pod ep 29
===
[00:00:00] Welcome to this sleep by Alex podcast. I am a certified pediatric sleep consultant and a mom of three, and I will be bringing you quick science backed sleep advice to get you and your baby or a toddler sleeping well
Hi there, everyone. Welcome back after a holiday week for those who celebrate Thanksgiving. I hope you had a lovely restful time with friends or family. I know that I enjoyed slowing down for the week, which was really, really nice.
This week on the podcast is going to be a little bit different. This is week seven with Hank, but I don't have too, too much to update you on the Hank sleep situation. It's pretty similar to what it was last week.
He has started going to bed a little bit earlier this week between like seven 30 and eight o'clock, Andy's back to that nice five hour stretch for that first stretch of sleep.
And then I'll feed him, get him back down. He'll do a few more hours, feed him, get him back down, couple more hours. So he's still on that sort of five hour stretch, two [00:01:00] feed night schedule. As far as daytime goes, I've increased a little bit for the crib and bassinet naps. He's usually taking two or three crib or bassinet naps a day.
They're usually 30 to 45 minutes long, and then I will extend them by putting him in the wrap when he wakes up from those naps. For the most part, he'll fall back asleep, sleep for a little bit longer in the wrap. Sometimes he doesn't fall back asleep, you know, 15, 20 minutes later he's still staring at me awake in the wrap, so I'll just get him out.
No big deal. We'll try again the next nap. So pretty similar to what was happening last week, now that we're sort of pass that latch pacifier scenario. So this week, what I'll do instead is do some quick fire listener questions that you all sent to me on Instagram.
There were a ton of great questions put in the question box this week. I do one every single week on my Instagram at Sleep by Alex. So if you aren't following me already, go ahead and give me a follow there. I usually answer your questions [00:02:00] on Instagram, but this week I decided to dive a little deeper into each one and give you some answers on the podcast instead, change it up a little bit.
Again, these are going to be kind of quickfire answers. I could do a whole podcast episode on each of these questions. I could sit on the phone with you for 30 to 60 minutes to discuss each of these questions, so just take everything with a grain of salt. Note that this is sort of a. My quickfire answers to these scenarios, and if you would like some extra support where we really dive deep together to get your question answered and figure out your baby's sleep, you can always reach out to me in the Sleep by Alex membership.
I would love to have you and figure this out with you.
The first question is, at what age should you get rid of the pacifier? This is a really great question. I personally love using pacifiers with my children for sleep and to help soothe them.
Now, there's no absolutely perfect time to get rid of the pacifier. There's [00:03:00] always going to be a bit of a learning curve. There's going to be some disruption in sleep when you drop the pacifier, if your baby relies on it to sleep. But the best times to get rid of the pacifier are either during sleep training between four and six months old.
So if you're sleep training or a baby between four and six months old, you may choose just to sleep, train them without the pacifier, not use it at all. Teach them to fall asleep using other methods of soothing. Maybe they'll start sucking on their hands. Maybe they'll start rubbing their head back and forth on the mattress.
Maybe they'll start pulling at their hair or rubbing their ears. These are different ways that they'll learn to put themselves to sleep without the pacifier. So during that sort of sleep training chunk between four and six months, relatively easy to drop the pacifier. You're already teaching them a new skill anyways, so might as well get rid of it altogether and you don't have to deal with it.
If you would like to keep the pacifier around for a while, which I personally choose, two, at least I have for, you know, three of my kids already. Then the [00:04:00] next best time to get rid of it is between two and three years old.
Now, most will recommend that by a year old. It's strictly used for sleep. They should not have it in their mouth as much during the day if they don't need it. It should really stay in the crib and be used for sleep definitely by a year old, if not sooner.
Then dropping it all together for their oral development and their teeth should definitely be by three years old. Some will tell you earlier, I just go by three years old. Once again, I'm not a pediatric dentist or anything like that, so do your own research. But from what I've researched and what I've experienced with my kids, their teeth have been okay as long as we've dropped it by three years old.
Again, either four to six months or if you'd like to keep it around for a while, usually between two and three years old. After the age of two, it's going to be easier for you to explain to your child what is going on, involve them in the process, make it an exciting thing. We had the pacifier fairy come and take away the pacifier and leave a new toy, so.
