[Catherin Sedano]

Hi Emma,

Thank you so much for the step by step guidance. I really appreciate it. I have a question about the sleep association that my daughter has with nursing. You suggest to nurse outside of her bedroom, which I am willing to try. My fear is if after doing the new steps (rocking, patting, and shushing) she still wants to nurse to fall asleep. I mentioned in my previous message that she cries when I don’t nurse. What can I do if that happens?

I spoke with her teacher at daycare about the sleep routine. At daycare, they have group naps so all the kids take a nap together between 1pm to 3pm. The teacher told me that the routine consists of turning of the lights in the classroom; turning on the white noise machine, then she lays my daughter down on her mat and puts the blanket on her, then she tells her I love you and gives her a kiss, then she walks away. She says that my daughter usually falls asleep in less than 10 minutes. She has been impressed by how easily she falls asleep, she hasn’t required any helped falling asleep yet and she has been in that new class for two weeks. The teacher also mentioned that one day my daughter woke up for 5 minutes and fell back to sleep again on her own. She did point out that having a group setting helps because my daughter gets to look at what the other kids do and follow. I was impressed to learn about all of these. With this new information, do you have any other suggestion to add or something to modify to the initial recommendation?

Finally, I wanted to share that I was very happy this past week as my daughter’s sleep improved for few days. One day she slept for 7 hours straight, followed by three consecutive nights sleeping over 10 hours, then almost 12 hours. I was getting really excited until the sixth night when she went back to waking up multiple times every one, two and three hours. Last night, she woke up one hour and a half after bed time, then she slept for six and a half hours, then for one hour and 45 minutes to wake up at her usual wake time. I don’t understand why it seems like she goes through these cycles of improving her sleep for almost a week then revert again. Will this still be due to the sleep association to nursing? Or could it be something else? As always, I appreciate your guidance and look forward to your feedback.

Warm regards,

Catherin

[Catherin Sedano]

Hi Emma, please see the answers to your questions below:

Her current daytime schedule:

• What time does she usually wake up in the morning, and is this consistent? She usually wakes up between 7:00am to 7:30am. We were on vacation for 2 weeks and she got sick when we returned back home so I had been letting her sleep as much as she needed. Since last Monday that she went back to daycare, I have been getting her back to her regular wake time which is between 7am to 7:30am. I would like her to wake up at 7:30am since she is now taking one nap at daycare which is around 1:00pm so she is not overtired at nap time.
• What time is she having her one nap, and how long is she sleeping for? She takes her nap at daycare. They have a group nap between 1pm to 3pm. She has been falling asleep between 1:15pm to 1:30pm and sleeping for about 1 and half to two hours
• What time is bedtime? Her bedtime is at 7:30am

How she’s falling asleep:

• Previously, you were nursing her to sleep. Is that still how she’s falling asleep at bedtime, or have you changed your approach? I am still nursing her to sleep.
• Can you please step me through her bedtime routine?

The bedtime routine starts by washing her hands, face, and feet. Then I change her diaper and change her into her pijamas. After, I put her in the sleep sack. After that I feed her a bottle in her room with the lights on. She usually only drinks half of the bottle, then takes a break. I read a book or two. After that, I turn off the big light and turn on a lamp that has different light colors. I keep the yellow light until she finishes the bottle. All these (feeding and reading a book) steps happen on the couch in her room. I also turn on the white noise machine. After she finishes the bottle, I nurse her and change the lamp light color to red, which makes the room very dark. The couch is also a rocking chair so I rock her for a little while and stop when I see that she is settling down. Finally, I put her in her crib once she is asleep. I want to mention that I have been weaning her off of breastfeeding so I only nurse at bedtime. I have tried to stop nursing but she has a hard time and gets upset if I don’t nurse her. I don’t really know what to do or how to put her to sleep without nursing and getting her upset.

