Hi, and welcome to this Q&A
which is all about newborn sleep.
We asked in our free community,
what do you want to know about your newborn's sleep?
And we've chosen a handful of questions
to answer for you today.
Our first question is,
"My eight week old is only taking short naps.
We get anywhere between 20 and 35 minutes in the bassinet.
I try to resettle him but he is wide awake,
only to seem tired again five to 10 minutes later.
I give 60 minutes of awake time
and watch for sleepy cues before I put him down."
So, an eight week old--
Napping for 20 minutes after an hour of awake time.
Amanda: Okay, so that's a really common thing
to happen with newborns.
We get all of this advice about
newborns only needing about an hour awake time
but that's for baby baby, tiny weeny zero
to sorta two, four week old newborns.
By the time the baby's eight weeks old,
a lot of things have changed
so they need longer awake time
because they need to actually have a really good nap
and at the moment, your baby's having
a little tiny catnap, I suppose,
because they're actually not really that tired
and if you have a longer stretch of awake time,
then the baby will have a really good sleep.
And sleepy cues are a little bit inconsistent
and also they can happen, you know,
they can happen at that sort of hour mark
when there's a bit of a lull in energy,
when the baby's digesting all their food
and that is just a little bit of a, you know, I'm tired.
It's like when you, if you have a late night
and then in the middle of the night,
so, if you have a late night
and then in the middle of the day,
you get that sort of rest and digest lull
in the middle of the day,
that's exactly what your baby's doing at 60 minutes.
So, they probably don't actually need to have a sleep there,
they need to just push through that little yawn maybe
and then you'll notice that your baby will actually stay
and want to stay awake for quite a bit longer
at eight weeks.
And then, once you pop them down,
they will have a really good sleep.
Yeah, so that's what I would say with the awake time,
what else could be affecting the short naps, Nicky?
Nicky: Well, I think 20 minutes is very, very short,
that's not even a full sleep cycle.
So, that could even be that they're uncomfortable
and I would be making sure that
they're really well winded after their feeds
before they're going down to sleep
But I also think that if you're trying to get
longer naps out of your baby at any age,
but particularly for newborn babies,
that you should try sleeping them
in a really, really dark room,
turn up the white noise, make sure they're swaddled
and then that's gonna help them nap for longer in any case.
But the very first thing you should be checking off
is that awake time and extending that out
beyond an hour for an eight week old baby.
All right, this next question is quite a common question
we get at this age,
"Why does the witching hour occur
and what are some tips to reduce the stress and upset
in the home each evening?"
Ah, the witching hour.
She didn't say how old--
But in a newborn baby,
I suppose.
Amanda: Newborn baby.
So, the witching hour is really common in newborn babies.
A lot of people associate it with colic
and a lot of babies do have colic.
Colic is when you get a buildup of gas
that hasn't been burped out properly
and it makes their tummies uncomfortable
and it happens in the evenings
because that's when the biggest buildup is
and they are crying because they're actually uncomfortable
and they've got gas in their lower intestines
and they need to get rid of that.
So, that is one cause of the witching hour.
Most babies, however, who have the witching hour,
are the ones who have either had too much
or too little sleep during the day.
And then there's a buildup
of overtiredness in the afternoons
and they are so tired
but they sorta don't know what to do with themselves
and they're actually just needing to go to sleep
but they can't go to sleep.
At the point, you just do anything you can
to get them to sleep for a newborn.
And the other, undertired, really commonly babies,
or we get told, you know,
like we said in the last question,
that we get told that they need a 60 minute awake time
or just over an hour.
So, if they've been asleep for the majority of the morning
and then awake and then asleep
for the majority of the middle of the day,
they actually just need some awake time
and that's what causes the witching hour.
And then, they need to be awake
but then their awake window is too long
and then they actually end up overtired
and not being able to go to sleep properly.
So that, I guess, is the most common problems
of why you would get the witching hour.
I guess, what should they do?
What can you do?
Nicky: Under and overtiredness are definitely
the biggest contributors.
So, the first thing you would do
is like a future proofing method
where you're gonna actually
start either lengthening out your baby's awake times
to make sure that they're not undertired
at the end of the day,
and maybe also capping some of their nap hours.
Like, if they're sleeping for three hours in a nap,
that's a bit too much,
that's definitely gonna mean they're undertired.
So, you might start taking a bit more control
of their nap times in the day,
or if you feel like your baby's not really
napping at all in the day,
then it could be overtiredness
so you're gonna wanna look at
implementing some kind of age-appropriate,
more predictable nap structure to help them
get better naps happening.
In terms of surviving the witching hour,
prevention is the best cure, right?
So, I mean, trying to avoid it going forward,
but if your child is in the midst of the witching hour,
whether they're over or undertired,
after a while, either child is gonna end up overtired
so make sure you,
so what I would do is I would swaddle them,
I would bath them, I would swaddle them,
I would feed them in a really dark room
with some really, really soothing white noise
turned up quite loud, and have a really non--
Amanda: I would actually use the shh track that we have
rather than just white noise
if they're really in the midst of
the screaming, crying--
Witching hour, 'cause that is really calming.
Nicky: And feed them no stimulus,
you know, don't sort of interact, not interact,
but don't talk to them or try and play with them,
keep everything at zero so that
your baby has to kind of switch off.
And basically do anything you can
to get them to sleep.