That can be really tricky to sort of [00:05:00] navigate with less sleep disruptions between that age of six months and two years. Can you drop it in that window? Of course, you just might experience a little bit of extra sleep hiccups, and that's okay if you are up for that.
The next question, at what age do we stop swaddling and move to a sleep sack? The startle reflex is so strong still with my three month old.
Ugh, dropping the swaddle, I really despise, and it always tends to happen with my babies between three and four months old, which is typically when their sleep cycles are shifting and they start going through the big sleep regression, and it's just all of this combined at one time is no fun. This is so hard.
If you're in that three to four month sort of range, hang in there. This is hard for most people. I can guarantee it. You need to stop swaddling your baby when they start to show signs of rolling, so they don't even need to be fully able to roll over yet. When you lay them on the ground, they just have to show that they're going to start rolling soon.
. They may be lifting their legs up and falling [00:06:00] to the side. They're getting really close to rolling all the way over, and this is rolling over either way, belly to back or back to belly. If they have the strength to roll over or it seems like they're getting ready to start to roll over, then it's important that you stop swaddling them because what we don't want is to put them down for bed.
They roll over in the swaddle while we're asleep and we don't know what's going on, and then they're stuck and they can't use their arms to push up off the mattress. So if they start to get the strength to seem like they're gonna start rolling soon, either back to belly or belly to back, that's when you need to stop swaddling and like this person asked, a sleep sack is a great next step for that.
A sleep sack where their arms are completely free and it's just like a wearable blanket with their arms out. That way if they do roll over in their bed, they're able to push up with their arms and their face won't be stuck sort of in the mattress.
Next question. Baby falls asleep independently, but is waking up at night and wants [00:07:00] to latch. How do I stop that? So this is a really great question. I get this all of the time, and this happened to me with my daughter as well. Before I was a sleep consultant, before I know what the heck I was doing, she could fall asleep totally independently at bedtime.
We didn't have to sleep train. I just laid her in bed awake, and she would go to sleep yet. Nine months later, she's still waking every two to three hours and she wants to nurse. She just wants to nurse for a few minutes, and then she'd go back to sleep. I'd put her in her bed and it was totally fine and I didn't really know what to do because I'm like, I don't need to sleep train at bedtime.
Like she already falls asleep on her own, so I'm not understanding. What I'm doing wrong here, she knows how to fall asleep on her own. So why are we still wanting to latch and nurse every two to three hours? Well, the skill of falling asleep at bedtime and naptime and the skill of cycling through sleep cycles independently are two different skills.
Your baby can know how to fall asleep at bedtime. But then have the habit of when I wake up in between a sleep cycle transition in the middle of the night, there's something I [00:08:00] require to help me get back to sleep. Your baby likes to latch and nurse to fall back asleep. In between sleep cycle transitions, many babies are going to stir awake every couple hours in the middle of the night, maybe every two to three hours.
And sometimes you get lucky and it's not a full wake up and they sort of, you know. Stir a little bit and go back to sleep, especially if they're sleep trained. Sometimes we don't get lucky and they have a full wake up and then they're gonna want what? They want to fall back asleep in the middle of the night, what they usually get.
So it sounds like your baby usually gets nursing back to sleep. When they wake up in the middle of the night. So what you're gonna wanna do is move your sleep training method to the middle of the night. However you taught your baby to fall asleep at bedtime, you're now gonna do the same exact thing when they wake up in the middle of the night.
Instead of going straight to nursing or rocking or padding back to sleep, we're gonna implement whatever sleep training method you chose to those middle of the night wake up to teach them this brand new skill of. Okay. When I wake [00:09:00] up in the middle of the night and I'm in my bed and it's nighttime, how do I get myself back to sleep without needing to be nursed?
So this is just a whole nother skill. It's a whole nother phase of sleep training. It's why my sleep training course has four different phases, and this is phase four. It's completely different than phase two, which is where we teach them to fall asleep on their own. Phase four is where we teach them to fall back asleep on their own in the middle of the night.
If your baby's not doing that already.
I will say first, make sure your baby is eating enough during the day. They're getting plenty of calories during the day. Make sure if they're feeding multiple times a night, that you sort of slowly wean them off of their night feeds so we don't shock their little system.
