On this episode, I expand on episode 17 where I speak about various methods of sleep-training.

I speak about strategies to approach sleep with these kiddos and I also speak about common questions I get asked about sleep:

• Naps
• Swaddles
• Sleep-training in the same room
• Sleep regressions
• Travel
• Teething/illness
• Early risers
• Dream feeding
• Twins

00;00;06;12 – 00;00;37;09

Dr. Mona

Hey, everyone. Welcome to the PedsDocTalk podcast. I’m your host, Doctor Mona, where each week I hope to educate and inspire you in your journey through parenthood with information on your most common concerns as a parent and interviews with fellow parents and experts in the field. My hope is you leave each week feeling more educated, confident, and empowered in the decisions you make for your child.

 

00;00;37;12 – 00;01;00;18

Dr. Mona

Hello and welcome to episode 18. This is episode three of the five episodes I dropped today for the sleep series. Okay, so if you haven’t already, I want you to listen to episode 16, which goes over cortisol research and some things about anti-crime at the rhetoric. So, episode 17 goes over various methods, including crime methods and more gradual methods.

 

00;01;00;20 – 00;01;19;06

Dr. Mona

Episode 18 is what you’re going to be listening to today, which I’ll get into in just a bit. Episode 19 is, just an interview with a sleep consultant. An episode 20 is a interview with six moms that talk about how they approach sleep in different ways for their child. So this episode is going to be focusing on older children.

 

00;01;19;06 – 00;01;38;08

Dr. Mona

And when I mean older children, these are children that may be old enough where they’re coming out of the bed. So meaning like they’re in a toddler bed. So not necessarily in a crib if your child is still in a crib, and is basically under the age of 18 months, you’re going to use methods that I mentioned earlier.

 

00;01;38;11 – 00;01;58;12

Dr. Mona

If they’re older than 18 months, depending on the child and their developmental understanding, you may need to explain to them rules. Right. The reason why you’re not really explaining rules per se to a under 18 month old is they may not understand the rules completely. I still think it’s nice to have a conversation like, mommy loves you, I’m putting you to sleep.

 

00;01;58;12 – 00;02;17;18

Dr. Mona

But depending on what you’re doing under the age of 18 months. But as they get older, they’re going to obviously understand things a little bit better. So this is really, really more geared towards most of my two year olds obviously, that can understand their left and right brain are working together. They can understand reward systems. They can understand, you know, what you’re asking them to do.

 

00;02;17;19 – 00;02;36;09

Dr. Mona

So if you feel like your child is developmentally ready for that, then I would focus on some of these methods. But I find that your sweet spot might be too. Plus for this episode. And these are children that maybe never got sleep trained. Or they are older or, older children that used to be good sleepers and they are going through some sort of regression.

 

00;02;36;11 – 00;02;54;23

Dr. Mona

So this episode is going to talk about some methods for these older children and also, common concerns that I get. So naps and regressions and traveling and just a few different hodgepodge of different things will be at the end of this episode. Okay, so I know these sleep episodes are really heavy and long, but I think they’re jam packed with a lot of useful info.

 

00;02;54;23 – 00;03;14;16

Dr. Mona

So definitely, you know, sit back and we’ll start. We’ll start to dive right in. So when you’re approaching a child’s sleep over the age of two, you want to understand that where they’re at, they want to have control. And they also have a lot of emotions. Right. So they’re trying to test their boundaries or trying to test their autonomy.

 

00;03;14;22 – 00;03;38;20

Dr. Mona

But you are their parent setting a boundary with sleep. Remember that. Right. So you have to be okay. Going back to my episode 215 things We Need to Stop Doing as parents. You need to be okay with a little bit of dissent in the ranks, meaning that they are not going to love everything you tell them. But if you approach it with a way of understanding, like, hey, let’s explain the rules, they may be amenable to it, right?

 

00;03;38;20 – 00;03;56;22

Dr. Mona

But remember that you have to come up with a plan and stick with it. At least for, you know, a few, a couple weeks for us to see some success, right? Because as they get older, if you’ve never sleep trained, you may find that there’s a little more struggle because, you know, trying to teach anyone to change their habits even after a year is difficult, right?

 

00;03;56;22 – 00;04;14;07

Dr. Mona

So they have habits ingrained in them, right? They were used to sleeping with you. They were used to getting a bottle before bed or they’re used to it. Everything that caused them not to self settle on their own. So now we have to teach them and teaching children may involve some tears, may involve some yelling, and may involve some, you know, tears on your end too.

 

00;04;14;11 – 00;04;38;01

Dr. Mona

But it’s something that can be really beneficial for them to get good sleep habits in the long run. So if it’s an older child, what I encourage is discussing the new sleep rules during the day when everyone is calm a few days prior to what you’re implementing right? So just say it’s a Monday, and on Friday night you’re going to plan to do some sleep training so you can tell yourself you know or tell your child Orion, in a few nights we have to do something really special.

 

00;04;38;01 – 00;05;04;05

Dr. Mona

You know, sleep is really important and it’s what helps us grow up big and strong. And I think it’s very important for us to all get sleep. And you say, you know, and then they’ll say, okay, I don’t want to sleep. Why don’t you want to sleep right. You need to have that sort of conversation with them, because an older child may not be okay with a Ferber method or a method like I mentioned in episode 17, where you do something a little more cold turkey or some gradual method because they are older, right?

 

00;05;04;05 – 00;05;23;18

Dr. Mona

They understand a little more than obviously a toddler or younger. So set your sleep boundaries right. What are you wanting to do? No. What do you want? No adults in the room. The kid stays in the bed, right? You have to set the rules with them, right? All caretakers need to be on board and consistency is key. So you can kind of stay with them.

 

00;05;23;25 – 00;05;37;04

Dr. Mona

So we have to sleep. So what do you want. What do you think’s going to help you. Oh I want my lovey item right I love you. Item is okay over the age of 18 months. Like a stuffed animal or something. Right. Okay. Well, you want your lovey item just today, you’re talking to a two and a half year old.

 

00;05;37;09 – 00;05;51;16

Dr. Mona

Okay, so we’ll have your lovey. And what else do you want it to look like? I don’t know. You know, they may not say you’d be like, well, what we’ll do is Mommy and Daddy will read you two books, right? We’ll give you cuddles, and then we’ll give you a kiss goodnight. And then we. And then we see you in the morning.

 

00;05;51;16 – 00;06;12;03

Dr. Mona

Right? And they may say no and you can. We’ll go into some methods of, you know how to deal with that, but set the rules few days prior. Right. And you and your partner or whoever is a caretaker has to come up with the plan and you’re basically giving the plan to the child, right? You can incorporate some things that just say they’re like, okay, I want three books, then stick with three books.

 

00;06;12;03 – 00;06;27;21

Dr. Mona

But once you make the decision on what the plan is going to look like, you have to stick to it. So just say your child said three books and then the night comes and it’s he wants five books. You can’t. You need to set that rule that okay. No, we talked about three books. Right. So you can say, you know, we we’re going to do three books.

 

00;06;27;21 – 00;06;43;15

Dr. Mona

We talked about it and we’re going to do three books. And I’m going to give you a kiss goodnight. And we do this again tomorrow night. Right. But create a realistic boundary and a realistic rules for you. Right. If they’re older, answer their questions. Let them have a say in some portion of the routine. But like I said, you ultimately decide, right?

 

00;06;43;15 – 00;07;00;26

Dr. Mona

So if it means 15 minute cuddle time, 15 minute cuddle time and that’s it, right? You can decide. It can be 20 minutes, 30 minutes if you love it, but you need to come up with it because what inevitably what happens with these older children, they are going to say, okay, mommy, how about 20 more minutes or five more minutes or one more book, if that’s what you want?

 

00;07;00;26 – 00;07;18;17

Dr. Mona

I’m happy. But if you don’t create a rule, then they may have a harder time learning the new rules of the home, right? So the last step of the routine should be a kiss and out the door. Right? So you give them a kiss, you can tuck them in and they’re out the door. So stay consistent. Make their bed super comfortable.

