[Emma H]

Hi Daniela!

I can completely understand how exhausting and overwhelming this situation must feel for you and your husband.

From what you’ve described it sounds like your little one has learnt that he falls asleep with you present. This is perfectly understandable given the circumstances you’ve described, with all the travel and disrupted routines.

But there are definitely things that you can do to help him learn to fall asleep in the crib without you needing to be present, without using the cry it out method.

To help you achieve this I just have a few questions. So when you have time can you please answer the questions below?

1. What time does he typically wake in the morning, and does this stay fairly consistent within a 30-minute window?
2. Do you follow the wake, feed, play, sleep routine during the day?
3. Could you share the timing and general duration of his naps throughout the day?
4. Do you have a specific nap routine that you follow? If so, could you describe it?
5. Could you also describe your bedtime routine?
6. How do you settle him to sleep? You mentioned you have to stay in the room with him until he falls asleep. Does this mean you finish the nap routine, lay him down in the crib awake and then sit/stand beside the crib until he falls asleep?
7. Does he use a pacifier?
8. Is the room that he is sleeping in cool, dark (so you can’t read a book) and quiet?
9. At bedtime, does he start in the crib and then wake overnight, at which point you put him in bed with you? Or do you just go straight to co-sleeping?
10. Does he sleep on his tummy or back?
11. Does he have a consistent bedtime? If so what time is it?

Sorry for the questions! But they really will help me identify the best way to help your little one start sleeping in the crib.

Something you can do over the next few days (if you’re not already) is the make crib a less scary place, by letting him play in it with his favourite toys during the day – when it’s not nap time. Just keep these play sessions short – just a few minutes at first as we don’t want him to get upset. Something that might make it more exciting for him is having ‘crib only toys’ – so toys that he only gets to play with when he is in the crib. This novelty of ‘new’ toys will increase the chances that he will be happy to play in the crib. If though you find that letting him play while he is in the crib upsets him, then don’t worry about doing this just yet.

Again, sorry for all the questions.
Emma

[Emma H]

Hi Kate,

It’s great to hear that your little one is more settled now.

It’s also great to hear that you have figured out a technique which works for her to get her to sleep easily.

Your approach of adding other associations in parallel is fantastic.

I was just wondering if you could provide me with a bit of up-date on what your little one is doing before I provide some suggestions on how you can gently shift the feed to sleep association.

1. Can you walk me through her nap routine now? It sounds like it might be:

• walk into her room
• sing her a song
• read her a book
• shush her
• lay her in the crib and hold the bottle while she feeds while you pat her

Is this correct?

2. When you say you have tried moving feeding time away from nap time, does that mean you tried to follow the wake, feed, play, sleep routine? Or did you still offer a feed at nap time but you moved it to the start of the nap routine?

3. Does she have a consistent wake-up time? If so what time?
4. Does she have a consistent bedtime? If so what time?
5. How many naps is she having per day? And do these occur around the same time every day?
6. How long does she nap for?

Sorry for the questions again!

Emma

[Emma H]

Hi Thu,

Given that it is such a sudden change and her wakes are not consistently happening at the same time/spacing, it sounds like she might be waking due to discomfort or pain.

How did the appointment go with the doctor? Did they find anything of concern?

Emma

[Emma H]

Hi Julia,

It’s wonderful to hear that the 3-month schedule sample seems to be working so well for your little one.

It’s also fantastic that she’s falling asleep on her own in the crib. Given that she mainly falls asleep on her own, it makes me think that she might not be waking every 3 hours because she needs you to recreate what she needs to fall asleep. It is possible she might be waking due to a mixture of hunger and comfort. So the steps in the 4 month sleep regression would be helpful.

But something else to consider is the timing of her last nap and bedtime. you mentioned she’s protesting more at bedtime and taking longer to settle. One possible reason for this could be that she hasn’t been awake long enough before bedtime to build up enough sleep pressure. To figure this out, you could track the time she wakes from her final nap and the time she actually falls asleep at bedtime for a few days to a week. This will help you identify how long she needs to be awake in that last wake window.

