Hi everyone.
A couple times a week
on our Insta Lives,
we ask for your sleep questions.
We choose some, and we answer them
in a video.
Is that the question?
Today, I'm going to be answering your question,
"Why does my three and a half month old baby
self settle at night,
but is unsettled for her naps?"
So let's talk about
your three and a half month old baby.
At this age, ideally, you would wanna have
your baby in some kind of predictable pattern
to their day.
Which would hopefully consist of three naps.
A morning nap, a lunchtime sleep,
and a late afternoon nap.
It is our recommendation
that the lunchtime sleep
is quite a nice long sleep,
of a couple hours.
Then there is a shorter sleep
in the morning, and another shorter nap
in the late afternoon,
to get your little one through to bedtime.
If your little one is settling themselves
to sleep really well at night,
that is awesome.
And hopefully, it also means that your little one
is sleeping quite a consolidated night.
So they might be sleeping
pretty pretty well overnight.
But, if you're then saying
that they're really fussy and unsettled
for their naps, there are a couple reasons why.
So, firstly, naps at around this age,
between three and six months,
can be very hard to achieve.
There is a big developmental leap
that happens around four months.
Famously called the four month sleep regression.
That messes with your child's brain,
and the way that sleep works,
for your little one.
So, it could be that starting to come into play.
What that looks like is your little one
might start catnapping a lot more
during the day, only sleeping
for one sleep cycle at a time,
so that's 35 to 45 minutes in a go,
and not going back to sleep for longer.
Self settling is quite important
from this change onwards,
because however your child is used
to going to sleep, is the same method
that they're going to need
when they surface between sleep cycles,
in order to go back to sleep
and nap for longer.
So if you're rocking your baby to sleep
at the start of their naps,
and they are going to sleep
for that one sleep cycle,
they naturally rouse out of the sleep cycle.
If you're not still rocking them,
they don't know how to go back to sleep.
So, that can be a problem,
at around this age, because babies become
really dependent on their sleep associations.
So on the things that they associate
with going to sleep.
Looking at some different ways
to gradually guide your little one
to be able to fall asleep
independently is a really good option.
And there are a load
of different methods out there.
We have a lot of different methods
ourselves, within our own Sleep Programs,
if you're interested in that.
But if you're saying that your baby
is soothing themself to sleep
really well at night, then it sounds to me
as though your baby
perhaps already has the skill,
which is really good,
and some other factors might be at play
during the day.
So if your baby can already self settle,
and this would really be applicable for a baby
of any age, if they can self settle,
and you've seen them do it.
You've seen them, you pop your baby
into bed by themselves, and they drift off
to sleep, much like we would as adults,
that's self settling, that's awesome.
If you've seen that your baby can do that,
then they have that skill.
So what you're looking at then, is that there's
something else going on in their day.
Now at three months, what we tend
to forget is our baby's
not a brand new newborn baby anymore.
And so we forget to adapt their nap structure,
we forget to adapt their awake windows.
And so, sometimes we find ourselves
keeping our babies in this very newborn routine.
And I'm talking about awake windows of an hour.
And, getting your baby up, feeding them,
swaddling them, and putting them
back down to sleep, and expecting them
to fall asleep easily, and sleep
for quite a while.
That's not gonna happen anymore,
because your baby has been changing,
and developing, and they need more awake time,
and more stimulation.
So unless your baby's getting,
at three months, a couple of hours
of awake time between sleeps,
they're not gonna be getting enough time
for being awake, and for stimulation,
to then settle easily to sleep, and nap well.
So the first thing I would look at
is the awake windows.
You want to be stretching out
toward an hour 45, two hours of being awake
between naps, at this age.
And that should make your child good and ready
for bed, when it comes time
to put them down.
And they'll go off to sleep a lot easier.
If they're not tired enough,
then they're gonna be fighting,
'cause they just don't wanna go to sleep.
On the flip side of that,
make sure that they're not being kept awake
for longer than that,
'cause that is also going to lead
to them fussing at sleep time.
And even if your baby can self settle,
but they're overtired,
then their self settling abilities
are gonna go out the window,
because they're fighting
against a lot of overtiredness.
So making their awake windows
really age appropriate
is the best place to start.
Also looking at some factors
in your little one's sleep environment
is a really easy way
to help get better naps happening too.
So I would be looking at making their room
really dark, for their daytime sleeps,
and maybe the reason your baby's sleeping
so well at night is because it is dark.
You're helping the biological sleep process.
We can replicate that in the day too,
by making our children's room dark.
Another thing you could be doing
is introducing white noise
for their daytime sleeps.
It just helps them get in the zone for sleep,
helps block out any other sounds
that might be going on in the house
that could wake or disrupt your baby
trying to go to sleep.
So, listen, I would be looking at
stretching out those awake times,
getting really age appropriate awake times
of close to two hours happening,
then swaddle your baby, unless they're rolling.
Put them in their bed in a very dark room,
and turn up the white noise.
And, if your baby can already put themselves
to sleep, give them a chance
under those conditions, and see how you get on.
You know, that's kind of our recipe
for success, really.
Especially when it comes to nap times,
is get your awake times right,
and get your sleep environment right.
And very often, naps will fall into place
as a result.
So I hope that's helped,
for a three and a half month old baby
who's settling well at night,
but not so much during the day.
If anyone's got any more questions
about naps, or night sleep,
make sure you check out all of the articles
on our website.
The link is below.
We've also got a ton of videos
here on our YouTube channel,
about just every sleep topic under the sun.
Keep an eye on our Insta Stories,
and ask us your baby sleep questions on there.
And it could be your question that we choose
for our next video.
Thanks for watching.