What was different when you were overseas? You mentioned that when you were abroad she slept better overnight. I am just wondering if there was there anything noticeably different (apart from sleeping in the same room with you and your husband)? For example:

• Was her wake-up time earlier or later than usual? Her bedtime and wake up time were a bit later. Her bedtime was around 9pm and her wake up time around 8am.
• Was she having two naps instead of one? Most of the time she had two naps, that’s why she was going to bed late.
• Was bedtime later? Yes, around 9 pm
• Was the room darker or quieter? The room was as dark as at home. The room wasn’t Necessarily quiet, there was some noise every once in a while.

Comparing the two rooms: Since she seems to sleep better when she’s in your room, it’s worth looking at whether there’s something different about her room that might be disturbing her. I’d suggest going into her room at night after she’s asleep, closing the door, and just sitting quietly for a few minutes. Have a look and listen for anything that might be waking her, things like:

• Street noise or other sounds, our street is quiet most of the time. My neighbor’s garbage bins are located right across her room. My neighbors house is pretty close to mine so every Wednesday and Thursday they make noise when they pull the garbage bins towards the street for the day when the garbage is picked up and the day after when they put the garbage bins back. I have heard them twice when I was putting her to sleep.

[Catherin Sedano]

Hi Emma, Happy New Year! I hope that you enjoyed the Holiday season with your loved ones. I am writing this message in desperate need for help. I followed your advice when I moved my daughter to her own room at the beginning of December. Despite that, she has been having a hard time adjusting. The first week was horrible, she woke up every hour crying hysterically. Every time she woke up, I went to the room to calm and settle her down again. About a week and half after, we went on a family trip abroad. She did well and had no major issues sleeping. Perhaps because she slept in the same hotel room with my husband and I. We came back from our trip almost a week ago so she is back in her room and back to waking multiple times during the night. Her wakes are inconsistent, sometimes 30 minutes to one hour after putting her down in her crib. She then wakes up sometimes every hour or hour and a half. Two days ago she woke up twice in the spam of three hours, then slept a long stretch of 6 hours and yesterday she slept for 4 hours after waking twice before that. Her cry has also changed when she wakes. She used to wake up crying hysterically. That has gradually changed, while she still cries, it is not as bad as it was so I am counting all that as progress. The other situation is that, I am the only one that can soothe her. My husband has tried to go in her room as you suggested but it didn’t work as she goes nuts and things get even wilder. I had to end up going to her room when my husband was failing to calm her down as she cried her heart out. I am really lost and don’t know what to do or think of everything. Is all this temporarily and I just need to be patient? Or is she having a sleep regression? Do we need to do sleep training, is that even possible at her age? Please feel free to ask any questions. I really need your help and guidance. Thank you so much. Catherin.

[Catherin Sedano]

Hi Emma,

My apologies for not answering before. I did read your message a while ago and have been applying what you suggested. My daughter is officially 1 year and 2 weeks old. We are getting her room ready to move her hopefully this weekend. Is there anything that I can expect from when we move her to her room in terms of sleep behavior/disturbance? She is not waking up in the middle of the night now. She continues to walk up an hour after bedtime but after that she has been sleeping through the night and waking up between 7am to 7:15am. Her total sleep hours in a day has also increased to 11:30 to 12 hours. I am very happy with her progress. I just want to know what to expect when I move her to her room and what I can do to ease the transition. For example, if she continues to wake up an hour after bedtime, should my husband comfort her instead of me to break the habit? What if she wakes up in the middle of the night, should I or my husband take care of her? Any advise is much appreciated it. Warm regards, Catherin

[Catherin Sedano]

Hi Emma,

I really appreciate all your additional questions so no need to apologize. Please see below my answers:

