Sleep helps us to restore ourselves physically. For as long as we can remember, we’ve been advised to rest when we’re unwell. We replenish our fighter cells. And so this is like building up and strengthening our little inner army so that they are ready to fight when we need them.

Sleep has been shown to improve the effectiveness of our immune response, in particular our immune system’s memory. So this means it’s more likely to be able to recognize and then quickly respond to any dangerous or unwanted cells in the body when they appear.

Infection-fighting antibodies are released during sleep and more so if there is illness or stress present. So by not getting enough sleep actually means that you’re hindering this production and release of these amazing antibodies that are actually going to work to help you. And stress hormones actually dip during sleep, which means a reduction in those harmful outcomes that we all know come from stress.

We typically look to nutrition, to what we eat and what we drink to get all the healthy vitamins and minerals that we know our body needs and that we believe are going to help our immune system and our wellbeing all around, but too many people don’t think about sleep.

And actually, we shouldn’t underestimate the power of sleep on our immune systems because it’s huge. And yes, let’s eat well. Yes, the nutrition is so, so, so important. I’m a huge advocate for all of the health benefits.

But what if just by getting a healthy amount of sleep consistently every night it can improve our immune system. It isn’t that difficult. It’s just looking at what’s stopping you, what are the blockers, overcoming them, and then getting that healthy sleep and all those things it can do for you.

Now we help parents with their children’s sleep, but in helping the children sleep it helps the parent sleep. So the benefits are for the whole family.

You as the parent are going to get that healthy sleep you need for your immune system and your health and your wellbeing, but also you’re setting your child up for a really healthy future. You’re helping them build all those cells up and providing all the best for their immune system too.

I know children who just through having good nutrition and healthy sleep are rarely ever sick because they’re strong. And if they do get unwell, it’s over really quickly. So do the best for yourself and for your child. Prioritize sleep and look after your immune system.

Are you enjoying learning about baby and child sleep? It’s such a fascinating topic. Ever wondered if you could be a sleep consultant and run your own business transforming lives and unleashing all your potential?

Try our introductory training on becoming a childhood sleep consultant, right now it’s FREE! Register here: https://www.sleepnannyacademy.com/get-started

How do I get my baby to nap for longer than 30 minutes?

Are you putting your baby down and 30 minutes, 40 if you’re lucky, and they’re awake again and you just know they haven’t had enough sleep? What can you do if you’re getting these snatched catnaps all day and no predictability and you just know your little one isn’t rested enough?

Okay, well, there is a hidden key to solving this problem and it’s not what you would expect. I’m going to break this down for you.

First of all, let me just explain the science of a sleep cycle. When we put our little ones down to sleep, their sleep cycle is typically somewhere between 45, 50 minutes and 60 minutes. That’s the whole cycle.

Now, sometimes I have parents say to me, “My little one’s cycles are only 30 minutes.” That’s not true. Their cycles are longer, they’re just not making it through the whole cycle. What happens is they go down, they fall asleep, they go into deep sleep, they finish that section of sleep, they go into lighter sleep.

They’re moving through lighter sleep and around 30, 40 minutes, they’re coming through light sleep and they are meant to be transitioning to another stage of sleep, but what they’re doing is instead of transitioning, they’re falling out of sleep.

They’re finding themselves awake and they’re stuck, so they cry out and we go, “Oh, baby’s awake, get them up.” We just think that’s it, nap time is over. It’s not, it’s just a break in the cycle because they haven’t yet mastered the ability to see that cycle through, let alone knit that finished cycle into another sleep cycle.

The key is in the nap onset. The way your little one falls to sleep at the beginning of that nap is going to have a big part to play in whether or not they sleep longer than that 30 or 40 minutes.

The reason they’re waking is because they haven’t yet mastered that skill of resettling to sleep, so when they find themselves awake, they don’t know what to do.

Well, the only way they’re going to know what to do and their body is going to either stay asleep or help them just nod back on off to sleep is by knowing how to get to sleep in the first place. When they haven’t practiced during that when you put them down for the nap, they can’t do it when the sleep is broken.

