you feel you can stick with is the right method.
In terms of you saying that he’s not able to lay down. I’m not sure if you’re meaning that he’s standing, because if he is standing, it’s actually an opportunity to just embrace him while he’s crying and just say, it’s okay to cry. I’m here. Just hold him. And the first few nights that might be, all you do is just hold them to sleep while he stays in his Crib and lay him down and that’s all you do.
And then you’re kind of feeding out your support. If you haven’t noticed I’m a big fan of feeding out our support, because it can also often feel gentler for both us and for children. And it also feels like not so big of a mountain to climb from, you know, okay, this person is dependent on me to get to sleep. And all of a sudden I’m applying the sleep training method where I’m not there at all.
So try to think about something that is a little bit middle ground, like staying in the room and doing what I said. So feeding out your support over time, that might be a better fit for you.

Cheryl. I have a four-month-old who’s hungrier than ever. And as such her wake windows are taken up a lot by feeding out, which means she falls asleep, breastfeeding, any tips to get them to sleep. After that happens, as she searches for my nipple, for her nap and wakes early, if she doesn’t find it, she can fell asleep, but also find she’ll fall asleep on her own with dad. But with me, she wants to feed any suggestions?

Yeah. That’s super common.
So you’re saying that she’s feeding a lot and then she’s waking early to find it again. Yeah. Super common. So I would say sometimes at this age, you know, obviously check with your doctor or lactation consultant, if you’re not sure about latch or supply, for sure. If that’s covered off though, sometimes what happens is that there’s,
I don’t know if this is what you mean. They’re feeding kind of in snacks rather than full meals. So sometimes separating feeds a little bit more can help to consolidate the feedings. If you can also try to feed her as soon as she wakes up and try to gently shift to that schedule that can help with this too. But I want you to be careful about that because if you’ve got a little one falling asleep,
breastfeeding, all of a sudden you start to feed them. When they wake up, you could get blocked ducks and mastitis. And trust me, I’ve had my studies seven times in my breastfeeding journey edited hell, right? So those of you who’ve had it before, you know what I’m talking about. So we don’t want to do that. We want to gradually move toward her feeding when she wakes up,
that should help and consolidating feedings. If she’s distracted, you want to take her to a dark room, a dimly lit room, use a nursing necklace, or let her hold something. If she’s holding something to help her focus on the feed. So that could be what’s going on. The fact that she falls asleep on her own with one parent and perhaps not with another,
that’s totally common. The more you can practice with both of you doing this, the better that’s going to get.

All right, Ivana, I have a four and a half month old. I’m wondering how much, Oh, I’ve already answered this for you. Ivana. How much? A week, 10 before bedtime.

Diana, can you successfully change the habits at any age of toddler?
My husband thinks we just need to accept his natural sleep cycle is 10:00 PM to 8:00 AM.

Well, first of all, 10:00 PM to 8:00 AM is 10 hours, right? 10 hours is great. But if you want to move that earlier, you absolutely can. What you have to do is move the morning wakeup time and the bedtime at the same time,
15 minutes earlier, every few days. And you can absolutely do that. And it’s never too late.

Delara. How early can a child drop naps completely. I’ve got a 22 month old. Who’s skipping naps

Delara. I mentioned this earlier, really common nap progression at this age. Not likely that they’re going to drop naps. It’s just that you’ve got to stick it out and they’re going to come back.
So yeah, definitely. Don’t give up

Vivian five month old naps have been really good during three to four months where he’d sleep an hour and a half at one of his morning naps about 45 minutes for the subsequent ones. Lately been sleeping at 35 to 50 minute naps. Each four naps a day. He seems content

So Vivian, he might be ready for and nap a wake window increase.
So if he is a more mature, five month old, closer to five and a half months, he could be ready for full two to two and a four hour, wake windows for naps, which could help him, especially if he’s waking content from short naps. That’s a big clue that we need to extend wake windows. Okay.

Crystal, any tips on how to put a sleep schedule for a 15 month old that likes to fall asleep at 3:00 AM and wakes up for the day around one or two.

So crystal back when I addressed Diana’s question, that’s going to be applicable for you here too. So wake up time. Bedtime have to shift earlier the same time by 15 minutes, every few days.

Anna. My two-and-a-half-year-old suddenly takes forever to fall asleep. She’s screaming for an hour, every single night hanging on the door.

