[Emma H]

Hi Kateryna,

Before I give you specific advice on transitioning away from rocking, I’d love to get a clearer picture of where things are at. So when you have time can you please answer the questions below?

His routine

• Does he have a consistent wake-up time each morning (within about a 30-minute window)? If so, what time does he usually wake?
• Have you been able to implement the wake, play, sleep routine during the day?
• How many naps is he having, and how long are they roughly?
• How long is he typically staying awake between sleeps?

His nap settling

• Have you been able to put a nap routine in place? If so, can you walk me through what that looks like?
• When it comes to actually settling him, are you completing the nap routine and then holding him upright in your arms while rocking him side to side, or are you sitting on the exercise ball and bouncing up and down? Are you doing anything else at the same time, like singing?

His sleep environment

• Is he swaddled or in a sleeping bag?
• Is his room cool, dark, and quiet?
• Is he using a pacifier?

Bedtime

• Have you been able to start a bedtime routine? If so, what does it look like, and how are you settling him to sleep at night?

Sorry for all the questions! Once I know the answers, I’ll be able to give you much more targeted advice on how to gently work towards more independent settling!

Emma

[Emma H]

Hi Benjamin,

You’re right, the advice out there can be confusing!

The second piece of advice is the one that aligns with current safety guidance. The goal is to keep the sound level at your baby’s ears within a safe range, not just to limit what the machine is set to. So it’s the volume where your baby is sleeping that matters most.

The AAP recommends keeping it at or below 50 dB at the baby’s ear, while the CDC puts the limit at 60 dBA. In practice, aiming for somewhere in that 50–60 dB range is a safe target.

To check, simply open the NIOSH Sound Level Meter app on your phone, place it in your baby’s sleep space with the white noise running, and take a reading. If it’s above that range, turn the machine down until it falls within it.

As for placement, further away is always better, but honestly, don’t stress too much about the exact distance. The most important thing is that the reading at your baby’s ear stays within that safe range. If it does, you’re good! That said, positioning the machine between the noise source and your baby’s crib is a great approach when you can manage it.

Hope that clears things up!
Emma

[Emma H]

Hi Jessica,

It sounds like your baby’s sleep space is great in terms of being conducive to sleep, and it’s fantastic that you’ve been able to adopt a consistent wake-up time and bedtime.

Before I can give you some strategies to lengthen your little one’s naps, I have a few questions. When you have some time, can you please answer the questions below?

1. Have your little one’s naps always been 30 to 45 minutes in length, or were they around 1.5 to 2 hours, and is this a recent change? If it is a recent change, do you think she’s getting sick, or has she been sick recently?
2. Could you outline the timing of her naps, how many naps she’s currently having in the day, and the length of those naps?
3. Can you step me through what the nap and bedtime routine looks like?
4. Have you been able to follow the pattern of wake, feed, play, sleep during the day?
5. Does she use a pacifier at all?
6. You mentioned she can self-soothe, can you tell me what that looks like? Eg. After you’ve done the nap routine, do you put her in the crib and walk away, or do you put her in the crib, pop a pacifier in, and walk away or do you stay in the room.
7. Does she self soothe for bedtime and naps?
8. Is she waking during the night? If so, can you let me know what time she is waking and what you do during those wakes to get her back to sleep?
9. Is anything happening in the room/house around 4:30/5am? For example, is the sun rising at this time, is anyone getting up for work or going to the toilet etc?

Sorry for all the questions,

Emma

• This reply was modified 1 week, 5 days ago by  Emma H.

[Emma H]

Hi Patrick!

It sounds like your little one has learned to fall asleep using movement, and is then relying on that same movement to link her sleep cycles.

Here’s what’s happening:

During the day, when she stirs between sleep cycles (around that 30-minute mark), you’re naturally rocking, shushing, or moving to help her resettle which links her into the next cycle.

At night, it’s a slightly different picture. Nighttime sleep cycles are longer than daytime ones, around 90 minutes compared to 30–45 minutes during the day. So when she wakes between those cycles, she needs you to recreate the movement (or pick her up) to fall back to sleep, which is why nights are more broken.

The key to longer nights is helping her learn to fall asleep without movement, and ideally fall asleep in her crib from the start of each sleep. Once she can do that, she’ll be able to resettle herself between those sleep cycles without needing you.

It’s great that you’ve already stopped the bouncer, that’s a really positive first step!

To help me point you in the right direction, could you let me know:

• What you’ve been able to try from the course so far
• What her nap routine looks like, step by step
• What her bedtime routine looks like, step by step
• How you’re currently settling her to sleep

Once I can see the full picture, we can work out exactly what to tweak!