If you find that lengthening the last wake window helps her settle more easily and sleep for longer stretches overnight, we might need to adjust her routine slightly. This could mean shifting her bedtime later for now or capping that final nap to ensure she’s awake long enough before her 9 pm bedtime.

Does that make sense?

Emma

[Emma H]

Hi Kate,

I just saw your update.

It’s great that you were able to settle her to sleep in your arms. What I think we need to do is start to follow the wake, feed, play and then sleep routine but this is tricky during the heatwave. Is there a date when it’s meant to stop?

The other option is you let her feed on and off during each wake window and then when you see those tired cues you:

• Carry her around the apartment
• Walk into the bedroom
• Close the blinds
• Feed her a bottle if it is bedtime – making sure she doesn’t fall asleep
• Read her a book (if bedtime routine)
• Walk around the bedroom while singing the lullaby while she is in your arms
• Lay her in the crib and start patting and shushing straight away and then gradually stop patting and then stop shushing

Would you prefer to do this once the heatwave has passed?

Emma

[Emma H]

Hi Kate,

Thanks for answering my questions.

In regards to your little one waking 40 minutes after bedtime. This could be due to 3 reasons:
– It might have to do with sleep pressure – So she might be tired enough to initially fall asleep but not stay asleep and this is resulting in her waking 40 minutes later. The solution to this one is to lengthen the time she is awake before bedtime. You could initially just try to lengthen it by 15 minutes and see if this eliminates that wake up. If it doesn’t you could try stretching it again by another 15 minutes and see if that has an impact.
– Something might be disturbing her – this can happen if someone is entering the bedroom around this time or using the room adjoining the bedroom. If someone is entering the room then the key is to look at the baby monitor or listen at the door before you enter to make sure that she is still (which indicates she is in deep sleep). If she is moving around or making noises she is in REM sleep and will be more likely to walk up if you were to enter the bedroom at this time.
– Or it might be because she is hot.

Regarding the overnight wakes, you mentioned that she will wake 1 – 2 times before 4/5am and then wake more often after this point. At this age, waking this often isn’t that unusual. And what you have noticed – that she wakes more frequently after 4/5am is also not that unusual – as sleep pressure would be low at this point. Something you could try is when she wakes at 4/5am instead of following the feed, sleep routine you could try feeding her, then changing her diaper to wake her up slightly, then feed again and then when she falls asleep while feeding, lay her in the crib. You might find that adding in the diaper change results in her having a bigger feed at this time, and helps her stay asleep until 7am.

When she wakes at 5am and then wakes on and off until 7- 7:30, then I would still wake her up at this point and if she falls asleep while feeding, I recommend you wake her back up. You’re right that you do want to follow their lead, except for the morning wake up time. We want to make it consistent (occurring within the same 30 minute window) to help in the maturation of her circadian rhythm (this is still developing), as well as, help bedtime become more predictable and the timing of that first nap.

In regards to her nap and bedtime routine, having 40 minute naps at this age, is not unusual at this age. Also, waking 3 times overnight is also normal. Given this, it is possible to take a slower approach to the nap and bedtime routine and then shift the bottle to the start of the routine. So her routine might look like this

• See tired cues
• Carry her around the apartment
• Walk into the bedroom
• Close the blinds
• Give her the bottle and let her eat 3/4 (Is she in your arms drinking this bottle or lying down in the crib?)
• Read her a book (if bedtime routine)
• Walk around the bedroom while singing the lullaby while she is in your arms
• Lay her in the crib and give bottle, then start patting and shushing
• Remove hand from belly, continuing to shush
• When she releases the bottle – take it.
• Shush

Once her morning wake up time is consistent and that first nap is happening at the same time, we can then look at tweaking this nap routine slightly to see if you can remove the bottle before she falls asleep.

Does this sound okay?