 

00;07;18;17 – 00;07;33;17

Dr. Mona

Add a teddy bear. You know, make it something fun for them, right? You don’t want it to be this sort of scary, cold place. So have them be a part of it, right? Maybe the week before you go shopping for New bedding, or you go shopping for a new stuffed animal or a new lovey item. Right? So let them enjoy that.

 

00;07;33;22 – 00;07;56;28

Dr. Mona

Whatever they like in that routine is fine, as long as you are making the ultimate decision. Right? So that is what I know is parenting 101, that our children are 100% allowed choices, but as a parent, we have to have the final say when it comes to boundary setting. This is a lot of authoritative parenting, right? You’re understanding that they have emotions and needs, but that we have to make the boundaries because we’re the parent, right?

 

00;07;56;28 – 00;08;18;13

Dr. Mona

They are not the boss, unfortunately. And if you let a toddler be the boss, all hell breaks loose. So another thing that can work, is setting up a reverse alarm clock. So these are those, you know, lights that you can see I not sponsored, but I had a hatchling nursery light. We haven’t had to use it, but I plan on using it if Ryan ever when he gets older, if we deal with these issues.

 

00;08;18;13 – 00;08;35;26

Dr. Mona

Right. So what it is, it’s basically a light or they have a awake bunny where they’re like the ears flop up or down. So red means they stay in bed, green means that they can get up. And this is a really useful strategy for older children because they love games and they love rules. They do. Okay, contrary to what you may think.

 

00;08;36;04 – 00;08;55;15

Dr. Mona

So you can set it up and say, okay, so the green light means that you can get up and the red light means that you have to stay in bed and you set the time right. And you will find that your child may be very amenable to it. And if they don’t follow through right. And if they get out of bed, you you tell them the rules again, right?

 

00;08;55;15 – 00;09;13;04

Dr. Mona

Just say they come out of the bed when it was a red light and you say, sweetie, it was a green light. You don’t get mad at them, you don’t yell at them. You say you just walk them back to the room and explain the rules, right? Be consistent with your rule setting. If they are screaming and shrieking right, you can decide obviously what you guys want to do.

 

00;09;13;04 – 00;09;28;26

Dr. Mona

If this is too much shrieking and crying, you can kind of tease it out and see, okay, do we need to do one of the more gradual methods that I mentioned in the last episode where we’re laying with them, and then after five nights, we move our little away from them. After five nights, we move a little bit further from them and then out the door.

 

00;09;29;02 – 00;09;54;15

Dr. Mona

But I encourage you to set the rules. I again, you’re you guys probably are like, this lady is so okay with crying. I don’t look at crying in the baby period. And the and the taller period is a bad thing when you’re doing boundary setting with sleep, with eating, at, at a crying, when a child is obviously wanting to get a hug in the middle of the day, you know, obviously the the whole day is going by and you’re not putting giving them lunch, breakfast.

 

00;09;54;15 – 00;10;11;08

Dr. Mona

And I know that’s different. But when you’re dealing with sleep boundaries, it’s a boundary with sleep, right? Sleep is when we are regenerating our minds and that’s when a lot of development can happen. So I look at it as a positive that if they cry, there’s we shouldn’t fear the crying when we’re trying to get them to learn a new skill.

 

00;10;11;11 – 00;10;28;23

Dr. Mona

Right? This is not anything negative. So you can set up the reverse light. And again, some children really, really take to it without a lot of problems. I find that a lot of us adults get more concerned about how our children are going to approach sleep than they actually do. We’re scared. We’re like, oh my gosh, I’m not going to take.

 

00;10;28;24 – 00;10;44;23

Dr. Mona

And then they surprise you. So try the reverse light. It can really help for kids over three if it’s developmentally appropriate. And if your child, you know, would be able to be amenable to this, you can do a reward chart. Right. So under three they may not understand reward like what it means to get a reward. Like if you do something you get something.

 

00;10;44;28 – 00;11;14;15

Dr. Mona

So you want to use like a reward chart kind of situation. And if they get for example five stars they get a reward reward. Make sure the reward is a, experience versus a gift. I find that experiences are much more rewarding than an actual object. That’s just how I work. I’m not a big materialistic person. So, I find that if you’re like, okay, we’ll go to the zoo or you can play with, you know, we’ll have a play date with your friend or day, you know, you’re doing an experience versus, I’ll get you a cookie or I’ll get you a toy.

 

00;11;14;16 – 00;11;32;18

Dr. Mona

You know, it’s up to you. But I find that experiences are a better reward than items. So if they stay in bed, you praise them, right? And you tell them that if you stay in bed the whole night, I’m going to give you a star, right? And they’re like, oh my gosh, I’ll get a star. And if you get five stars, I’m going to take you to the zoo.

 

00;11;32;24 – 00;11;51;21

Dr. Mona

Oh my gosh, so exciting. And they may have regression or they may not do it every night. Right? So if they don’t do it, say words of encouragement that you’re going to try it again, right? So you say, okay, you know, sweetie, I’m sorry. It’s okay that it happened. We’ll try again tomorrow. You don’t get frustrated. Don’t yell right because you want to obviously be positive and encouraging that they can do it.

 

00;11;51;27 – 00;12;08;13

Dr. Mona

I know you can do it. Next. I know you’re going to do it tomorrow. I’m very proud of you. The reward system’s nice if you’re finding that they’re not doing it. It’s important to set the rules right. Tickets are another example where you’re setting kind of these boundaries. So you give them five tickets and you make it a game.

 

00;12;08;20 – 00;12;27;12

Dr. Mona

And if they leave the room, they have to give you a ticket once they’re out of tickets. So if they have five exits from their room, you have to. And that you tell them at the beginning that once I get once you use all your five passes, I’m going to take you back to the room and I’m I’m going to put you in there and then I’m not going to come back in.

 

00;12;27;12 – 00;12;46;18

Dr. Mona

Right. You have to set the rule for them, make it fun for them, give them some autonomy, if that makes sense. But at the end you’re making the final rule, right? So what may happen in this situation if some kids are super excited about and will do well, if you have a tough kid who is keeping coming out of the room, right?

 

00;12;46;24 – 00;13;21;16

Dr. Mona

They keep coming out. They keep escaping. They’re not working well at the boundaries with the tickets. They’re not working well with the reward system. The reverse alarm clocks are not working. The more gradual methods that I like are not working. Some kids just won’t get the picture unless you do the most. I would say severe method, which is basically you tell them the rules and you tell them that you once, once we reach the rules and you can’t come out of the room and you lock them from the outside, okay, now this is pretty this sounds pretty harsh, but it is a method that I want you to explore all the other methods before you

 

00;13;21;16 – 00;13;37;13

Dr. Mona

do this one. Right. Because sometimes you’re going to struggle with that and then you’re going to have to do that. I am not saying that this is the method I choose for everyone, but I again, my role in this episode is to teach you about everything, right? And if they yell, you explain to them the rules. I love you sweetheart.

 

00;13;37;13 – 00;13;55;03

Dr. Mona

And it’s hard, right? When you’re kids yelling, especially as they get older. I love you remember the rules. I’m so proud of you. Right? You have to do what you’re comfortable with. If this eats you up, I get it. Then you do more gradual methods and you do something I mentioned above, right? I have to be honest. You’re not a monster by setting these rules.

 

00;13;55;03 – 00;14;15;24

Dr. Mona

And everyone’s has their opinion with sleep and parenting. But I find that we have to set boundaries with our children, especially if they’re an older kid with sleep and they’re are very, very, you know, gradual ways to do this, reward systems that you don’t have to get to this method, which I’m sure you heard of, which is, you know, closing the door and locking from the outside, so that they don’t come out in and out.

 

00;14;15;24 – 00;14;33;00

Dr. Mona

And then I really reserve that for that child that is really not understanding that sort of, you know, reward system that you tried to set up and you want to get them to, you know, to sleep and you’ve exhausted all of other methods. Okay. The other method is if they’re used to snuggling, you gradually move further, like I briefly mentioned mentioned.

 

00;14;33;00 – 00;14;46;03

Dr. Mona

Right. So if they’re used to snuggling with you, co-sleeping, whatever it may be, the first few nights you set up camp in a chair next to the bed, right? So you can start with cuddling, and then the next night your you cuddle with them for less time, and then you move to a chair in the bed so you’re physically there.