When you put your little one down for that nap, if they’re going out like a light, if they fall asleep very easily or very quickly, there’s a good chance that you’ve already done it for them. Maybe they fed to sleep, you rocked them to steep, you held them to sleep, jigged them to sleep, lulled them off in some way, or maybe the timing was just at a point where they were so tired that they crashed and burned and they hit the deck with no real conscious awareness of it.

That’s when the falling asleep is done for them. If that bit’s done for them, then when they do have this break in a sleep cycle and they’re like, “Oh, I’m awake. What do I do?” they cry because they’re basically saying, “I don’t want to be awake yet. How do I get back to sleep? Come in and fix me.” We don’t know that, it’s not common parenting knowledge. Let’s face it.

We want to practice this art of falling to sleep for nap time, but this is the big thing that people don’t tell you. It’s one thing going, “Yeah, I know that, I know. My little one needs to put themselves to sleep at the beginning of a nap in order to do longer naps.”

Yes, brilliant, great information. But if they’re not practicing that exact thing, that sleep onset skill, if they’re not learning and developing this and getting better and better at it at bedtime,

Parents know how scary nightmares can be for their little ones and they know that it usually leads to disturbed nights consoling an upset child or ending up bringing them into your bed and maybe your night’s sleep ends there. 

But what if I was to tell you that there was something much worse than nightmares… that very few parents know about? And what if your child is having these but you’re mistaking them for nightmares? 

Well, it would result in undetected exhaustion, poor quality sleep and can be quite dangerous. Now, the scariest part isn’t that this little known terror exists, it’s that it’s so hidden that children don’t even know it’s happening to them! 

That means that most little ones, and this may include yours, can have years of disrupted sleep causing poor mood, increased illness, lower concentration and slower learning.

So what is this hidden monster that’s causing havoc on your child? It’s… night terrors! But don’t worry because in this video we’re going to talk about the difference between nightmares and night terrors. 

And more importantly we’re going to uncover the secrets that science has just started to reveal, that will enable your little one to overcome nightmares and night terrors so that your child can enjoy deep and nourishing sleep which will benefit every aspect of his or her health, development and happiness as well as yours as you enjoy undisturbed nights too!

The first thing we need to do is talk about what a nightmare is and how it differs from a night terror. So a nightmare is basically a very bad dream where your little ones wake up, feel scared, upset and seek reassurance. 

Night terrors on the other hand are a confused state between awake and asleep where your child may appear distressed, thrash about, shout out and if you try to comfort them before the episode passes, they look almost as though they’re looking right through you.

So they do have some similarities but the key difference here is that….

You wake from a nightmare and it can be recalled in the morning whereas a night terror won’t be remembered and if your child wakes from an episode, they will feel confused but have no idea why or what just happened.

And even more importantly, how you handle each of them is completely different! You see, with nightmares you want to respond by changing your child’s sleep environment or giving them something they wouldn’t usually have in the night because that will lead to a reliance on that thing to get back to sleep, it may become something they hold out for, expect or even try for with new unwanted behaviours. 

The reality is, that you should handle it by offering your loving comfort and reassurance by their bedside because this will allow them to calm and settle back to sleep in their own space and not reinforce any fears of being alone or being in their crib or bed which, in turn will lead to a better sleep for them and a better sleep for you when you return to your bed.

However with night terrors, you need to hold back, monitor the episode and not intervene… because if you fail to do this, you could add to the confusion and become a part of it. You might scare your child as a figure in their confused state or you might wake them from the state and cause further upset.

So I hope by now, you understand not only how to tell the difference between a night terror and a nightmare… but also how to handle each of them optimally so that your child gets the highest quality sleep every single night! 

But I want to hear from you… does your child get nightmares or night terrors? Let me know in the comments below!

And also! If you find that your child has difficulty falling asleep, needs you to get them to sleep, wakes a lot in the night, won’t nap or starts the day crazy early every morning, then you should

Hey, Lucy here, how are you? I mean really, how are YOU? You probably spend a huge amount of your time and energy trying to do best by the little ones in your life and sometimes this can take us over, right?