Okay? So this little one is not at a crib. I want these little ones at this age to be in a crib, but anyway, it is what it is asking for. Another kid is asking for random books and bed, random toys, asking for daddy to give her water. Now, mommy, to give her a kiss again. So Anna review,
what I said before about toddlers at this age limit choices, be clear about boundaries, stay consistent, the less, the fewer choices that you have, the more secure and safe. They feel that they understand that you are in control. They do not want to be in control as much as they’re pushing. They want to see that you have a plan and that there’s only so many choices that they can make,
remove barriers. Like I talked about earlier, limit choices and be consistent. That’s how you’re going to get out of this.

Vivian, my little one is able to self-sooth self settled in the middle of the night, but not completely able to fall asleep independently in the crib. He’s usually done feeding 10 to 15 minutes before he sleeps gets pretty drowsy at the end of the bottle,
burps, sings him for a bit and then put him down. And should we anticipate future problems? If we continue doing what we’re doing now

it depends on how old your little one is Vivian, but potentially yes, you could get into problems later on if they’re not fully awake at the end. So what I would do is move bottle earlier in the routine,
make sure your wake window isn’t too long when you have a bottle happening so late in the wake window and solely in the routine, a lot of babies inevitably get drowsy. So moving that earlier will help to keep your baby fully awake throughout the routine and fully wake on put down, which is going to help solidify independent sleep skills and mean that you will likely avoid a lot of issues in the future.

Okay. Penelope two. Thank you for having the session. My pleasure. I hope I get to all the questions. I don’t have much time left.

Okay. I have a two and a half year old. He needs me to lay next to him until he falls asleep and eight month old, he needs to be to fall asleep to how do I get the ball rolling on helping my two and a half year old?
You need less.

So Penelope, hopefully you heard me about the toddler approaches that work well for her. Moving your support. Review that earlier in the video, and then youngest to fall asleep. You heard me address how we can get babies to fall asleep on their own too. And remember that if we get them to fall asleep from awake at bedtime,
that’s going to take care of the nighttime waking. So it starts from bedtime. The tone is set from bedtime. And also you talk about the two of them waking each other up or the crying, being something that you can hear in other parts of the house. I did address that earlier that older kids are usually not so concerned about this. If you explain it to them ahead of time and you use noise machines and rugs and things to kind of dampen the sound okay.

Depo. What is a good bedtime for 2.5 year old, he gets up anywhere from 6:30 to 7:00 AM.

It really depends on if they have a nap or not in their day. So sometimes at this age we’re seeing a nap still in the day. Sometimes not. If there is a nap in the day, bedtime could be in the eight o’clock hour at this age,
as late as that,

Leslie, I also have a five day old. Whoa, congrats, Leslie. What’s the best way to correct day/night confusion? Nurses at night over two hours, but three-plus hours during the day.

Yes. So common. So day/night confusion. You want to follow wake windows. You want to limit daytime naps to no more than two hours.
So to wake her up and all naps should be in bright and noisy rooms in the day. And then we’re bringing everything down at night. This should naturally resolve by 6 to 8 weeks. But if you do those things that can help to resolve sooner.

Penelope, why does my eight-month old make a humming sound when he’s overtired?

That’s so cute.
I mean, we all do funny things when we’re feeling different ways. So it’s not anything that’s, you know, abnormal or anything like that. I wouldn’t be concerned. It’s just his way to tell you that he’s overtired, but she’s actually good. If you realize that that’s his language, right?

Leslie, how much date Jana you are following my schedules.
I thought I, I recognize that name. Okay, good.

How much daytime and nighttime sleep is best for 20 month old?

It depends. I know I keep saying this. It really depends on what their 24 hour totals are. Each child is totally unique at this age. I like to see a nap of two to two and a half hours in the day,
and then overnight, anywhere from 10 to 12 hours.

Shannon, thank you for your response on our seven year old. Yes, indeed. It sounds like our children could start their own young philosophers club.

When our seven year old wakes up in the night, he calls for us. We come to him right away and we don’t right away. He’s scared and runs to us.
We ended up lying in his bed with him and sleeping till morning with him. You mentioned to another person to walk, come back and not sleep with him. What can we do to help him not feel scared? When he wakes in the dark.

At this age, I would do some brainstorming with your seven year old. What is it that you’re afraid of?
What can we do to make you feel comfortable overnight? Is it adding light? Is it keeping the door open? Is it, what is it that we can do together to help you feel safer? Because I need my sleep. You need your sleep and we need to figure this out. And so do you sit down and do some brainstorming with him,
help him come up with a plan with you and state and stick with it.