Emma

[Emma H]

Hi Julia,

It sounds like your little one has made some lovely gains with her sleep – with bedtime now at 10-11 pm rather than 12am.

It’s great that you have capped her daytime naps to 2 hours and kept her wake windows to a max of 2 hours.

On the days when your little one has a 3 hour nap it’s fine to let her sleep. Based on the nap schedule you wrote it looks like she might be having 5 -6 naps a day, so on the days when she has a 3 hour nap she might only need 3 – 4 naps that day.

If it becomes a regular pattern then we might need to look at her overall routine and see if this longer nap is having an impact on her night time sleep.

Regarding her wake up time, it would be great if you could keep that within the 30 minute window. I understand you’re concerned that she might not have slept enough overnight, but having a consistent wake up time, will help encourage her to sleep more overnight and help her bedtime become more consistent. Based on what you recorded it looks like a wake window of 8:30 – 9am would be okay.

If you would like to move her bedtime to an earlier time though, you might want to try an 8 – 8:30am wake window. Or even at 7:30 – 8am window if you can manage that.

It’s great that blocking that morning light has made it easier for her to fall back to sleep if she wakes during the early morning hours.

Also good to hear the swaddle is working well – by the way I didn’t realise it gets that hot in the UK! When I visited years ago in summer it didn’t get that hot at all.

At 3 months of age it’s really common for them to become distracted while feeding, particularly during the daytime. Something you can try to increase her daytime feeds is when she wakes from a nap, get her up and let her play for 10 minutes (if she isn’t too hungry) and then take her into a quiet room, partially close the door so the room is slightly darker and then feed her. As she has just woken up from a nap, she is unlikely to fall asleep while feeding and the slightly darken room, may help to make the room less distracting for her, encouraging her to have a longer feed.

In regards to her bedtime, it does take them time to adjust to the new bedtime – typically 2 – 3 days. But the other important factor to moving bedtime earlier is keeping her wake-up time consistent. So I do expect that when you start to keep her wake-up time consistent, it will be easier to shift bedtime to an earlier time.

Regarding dropping overnight feeds, I step you through how to do that in the 4 month regression video in the course. Have you had a chance to watch that one yet?

But, something else I wanted to mention is that since she is waking at consistent times overnight (so every 2 – 3 hours) then it suggests she is waking between sleep cycles and calling out for you to recreate what she needs to fall back to sleep. So the way to help her sleep for longer stretches of sleep overnight is helping her learn how to fall asleep independently. This will mean that when she briefly wakes between sleep cycles, she will have the skills to fall back to sleep on her own. And as a result, those overnight wakes will gradually drop off, without you needing to do much at all.

To help her learn how to fall asleep on her own I was wondering if you could provide me with an update on how she if falling asleep at bedtime and for naps? Are you able to tell me what her nap and bedtime routine looks like now and where the pacifier comes in?

Also, something you noticed is that when she wakes overnight and feeds, she falls to sleep while feeding and you’re able to lay her down and she continues to sleep for a few hours. This is perfectly fine and expected.

Sorry for the questions again!

Emma

[Emma H]

Hi Kate,

Thank you so much for answering my questions.

From what you have described it does sound like your little one might be needing the bottle to fall asleep. There are some things that you can do to gently move her away from this – but I do understand that during the middle of the heat wave, you might want to ensure she is having plenty of fluids – so it’s fine to do some of these suggestions when it cools down a bit.

Regardless of the temperature something that you can do is narrow down her wake time to a 30 minute window. You mentioned that it is currently sometime between 7 – 8 am. For the next few days would you be happy to write down the time that she wakes in the morning? This will help you identify if her wake-up time should be 7 – 7:30am or 7:30 – 8am.

The reason you want to keep that wake-up time within a 30-minute window, is it will help in the maturation of her circadian rhythm, help that first nap happen around the same time, encourage bedtime to occur at the same time and encourage her to have longer stretches of sleep overnight.