I mean, after getting breakfast, clearing the kitchen, getting little ones ready for nursery or school, organising their activities, and then being on form to work or entertain kiddos all day, it almost feels like you’re treading water just keep your neck above the surface! 

You don’t get down the to do list far enough to check off those things YOU really want to do or need to do for you. The things that make you who you are as an individual. And then you feel guilty for wanting anything for you but depressed because you’re lacking fulfilment, urgh.

And when you’re in this state, not only does it impact your quality of life but it also starts seeping into your ability to remember everything, you feel emotional because you’re too tired to think logically, your responses to your little one’s actions are sharp and not thought through and everyone’s just miserable around the house. 

After all, mums are the centrepiece of the family, without us, there would only be chaos! 

That’s why the best thing you can do for your little one and your family is to make sure that you get proper sleep. I mean, could you imagine how much more energised you’d feel to wake up refreshed and check off all the things on your to do list in record time and to an excellent standard? 

How much more time would that buy you to enjoy playing with your little ones or delving into a project you’re excited about, or taking time to exercise because you’ve finally got the strength? And what about your little one starting the day cheerful and with a well rested brain ready to soak up all the learning like a sponge? 

How would it feel to get to the end of the day, tuck your little one into bed and then reflect on how satisfying life is because you’re accomplishing all of your goals as a parent and as a person?  

It almost sounds like a fantasy, huh? Well, I’m here to tell you that this fantasy could be yours! 

But, I know you might be thinking… “I can’t get sleep because I can’t control the routine at daycare or “we get home late from work so we can’t get little one to bed earlier” or “I can’t do any sleep training because I can’t handle my child crying” or “I wish I could do something about this but I just can’t afford the expert help I need”…

But the reality is, that you can overcome these. All of these. In fact, let me tell you a story about one of my past clients…

Daniel contacted me because his daughter, Sophie was basically ruling the roost! She would battle bedtime with such determination that she would entirely strip off herself and her bedding to avoid going to sleep. Bedtime would end up so late and Sophie was so tired that it was affecting her behaviour during the daytime too. 

Daniel and his wife were barely talking and when they did it was just debating and disagreeing over what they should do to sort Sophie’s sleep out. Their older daughter was suffering at school because her sleep was disturbed too and the family was at breakpoint. Daniel was worried that divorce was the next thing if they didn’t get things resolved. 

We had a chat and Daniel said he couldn’t afford my services even though he agreed that it was by far the most important thing for his family. After two more nights of misery, upset and more exhaustion, Daniel emailed me and asked me to sign him up there and then and that he’d realised divorce was going to be more expensive than my solution and that the investment in his family’s health and happiness was worth more than money could buy. 

We devised a plan that was tailored to this clever, strong willed little girl’s determined personality and Daniel and his wife were able to implement the plan without any distres...

Most parents think that they should listen to their instincts when it comes to parenting but that is the WORST thing you could do! I mean, if parenting was all based on instincts, then why are billions of dollars spent on books, therapies, sleep aids and classes? 

It’s because science is showing us there is a better way to raise our little ones so that they thrive in their development and we set them up for a brighter future with long term health benefits.

In fact, one specific mistake that proactive parents make when using their instincts is that they try tiring their child out in order to get them to sleep better at night! And I get it… it seems logical but it’s actually the WORST thing you can do for your child.

You see, when your little one is overtired they release more cortisol, the hormone associated with stress and it’s like adrenaline. They become wired and they find it harder to settle to sleep. 

It can cause bedtime battles, being awake multiple times in the night and waking super early for the day… which means you and your little one are both going to be more exhausted on a consistent basis!

So in this video, we’re going to dive deep into where you should NOT listen to your instincts when it comes to getting your little ones, high quality, rejuvenating sleep! 

So another mistake mums tend to make when trusting their instincts is when they instinctively cradle their new baby and rock them in their arms because it’s soothing for them and helps them to calmly lull off to sleep. That’s fine in the early weeks but it’s not sustainable long term. Soon enough it will stop working and you’ll need a new way to get your little one to sleep.

And that’s the thing with sleep. The best solutions are often counter-intuitive. So I want you to stop beating yourself for trying everything and still feeling at a loss as to how to get your little one to sleep because it’s not instinctive!