Leslie, you said, what is best bedtime for 20 month old?

Goal would be 6:30, seven ish. Wake up again, super dependent on what that nap is looking like, where it’s landing

Grace. My 26 month old has been waking up. Every couple of hours wakes up crying nonstop.
I have to rock her for an hour just to go back to sleep. Any tips?

Every couple of hours, weeks of crying non-stop and you’re rocking her. Probably you’ve got to get moving on independent sleep with this little one. So review what I talked about earlier about toddlers sleep approaches the way that we can get them to fall asleep independently at this age and start from bedtime.
Bedtime sets the tone for the entire night.

Kristin, when does start focusing on daytime naps in the crib for seven week old, you sleep great at night, but we have a toddler too, and he does a lot of good naps in the carrier.

So once he’s falling asleep from awake at bedtime and sleeping well overnight, then you can start focusing on one nap at a time.
So nap one is the one I’d start with. It’s got the highest sleep pressure. You’re going to get the best success with that one. But for now, just get him in the carrier, get him to sleep. He needs in the day and work on independence at night. If you haven’t already.

Okay. McCale can you give me an ideal sleep schedule for four or five months old?
What’s an ideal wake up time at bedtime. When should the last nap and how long should the last nap be?

So four to five month olds. I would be wake up time anytime between 6:30 to 7:30, depends on where they are four to five months, but wake windows could be anywhere from an hour and a quarter to two hours, two hours and a quarter.
And last nap should end by no later than five 30 to five 45. Last nap should actually be the shortest you’re right. You’re on the right track with that. So two hours I would not do the end of the day

Adrianna. Is it okay to leave music playing lullabies while my baby sleeps?

Yeah, absolutely not. A problem. Low tone though.

Jason, at what age did they go from sleeping in the bassinet to the crib?

Any age they could go right into the crib from the very beginning. It’s up to you

Samita. Thanks so much. My pleasure,

Diana, regarding parents on the floor and room it’s because he would get worked up to hyperventilating and would refuse to go in and settle in the crib.

It sounds like your advice would be to tough it out with a few bad meltdown nights potentially. I mean, obviously, you know, your child best if they’re really truly hyperventilating. I mean, a lot of times this is like the dramatic response to crying and not actually hyperventilating. You have, you know, your child best, you know, if there’s a limit so you could kind of set yourself a limit.
Okay. If we actually get to this point, then we abandon this approach for the night. You have to make that decision as a family. Okay.

Leah 3.5 year old, not napping anymore. Since April likes to have one of her parents with her during quiet time, how can we get her to have quiet time in her room?

Leah refer to previous conversations about getting this little one to be independent

Macau. Why do you want two and a half year olds in cribs? We have a mini crib and thought at 18 months we moved to a toddler bed.

Yikes. Well, because these little ones at this age not have much impulse control. So when you move them into beds at this age,
they are more likely to keep popping out of bed. So we want to have that four walls of the cryptic contain them and they also feel less stress and anxiety themselves as toddlers without having that choice of, Oh my gosh, I can get out of bed and roam around.

How many hours of sleep does the seven month old require for good health?

Again, it really depends on how much sleep they’re getting in the day and what they’re kind of. So some little ones are on a lower end of sleepy. Some are on a higher end of sleepy. It really depends on where they are in that trajectory. So, but seven month old. So I like them to have three naps a day, no more than about two and three quarter hours of daytime sleep.
And then about 11 hours at night.

Shannon. Thank you very much. This was incredibly helpful. Greatly appreciate it. My pleasure. Thanks for joining me, Penelope. Will this be recorded? Yes, it will be recorded.

Jana, what is your take on soothers?

There’s I have a love, hate relationship with soothers

Michael. Thank you.
I’ll just answer this one and then wrap up. Cause my kiddos are already ready for me downstairs. You too. You have a love, hate relationship with soothers. Yeah, because the thing is, you know, they’re helpful in some respects, but more often it’s meaning that they are dependent on it. And so, you know, for getting to that position where we have to keep popping it into extending sleep,
it’s no longer helpful and we just need to drop it altogether in my humble opinion, when you’re ready.

Thank you for your time. I really appreciate you joining me and I hope you join the other expert sessions that are coming up with all the other experts. I’m happy to see there as well. And if you want more information about Parent Playbook, there’s the website.

We’re not open right now for members, but we will be in the future. So if you’re interested, stay tuned. All right. Thank you all. Have a good one. Bye-bye.