 

00;14;46;06 – 00;15;06;04

Dr. Mona

The next night you move closer and closer to the door, right? So you move away halfway in the room towards the door. The reason why I don’t love this method I think it’s good if you if it works for a child. I just find it can take a very long time and the child may not understand what you’re trying to do.

 

00;15;06;07 – 00;15;20;25

Dr. Mona

A lot of kids, especially if you’re doing this in the toddler age, like, you know, 18 months, two years, they may not they understand kind of an all or none. Like, okay, I don’t get the sort of gradual, you’re here, you’re not here, I don’t know. So I find it may not work. I really want you to consider if it’s something that you guys want to do.

 

00;15;20;25 – 00;15;38;07

Dr. Mona

It’s one of the methods. But it may not be the answer. Sometimes I find the more rules that are being placed. The Ferber method. If your child’s a toddler can work better, than the gradual just because they sometimes don’t take to the gradual. But every kid is different. Which is why I wanted to give you these rules.

 

00;15;38;07 – 00;15;55;19

Dr. Mona

Okay, so like I said, last resort. Last resort. If they’re in a big bed, closing the door, putting a baby gate, obviously safety’s first. Remember what I said in the other episode? 17? Safety’s important so that there should not be any furniture that they can climb on that’s not mounted. They have to have obviously no cord blinds.

 

00;15;55;19 – 00;16;18;28

Dr. Mona

It has to be a very safe room. Right? Because if they’re up and trying to climb on anything, I don’t want that. Right. So this is basically the kind of sleep approach for an older child. The regressions, it’s really, really important to kind of remember that you can have a good sleeper at a young age, and then they can develop into these sort of issues later on, right?

 

00;16;19;01 – 00;16;40;09

Dr. Mona

Things like school, things like a new sibling, obviously events, changes in the family events, changes in the world can cause your routine to change, which can in turn cause these sort of quote unquote regressions. Okay. But whatever you choose, commit to it. Now, I do want to go over common concerns or questions I get. So I am planning another episode.

 

00;16;41;03 – 00;16;59;27

Dr. Mona

So I’m planning another episode to talk to you guys about more questions you have, and I probably will get a sleep consultant to come on just because, you know, they do this for a living as well. But I want to talk about naps. Right? And naps are every parent’s stressor. I feel like, sometimes a master night and then naps in the day are like, oh my gosh, what’s happening?

 

00;17;00;02 – 00;17;21;07

Dr. Mona

We again, as you know, we are very go, go with the flow. Meaning we don’t stress too much about Ryan’s schedule per se. He is on a schedule, but we read his cues a lot. We’re very big on this. He’s he’s under six months. So I understand that most babies don’t really consolidate their naps. Meaning take those longer naps until maybe they’re 5 to 7 months, right?

 

00;17;21;07 – 00;17;41;09

Dr. Mona

So some kids do it earlier. But don’t be alarmed if it’s if your baby’s still five six months and the naps are not extending right, meaning an hour nap hour and a half nap. So when you’re looking at naps, I kind of look, you know, you’ll hear a lot about wake times. Like, how long can they be awake for so that they don’t get overtired?

 

00;17;41;12 – 00;18;00;27

Dr. Mona

And the wake times that I’m going to mention are the longest period that you should try to monitor and see if they’ll go down for a nap. Now, if they take a nap before that, okay, fine. Especially in that first 5 to 6 months. We are reading a lot of Ryan’s cues. So if he’s looking sleepy, rubbing his eyes, we, you know, immediately do a mini bedtime routine where we put the pacifier in his mouth.

 

00;18;01;12 – 00;18;14;10

Dr. Mona

We get into the dark room, which is where he sleeps. We we close the blinds and we start a, you know, like I do for night. I rock him a little bit. I don’t read him a book, but I do a rocking. And I’m just kind of like doing a little mini routine. And then I put him in the crib.

 

00;18;14;17 – 00;18;36;06

Dr. Mona

Right. So a little routine. Now, newborns, you’re watching their sleep cues. Okay. Please. You’re not training them in any way. You’re not doing anything. Sometimes it can be that they’re sleeping every hour, or sometimes they sleep every 2 to 3. Right. So you want to watch that for the newborns? 4 to 6 months. The sweet spot is you don’t want them to be going more than three hours between their, awake time.

 

00;18;36;06 – 00;18;53;00

Dr. Mona

So just say they woke up from a nap at 11. You kind of want to hope that they’re going to go down for another nap by two, and you could risk kind of seeing some over tiredness. Now, I will say for Ryan, it’s interesting because some days he’s only five and a half months at the recording of this episode.

 

00;18;53;03 – 00;19;16;10

Dr. Mona

Some days he will go two hours, some days he’ll take a nap and then an hour and a half, two hours later, he’ll take another. It’s very it’s not perfect right now, but he’s still young. But we’re getting there. Right. And I’ll go into a little bit about what we’re doing 6 to 18 months. If they’re on two naps, four hours, a beta window, and if there are 14 months plus in one nap, either they shouldn’t really be awake for more than six hours.

 

00;19;16;10 – 00;19;36;01

Dr. Mona

Right? These are just general numbers. You’re going to find that I’m not a big number fan, and it’s because there’s so much variation within children, so I don’t want you to panic if your kid is like doing well and going for hours, right? Because for example, like I, I look at Ryan and he’s not overtired, he’s a happy baby, he’s doing well at night.

 

00;19;36;08 – 00;19;56;03

Dr. Mona

And we mastered nighttime sleep first. And that is why I really stress nighttime sleep, because if you can get them to sleep during the night, you can really create a routine during the day. So we focused on nighttime, and we’re finding that the naps are taking care of themselves. We’re not really having to train, per se, too much of the naps because he’s doing it himself.

 

00;19;56;03 – 00;20;19;10

Dr. Mona

Now, what I will say is that I am finding that he is used to napping in the places that we have gotten accustomed and created a habit to napping. Nighttime. He’s in his crib, but we have started to do naps. We do, on us. So me or my husband in his bouncer chair, supervised, so he was not getting used to napping in the crib.

 

00;20;19;17 – 00;20;38;06

Dr. Mona

So now we’re training him in the crib. And again, we talk. I talk about this as an episode 19 with the sleep consultant. It takes a lot of persistence and a lot of patience to get a child from a place that they’re used to, to a new setting, like a crib. So what does this look like? It basically is like, I said, a lot of patience and persistence.

 

00;20;38;06 – 00;20;55;08

Dr. Mona

So just so you have your child who is used to sleeping on you and you decide, okay, I’m ready to now nap, train them in a crib. They are going to fight you because they are used to sleeping on you in a bouncer or swinging supervised, hopefully. Obviously. But now you have to kind of move them to the crib.

 

00;20;55;08 – 00;21;14;00

Dr. Mona

So what we did is a sort of modified Ferber in that we’re not doing long stretches of the Ferber. We kind of max out at maybe like five minutes because the nap itself isn’t that long anyways. We didn’t want to do a full kind of crying out situation. And you could do Ferber again, choosing the minute minutes that you guys want to start with.

 

00;21;14;01 – 00;21;33;21

Dr. Mona

You could do one minute, you could do 30s, you could do, five minutes. So we are doing that. Right. So under six months, he’s obviously like the recording of this episode five and a half months. We don’t push it so much. We kind of are again still reading the cues, but we’re now we’re starting to see that he’s starting to understand more and that we want to start to train him in the crib.

 

00;21;33;22 – 00;21;51;15

Dr. Mona

Right. That’s the first thing you have to ask yourself. Do you want them trained in the crib, or do you like the fact that they sleep on you? I’m not against obviously your child, older child, obviously cuddling with you, you liking that closeness because that’s awesome. This is now a choice that you want them to kind of go in the crib and how to kind of get them there.

 

00;21;51;17 – 00;22;09;07

Dr. Mona

So what happens with, you know, a lot of kids is that you’ll put them in, they will fuss. I do encourage you to do a mini bedtime routine that you would do at nighttime. Do it during the nap time. So what we usually do is we get him really kind of drowsy, for the day, just to kind of prime that sort of sleep.