• What is your little one’s current bedtime routine? After dinner, my husband plays a little bit with her, then either him or myself wash her hands and face, change her diaper and put on her pijamas while one of us is getting the bottles ready. I usually prepare three bottles (one for the night, one in case she wakes up in the middle of the night, and one for the next morning), sometimes my husband reads a book to her on our bed. Then I put the blinds on the room down, our bedside table has a night light so I turn that on. Then put her in her sleep sack, turn on the white noise machine, and give her a bottle on a rocking chair in the room with the lights on. I usually sing a song while she drinks and keep her awake as much as possible but she usually begins to fall asleep when she is about to finish the bottle. Once she finishes the bottle I turned off the bedroom light leaving the night light on so the room gets pretty dark. I then nurse her. I have tried to avoid it but she really looks for my breast if it is ok to say that…lol. She usually falls asleep pretty fast, maybe in 15 minutes she is out so I put her in her crib. I have tried to put her in the crib while she is awake but she cries and stands up. If I try to lay her down, she cries even more so I don’t try anymore.
• How do you settle her to sleep at bedtime? Do you feed her to sleep or lay her down awake in the crib? I feed her to sleep as I explained above.
• How often is she waking overnight for a feed? It sounds like she might be waking an hour after bedtime and then again in the early morning hours – is that correct? The waking an hour after bedtime happens everyday. It is rarely when she does not wake up an hour after. The waking in the early morning is inconsistent. I haven’t figured out what causes her to wake up in the early morning. I do hear her around 4:30 am to 5 am. It seems like she goes through a sleep cycle so she wakes up and makes noises for a little while but falls back to sleep more often than not. Then she wakes up at her regular time between 7am to 7:15am. Sometimes, she does fully wake up and stands up in the crib and calls us out. Most of the time when she wakes up at this time, she has been sleeping for 8 hours or so so I feed her a bottle and sometimes change her diaper. It takes her almost an hour and a half to fall asleep again so it is around 6am when I put her down. She wakes up at her normal time around 7ish after. In few occasions, she wakes up earlier than 5am, around 2 am, usually after sleeping 5 or 6 hours straight. I do the same routine of feeding her a bottle, nurse after that, and put her back to sleep. In few occasions she has slept over 10 or 11 hours straight but it is not yet consistent. I really don’t know why her sleep seems to be inconsistent or perhaps is normal. She seems to know how to sleep on her own so I don’t really know what to do to make her sleep through the night more consistent than what it is right now.
• Is your little one’s bedtime consistent? So falling within the same 30-minute window? Yes, specially lately that she has been having only one nap, she is ready to sleep by 7pm. Depending on how long her nap was she can make it until 7:30 pm but not pass that.
• When your little one stirs an hour after bedtime, have either you or your husband just entered the bedroom to go to bed or used a bathroom which shares a wall with the bedroom? I’m just trying to work out if this wake-up is due to a disturbance. No, we use our guest bathroom that is on the other side of the house. We also try to stay quiet so we don’t hang out close to our bedroom even though the living room and the kitchen are right next to our bedroom. We do live close to small airport so planes fly over our house often. I haven’t really paid attention if this could disturb her sleep. She has been waken up an hour after bedtime for long time since she was very little. But she also used to wake up every two or three hours but that changed so I am intrigue by why the hour wake hasn’t.
• It sounds like you’re nursing her when she wakes overnight – does she take a bottle at all? Yes, as I explained above I give her a bottle and nurse after. I have noticed that the nursing is more for comforting her. I can tell that she does not really drink.

I hope that my answers reveal helpful information, please feel free to ask more questions. I am happy to answer anything that is necessary to help my daughter. I just had a meeting at Daycare as she will transition to the toddlers’ room in January of next year. I learned that they only take one nap and they only rock them to sleep so I don’t know how that is going to go. I also learned that she needs to wear shoes. I watched one of your videos and you advise that shoes is not recommended until she is a skilled walker so I hope she is by then. By the way, would you mind recommending some shoes brands? I need to start looking into that as well. Again, thank you so much for all your help. Warm regards, Catherin

[Catherin Sedano]