Emma

[Emma H]

Hi Tatsiana,

You’re right that I generally recommend swaddling babies while they’re awake, as part of the settling routine. The reasoning is that even though they may protest at first, they usually calm down and being already swaddled makes the transfer from your arms into the cot easier. From there, you can use the Settling Pyramid to help them drift off.

That said, if rocking her to sleep and then swaddling her in deep sleep is working well for you both, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with continuing that way!

However, if you’d like to move away from rocking her to sleep, you have a couple of options:

Option 1: Switch to a sleeping bag. At around three months, a sleeping bag can work well as an alternative to the swaddle. Simply pop it on as part of her sleep routine, then use the Settling Pyramid to help her fall asleep.

Option 2: Stick with the swaddle, but change where you put it on. It’s really common for babies to protest the swaddle, as most babies don’t love being changed or handled when they’re tired! One thing that can help is to swaddle her in the living room rather than the bedroom. The extra stimulation can act as a distraction, which often reduces the tears. Once she’s calm, you can then carry her through to the bedroom to settle.

Of course, if you’re happy with what you’re doing now, that’s perfectly fine too!

I hope that helps clarify your concerns.

Emma

[Emma H]

Hi Erin,

It’s great to hear that you’ve been able to get your little one napping in his crib, and that you’ve picked up some helpful tips from the forum!

About the short naps

Short naps are really common at this age, anywhere around 30 minutes or less. This happens because, sometime between 3 to 5 months, your baby’s sleep matures and they start waking between sleep cycles.

They’ll usually sleep longer on you because when they start to stir, you naturally soothe them back to sleep by rocking or doing whatever helped them drift off in the first place. In the crib, they don’t have that, so they tend to wake up fully.

Short naps are absolutely fine! It just means he’ll need more naps throughout the day with shorter awake windows, which you’ve already noticed.

If you’d like to try extending his naps

Since he’s waking around the 30-minute mark, you could try going into his room at about the 20-minute mark, just before he’s likely to wake. Then, instead of picking him up, place your hand on his chest and gently rock him side to side in the crib. This mimics what you’d normally do in your arms and might help him drift into the next sleep cycle.

If it doesn’t work and he wakes up anyway, that’s okay, it just means the sleep pressure that helped him fall asleep in the first place has dropped, and he’s no longer tired enough to go back to sleep. In that case, just embrace the short nap and move on with your day.

The good news is that as he learns to self-settle, he’ll start linking those sleep cycles on his own. This typically happens somewhere between 5 to 6 months of age.

Another option to try

You could let the first nap (and maybe the second) happen in the crib, and then make the third nap a contact nap so he can get a longer stretch of sleep. This can help bridge that gap so he’s not getting too tired.

That said, if he’s doing okay with 4 to 5 short naps a day that add up to around 2 to 3 hours of total daytime sleep, then that’s totally fine!

About self-settling

Being able to fall asleep independently isn’t something we’d typically expect at this age. Some babies can do it, but that’s usually if they take a pacifier or they’re really chilled bubs.

Even babies who can self-settle for that first nap of the day often struggle with later naps, as the second, third, and fourth naps get progressively harder to settle them to sleep. So for your little one, it’s completely normal that he’s not there yet.

A few questions before I give you some next steps

To give you (and his daycare) the best recommendations, I just need to clarify a few things:

1. Morning wake time – I’m assuming from what you’ve said that he consistently wakes between 6:00 and 6:30am? Based on that, his first nap would fall around 7:30–8:00am.
2. Your nap routine – Can you walk me through exactly what this looks like? It sounds like you change his nappy, pop him in his sleep sack, turn the lights off, and put on white noise. Then what happens – are you rocking him in your arms while singing a lullaby, or walking around the dark room?
3. Your settling approach – You mentioned you’re using a modified settling pyramid. Can you describe what that actually looks like step by step? So how you settle him in your arms and at what point you transfer him into the crib?
4. Daytime routine – Are you following the wake-feed-play-sleep routine during the day?
5. Bedtime – You mentioned he’s not falling asleep in his crib at bedtime. Can you explain how you’re getting him to sleep at night? From what you’ve written, it sounds like you’re co-sleeping, and it seems to be working well.
6. Daycare setup – Can you describe what his sleep environment looks like there? Specifically:
   • Is the room relatively dark?
   • Do they use white noise? Could you bring yours in?
   • Are they willing to do a short nap routine, like singing a lullaby before putting him down?
   • What are they actually doing when they put him down – does it sound like they’re placing him in the crib and leaving him to settle on his own?