 

00;22;09;10 – 00;22;27;19

Dr. Mona

We go into the dark room, which is his room. The blinds are closed, the blackout curtains, and he’s basically drowsy when we put him down. Sometimes he pops right back up because he realizes that he has FOMO and that he’s missing out on something. And so he wakes back up. We do leave the room at that point, and then give him at least five minutes.

 

00;22;27;19 – 00;22;44;04

Dr. Mona

That’s what we the number we chose, and we see if he’ll settle. If he settles. Great. And some naps. He does. He doesn’t need us to do anything. If he’s still crying, we do go back in. We see if the pacifier got knocked out. We do rub his chest after five minutes. And then we leave the room after a minute and walk back out.

 

00;22;44;06 – 00;23;04;10

Dr. Mona

And if he cries again, we give him another seven minutes. So we are doing a Ferber right for the naps. And we decided to do this later again, because he’s closer to six months. The reason why I didn’t do it earlier is because again, I’m watching the cuz I’m seeing, you know, he was doing 30 minute naps, which is, which can be very normal at six months, even at, you know, seven months.

 

00;23;04;10 – 00;23;22;15

Dr. Mona

It can be. But we kind of watched and saw and now that we’re seeing that, okay, he is capable of taking an hour nap, an hour and a half nap. He is just not understanding the how to cycle through the sleep cycles. Right. So something was happening where he was waking up and he didn’t fully understand how to put himself back down.

 

00;23;22;20 – 00;23;46;15

Dr. Mona

So we’re kind of assisting him with a little modified Ferber during the daytime, and it’s starting to starting to set in. So my advice for naps overall, if your child is under six months and even you can use seven months, but if your child is under six months and they’re not taking long naps, meaning longer than 30 minutes, I would decide, you know, and just kind of maybe wait it out, but definitely look at their sleep cues right.

 

00;23;46;17 – 00;24;04;26

Dr. Mona

Yawning. Rubbing eyes. Fluttering eyelids. Obviously crying. Maybe that they’re over tired by that point if they’re not hungry. But you gonna want to watch the sleep, cuz. So if you are noticing the sleepy cuz I want you to in the first six months, please look at the sleep, cuz. Because if you can look at that, you can really reinforce, right?

 

00;24;04;26 – 00;24;22;00

Dr. Mona

Baby gets sleepy, looks sleepy. Do you? You put them in their crib or wherever they’re napping. Safe space and you’re reinforcing that. Okay, you are sleepy. It’s time for sleep, right? And again, you’re you’re teaching them that this means that you have to go to sleep. It’s so funny because as an adult, you’d be like, I have no problem falling asleep, right?

 

00;24;22;02 – 00;24;44;27

Dr. Mona

But of course, kids, you’re trying to teach them that. Okay, you are sleepy. You need help in figuring out how to sleep in this crib. So fall asleep cuz you should be falling asleep cuz the older kids too. But if you can fall it early, you may not have to do as much training per se. Like I also mentioned in episode 17 and episode four as well, which is the newborn episode about laying a healthy foundation for sleep.

 

00;24;44;29 – 00;25;06;19

Dr. Mona

So fall asleep cuz tackle nighttime first. Like I mentioned, nighttime sleep does come before daytime, so we tackle nighttime, and we found that the naps started to kind of show resemblance of a schedule. He’s not on a rigid schedule by any means, and we’re okay with that. And so should you. We understand that sometimes his nap, maybe 20 minutes, 30 minutes before what we had seen the day before.

 

00;25;06;23 – 00;25;30;07

Dr. Mona

And that’s okay because we’re kind of looking at his cues. Right. Use a small bedtime routine. It doesn’t have to be an hour. It can be five ten minutes, but basically priming the body for sleep. So whatever you were doing at nighttime, and I hope you do have a nighttime bed routine, you can kind of decide what components of that you want to take and do it for naps, make sure the sleep environment is dark cool, similar to the nighttime, right?

 

00;25;30;12 – 00;25;53;25

Dr. Mona

Because you’re trying to again, emulate the fact that what’s going on at night. So for example, our room has blackout curtains and is cool. So we do the same thing for the nap time, just to kind of resemble the nighttime sleep, the big, big thing. Stay consistent with what you’re trying to do. So if you want to train them to nap, you have to be consistent and committed.

 

00;25;53;25 – 00;26;15;05

Dr. Mona

So my me and my husband, we actually enjoy when Ryan sleeps on us supervised. Obviously we’re awake too, and we like that. We like that closeness. We obviously he sleeps through the night, so we kind of said, okay, well, since he sleeps in the night, let’s just we don’t mind that he naps on us. But now that he’s getting close to six months, we want to kind of teach him obviously that you can do this because you do it at night.

 

00;26;15;07 – 00;26;31;26

Dr. Mona

So he got used to that, right? He got used to oh, naps are going to be on mommy or daddy or, you know, with them. So now when you put him in he has a little bit of FOMO, right? Fear of missing out. So he’s going to cry and he’s going to be upset because he understands that, oh, I’m not supposed to be doing this because I wasn’t doing it before.

 

00;26;32;02 – 00;26;48;01

Dr. Mona

So it’s about being consistent. So I found that my nanny is much better at this because she is not as emotional about it. Meaning she obviously is a very loving person, but she gives him a little more time. Me and my husband are more likely to be like, okay, okay, fine, come to us right? So you got to be consistent with the plan.

 

00;26;48;01 – 00;27;09;29

Dr. Mona

So if you decide to do a, you know, pacifier situation, rocking situation, or if you do a mini Ferber, that’s what you should do, right? We are learning about Ryan every day. So now we allow him a little more crying before we run to him in the middle of a nap. So for example, just today he went down, we had to do a little back and forth, meaning he cried.

 

00;27;10;05 – 00;27;28;19

Dr. Mona

We we picked him up, we put him, we put the pacifier. He was trying to soothe him back down. He was still fussing. We put him back down. We tried it again, this time just kind of patting his chest, you know, and he still was kind of fussing. We left and finally he fell asleep for 30 minutes. After the 30 minutes, he started waking up and crying.

 

00;27;28;22 – 00;27;47;26

Dr. Mona

We gave him about five minutes because we’re like, let’s see if he’ll settle. So the point is that you are you are deciding what you want to do for your kid and what you’re comfortable with. And it’s really important about reading your kid, and it’s about what you what your goals are. So I encourage you to find, okay, if you want them to nap, maybe doing a mini Ferber if you don’t like crying.

 

00;27;48;13 – 00;28;08;10

Dr. Mona

Methods of any kind, than you can obviously do. Like the consoling and the rubbing and the, you know, the, rocking, whatever you prefer. But the goal is eventually, like we said, that we want them to be able to self settle on their own. So if that’s your goal, then focus on, achieving that goal. And some of that may be doing obviously a mini mini cry cry method.

 

00;28;08;27 – 00;28;26;28

Dr. Mona

And you can decide how many minutes you feel comfortable with, but stick to the plan. And one other comment I said is that they sometimes have FOMO, right? Like I said, so they sometimes you being in the room for the nap can make them more aggravated because they, they realize that you’re there. And if you’re there, it’s time for play.

 

00;28;27;05 – 00;28;48;02

Dr. Mona

So you have to read your kid. If you’re finding that they’re they’re more upset when you walk through that door than maybe in maybe in extending that time that you give them to self settle. Right. It’s up to you to decide what works for you and your family. But they are very smart and they know that, okay, if if mommy’s here or daddy’s here or whoever it is taking care of me, it’s party time when it really should be nap time.

 

00;28;48;08 – 00;29;05;06

Dr. Mona

So we start to give Ryan a little bit more space, and we saw that he actually is able to do that more now because we’re not running quickly back in. Right. And as he gets older, we’ll probably start to extend the amount that we’re okay with him crying, but he may just stop fussing because he is learning how to take his naps.

 

00;29;05;09 – 00;29;22;20

Dr. Mona

And again, watch the temperament. Every kid is different. Some kids, like I said, need you there. Some kids don’t want you there, so you have to know your kid. And lastly, like I said, a mini, a mini training of some kind, whether it’s a little mini Ferber, that you’re doing to kind of extend the periods before you go in and talk to them.