Sleep is a deeply complex and scientific topic. If it were easy, we would all know the answers by now but there are a huge number of nuances that make the solution unique for every person and circumstance.

In fact, after working with thousands of mums like you, we’ve come to learn the ins and outs of this fascinating subject and we put all of this in depth research into the Dream Maker sleep program which enables them to carefully craft the ideal approach and pathway to overcoming their little one’s sleep difficulties for the long term! 

You see, most sleep solutions are short lived. Little ones grow and change and a new challenge arises. With Dream Maker’s lifetime access and support, we’ve got you covered.

In fact, let me tell you about one of our clients…

Laura came to me for help because her son, Alfie, was waking at 5 a.m every morning. She was finding it impossible to get through her working day and was beginning to get sleepy behind the wheel when driving so she knew this couldn’t carry on. 

Laura felt like she’d tried everything. She limited his nap time, tried putting him to bed later in hope that he would wake later in the morning, she felt at a loss and at her wits end for what to do. 

What Laura was trying was instinctive, she was doing what came naturally to her as a mother and yet she had no idea it was making the problem much much worse! Once I showed Laura how Alfie was so over tired and that he actually needed more sleep in the day and earlier nights, we soon replenished his rest and he began to sleep through until 6.30a.m every day! 

Laura could start her days refreshed and ready to do a great job at work and be a great mum to Alfie who was far happier at nursery, eating better and managing to settle calmly at bedtime.

Now, if you want to feel like Laura then I invite you to check out my Baby Sleep Guide  so that your child has the best start in life with the d...

I’ve got to ask you this…do you know the difference between your child’s wants and their needs?

Because most parents don’t and it’s for this reason that they feed into their children’s WANTS which results in…doing things for a quiet life, giving in to tantrums and generally ignoring the real problem while actually making it worse in the process.

And you might find yourself doing this too and I get it… you just want what’s best for your child, like most loving parents and I respect that. But once you can distinguish a want from their need, your little one is going to feel so much more safe and secure, that they can count on you to not only to meet their needs but also to trust your response to their wants. 

You’ll have a calmer, happier child who will quickly respond to your direction and you’ll feel comforted that they’re getting all the best things that they need to thrive.

So, in this video, you’re going to discover how to respond to wants vs how to respond to needs each so that you confidently meet your little one’s needs without feeling like they can simply get whatever they want even when you know that thing is bad for them…

So, one of the mistakes I see most conscientious parents make is that when they’re little ones wake up in the middle of the night, they assume it’s because of hunger and give them milk. 

Now, don’t get me wrong, i’m not saying that sometimes the baby isn’t hungry but where the fatal mistake comes into play is that the mum gives the baby milk EVERY time they wake up in the middle of the night. 

Because the reality is, that not every time the little one wakes up, it’s because of hunger and if your go to solution is to give them milk, well, eventually they’re going to form a habit of WANTING the milk and they’re going to start waking up consistently in the middle of the night expecting and wanting milk… not needing milk.

That means, you, the loving mum, are going to be losing sleep every night for your baby’s wants… and this means that you’re going to find it much harder the next day to be in a bright and productive mood and to give your child your best attention while juggling the home and work and meals and diaries!

But, could you imagine if you attended only your little ones’ needs in the middle of the night? That would mean you could sleep through 3, 4 or 5 of the nights in a week instead of waking up every single night! What kind of impact would that have on how you feel when you wake up? 

What could you get done that you’re currently too tired to even think about? How much better company would you be? And how much more joy would you get from a cheerful, well-rested little one by your side?

In fact, let me tell you about one of our clients, Jenny…Her toddler, Daisy wouldn’t go to sleep without holding her mum’s hand, so every bedtime and any time she woke in the night, she needed mum to come back to her with the hand. 

Jenny was exhausted, she felt broken during the day and Daisy was often getting colds and having tantrums all because she wasn’t getting quality sleep. 

You see, Daisy WANTED mum’s hand but what she NEEDED was to go to sleep and by giving her what she WANTED over and over again was making it worse and stopping Daisy from getting the sleep she needed. 