Once I have a clearer picture of all of this, we should be able to figure out some practical steps for both you and his daycare.

Emma

[Emma H]

Hi Lizzie,

Wow, 3.5 months – she’s growing up so fast!

From what you’ve described, it does sound like the dummy might be causing those more frequent night wakings. So I do think it might be time to let it go, and it’s absolutely fine to start now rather than waiting until four months. That said, if you’d prefer to wait, that’s okay too. Just know she’ll likely continue waking frequently overnight until you make the change.

How to fade out the dummy

You have a few options:

Option 1 — Cold turkey Remove it completely.

Option 2 — Use it in the routine, remove before the cot Do your usual pre-sleep routine. When you’re singing your lullaby with her in your arms, pop the dummy out at that point and finish the song without it. Then lay her down in the cot and use the settling pyramid to help her fall asleep without it.

Option 3 — Keep it in until just before she falls asleep Use the dummy all the way through the routine and lay her down in the crib with it still in. Use the settling pyramid to help her fall asleep and then gently slide your finger between the dummy and the corner of her lip to pop the dummy out just before she falls asleep. Some babies will drift off after that, others will wake up fully. If she wakes up, Option 2 is likely a better fit for her.

What about naps on the go?

It really depends on how often those on-the-go naps happen. If most of her naps are out and about, I’d be cautious about using the dummy for all of them, as she needs some opportunities to practise falling asleep without it. But if it’s just one nap a day or an occasional car trip, that’s completely fine. Car rides are one of those situations where a little extra help is totally reasonable!

Also, something else to note with fading out the dummy: if it feels like it’s too much to do that for all naps, what you can do is choose one of those options that I mentioned and do it for bedtime and that first nap of the day. Those are generally the easier ones to get babies to fall asleep with. This can give her an opportunity to learn to fall asleep with their settling pyramid, and once she’s doing that, you can then transition it through to all the naps.

I hope that helps clarify things

Emma

[Emma H]

No worries at all.

[Emma H]

Hi Patrick,

Thanks for sharing all of that!

So when little ones get sick, it can definitely set their sleep back a little and the reason for that is pretty straightforward. When they’re unwell, uncomfortable, or in pain, we naturally do more to help soothe them. And once they get used to that extra input to help them fall asleep, they start to expect it, even after they’re feeling better.

Now, you also mentioned she might be teething. One thing that can help you figure out whether pain is causing the wakes is to look at the timing of them. If she’s waking at random times – not every 90 minutes or two hours, just unpredictably – that’s often a sign that pain is the culprit rather than a sleep association. If that sounds like what’s happening, it’s worth having a chat with your doctor about pain relief options to help her through it.

I do have a few more questions so I can get a clearer picture of her routine before I give you more specific guidance:

• Day routine: Are you generally following a wake-feed-play-sleep routine during the day? You mentioned your wife sometimes settles her with a feed – is that mainly for the overnight wakes, or is she also feeding her to sleep for naps and at bedtime?
• Nap settling: When she’s on the bouncy ball, are you singing a lullaby, or is it done in silence? And when you move to rocking her in your arms, are you rocking until her eyes are closed, or just for the length of a song before putting her down awake? Is she already asleep when you put her down?
• Baby carrier: Have you moved away from using the carrier altogether? Or do you rock her in your arms and then transfer her into the carrier to fall asleep for naps? Or does she start in the cot, and then when she wakes after 30 minutes you put her in the carrier to extend the nap?
• Bedtime Story: You mentioned that you read your little one a book in the living room. When you do this, have you turned the lights down in the living room and maybe just have a lamp on?
• Bedtime settling on your wife’s chest: When your wife lays her down on her chest – is she sitting down in a chair with your little one lying on her, shushing and stroking her back or tummy? Or is she standing and moving while doing that?
• Bedtime feed: I’m guessing there’s a feed somewhere in the bedtime routine – is it before the washcloth and warm water, or does it come a bit later? If it’s later, can you let me know where it fits in?
• Pacifier: You mentioned she used a pacifier occasionally. Do you use it as part of the bedtime and nap routine, or just for the overnight wakes?

Sorry for all the questions! I just want to make sure I’ve got a really clear picture of how things are looking before I give you my recommendations.

Emma

[Emma H]

Hi Tatsiana,

Given that your little one has recently started the medication and the side effect is gassiness and the wakings at night have only recently started, they could be due to the medication.