You can just work on one feed at a time while keeping the rest and slowly move throughout the night over the next couple of weeks until you either have them sleeping through the night or you have them down to an amount of feeds that feels age appropriate and manageable for you.
This kind of leads into the next question. This one says, pick up and bounce or nurse back to sleep. Concerned she won't break this habit. Then this really depends [00:10:00] on the age of your baby, if your baby is a newborn, and when I say newborn, I mean any baby that's younger than four months old is how I sort of address.
Sleep. I treat it as newborn sleep before the age of four months old. So if your baby is a newborn, you are not starting any bad habits By bouncing, rocking nursing back to sleep in the middle of the night, this is what newborns require. They are not going to sleep through the night for the most part, and we can't quite teach them to fall back asleep on their own yet
like the last person that asked a question, I happen to know, the last person that asked a question has a baby who is older than four months old. So we could expect that we could teach this baby to fall back asleep in the middle of the night. Um, as far as this person's question, I don't know if you have a newborn that's younger than four months old, you are not gonna start any bad habits that we can't, you know, sort of move away from later.
Your baby needs help to fall back asleep in the middle of the night. That is okay that they require to be bounced or nursed back to sleep in the middle of [00:11:00] the night.
Does this mean at some point you might have to change up your habits when age appropriate? Absolutely. If you're bouncing a rocking or nursing back to sleep in the middle of the night with your newborn, or they just gonna magically start sleeping through the night when they're five months old. Hmm, probably not.
Some people have the magical babies that do that, but most don't. And you're gonna sit around and wonder, like, I thought I didn't make a habit. Like, when is this gonna go away? We still have to challenge our babies in age appropriate ways as they get older. It's the same thing as if we never take the training wheels off your kid's bike.
They'll never learn how to ride without training wheels. But it doesn't mean we're gonna throw them on a bike without training wheels when they're a year old. Right? So when they're a newborn, we're gonna give them. All the support that is age appropriate. That doesn't mean that when they're five months old, we have to keep nursing them back to sleep all night.
It means now it is more appropriate that we would expect a little bit more out of them and we can push them towards learning to do this on their own.
The [00:12:00] next question is, is it possible to adjust our 12 month olds sleep schedule for vacation? We'll be two hours behind our home time? Yes, absolutely. Depending on how long you're on the trip. If you're just on the trip for a few days, I suggest keeping your baby's schedule the same, depending on the nature of your trip.
So if it works that they kind of just stay on their same schedule, but it's two hours behind and that's fine with the nature of your trip, like what you'll be doing. When you need them to be sleeping and all of that, then great. If it's just a couple days, we don't need to try and adjust them. If we're gonna be somewhere for 5, 7, 10, 14 days, it's probably beneficial that you start to move their schedule towards the time zone that you're on, especially if it's gonna be helpful for you when it comes to the nature of your trip.
Um, so if you're going somewhere that's two hours behind your home time, the day that you travel there just means that instead of going to bed, they're probably just gonna have an extra nap and then get up and then have a little more [00:13:00] awake time and then go to bed. And that'll sort of adjust that first day.
In the morning, they're probably gonna wanna wake up really early. You're gonna do your best to keep the room as dark as possible, do everything you need to do to keep them asleep until your desired wake time, and it doesn't even need to be. Fully asleep. It just needs to be sleepy time. We are not starting the day and turning on the lights and opening the blinds until it's a decent hour, right?
And this may mean that they get an extra feed that night, they're rocked back to sleep that night. We kind of pull out all the stops to help get them on this new schedule. And then at the desired wake time, we'll open the blinds, get outside, get some morning sunlight on their eyes, and start their day.
You'll just kind of keep doing that for the first few days until their body adjusts. It's not gonna be perfect. Vacation sleep is never perfect. There's going to be ups and downs. Just going to vacation, expecting sleep to get a little wonky. It's okay. You can absolutely get back on track when you get home, especially if your baby is already sleep trained.
Okay. Last question for the day, but a big [00:14:00] question. I have a six month old and an almost 3-year-old, and between the two of them, I'm up multiple times a night. How can I get them both sleeping through the night? First of all, I am so sorry you were dealing with that. No parent can function during the day when that is what their night looks like.