Hi Emma, thank you so much for your advice and the video. I love how you explain things that it is easy to follow. I should have told you in my previous message that my daughter is about to turn one year old on November 10th. I just started applying the new schedule with the 9:30 am to 10:00 am nap two days ago. Really this happened at Daycare. The first day she fell asleep at 9:30am but only slept for 15 minutes. Then her second nap was at 1:30 pm and she slept for 53 minutes. Today however, she skipped the morning nap. They tried to put her for a nap but she didn’t fall asleep. Her supposedly second nap was at 1:05 pm and she slept one hour and 40 minutes. We’ll see how she does during the weekend. I will let you know in my next message. I really need your help with two other things please. I am planning to transition my daughter to her room after she turns one and I am also planning on stopping breastfeeding. I spoke with my lactation specialist today who advise to move her to her room first and once she has adjusted begin weaning nursing. She stated that too many changes at once is not good for a baby. That made me think about something else that I am not sure if I should address first before moving her to her room. She slept most days through the night or I should say from 8 to 10 + hours straight. However, more often than not she wakes up within 30 minutes to an hour after I put her down. She wakes up crying and I have not been able to figure out the reason. I have tried to keep her in her crib by patting her but she wants me to pick her up and would not lay down. I have tried to make lay her down but she cries even more so I end up picking her up and nursing until she falls asleep. I have also tried to put her down when she is not fully asleep but she wakes up and cries so I put her down when she is fully asleep. Rarely she wakes up a second time after one hour. Most of the time, she does not wake up again and sleeps for a good 8 to 10 hours. Depending on how long she sleeps, it can be 4 or 5 am in the morning when she wakes up. I usually nurse and put her back to sleep because I think that she is probably hungry. My lactation specialist suggested that my husband comforts her instead of me. That way we get her out of the habit of expecting to be nursed or fed since I need to wean her off of breastfeeding. All these transitions made me think if it would be a good idea to address the wakes within one our of being put down and the early morning wakes first before moving her to her room and weaning her off of breastfeeding but I am so confused that I don’t know where to start or what to do. I don’t even know what makes more sense at this point. I apologize for the lengthy message but I am getting concerned. I thank you in advance for your help. Warm regards, Catherin

[Catherin Sedano]

Hi Emma,

Thank you so much for answering my questions. My apologies for the delay in my response. My daughter has been on and off sick since she began daycare. Apparently that is normal the first year of daycare. I have been trying to follow the schedule that you proposed as much as possible when she is not sick because when she is sick I let her rest as you recommended. It is also hard to follow the schedule regarding naps when she is at daycare. She skips the morning nap sometimes so she only takes one nap outside of the daycare nap schedule. By the time she gets home she is exhausted, sometimes she falls asleep int the car on the way home. When that happens, it throws her bedtime time off. She hasn’t been able to have longer first naps yet. Sometimes she does sleep over an hour but most of the time is a short nap between 30 to 40 minutes and her second nap tends to be longer.over an hour. The good thing is that she still wakes up around the same time every day between 7 am to 7:15am. From the past two weekends, I have noticed that she has not been tired for her first nap after being awake for two hours. She shows some tired cues but when I try to put her to sleep, she does fall sleep and begins crying if I insisted on putting her to sleep.. One time she fell sleep only for 20 minutes and woke up with a lot of energy. She has been taking a nap around 11ish as she really seems tired by that time and falls asleep right away. The problem is that that puts her second nap to a later time Around 4ish or she skips it since her bedtime is at 7pm but she gets very tired to bedtime and can barely make it very fuzzy to 7pm. I really don’t know if her sleep patterns are changing again or if I should be worried and do something. Overall though she has been sleeping longer hours in a 24 hour period between 11 to 13 hours, which I am happy about. Please let me know your thoughts about what can be happening. I also wanted to ask you about daylight savings time as it ends on November 2 in the USA. I remember that you explained in one of your videos something that can be done to help a baby transition smoothly but I don’t remember exactly how. Could you please tell me about it? I look forward to your message. thank you so much, Catherin

[Catherin Sedano]