It was hard at first for Jenny to change things, she felt mean but she soon saw the huge benefit as Daisy got better at going to sleep happily, knowing her mum was close by and Daisy started sleeping through the night because she didn’t need help to get back to sleep if she stirred. 

Within a matter of days Jenny felt like a new woman with renewed energy to enjoy Daisy who was like a different child, so refreshed and cheerful.

That’s the power that comes from being able to distinguish the difference between your baby’s wants and needs. So now,

https://youtu.be/QQ7d4y8EAXQ

Is your baby waking for the day before 6a.m? 

Are you fed up with being up before the sun rises? 

It makes for a tired feeling all day and doesn’t start you off in the best of moods. Stick around because I’m going to tell you exactly what you need to do to get your baby waking at 6a.m or later EVERY morning!

A baby wakes early usually because they’re overtired. Seems crazy because you’d think if they’re tired they’d sleep longer, but no, being overtired often leads to waking too early and not being able to get back to sleep. 

So the first thing you need to do is look at the general schedule and spot why your little one is overtired. 

Is it lack of daytime sleep? 

Is it that the daytime sleep isn’t timed right for your little one so they end up having times when they’re awake for too long in one go? 

Is it that bedtime is too late or takes too long for them to fall asleep for the night? 

OR is it a vicious cycle of the early waking leading to the day being too long even if they do take the ideal naps at the ideal times? 

Once you spot it, you’ve got it – Then you need to set about replenishing the sleep tank. 

You need to help your little one to get the sleep they need in every 24 hour cycle, so that might mean working on nap length or it could mean altering the nap timing. 

It may mean some early nights are called for or some added little top up sleeps early or late in the day. This isn’t your new routine but a temporary fix to overcome this overtired state. 

Once your little one is becoming better rested generally, then you’ll find you can stop with the top ups and settle onto a more typical schedule or rhythm for their age.

While you’re working on these things, your little one is still going to wake up early so you need to respond to that early waking in a way that lets them know that it’s not time to start the day yet even though there is little chance they will go back off to sleep, they might, but it’s unlikely but we don’t want to ingrain this wake up time into their body clock, so we need to maintain all the night time and sleep time atmosphere until at least 6a.m.

Something that can be really helpful from around 20 months is a sleep wake clock or you could even use a light timer to trigger when it’s morning time. 

You then teach your little one that when the clock shows it’s sleep time or the light is off, you must lay down and close your eyes until the clock says wake up time or until the light turns on, then you can open your eyes and wake up! 

It’s great to role play this with them in a fun and enthusiastic way so they can practice showing you that they understand this. This clock or light timer is not going to solve the early waking but it can aid the process really effectively. 

One word of warning though, only use this if you are committed to 100% abide by what the clock says. If you let your little one get up even once when the clock or light is saying it’s still sleep time, they’ll never take it seriously again! It can take a lot of repetition, reminding them every bedtime and every morning about it until you’re bored of your own words – but it definitely helps and gives little ones a focal point or a trigger to help remind them what to do. 

Of course, babies are too young for a sleep wake clock but you could still use the light trigger just as a change to their environment to signal night and day – Try to time it a minute or two after they typically wake up so that they see the difference and what it means…they get up when the light is on.

Early waking can be brought on by overtiredness that might come from a change in development, naps shifting, sleep needs shifting. It can also crop up after a clock change or being out of the usual routine temporarily. Whatever caused it, the solution tends to be in finding where the overall sleep need...

https://youtu.be/kvTIiHdzxeI

 

What does a sleep consultant do? 

Maybe you’re curious about getting help from a sleep consultant to resolve your little one’s sleep problems, or maybe you’re interested in becoming a sleep consultant yourself! In this episode, I’m going to share with you, exactly what a sleep consultant DOES….

The first thing a sleep consultant does is take a detailed account of the situation including the history, the environment, the specific challenges and really importantly, the little one’s character. 

All of this will allow the consultant to get their investigative head on and to determine the most appropriate plan of action for the family because every family, child and situation is unique.

A sleep consultant will usually then hold a consultation with the parents to ask any additional questions and talk through the plan making sure the parents know exactly what they need to do.