I can guarantee that you all will be better parents if you get your children sleeping.
So the way I would tackle sleep with a six month old and the way I would tackle sleep with a 3-year-old are far different from each other.
In this situation, I would focus on the six month old first because this is going to be far easier and quicker than changing a three-year-old's habits. So start with the six month old and there are so many options with your six month old. Between the age of four and six months is the easiest time to sleep train.
You are at a sweet spot. Not to say you can't sleep train after this age, but this is when they're going to catch on quickly. They're not super set in their ways. They don't have any of these new skills, [00:15:00] most likely where they're pulling up on the crib.
They're saying, mama. Things that add time to the sleep training process
, by six months old, we can expect to get your baby falling asleep independently and either sleeping through the night or waking up for one night feed. If you'd like to keep one night feed that's kind of up to you and your baby, depending how you wanna tackle it, but for the most part, six month olds can either sleep through the night or wake for one night feed if you'd like to keep that.
How you go about that is sort of up to you. There are many ways to sleep, train. Why? I feel like my method is the best way is because it's tuned into your baby's needs. It breaks it down into four different methods that you can use, depending on you and your baby's temperament, your goals, if you'd like to be in the room or out of the room if you'd like to keep feeds or drop feeds.
I create an individualized plan with you every step of the way to make sure we are meeting your goals on your timeline.
I don't have a one size fits all approach to teach your baby to fall asleep [00:16:00] independently, but sleep training, sleep training, sleep training for your six month old is going to be the best place to start.
Within two weeks, you could get your six month old falling asleep on their own and sleeping all night, or waking for one feed. And then you're gonna have more capacity, more energy, more time to give to the 3-year-old. So that's where. You could then move on to tackling the three-year-old's habits. Now, toddler sleep is so nuanced.
I do not suggest implementing any sort of sleep training method that you read about online for babies when your child is two or three years old. It's really going to be a matter of first addressing any issues with bedtime routine. So are we stalling at bedtime? Are we needing to lay with them at bedtime?
Are they asking for a million things at bedtime? Are they fighting you to go to bed? This is where we need to set expectations of how the bedtime routine is going to go, and then we need to hold those expectations and boundaries really firmly and quickly. Your 3-year-old will [00:17:00] catch on. Once again, this is where I'd chat with you in the membership to set up a bedtime routine for your 3-year-old to make sure that we are addressing everything that they're asking for and we're connecting with your specific toddler
while giving them some power and some choice, but we're holding our boundaries about bedtime.
Getting your three-year-old to fall asleep independently at bedtime is going to be the place that we'd start
once we're there as far as middle of the night, wake up.
We'd make sure to first address whatever need your three-year-old is expressing. Are they feeling lonely? Are they feeling scared of the dark? Do they say there's a monster under their bed? Are they having a nightmare? Are they just wanting you to come in and rub their back for a minute? It really depends on what your three-year-old is asking for on how we would tackle this middle of the night wake up, but.
Okay. Basically similar to bedtime, we're going to give them new tools to fall back asleep in the middle of the night when they wake up on their own.
Now, for a toddler, it might be more like three to four weeks before we're really feeling like we're getting some consistent [00:18:00] change with them, but it is absolutely possible and we can do it together. Just use the code podcast. To get 50% off your first month in the Sleep by Alex membership for 17 bucks. I will get you going on all of this.
You can either stay longer if you'd like more support, or you can stay for one month and cancel your subscription totally up to you. But please don't hesitate to reach out for help. You do not have to be stuck in this current sleep situation. This is for all of you listening. You are not stuck. In your current sleep situation, there is always something that we can do, even if you feel like your baby is different from everybody else's baby.
My baby could never do this. My baby will never sleep through the night. My baby is super sensitive. My baby requires this. My baby requires that. I can guarantee that I've probably worked with a baby just like yours, and I truly believe that every baby and toddler can sleep. They all just need a little bit different [00:19:00] approach.
And sleep might look a little bit different for all of them, but we can get them sleeping one way or another. Alright, thanks for tuning in. I hope you liked the q and a episode. Next week I'm going to dive into the six to eight week sleep regression, which can be a doozy. So stay tuned for next week, hit subscribe, send this to a new parent in your life.
I greatly, greatly appreciate it and have a lovely week.