So, don't be afraid of rocking them
or feeding them to sleep or anything like that,
you've just gotta get them to sleep at that point.
And them from there, for the next day,
have a look at their nap structure
to make sure you can rule out over or undertiredness.
Our next question, "When can sleep training start?
My daughter was a great sleeper,
I want this for my son ASAP.
This rocking to sleep stuff is not for me
or my two year old, who still needs attention."
Nicky: So, I'm gonna start off actually by saying that
sleep training is a big, big, big, big, big topic
that we're not really gonna launch into in this video.
If you wanna find out some more information
about sleep training or our views on it,
we've got a lot of videos on our YouTube channel about it,
we've got a lot of information on our website too.
I am gonna say, if you have a newborn baby,
so we would consider that a baby under three months old,
that you probably don't need to be implementing
any kind of formal sleep training
with your child at that age.
The best thing you can do,
because babies in this age range are so adaptable,
and the best thing that you can do
is get your baby onto a really age-appropriate nap schedule.
So making sure, like we've talked about before,
that their awake times are spot on for their age,
that they're not napping too much
or that they're not napping too little,
and that in itself is gonna set your baby up
with some really good sleep habits
that will help their night sleep automatically.
And you might not even need to sort of
head towards any kind of sleep training later on
if you've got a really good
predictable pattern from the start.
Do you agree?
Amanda: Yeah, if you start early--
I agree, yeah.
If you start young enough and not, you know,
our programs start at two weeks,
if you start actually controlling
a little bit more of their day,
that actually naturally consolidates their night time
really quite early on
and by no means are we putting babies in their beds
and leaving them crying and screaming until the morning
to consolidate the night time,
they actually naturally, by the way that
the naps are structured through the day,
they are tired enough to go to sleep
and consolidate the sleep at night by themselves.
We're not sleep training newborns,
we're just looking at their awake times
and through the day to help the night.
Again, through the day, we're also not strict regimented,
you know, you hold your baby awake
and go for a walk and keep your baby awake until 10 o'clock.
We, under three months, certainly more on the
if your baby wakes up here,
then this is when you would need to put them to sleep
and this is when they go to sleep
and then this when they'd need to wake up.
You know, really age appropriate and really, really--
Nicky: Flexible?
Amanda: yeah, adaptable and flexible for each day
because newborns aren't going to be predictable,
things happen.
So, they might wake from wind
and so if they wake from wind, you can go,
okay, so it's 12 o'clock, my baby's woken up here,
now I can put them down at this time
to work out when, how to reshuffle the rest of my day.
And it still then helps your night time,
so, that's what I would do.
And that's it.
Nicky: If she's talking about
rocking to sleep, I wouldn't be so worried at this age
about rocking your baby sleep.
I think you'll find that if you're implementing appropriate,
age-appropriate naps and awake times in the day,
then you'll be able to quite easily
gradually reduce that rocking to sleep
a little bit later on.
And they should go to sleep--
A lot easier too.
Amanda: Exactly, they'll go to sleep easier
and everything we do is that 80/20 rule, you know.
If you're putting your baby into their bed 80% of the time
and letting, even like patting them,
rocking them in their bassinet,
you know, getting them to sleep like that,
then they understand that that's their sleeping space.
If you're rocking them on you 80% of the time,
then they are, they will eventually get into a habit
after three months that that's what their sleeping space is.
So, make sure they have their sleeping space as well
and, yeah, 80/20 rule with babies.
Nicky: Our next question is,
I currently breastfeed to sleep a 12 week old,
how do I avoid this becoming a bad sleep association?
If I put them to sleep drowsy but awake
they still seem hungry."
12 week old.
Amanda: 12 week old, it's really good that
you're trying to put them to sleep drowsy but awake.
They are probably not actually hungry
but they're actually just tired
and they're trying to suck something to go to sleep
and that's what you're sort of
taking as appearing hungry,
don't you think, Nicky?
Nicky: Yeah, I think so.
I think that a 12 week old is going to
be quite pliant in terms of it's gonna be quite easy
to really gently remove that sleep association.
What you, how do I avoid it?
Amanda: To avoid it, you can start just making sure that
you have given them, by 12 weeks,
they're having a really good feed
and making sure that you've fed them.
And then, you separate feeding and sleeping
so feeding happens first
then they have their awake time
and then they go to sleep.
They don't need to be fed always
right before they go to sleep.
So, separate those two things
and I think you'll find it really easy
to remove that sleep association
before it becomes a habit.
Nicky: Well, that's it for today,
thank you so much for joining us
and I hope that that answers some of
your newborn sleep questions for you.
We do have a lot more newborn sleep videos
on our YouTube channel,
and a lot of free sleep articles and advice
on our website as well.
So, all of the links for that are below.
If you're interested in getting started with your baby
on some kind of really age-appropriate
nap routine during the day,
make sure you check out our Sleep Programs.
We have a sleep program specifically for newborns
that guides them through age-appropriate awake times,
the ideal nap structure from zero to three months
and that works for babies who might have reflux.
Amanda had two reflux babies herself, so, it works.
Amanda: We've built it on babies that are difficult,
that's for sure.
We've built the whole programs on difficult babies, so.
Nicky: So, make sure you check those out as well
and the links for those are going to be
in the description box too.
Thank you again for joining us
and we'll see you next time.
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