Depending on the level of service being offered by the consultant, their job after this typically involves some sort of follow-up support which can be provided in a number of ways, be that telephone or Zoom calls, emails or a support group, the idea is that the client is coached to their end goals with their little one’s sleep.

A sleep consultant holds the client accountable. Without this expert to report back to, a client might slip backwards or not follow through on their plans but, like most things, when there is someone to answer to, you stay on track. 

Babies and children are not robots and it’s likely they won’t fall exactly into our ideal plan, so a sleep consultant will guide you through the twists and turns and the curve balls that a little one throws at you. 

Even the best laid plan may need to evolve as a family works through it with their child. Sometimes, the best approach at the start of the sleep training is not the best approach a little further along the line. 

A sleep consultant will spot this kind of thing and steer you accordingly if your child shows signs of needing a different approach to move forward with progress.

There are some things that a sleep consultant is not supposed to do. For example, a sleep consultant does not treat the baby or child directly. The role is providing advice and guidance and coaching the parents, the parents are the ones to then implement the plan with their child. 

A sleep consultant is not a medical advisor, they’re providing behavioural based information to resolve behavioural based sleep disorders. 

The sleep consultant doesn’t solve the problem, they provide the insights and expertise to enable the parents to solve the problem. This is far more beneficial too because the parents can then stay on a healthy sleep path with their child for the long term.

Hiring a sleep consultant is a smart move for any family who aren’t getting the sleep they need for a healthy life. The expertise you’re hiring is worth it for your family’s sanity, well-being and happiness and your child’s long term health and success. All of which will suffer if you waste time hoping to ride it out or figure it out – it’s a complex subject. 

It‘ll also provide a level of commitment that gets parents to achieve their goals, much like hiring a personal trainer commits you to your fitness goals. When you pay, you pay attention! 

Most people who work with a sleep consultant will tell you that it was the best money ever spent, that it gave them their lives back and gave their little one the best start in life. It’s a team effort to get those results, the sleep consultant and the parents working together. 

But those transformations, when you see a mum suffering with depression and you know you contributed to bringing out of that, when see families on the brink of breaking down, close to divorce and your intervention brings them back together and when you see a miserable,

How much sleep should my baby have, how many naps and what times of day? I get these questions a lot so I’m going to lay it all out for you and give you the sleep schedule you’ve been searching for!

Whether you love the predictability of a routine or you prefer to be more flexible, you can have the best of both worlds when you give your little one the rhythmicity they need for good sleep.

You see, the body is ready for sleep time and awake time at different intervals and this changes as your baby grows. Knowing how you can accommodate this for your growing baby is going to help you to keep them in a sleep schedule that maximises their ability to take the length of sleep they need and get the quality of sleep they need too.

Newborns sleep a lot and it can be quite disorganised and little and often. You may begin to see a pattern form with feeding every 3-4 hours through day and this is a great opportunity to steer them into a rhythm of waking up, feeding, playing and then settling to sleep again. 

By practicing feeding upon waking it will help you avoid feeding right before sleeps and creating an association of using milk to fall asleep. 

So between 5-8 months your little one will need 3 naps per day and ideally equating to around 4 hours total and they will do best to be awake for no longer than 2-2.5 hours between sleeps – this increases slightly from 5-8 months.

Between 8-10 months they’ll drop the third nap and settle onto two naps per day totalling 3 hours and ideally no more than 3 hours awake between sleeps. 

This will continue until they’re ready to drop to one nap which typically happens somewhere between 13-17 months and is usually a slower transition – definitely check out my videos on how to navigate this transition as it can trip us up if we’re not prepared

Once they’re down to one nap per day they’re good to be awake for about 5-6 hours in one stretch making the middle of the day the ideal time for that one long nap. The nap will start out at 2.5-3 hours long on some days gradually settling on 2.5 hours and then staying at 2 hours for a while. It will only reduce down from two hours as they get closer to age 3 years.

Throughout this time, the night sleep is ideal at 11-12 hours. If your little one sleeps longer, they may be catching up but any less than 11 hours and you may have an overtired little one on your hands!

