Getting your little one to fall asleep
can be quite a challenging thing to do.
Sometimes, no matter how hard you try,
they just don't seem to want to settle.
The good news is quite often we can figure out
a pretty quick and easy solution,
and it lies in the amount of time that your little one
is spending awake between their naps.
Sometimes, though, it can be quite tricky to figure out,
okay, well, how much awake time does my little one need?
There are a few signs that you can look out for
that will help to give you little hints.
And today, I'm going to be answering your question,
how do I know when my baby's awake time needs adjusting?
Hi, I'm Tayleur, one of the pediatric sleep consultants
here at Little Ones,
and mother to one hilarious little girl.
At Little Ones, we specialize in pediatric sleep
ranging from newborn to three years of age.
We do this via our app,
which gives you access to our program,
along with our nutrition information
provided by our accredited practicing dietician.
We also have further tips and advice
relating to preschool aged children,
and care for yourself, which is also quite important.
If you'd like any further information
relating to our program
and how we can help you and your little one
on your journey to achieve the best sleep,
you can visit our website @www.littleones.co.
So in this video,
I'm going to be looking at the importance
of knowing your little one's awake windows,
signs to look for if their awake windows need tweaking,
and then also how to adjust your little one's awake windows
by making them longer, if that's what we need to do.
So let's look at the importance
of your little one's awake times during the day.
If they're having too long or not long enough
of awake times during their daytime period,
they're likely going to experience disrupted night's sleep
or their naps in general during the day
aren't going to be great.
One of the more common things that you find,
particularly with younger, younger little ones
is that often people give them too much sleep
during the day,
because we just don't realize that they can actually handle
a lot more of an awake window than we would expect.
This was something that I experienced with my little one,
and it's actually why we started the program
at 10 weeks of age.
My little one was a serial catnapper,
where she would only ever sleep for 20 minutes at a time.
I could set my watch by it.
I'd literally put her down for her nap,
and I'd know, awesome, I've got 20 minutes
to either enjoy a cup of tea,
try to do some housework,
or try to feel like I'm in control of something.
It wasn't feasible.
Soon after starting the program,
I realized that I was putting her down
way too early for her naps.
And once I was able to slowly adjust her awake windows
to be even longer, her naps then started to get longer.
The reverse of this, though, is putting your little one
down to sleep well beyond their awake window.
If they're overtired, that can also cause catnapping.
But for the most part,
I would expect really little, little ones,
I'd expect that most people
probably wouldn't be keeping their little ones awake
for way too long, because at that age,
they're just gonna be like,
had enough, I'm going to sleep now.
So for older little ones, though,
sometimes it can be a little bit more tricky to figure out,
okay, is this under tiredness or over tiredness?
And that's where we sort of look at
all the signs as a whole.
So some of the signs that you would actually be looking for
in a little, little one,
so a little one that's, you know,
before four months of age or something,
their awake windows are gonna be changing quite rapidly
within a short period of time.
So some of the things that you might find
with these little ones is that they'll either be waking
not quite at the end of their nap
that we would expect them to do,
they're cutting it a little bit short.
They might be experiencing what's called the witching hour
right before bed, where they just won't seem to fall asleep.
They might be waking more frequently overnight,
or they might be waking early in the morning.
These can be attributed
to both over tiredness and under tiredness.
So that's where it's really important
to make sure that we're working
to the optimum awake window for their age.
Our program has every age covered for your little one.
And we've also got some pretty great sleep consultants
that can give you a hand
to adjust your little one's awake times
to find what's best suited to them.
I will also just make a little point here of saying
that every single baby is different,
and we completely understand this.
Our programs have been scientifically created
based on an average.
To make an average, we need to have either end.
What's fun, though, is that there,
it's not actually uncommon for babies within the same family
to even have different awake windows and sleep requirements.
So that's why it's important to look at this
as my baby is an individual,
and their sleep needs are based on this individual,
so we need to figure out their individual,
are they a high sleep needs baby,
or are they a low sleep needs baby?
And we can help you to sort that out too.
For an older baby,
there are signs that their awake windows need adjusting
are quite similar.
You might find that once they're down
to a really short nap in the morning,
and their long restorative lunch nap,
and then another short nap in the afternoon,
you might find that their long nap
during the middle of the day,
it starts to reduce ever so slightly.
They might be only making it
to like an hour and a half, or just over.
That's a sign that they could probably have their awake time
tweaked prior to that nap.
This in turn, though, can also be an indication
that their morning nap time and length might need adjusting,
but in doing so,
this will also inadvertently affect their awake time
between the two naps anyway.
So we're making that adjustment regardless.
All the little ones as well,
as they're hitting that six to eight month age,
that's when you start to see a nap transition occurring.
And at this stage, yes, their awake windows
will be tweaked ever so slightly there,
but we preempt that by making sure
that we're not pushing their awake window out massively,
and then making them super, super overtired
for this adjustment.
We do it gradually so as to not throw out
their body clock too much as well.
So overall, a lot of the signs
that your little one's awake time needs adjusting
are pretty standard, pretty similar across all ages.
There are certain things that you need to take
into consideration as well when you are looking at this,
and that's room environment, their hunger,
sometimes developmental leaps can also affect
their napping ability,
and all of these things can also be checked
and assessed by our sleep consultants
within the village too, plus within our program as well.
We've got all of the sleep and awake times suitable
for each age group,
so you can figure it out from there,
okay, do we need to just do a little bit
of tweaking here or there.
If you do need to increase your little one's awake period,
much like what I had to do with my little one,
because they're not having enough awake time
between their naps,
this is something that you need to do
really gradually and really subtly,
so as to not shock their body clock.
In the end, we want it to be
that we've subtly made the adjustment that much
that when they are actually at the correct awake time,
their body clock is like, I'll allow it, this is okay.
So when you are increasing their awake window,
you need to look at how long
are you currently keeping them awake for,
say, for example, it's an hour and a half
and we need to try to push them
to an hour and 15 minutes between naps,
you would on, say, the first day,
put them down at an hour and 35 minutes of awake time,
and then one or two days later,
you'll aim for an hour and 40 minutes of awake time.
And then one or two days later, an hour and 45.
One or two days later, boom, you're at one, 50.
That being said,
if you are having to adjust your little one's awake times,
and they're still relatively young,
you might find it in about a week's time or whatever
the awake period is actually gonna be increased again.
But the good news is that in our sleep program,
we give you plenty of warning.
You can read ahead to know,
okay, by this age, we're gonna be sleeping
for X amount of time and their awake windows
are going to be X.
I hope this video has helped you
to figure out if your baby's awake windows
need adjusting and how to do so if they do.
As I said, you can check out our program,
and we've got all ages covered
right up until the age of three.
And we've got support available for you
up until the age of six as well.
So you can check that out,
see if there's something in there that can help you.
And as always, the consultants are here 24/7
to give you a hand further.
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I hope you have a wonderful day,
and I'll talk to you again soon.
Bye for now.