Something else I was wondering is if you would be happy to try tweaking her pre-sleep routine slightly so that she has the opportunity to fall asleep in the crib without the bottle? If you are happy to do this then generally, you’re more likely to have success with settling her in the crib for the first nap of the day or bedtime.

If you are happy to do this then I just have a few questions, as this will help me figure out a nap routine she might like:

– Does she like or tolerate being held and rocked in your arms when she is tired?

– Would she tolerate having a feed on your lap while you are in the bedroom?

– Do you have a bedtime routine that you do with her every night? Or is it the same as the nap routine you outlined?

Emma

[Emma H]

Hi Justin,

No worries at all about the delayed reply – I assumed you were trying out the suggestions.

It’s great that you have started using the swaddles. Do you find that when she is using a swaddle where her arms are up, she settles better? If you do think that might be the case it’s okay to give it a try and see if she sleeps better that way.

Given that she is around 7 weeks of age, it’s possible that she is hitting the peak for the Period of PURPLE Crying, so in regards to trying to settle her in the pram or on a mattress, you’re more likely to have success for the morning naps. So that might be something worth considering.

Something else you can start doing is waking her up at a consistent time in the morning – keeping it within the same 30 minute window. Now I know this might be hard, given that everyone is tired and if she is sleeping you probably want to continue sleeping too. But, having a consistent wake up time now, will help in the maturation of her circadian rhythm and help her bedtime become more consistent in time, as well as, encourage her to have longer stretches of sleep overnight.

It’s great that she has been able to fall asleep on her own in the bouncing sling bed. And I really don’t want to put a downer on this, but the sling bed things are something I recommend you’re cautious about. Generally, they’re not recommended here in Australia or in America, due to the potential risk that the bub’s head might fall forward onto their chest (due to the curve of the sling) and restrict air-flow. I am not sure if the recommendations in Denmark are different but just thought I would mention it.

Your approach of letting her fall asleep in your arms (I am assuming you’re rocking her to sleep) and then letting her slide down to the bed sounds like a good intermediate step. The main thing you want to do for daytime naps is try to separate the feed from the naps – that is only if she continues to stay awake following the feed. If she wakes from a nap and immediately falls back to sleep while feeding, then you would just let her continue to sleep.

I just wanted to check, are you continuing to hold her 24/7 ?

Also are you able to give me a bit of an update as to what her routine is and if she is mainly falling asleep while feeding? The last time we spoke she was falling asleep while feeding 90% of the time and 10% of the time you could rock her to sleep. Is this still the case?

Emma

[Emma H]

Hi Catherin,

It’s so good to hear that the recommendations seem to be working and that her schedule is becoming more predictable – well done!

To make it easier have answered your questions below.

1. Night Wakings and Feeding: It’s great that she is sleeping for 3-4 hours at the start of the night and 4- 6 hours after the first wake. The fact that she isn’t waking every 2 hours indicates that she isn’t waking between sleep cycles which is fantastic. I would just give it a try feeding her at the 12/1am (so when she wakes for the first time overnight) and see if that actually eliminates the second wake-up. Let me know how that goes. Something to keep in mind is that breastfeed bub’s can continue to need an overnight feed until 10 months of age. After this point, if she is still waking for a feed, we can do things to encourage her to drop it. Something else to keep in mind is that helping her learn how to fall asleep on her own will help in dropping these overnight feeds too.

2. Solid Foods and Night Wakes: Between 7 – 9 months of age it’s great if babies can have a few solid meals a day. These meals though are mainly about exposing them to a variety of textures and helping them develop their chewing skills. They are unlikely to eat enough food during these meals to have an impact on staying asleep overnight. This is a great free resource here in Canberra which was developed by a Dietician and Speech Pathologist on introducing solids to babies up until 1 year of age, which you might find helpful – https://www.canberrahealthservices.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/1939509/From-Milk-to-More-A4_Accessible_FA.pdf

3. Crying During Night Wakings: The fact that she wakes crying at night but not in the morning could indicate hunger or discomfort. So I would just try feeding her when she first wakes overnight and see if she then doesn’t wake for the second feed.