So, you need to take this information and put it into a schedule… 

Take the time they wake for the day and the ideal awake time to help you spot where the first nap needs to sit. 

Keeping one eye on your little one’s cues and the other eye on the time, you should be able to find that sweet spot for getting them down for the nap – Then, see how well the nap goes. If you get the full ideal nap, go for the whole awake time again before the next sleep. 

If the nap was short, reduce the awake time and bring the next sleep a little earlier. Once you get into a good rhythm with timings that work, you’ll find your little one sleeps better and it’s all a lot more predictable which brings you a sense of routine but also flexibility because you know when to do what with your day. 

Sticking to a consistent bedtime is preferable but not at the cost of keeping a tired child up when they need to get to sleep. When a little one is not napping well or is overtired for any reason, it can help to have some early nights to help replenish them.

So there you have it, a baby sleep schedule for you – they’re not robots and don’t always stick to the ideal plan we have for them but with this knowledge, you’ll be able to help your little one to get the sleep they need and steer them into an ideal rhythm for their age and developmental stage.

Do you have difficulty with your little one’s sleep schedule? Tell us what’s troubling you in the comments below and I’ll bet you’re not alone!

 

 

Little one not sleeping through the night yet? Feel like they ought to be? Well I’ve got the answers for you! 

Let’s  go through the key steps to helping your baby sleep through the night…

Some babies are able to make it through the whole night as early as just 3 months of age while others will take a bit longer and it largely comes down to whether or not they need assistance in getting to sleep and back to sleep.

With younger babies, we tend to take every waking as a sign that they must be hungry and feeding the baby will often send them back to sleep so this can become a bit of a habit.

Now, you’re right to feed your baby when they’re hungry and that will be more frequent in the early weeks until they develop a bit more sustainability and can go longer stretches between feeds. 

If you know your baby is healthy, growing steadily and you’re able to spot if and when they may need milk in the night, then let’s take care of that hunger and keep it separate from our approach to helping them sleep.

Learning to settle to sleep is a process. Babies need a LOT of help from you to begin with because it is all new to them. In the womb, they were lulled off to sleep by sounds and movement and they’ve never done the whole ‘falling asleep’ thing without assistance. So your job is to help them get practice so they can get better at it.

Having a bedtime routine is the first step. It will set up cues and triggers for your baby at this unique time of day and prepare them for the longer stretch of sleep ahead. Going through these same steps every evening in the same way will help to create a rhythm for your little one for recognising daytime and night time and making the transition.

At the end of the routine, place your baby down in their own safe sleep space so they can begin to experience what it is like there and grow to be comfortable with it. Your help will still be needed and your reassurance but you’ll be giving your baby a chance to practice going through the motions of falling asleep, starting with the sleep environment. 

They’ll then practice feeling the sensation in their bodies of falling asleep and it all will become a lot easier for them. The better they get at this, the less help they need from you to get to sleep and once your little one can get to sleep independently, they’ll then be able to repeat that skill when they wake in the night, resettling into the next sleep cycle without you knowing about it!

Now, the thing to watch out for is thinking that your little one is settling to sleep by themselves already just because you pop them down awake and they nod off without your help – This will lure you into a false sense of security and have you scratching your head when you get hourly wake ups from midnight onward!

If your little one is dropping off to sleep super easily and quickly, like in less than 5 minutes, then they’re actually being aided by exhaustion. They’re so tired that it’s effortless for them to fall asleep. 

Sounds bliss right? You put the baby down and they fall to sleep with ease? Mmm but this bedtime win or at least what feels like a win, will be hindering any progress to sleeping through the night.

How your baby settles to sleep will dictate how your baby settles back to sleep when they wake in the night. And I say WHEN because we all wake in the night to varying degrees. 

If your baby zonked out to sleep with extreme tiredness at bedtime or was rocked or fed to sleep, he or she will inevitably seek something like this to come and do the job for him or her again when they wake in the night. 

We call it a sleep onset association and it’s important to make sure your little one has helpful sleep onset associations and not ones that sabotage any opportunity for them to develop this vital skill.

So, when you can work on this with your little one?