Hi Emma, Thank you so much for all the advice. I am following the schedule that you proposed. I must say that it worked wonderfully for two days, so I am very hopeful that It will make a difference in my little one sleep. I just need to be consistent. The naps can be tricky for sure, specially not knowing if her naps will be shorter or longer. That can really alter the whole schedule for the day. I noticed in the schedule that the naps and bedtime increases as the day goes by.. For example, her wake time is at 7am and her first nap at 9 am, which is 2 hours after she wakes up. The second nap is at 1pm, so 4 hours after 9, then bedtime is 6 hours after the second nap (around 7 pm), is there a reason for that? I am just curious as I like to educate myself on everything related to baby sleep...lol. Lastly, what happens during sickness. Would you recommend to still follow the schedule or letting her rest? I know that it would throw the schedule off so I am not sure. As always, thank you for all your help. Catherin 

[Catherin Sedano]

Hi Emma, thank you so much for your response. I switched my daughter’s wake time to 7 am. She adjusted quite well. She has been consistently waking up between 7 am to 7:30 am. More often close to 7 though. I wanted to ask you a few things since the hours that she sleeps in a day have changed, I guess because she is transitioning to two naps. She used to sleep an average of 12 hours in a day but since few weeks ago she has been sleeping an average of 10 hours. It has been difficult to get her to sleep 11 hours or more. There have been few days when she slept 9 hours. Is this normal around her age? Should I be concerned? The other thing is that it has been hard to keep her on a sleep schedule. She takes two naps more often than three and her wake window has increased, too. For example. When she wakes up at 7 am, she can stay up until 10 or 10:30 am before she gets sleepy and is ready for her morning nap. Her morning nap tends to be shorter than it used to lasting only 20 to 30 minutes. After that, she is not sleepy again until 4 pm to 4:30pm. That second nap tends to be the longest over one hour sometimes close to two hours. I am not sure if I shouldn’t let her sleep more than one and a half hour. Because her afternoon nap is kind of late in the day and the longest, she is not sleepy to go to bed at 7 pm as it was suggested before. Her bedtime is usually around 8:30 pm. This is the schedule that I have been following most days, except when her two naps are short, then she does need a third one. Does this schedule sound okay? Or should I make adjustments? I am not sure anymore. I am going by her cues. The other thing is her night sleep remains inconsistent. She has been sleeping for longer periods of time sometimes sleeping through the night from 9 to over 10 hours. Or waking up once and then sleeping for a good 6 to 7 hours. However, every time it seems like she is finally sleeping through the night. Everything goes backwards and she begins waking up twice during the night. I don’t know if this is normal and I am stressing about for anything or if there is something that I could do to help her finally sleep through the night consistently. The last thing I wanted to ask you is about humidifiers. I read a lot that it contributes to help a baby to sleep better but is this really true? We didn’t get one because of the fear of getting mold but at this point, I am willing to give it a second thought if it is really helpful. As always, I appreciate your advice. Take care. Catherin

[Catherin Sedano]

Hi Emma,

The plan sounds great. I just wanted to ask you how should I go about changing her wake time to 7:00 am from 8:00 am. Should I just start to wake her up at 7:00 am? Or should I wake her up few minutes earlier each day until I make it to 7:00 am? I appreciate your advice.

Best,

Catherin

[Catherin Sedano]

Hi Emma,

Thank you so much for your thoughtful insights and guidance. A lot has happened since my last message. In a nutshell, my little one began daycare and after the first week she got sick and passed it onto the whole family. Thankfully, she had a mild cold and was fine in a day but in my case, I am still recovering. This is the reason why I was unable to get back to you earlier. I wanted to ask you to help me adjust her sleep schedule to align with the nap schedule at daycare. I have been trying to move her bedtime to an earlier time slowly. At the moment her bedtime is between 8 pm to 8:30 pm, really closer to 8:30 pm. She has been waking up between 7 am to 8 am. She has been sleeping longer stretches during the night between 5 to 7 hours and waking up only once during the night. This just started to happen a couple of weeks ago so I hope that it becomes the new pattern so I can get more rest. She will be turning 9 months this weekend, perhaps that has something to do with that. The naps schedule at daycare are from 9 to 10:30 am, and 1:00 pm to 2:30 pm. She has not been consisten with napping at daycare, sometimes she naps in the morning for less than an hour and sometimes she skips the morning nap and only naps in the afternoon. This tend to be longer naps of over one hour. Today her afternoon nap at daycare was almost two hours. Is this ok? Should she still be napping 3 times a day? Is it ok to let her have a longer nap in the afternoon if she didn’t nap in the morning? I still put her for a short nap in the afternoon when she gets home around 5:30 pm but I feel that it affects her bedtime. I am not even sure of what time her bedtime should be now that she is in daycare. As always, I appreciate your help and guidance.