4. Daycare Transition: To ease the transition, if possible I recommend you talk to the daycare providers and tell them what her sleep cues are, when she typically naps and how you help her fall asleep. Then I would just ask if they can do this at the centre and if they can’t what they will do. Something else to keep in mind is that typically daycare naps are about half the time they nap at home, due to the busy environment. So when she starts daycare you may need to shift her bedtime earlier to accommodate this.

I hope this helps!

Emma

[Emma H]

Hi Luise,

You’re right transitioning from 4 – 3 naps is a process and some days there simply won’t be time to fit the 4 naps in and it’s okay to shift her bedtime earlier to accommodate this.

Hopefully, you get the green light soon!

Emma

[Emma H]

Hi Jacelyn,

It’s wonderful to hear that maintaining a consistent morning wake-up window has created more predictability in your day – that’s a fantastic step forward!

I’m also really glad to hear that transitioning your nap and bedtime routines to his bedroom has gone smoothly, and your adapted approach to settling him in the cot is showing positive results. Gradually reducing the patting over time sounds like a great plan.

Regarding your experiences with the different settling scenarios, did you try each method consistently for a few days? Typically, for a baby accustomed to being held and rocked to sleep, transitioning to settling in the cot can feel like a big adjustment. It’s quite common for babies to need several days to get comfortable with new sleep routines. If you did consistently try cot settling over a few days and found he remained calm but alert, it’s possible he just wasn’t tired enough yet. In that case, extending his wake windows – by 15 minutes at first – might have helped build up the sleep pressure he needed to fall asleep.

When it comes to how long you should try to settle him to sleep in the cot, I recommend limiting this to 20 minutes per sleep session, as it often takes babies up to this time to fall asleep. If he’s not asleep after 20 minutes, it’s perfectly okay to pick him up and settle him in your arms. If this consistently happens though, it might indicate he could benefit from slightly longer wake windows.

Regarding your concern about whether cot settling could lead to anxiety or difficulty settling at bedtime—this is very unlikely. Babies thrive on consistent, predictable routines like the one you’re implementing. Your attentive responses to his cues, providing comfort and support whenever needed, create a secure environment, helping him feel safe and calm.

Lastly, addressing your question about whether it’s better to lay your baby down drowsy or fully awake – this really depends on the bub. Some babies fall asleep and stay asleep when they are placed in the cot drowsy but awake, but most tend to wake soon after, needing their sleep associations (like rocking or patting) recreated. This brief waking can reduce sleep pressure, making resettling more challenging. Given that he’s waking up when you place him in the cot drowsy but awake, it would be great if you could place him fully awake in the cot and support him to settle there. I understand that might feel challenging right now, but your gentle, gradual approach will eventually make this achievable.

Does that make sense?

Emma

[Emma H]

Hi Györgyi,

Fantastic!

Let me know how you go!

Emma

[Emma H]

Hi Robin,

It’s great that you have already started and it seems to be going okay.

Enjoy the trip! Hopefully, everything goes smoothly!

[Emma H]

Hi Luise,

Once you get the green light, you can consider just starting with the mattress if you feel that she is more settled there. But you are right the movement of the SNOO might help initially, The only thing I would say, is that if you do start with the SNOO after she becomes comfortable sleeping in it, I recommend you turn off the rocking feature, as she might come to rely on the rocking to fall asleep.

Your understanding of the process is spot on – putting her down after 1.5 hours awake, using the settling pyramid for 20+ minutes, and then reverting to what works if she doesn’t settle to avoid overtiredness.

Regarding your question about bedtime, I’m not sure what you ended up doing, but moving bedtime earlier is what I would have recommended. It’s possible it could have led to an earlier wake -up time but there is also a chance that an earlier bedtime could have led to better sleep overnight.

What did you end up doing and how was the next morning?

Emma