 

00;29;23;12 – 00;29;41;00

Dr. Mona

If you feel like you want to lift them up, that’s fine initially. But if you’re finding that the lift up is causing them not to still learn how to self settle, then you can start to do, a more, you know, kind of graduated kind of Ferber method for the naps. So the other issues I want to talk about is I have a list of things.

 

00;29;41;00 – 00;30;09;25

Dr. Mona

So first about the swaddle transition. So she sleep sacks all this stuff so not swaddle are great. I actually think some kids really need it. Ryan did. He had a really exaggerated moro or startle reflex, but at some point they don’t need it and it’s up to you when you want to do it. So some people say, you know, three, four months we decided, like I said in episode 17, that we decided we were done with it, that we wanted to do the training with a cry method without any sleep sacks or anything, because we knew he could handle it.

 

00;30;10;11 – 00;30;31;23

Dr. Mona

As many babies can. They don’t need a lot of these stuff. You can get by without it if you like it. So we basically, you know, stopped stopped the swaddle. He was starting to get a little more rolling to the side at that point. So we didn’t put him in anything. We did not do a sleep sack only because, our apartment is a pretty comfortable temperature and he wears footie pajamas, and I didn’t need it for the warmth.

 

00;30;32;07 – 00;30;52;21

Dr. Mona

And he was comfortable, and I didn’t want to just train him in a sack if he didn’t need it. So I don’t use the sleep suit. I don’t use anything. He sleeps in his footie pajamas. I find that if you’re going to do sleep training and I talk about nighttime sleep training, you might as well do it in the environment that you choose the baby to sleep in for the, you know, for most of their life.

 

00;30;52;24 – 00;31;11;29

Dr. Mona

Most of my friends do not use any sleep sacks. Most of my friends, our patients do not use any sacks or, sleep devices. It’s up to you. Right? You don’t need that to create good sleep. I don’t care, contrary to what those companies are saying, by the way, so many of them have approached me to sponsor their products, and I say no because I don’t use it.

 

00;31;12;12 – 00;31;31;21

Dr. Mona

Because I don’t think they’re necessary and that they’re needed for the majority of the population. Okay. But use it if you want. But the other question I get is, can you sleep? Train in the same room? I’m putting my hand up. I did it okay. It’s hard. It’s very hard because the crying is very difficult. Not that okay.

 

00;31;31;21 – 00;31;47;20

Dr. Mona

Not difficult because you’re harming them. It’s difficult because you are, you know, hearing them cry and no one wants to hear their baby crying. You’re like, oh my God, just baby, I know you can do it. But yeah, it’s really possible. Where I used to work, everyone had lived it. I lived in New York City, everyone had one bedroom apartments, you know, condos, whatever.

 

00;31;48;03 – 00;32;04;17

Dr. Mona

And they they did it. And you may want to put a physical divider between you and the baby because, like I said, if they can see you, especially if they’re over the age of four months, they may cry louder if they see you. And I know that may sound like an awful thing, but again, you’re teaching them self settling skills.

 

00;32;04;24 – 00;32;24;06

Dr. Mona

So if you’re trying to do a method of gradual weaning or cry method, maybe consider a physical divider. The crying is hard, guys. I mean, I can’t sugarcoat that. It’s not detrimental to them. It’s just hard to hear. So you may have to like I some nights when were in the middle of the training, I would go to the living room and, you know, have the monitor and I would watch them from the living room.

 

00;32;24;20 – 00;32;40;07

Dr. Mona

Because the crying, I just, I don’t want to be in the same room. And some nights I’ll be honest, he cried less once I left the room because he realized, okay, I’m shrieking, shrieking, shrieking. She left. And I can do this right? And again, it’s a positive I can do this. Not a oh, she left me right.

 

00;32;40;12 – 00;32;59;03

Dr. Mona

So think of the perspective you have. The next question I get is about sleep regressions. Now it’s so interesting to me. I talk to my colleagues who are a little older and they are like, what the heck is a sleep progression? Why is your generation so up and up in arms about sleep regressions and delta? I, I don’t I’m not actually even looking at sleep regressions.

 

00;32;59;03 – 00;33;14;05

Dr. Mona

I don’t think I, I don’t look at it as a thing. It obviously is a thing because people talk about it. But why I’m not looking at it as a thing is, if you think a thing is there, you’re more likely to fear it. Oh my gosh, the sleep regressions coming. Oh my god, oh my god. Regression regression.

 

00;33;14;07 – 00;33;33;04

Dr. Mona

If you just kind of look at it as this is life and there’s going to be moments where they’re not the sleep isn’t going to be perfect. You just roll with the punches. Why are we you don’t have to prepare yourself so much for sleep regression. It’s not. And by the way, it’s not a regression. It’s a progression because it happens with milestones and leaps, whatever you want to call it.

 

00;33;33;06 – 00;33;47;29

Dr. Mona

So it is my opinion that focusing too much on that can give you more stress. Of course, Ryan went through a regression at around four months because he started rolling. When they go through major developmental progressions, you may see that, but I’m not stressing over it. Right? I’m like, okay, here we go. What do we want to do with it?

 

00;33;47;29 – 00;34;11;00

Dr. Mona

Do we want to do some Ferber or do I want to do a gradual method? So I need you to listen to episode 17 where I talk about the different methods and you won’t fear it as much. I know there’s a lot of different opinions on this. Everyone wants to be prepared. This is just my opinion and it’s one that works for a lot of people because I really want to reduce the stress around sleeping, because if you stress about sleeping, so we see what’s going to happen is you’re so you’re you’re like, okay, so he’s sleeping but oh my God.

 

00;34;11;04 – 00;34;30;15

Dr. Mona

He’s going to approach 18 months. It’s all going to fall to shit. Then you’re going to worry so much about it, and you’re not going to lose sleep over expecting it’s going to get bad in four months when it may not. So I don’t like it. I don’t like when people talk about regressions. I don’t really love it because you’re preparing yourself for something that may not happen because not all kids go through regressions, by the way, with their sleep.

 

00;34;30;15 – 00;34;53;17

Dr. Mona

Not all. And you’ll deal with it. You’ll handle it as it comes. So remember that, right? That is just my philosophy. And just because you train a baby to sleep, life is going to happen and you may need to do many trainings throughout their life, right? Travel, illnesses, growth spurts, whatever you want to call it. But if you look at it like that, you’re not going to fear it so much and you’re just going to deal with it and roll with the punches.

 

00;34;53;17 – 00;35;18;08

Dr. Mona

That’s like parenting one and one. So travel may disrupt your sleep, right? Obviously. I actually recorded this segment prior to taking a little road trip with Ryan, and now I’m rerecording because I got some personal feedback that I want to share with you guys. But there are two groups of people. There are one group that is going to basically not think too much about it and go with the flow, and there’s another group that really wants to be overprepared.

 

00;35;18;10 – 00;35;40;20

Dr. Mona

I’m actually somewhere in the middle. I we had a really good routine with Ryan, and I was worried that, okay, we’re going to go on this trip and there’s going to be some issues with obviously his sleep and his environment. But I was like, I’m not going to prepare too much. It actually went okay. And I think it obviously wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t an awful experience because I went in not thinking that it was going to be this awful, awful thing.

 

00;35;40;22 – 00;36;05;16

Dr. Mona

So my opinion, this is my personal opinion. Don’t stress too much about it. Enjoy your trip and everything will kind of reset itself. I know you’re thinking you’re like, no, no, no, I need I need an actual concrete solutions and actual, advice so that it doesn’t end up being crappy. So here’s ways that I think that you can kind of maximize good sleep, good habits for when you guys do travel.

 

00;36;05;16 – 00;36;28;13

Dr. Mona

Okay. And this is basically my bare bones. I do talk about some other things that you can consider if you want something more formal. Okay. So the first thing is try to do what you can with the accommodations to recreate the sleep environment that your child currently has. So if your child has a sound machine or blackout curtains, certain temperature, try to emulate that as much as you can.

 

00;36;28;18 – 00;36;46;22

Dr. Mona

You may not be able to get it completely perfect, but you want to try to resemble the kind of space that they had at home. Kids are very smart, right? Babies too. They know that this is not where they were used to kind of going back earlier in this episode, if you’re trying to train them to sleep in a crib and they’re used to you, they’re going to realize that this is not the room I’m supposed to be sleeping in.