Best,

Catherin

[Catherin Sedano]

Thank you so much, Emma. I will do that. I will track her wake up time for a week and I will let you know. Best, Catherin

[Catherin Sedano]

Hi Emma, thank you for answering my message so fast. I have not been able to apply your recommendations because my daughter got sick, immediately after that she began waking up multiple times during the night again. This lasted for about a week, it was hard. I believe that she was going through a sleep regression that seems to have ended now as she is sleeping through the night again. As soon as she fully recovers, I will begin waking her up at the same time everyday. One question, what do I do if one day she wakes up on her own before 7:30am like at 6am for example. I mentioned this because that recently happened. What I did that time was to keep her in her room with the lights off until 7:15 am. I couldn’t keep her in the dark until 7:30 am because she was fully awake and wanted to play. Was I supposed to do that? Or would you recommend to do something different? Thank you again for your advice. Best regards, Catherin

[Catherin Sedano]

Hi Emma, It has been a while since my last communication with you. I hope that you are well. My little one will be 18 months old on Sunday. Shortly after our last message, her sleep started to be more consistent, waking up less during the night and sleeping for longer stretches. Her sleep during the last two months has been very consistent in terms of sleeping through the night.for about 11 to 12 hours, sometimes 13. I am very happy with her sleeping improvement. However, her sleeping schedule has changed gradually as well.Her bedtime used to be at 7pm and wake time at 7am..Now it is more around 8:30pm to 9 pm, she sleeps for 11 to 12 hours waking up anytime between 8 am to 9 am. I have tried to put her to sleep around 7pm to 7:30pm but she doesn’t seem to be sleepy enough and usually she stills wants to play and wants me to read her books. She still takes a nap at 1pm, on weekdays at Daycare. Her naps are for about one hour and a half to close to two hours. It has been difficult for me to identify when she is tired because she seems fuzzy but when I tried to put her to sleep she complains and doesn’t want to sleep. Now that she can communicate a little bit, I even ask her if she wants to sleep, she says no, then we continue doing some quiet play for a little while, then I ask her again if she wants to sleep and when she finally says yes, I put her to sleep. Because she has to be at Daycare by 9am, ideally I would prefer for her to go to bed at 8am the latest but I don’t know how to do that. I am sure that this change in her sleep schedule is normal but I need to be able to keep her on a predictable schedule. I appreciate your help and advise on how to do that. Best regards, Catherin

[Catherin Sedano]

Hi Emma, your last message gave me a lot of hope. You said that my daughter will eventually sleep for longer stretches as she is already doing it on and off. I know that every baby is different but is there an approximate age or time when those nights of good sleep become the normal? She had another 3 days of good sleep last week and now we are back to waking multiple times . Before your last message, I was following the gradual approach to break the sleep association to nursing and it has been challenging. Basically, I was unable to avoid nursing at bedtime In the bedroom., I tried but my little one would cry and become extremely upset so I ended up nursing until she fall asleep. The only two times when I was successful was when she woke up the second part of the night, she would get a little upset but I was able to calm her down rocking her in my arms and singing a lullaby. I do want to break the sleep association because I want to stop breastfeeding. This is the only time of the day that I nurse. What would you suggest that I do when she cries when I avoid nursing? After trying unsuccessfully, I gave up because I really didn’t know what to do. I really appreciate if you have any advise on that. Thank you so much. Catherin