But the other thing it could be is that your little one is going through the 4-month sleep regression. It’s not really a regression; it’s more like a regression in that they go through four stages instead of two. When they wake between sleep cycles or are partially awake between sleep cycles, if they need your help to fall asleep, they are more likely to wake fully and then need you to recreate whatever it is they need to fall asleep.

Generally, if they’re waking due to pain, the wake-ups overnight happen at random times and are not really like clockwork. If it is due to the 4-month regression, the wakes tend to be really predictable and happen at really predictable times, almost as if you could set a stopwatch and you’ll know when they’ll wake up. That sounds like it might be the case with your little one.

Just to help you move through this stage, I’ve got a few questions. When you have time, can you please answer them so I’ll have a clearer idea of what’s going on with your little one and be able to provide more tailored suggestions?

1. You mentioned you’re moving her wake-up time earlier. Can you let me know what her current wake-up time is?
2. Are you keeping the morning wake up time within the same 30 minute window?
3. Also you mentioned you are shifting her wake up time and bedtime earlier, how often are you making the adjustments and how big are they? For example, are you shifting her wake up time and entire day schedule 15 minutes earlier every 3rd day?
4. How long is she tending to stay awake between naps?
5. Are you able to let me know how many naps she’s having during the day, the timing of those naps, and the length of those naps, if possible?
6. Can you walk me through what her nap routine looks like and how you get her to fall asleep?
7. Can you also tell me what her bedtime routine looks like?
8. Can you let me know what time bedtime currently is? You said you were trying to move it forward, but you haven’t had much success with that, so you can just let me know what time she’s actually falling asleep at bedtime?
9. Are you swaddling your little one?
10. Are you using a pacifier?
11. Have you been able to follow the wake-feed-play-sleep routine during the day?
12. You mentioned that her final nap of the day is between 6:00 and 6:30, but bedtime might be around 10:00. Is that the case, or is she having another nap somewhere during that wake window?

Sorry for all the questions.
Emma

[Emma H]

No worries at all. I hope it helps a little

[Emma H]

No worries at all, Erin. Just let me know how it goes, and we can make things if needed.

Emma

[Emma H]

Hey Erin,

Thanks so much for getting back to me with all of that detail!

It sounds like you’ve built a really solid foundation with a consistent wake-up time, a predictable nap routine, and he’s now able to settle to sleep in your arms without any movement. That’s great progress!

I understand that moving through the full settling pyramid isn’t practical right now, so here’s a modified version that might work well for you:

Modified Settling Pyramid

1. Complete your usual bedtime or nap routine
2. Sing his lullaby once while you rock and pat him in your arms
3. Gradually slow the rocking down until he is calm
4. Once he’s calm, lay him in the crib but instead of starting at the bottom of the pyramid, start at the patting stage and consider rocking him instead. To do this, place your hand on his chest and slowly rock him side to side with your hand.

If that helps him stay calm in the crib, you can then gradually work back down the pyramid:

• Slow the rocking or patting down
• Keep your hand still on his chest and add shushing while staying in view
• Remove your hand, continue shushing while in view
• Move out of sight and continue shushing

The goal is to help him learn to fall asleep in the crib while still feeling supported by your presence.

When to try it

• On the weekend, I’d start with the first nap of the day and bedtime – these tend to be the easiest wins
• During the week, bedtime is probably your best opportunity to practise

At childcare

It’s definitely worth asking if you can bring in his white noise machine. More importantly, once you’ve had a chance to try the modified approach above at home, share the steps with his carers so they can replicate it as closely as possible.

I know it can be tricky when there are other babies in the room, and childcare staff will often default to feeding to sleep simply because it works quickly. But if this approach is working well at home, it’s absolutely worth passing on – the more consistently he experiences the same settling routine, the faster he’ll learn the skill.

Does this sound okay?

Emma

[Emma H]

Hi Yanet,

If that’s the case, then you might need to take it a little bit slower, the strategies should still work though, so let me know how you go in a week or two.
Emma

[Emma H]

Hi Yanet,

Sorry, I’m just a little confused. I thought you mentioned she was falling asleep without motion most of the time. Does that mean you’re now using motion every time to get her to sleep?

If so, still pop on her sleeping bag and do the walking around part while you’re outside of the bedroom, and then when she is calm going into the bedroom and sing the lullaby while you rock her in your arms.

Now, what you could try at this point is rocking and patting at the same time. Then gradually slow down the rocking, but keep the patting going – that may help her stay calm as you stop the rocking. Once she’s settled with just the patting, slowly reduce that too, so you’re eventually standing still and she’s falling asleep without any motion.

That might be a nice way to work through it!