 

00;36;46;28 – 00;37;04;10

Dr. Mona

And they may find that the sleep and the naps a lot more right? So try to emulate as much as you can. If you’re going to a hotel, you know, ask them what the accommodations are. Obviously, they should have blackout curtains. If you’re going to a friend’s house or family member’s house, see what they have there. If they don’t have there, consider what you can pack to make it happen.

 

00;37;04;24 – 00;37;23;14

Dr. Mona

As much as you can. But don’t stress if you can’t pack something. Don’t stress if you don’t have everything exactly. Because again, it may be a little tough for a few days or, you know, to adjust, but your child will adjust just like you do, right? So you can practice in the pack and play prior to leaving just so you have a pack in play or some travel crib.

 

00;37;23;19 – 00;37;39;28

Dr. Mona

You can practice a few nights before or just go with it. We actually have a travel travel crib. We decided not to take it because my my family member, when we went on a trip, they had a pack in play, so we didn’t do any sort of training and it was actually okay, right. For the nighttime sleep.

 

00;37;40;08 – 00;37;55;11

Dr. Mona

And I’ll get into what we did a little bit, but you can practice if you want to see if they can just get used to that space. But the reality is, when they’re in a new space, an environment, it may be a little bit different. And that’s okay. Everyone will adjust. So try to do the same. Bedtime routine as much as you can.

 

00;37;55;28 – 00;38;21;09

Dr. Mona

You know, take a book if you’re doing a book similar obviously may not be exact, and try to get a good nap in wherever you need it to happen. So this was key for us. So Ryan naps well in really well in car seats on us and supervised obviously for the car seat. And or you know, if he’s riding in a car, I usually we’re looking in the mirror and I was sitting in the backseat with him because I like sitting in the back seat with him.

 

00;38;21;28 – 00;38;44;06

Dr. Mona

So you got to see if you can get at least one good nap in. So that they’re not overtired, and it’s a whole mess. Right? You try and do what you can. What we found is that with the travel came a lot of excitement and activity, and people. And of course, it was stimulating for Ryan. Right. So his sleep did get a little bit messed up, but it wasn’t a bad thing.

 

00;38;44;08 – 00;38;59;04

Dr. Mona

We came home, we got back into the routine, and, we did the nighttime routine at home. We’re back in the comfort of our home. And he adjusted. I imagine that if we were away for longer, we were only gone for two nights. Maybe if we were gone for three, 4 or 5 nights, he would have probably adjusted.

 

00;38;59;10 – 00;39;18;17

Dr. Mona

Almost like how if you do a sleep training, for example, it takes about 3 to 5 nights to do a sleep training. The kids will adjust to the new routine. Now, if you are going into a new time zone right, you have two options. Go with the flow and just adjust. Have the baby adjust themselves and you adjust as well, just like you do.

 

00;39;18;20 – 00;39;35;14

Dr. Mona

Or you can kind of think about some things and, you know, try to do some different timing. As you probably imagine, I am more of the go with the flow mentality because I believe that children are super smart and that they’re capable of adjusting themselves, just like we do. But what you can do to kind of help that, right?

 

00;39;35;28 – 00;39;53;04

Dr. Mona

Is watching out for sleepy cues during the day. When you are in that new time zone, it’s going to be usually harder to go back in time. Meaning, if you’re flying from the East coast to the West Coast, not as bad as if you’re flying from the west to the east, because the time to sleep is a little, it’s going to be darker and you know they’ll be fine.

 

00;39;53;04 – 00;40;09;11

Dr. Mona

But to say it’s 7 p.m. in New York and now you’re in California and it’s 4 p.m., they’re going to have a hard time. You know, because for they may not want to go down. So what you can do is make sure you look at their sleep because throughout the day obviously get a good get naps in as you can.

 

00;40;09;14 – 00;40;36;22

Dr. Mona

And expose them to light as much as possible when you guys get to that new place. Just again, to kind of reset the rhythm. And then when it’s time for them to go to bed, right, which is 7:00, you may have to do a modified Ferber or whatever sleep training per se that you were doing. So if you didn’t do sleep training and you were doing something else, then you may have to obviously do the cuddles and all the stuff that you were doing, but what you can do is a mini sleep training again, right?

 

00;40;36;22 – 00;41;08;08

Dr. Mona

If you wanted to do that, and it’s the method that you choose, but you have to decide what you want. And if you want to be so structured, I you know, there are obviously a bunch of sleep consultants and websites and different articles that you can read for more guided stuff if you want a step by step. But I really do step by step because I’m trying to promote this more relaxed parenting, and step by step can make you actually a little more anxious when things go out of line and babies aren’t always going to do what we want step by step.

 

00;41;08;11 – 00;41;25;07

Dr. Mona

So I go in with a, okay, we’re going to figure him out. We’re going to see what’s going on, and then we’re going to go from there. And that can really help with travel. Most of my friends who I know that take babies and kids traveling internationally and whatnot, they’re not thinking too much about it. They’re traveling with the things that they need.

 

00;41;25;13 – 00;41;43;11

Dr. Mona

If they have a sound machine, they take the sound machine. They obviously, you know, we’ll do blackout curtains when they get to a place, but they’re not overthinking it. And it’s up to you what you decide to do, but know that your child will reset eventually when they come back, right. They probably will do it. When you’re on the trip, you’ll be surprised.

 

00;41;43;11 – 00;41;58;27

Dr. Mona

Maybe 3 or 4 days into it, you’ll be back to that routine that they’re on. So don’t sweat it too much. Just roll with the punches. And when you get back, they may still have a little bit of a regression, right, Ryan? We came back and he was regressing a little bit in his schedule because he was off on the trip.

 

00;41;59;00 – 00;42;15;10

Dr. Mona

Right. And we’re not stressing too much about it. We understand that, you know, he had more activity, more different people were holding him now and playing with him. And he got so much excitement. And now we’re back to mom and dad. Nanny, we’re we’re still exciting, but we’re not the stimulation that he was getting. So it’s different for him.

 

00;42;15;10 – 00;42;34;13

Dr. Mona

So definitely he’s a little more clingy. Definitely the set, the schedule, the naps, everything’s a little bit more off, but we’re adjusting back, right? We’re reading him adjusting back. And we understand that it will get back to normal eventually. The next tip is about teething and sickness. Okay. So these are blips that you’re going to see in sleep training.

 

00;42;34;16 – 00;42;54;08

Dr. Mona

The reason why I love sleep training is that when you sleep train a child, when there are blips, meaning they’re starting to wake up again, you’re going to think one of two things. Is there something wrong? Right? Are they teething pain? Is are they sick? Do they have a fever? What’s going on? If you notice that you are, you have a sleep train child and three nights go by.

 

00;42;54;13 – 00;43;13;25

Dr. Mona

There’s no fever. They’re acting well. They’re teething. Pain is is better. Three. Give them three days of, you know consoling. You can retrain them again right. The reason I use a three day rule if they’re okay is that they may create a new association with what you’re doing. Right? So just say they’ve been sleeping. And then now all of a sudden they’re waking up and it’s teething pain okay.

 

00;43;14;00 – 00;43;31;10

Dr. Mona

Teething pain 3 to 5 nights. Fine. You’re going in. You’re not allowing the the them to suck on cold objects, things like that. But give them that time for the initial pain. Right after that the teeth is coming. The tooth is coming out. You don’t need to go every night if you don’t want to, right? So then you can say, okay, they’re good during the day.

 

00;43;31;12 – 00;43;47;13

Dr. Mona

There’s no fever. They’re acting well, let’s do another mini training. Why is they do mini training is that we have created now a new association that you’re going into that room. So now you have to do something else to kind of get the sleep habits back on. You decide when you want to put that back on you can do two weeks of regression.

 

00;43;47;29 – 00;44;08;18

Dr. Mona

And then you do it or you can do five days, but your kid has to be, well, right? If they’re ill, fever, cough and cold sick acutely, you’re not going to probably train them. Obviously, I hope not. Right. Because you’re going to need to attend to them. My opinion, and it depends on your home, is if you can have a bed in the room of the child.

 

00;44;08;25 – 00;44;25;04

Dr. Mona

It’s really cool because if they get sick, you can go to their room and sleep in a bed, in their room or on the floor, whatever you want, rather than them coming to your room. It’s you. It’s their environment. So it’s nice that they can stay in their environment and you’re just coming into their environment to attend to them.

 

00;44;25;07 – 00;44;43;06

Dr. Mona

I like it, I mean, I know not all homes have that, but I find that that can be beneficial than them coming to your room, getting used to a new environment. And then now they have to go somewhere else. So these blips that are going to happen are very normal. Think about, you know, obviously if it’s you blips are happening and they’re teething and two weeks go by and you’re like okay well it’s not teething anymore.

 

00;44;43;10 – 00;45;03;00

Dr. Mona

They’ve learned a new routine. And now we have to help them. And you may have to do a method that you’ve done in the past, whether it’s Ferber or Cry method whatever, or a more gradual method. But remember that they may need to be retrained if they go through some sort of sickness, illness, things like that. Obviously, the night of vaccines, I would not do sleep training at all, meaning the night of vaccines.

 

00;45;03;02 – 00;45;19;23

Dr. Mona

I don’t know about you, but I I’m going to want to be there and give them some cuddles if they wake up, right, they got some injection, so why not be there? So don’t do it on the night of vaccines and you choose, there’s going to be some nights where you’re going to be like, okay, two weeks have gone by, there’s regression, but I still like to go in and I just want to keep doing this.

 

00;45;19;23 – 00;45;37;29

Dr. Mona

Fine. But it’s up to you and you want to go back to the routine that you had. You may have to retrain them. I talk about early to rise situations with the sleep, sleep consultant Andrea on episode 19. So definitely take a listen there. Okay. But I do have some tips. Just kind of talking about definitions and why not?

 

00;45;37;29 – 00;45;59;18

Dr. Mona

So early to rise means that the child is waking up before 6 a.m.. Yeah, I know I would love if Ryan slept till seven, but he wakes up at 630. Sometimes wakes up at six, but if it’s before six, that’s the definition. In a lot of the sleep community and myself, I agreed before six is early, 6 to 7 is that happy spot after seven, we actually might be getting a little late.

 

00;45;59;29 – 00;46;21;05

Dr. Mona

If your child’s older, maybe a little. Okay. But in your, you know, in the four months to one and a half years old, two years, 6 to 7 is actually really good wake time. So if your child is waking up consistently before six, you want to make sure and troubleshoot many different things. And if you guys want more information about this, I can have a consultant come on later.

 

00;46;21;05 – 00;46;35;27

Dr. Mona

So comment on my post or send me a DM. I can elaborate on anything you guys want me to. As another separate episode, but you want to make sure that the environment is dark, right? Making sure that no sun’s coming in. And that’s why we do blackout curtains, because of course, when they go to bed, it may be dark.

 

00;46;36;02 – 00;46;58;11

Dr. Mona

And then when the sun starts to rise and sneaks in, it tells the baby or child, oh, it’s time for wake up because it’s sunlight, right? So making sure the environment is dark, you may need to play around with the bedtime. So it’s kind of contrary to what people think. Parents, parents will come in and they said, oh, I put my baby to bed at eight because I want them to sleep in and somehow they’re waking up earlier, so it doesn’t work that way.

 

00;46;58;28 – 00;47;22;09

Dr. Mona

It’s almost like you’re letting them be too overtired. So then they just won’t get really good sleep. So you really want to find their happy spot. And sometimes it’s a matter of moving them early so that they aren’t overtired and that they may sleep more restful and sleep till the morning. It’s a little counterintuitive to what you might think, but it has a lot to do with being just overtired and just not having a kind of essentially a routine.

 

00;47;22;14 – 00;47;43;12

Dr. Mona

I found that we have gotten to a period where we put Ryan down and he’s in sleeping soundly by 730, and then he wakes up anywhere from 6 to 7, depending on the morning. But I’ll get into a little bit about how we approach that. So you might want to play around with the bedtime adjusting a little bit too early.

 

00;47;44;02 – 00;48;03;09

Dr. Mona

May be an idea, right? So if you’re doing 7 p.m. or 8 p.m. bedtime, then you just to seven, and you can start by upping it by 15 minute increments to see if that makes an effect on the morning wake up time. I mentioned this earlier, but being overtired can cause them not, not to sleep in essentially or sleep.

 

00;48;03;13 – 00;48;22;15

Dr. Mona

Wake up early. Think of it like us. If we’re overtired, as adults, you may have a hard time going to sleep and a hard time getting restful sleep, right? You almost need to be in a, relaxed space. So if they’re kind of not in a good level of tiredness and over time they are going to struggle to go down, struggle, struggle, struggle.

 

00;48;22;18 – 00;48;43;06

Dr. Mona

It can mean prolonging the actual time that they actually go down to sleep. Truly. You know, just because you put your baby to sleep at seven. Are they really sleeping at seven, or are they sleeping at seven 3745? So overtired. The nap situation can also have a huge effect on nights. So if your baby is napping too little, too much, right?

 

00;48;43;09 – 00;49;00;18

Dr. Mona

Too much or too little, they can it. It can affect their nighttime sleep and cause them to wake up early or whatever it may be. And you may notice blips of this if you’re finding that it’s here and there. Wake up at 6 or 7. You know, sorry, before six, you can let it be right. You can decide if it’s something you want to intervene in.

 

00;49;00;25 – 00;49;21;21

Dr. Mona

But if it’s becoming the new habit that they’re waking up every day before 6 a.m., you may want to think about remedying it. Right now, there’s another approach, which is what we did. And it did work really well. And it’s also what I see work with a lot of families is we train, we trained Ryan 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. with sleep training.

 

00;49;21;21 – 00;49;44;26

Dr. Mona

And if you listen to episode 17, I spoke about how we sleep trained and what that meant was at any waking hours we treated it, how we treat any waking in the middle of the night, right? So if was 4 a.m. or 1 a.m. or whatever. And if you listen, listen to that episode to hear more. So if he would wake up at four, we did a, you know, we did choose to do a crying out, but if that’s not what you want, you decide, okay, do I want to do a feeding?

 

00;49;44;26 – 00;50;09;21

Dr. Mona

What do I want to do? But treat that morning wake up exactly how you would treat any other wake ups. If you are doing pursuing a sleep training. Right. If you are getting into eight, nine months and are still feeding the child overnight, I would encourage you to consider doing a, gradual reduction of the feed or cry method because they don’t nutritional need any feedings in the middle of the night.

 

00;50;09;21 – 00;50;30;11

Dr. Mona

It’s becoming a habit for them. Right. So decide what works for you, but you may need to do a sort of mini training or training for that time frame. It really worked for us, and I know it works for a lot of families that we just treated the overnight from 7 to 7, and we read him. So we are finding that from 7 to 7 now, we end up putting him down around 715.

 

00;50;30;15 – 00;50;54;11

Dr. Mona

He does a seven 2730. He’s sleeping like, if we miss that window, it’s it’s too late, right. That’s his sleep time. And then he wakes up consistently usually unless we travel or whatever may be at 630. And so when we were approaching the sleep training, if he did wake up randomly at 6 or 545, I would train him till 630.

 

00;50;54;11 – 00;51;14;27

Dr. Mona

Basically, I was leading the show, a little bit when I was deciding for the training. And you can do it that way. If you want a more baby led approach, then you can kind of read their cues. But I my, my worry is that if you do too much of a baby let approach as they get older into the toddler years, you may get into a slippery slope where we didn’t teach them the self settling skills.

 

00;51;15;01 – 00;51;33;28

Dr. Mona

So figure out what works best for you. But you know, think about all the things that I mentioned. If you do have an early riser and naps also become very important, right? That being overtired during the day. So if they’re overtired during the day and not getting enough naps, your night time may be affected. So what we noticed with Ryan is that if he doesn’t get his hour.

 

00;51;34;02 – 00;51;49;12

Dr. Mona

So basically, if he doesn’t get his three hours of naps in the day, pretty much because he sleeps 11 hours at night, it doesn’t get those naps. Like you say, you only gets an hour and a half. We’re going to see that he’s a lot more cranky in the evening and a lot more overtired. And then his nighttime sleep is affected.

 

00;51;49;12 – 00;52;05;25

Dr. Mona

So it’s a cycle. So the night that he gets good sleep the next day is really good. If something happens, you know, whatever, our routine messes up, whatever it changes. But we kind of just run with it. We’re not freaking out about it, but it is a cycle. The nighttime affects the daytime. The daytime can affect the nighttime.

 

00;52;05;25 – 00;52;23;03

Dr. Mona

So remember that the last two things I’m going to go over our dream feeding and twins. So dream feedings are basically where you’re taking them up before you go to bed. So for example, they are sleeping. You put them down at seven, but at 10 p.m. you’re about to go to bed and you want to take them up.

 

00;52;23;05 – 00;52;41;05

Dr. Mona

So what that means is you, you they’re half asleep and you’re feeding them to maybe just get them through a longer stretch. Now, I personally, I think that’s fine if you want to do it. I’m not a huge fan. We actually did that with Ryan, before we decided to sleep train him. We actually started to do dream feeding and it just didn’t work for us.

 

00;52;41;27 – 00;53;03;00

Dr. Mona

He still was waking up, you know, and we were like, okay, well, is this really necessary? And also, he was just so drowsy, he would just fall asleep at the, at the nipple and not do anything. So we were just like, maybe it’s not working. So we we decided not to. It’s an option for you. I’m not a pro on this just because I’m not a big fan of it, but it doesn’t mean that it’s not something that’s good.

 

00;53;03;03 – 00;53;21;22

Dr. Mona

I just don’t see the benefit of it because it’s just has to do with your convenience, which may not equate to success for the child. The other thing I want to go over is twins. So very big question I get is that okay, how do I sleep? Train twins? I have to be honest, it’s twins are two different, human beings.

 

00;53;21;26 – 00;53;42;14

Dr. Mona

So one method may not always work for the other. Which is why in episode 17 I go through many different methods. My advice is you have to figure out what you want to do, but you can choose the same method for the children initially, right? Whatever method that is for you cry method, gradual method, whatever. So you choose that method and you see how they could do.

 

00;53;42;21 – 00;54;01;08

Dr. Mona

You can do the same room. It’s okay. They’re twins. They can have the same room. If you’re finding that one is taking to the method before the other, then you can decide if you want to separate, you know, put them in separate rooms if you have that ability, but you can do the same room. Now, the problem that comes in is if one child is doing it before the other and then waking up the other.

 

00;54;01;08 – 00;54;20;12

Dr. Mona

So then that’s when I say you might have two separately, or one child takes to one method and the other child doesn’t take to that method. So you may have to switch it up right. You may have to decide to do another method or take a break into it later. So twins can be difficult with sleep training because again 1st May take to one method, 1st May not.

 

00;54;20;22 – 00;54;41;20

Dr. Mona

But I encourage you to choose the method that you see fit readdress though, right? Because they are two different humans, so one method may not work for both of them, but definitely try to see what works best for your living situation, your family, and see what method you think might be best for their temperament. Depending on the methods I mentioned in the other episode, or any resources in books that you use.

 

00;54;41;22 – 00;55;05;06

Dr. Mona

Now I want to close this episode. If you have not listened to the other episode 17 or 16, just a general statement about sleep, I you know, I hope if you’re still listening to me, I know these episodes have been on the longer and I hope you really, really understand the importance of non anger and non-judgment when it comes to sleep training.

 

00;55;05;21 – 00;55;32;13

Dr. Mona

I’m recording these episodes during the pandemic and during the, killing of George Floyd, which is the, you know, black black man who was murdered by a police officer for, obviously an awful, awful thing. It’s 2021. I’m recording this in case you’re listening to it later. And, you know, I think about these events, and then I think about all the anger social media moms, mainly moms, get about, oh, you shouldn’t sleep, train and don’t do this and all this stuff.

 

00;55;32;13 – 00;55;58;00

Dr. Mona

And it gets me a little angry. And I’m recording this with a lot of passion right now, because I’m a little tired of everyone dictating how everyone else should parent. Their kids, sleep eating behavior. It’s all a personal choice, right? It’s not your responsibility how someone else decides to approach parenting their kid. So my advice is you need to do you.

 

00;55;58;02 – 00;56;15;03

Dr. Mona

And if you are one of those people that’s constantly on social media judging other people, why do you do this? Oh that’s bad. Did it? Check yourself. Is it really matter to you in the grand scheme of things, does it really matter when so much more is happening in our lives? Does it really matter to cause that sort of anger and hate?

 

00;56;15;03 – 00;56;38;18

Dr. Mona

What does it do for you? Right. What is it doing for you to create that sort of energy and just say, oh, you’re wrong, you’re wrong. Maybe they’re not wrong, because I see a lot of the methods I mentioned in episode 17 work out amazingly, and I’m speaking because I see two major camps. I see a Antichrist pro cry, I see an anti ween feeds cold turkey.

 

00;56;38;25 – 00;57;01;03

Dr. Mona

I see a don’t sleep train sleep train, I see anti co-sleeping co-sleep. Everyone is just so divisive and if any message you can get from these episodes is we need to stop being so divisive about the things that don’t really matter. It doesn’t matter how someone chooses to sleep, train their kid, and it is really important for me to understand that when you decide to do a method, my advice to you I would scream it from the rooftops because who cares?

 

00;57;01;03 – 00;57;21;10

Dr. Mona

It doesn’t matter. You shouldn’t feel judgment because you’re choosing what’s best for you and your family, okay? And if you don’t feel comfortable, you don’t need to tell anyone. You could just say, oh yeah, my kid slept. Yep. I want to talk about it. But if you are one of those people that’s just literally always on social media and and telling all of your friends, oh, don’t do it that way.

 

00;57;21;12 – 00;57;41;26

Dr. Mona

And there’s a difference between giving advice versus being negative about it. Maybe check yourself. We are in a time right now where we do not need to be in this judgment state at all. Never have we had to be like that. I’m a pediatrician and I’m not even that judgy, so I don’t understand why all these people are coming out of the woodworks so angry about how people are choosing to sleep or sleep, train or not sleep train their kid.

 

00;57;41;28 – 00;58;03;20

Dr. Mona

This is just all tips and techniques and understandings that we can get all the resources we can to make the best choice for ourselves and our kids. Guys, I could talk about sleep forever. I know I’m not obviously a, you know, trained in sleep, but I understand it. I’ve obviously take care of a lot of patients and have helped their, you know, help them with sleep.

 

00;58;04;03 – 00;58;20;29

Dr. Mona

I obviously have just one son right now who I’ve we’ve kind of gotten a master over his sleep and will continue to work on it as we get older. Right as we, as he gets older, will continue to, to learn all about it. So my advice again is do what you need to do. Don’t listen to anyone else.

 

00;58;21;03 – 00;58;41;12

Dr. Mona

Do your own research meaning talking to your pediatrician, reading books, listening to these podcasts and most importantly, if you are married or have a partner, talk to your partner about what you guys see is the best thing for you, right? It’s really important that you guys listen to this because you have to do what’s best for you. You have to do what you feel comfortable.

 

00;58;41;12 – 00;58;57;18

Dr. Mona

And like I said in my last episode, you have to do what makes your heart feel good and what will make you not lose sleep figuratively overnight, right? What makes you feel good? If there’s a method that you just don’t feel like is good for you, don’t do it. But you’ve got to do what’s best for you. And seriously, you do you.

 

00;58;57;20 – 00;59;18;00

Dr. Mona

Thanks again guys. If you like this episode, please, please, please share it on social media. Write a review. I definitely love doing this episode and the more you can share it and the more you review it in a positive light, the more I can continue doing this for you. I have such big plans. Next week I have all the feeding episodes coming about baby led weaning and eating.

 

00;59;18;05 – 00;59;28;11

Dr. Mona

So definitely if you haven’t already, listen to the other the other four episodes that released this week and I Love You. Take care, talk to you soon. Hope you all get some good sleep tonight.