Nurture Sleep

Thank you for working with me Maddi. I love how a few small tweaks can lead to big changes and amazing results! ❤

If you're wanting to make some positive changes to your little one's sleep, the best thing you can do is establish a solid foundation for quality sleep. By this I mean looking at your little one's sleep from a holistic perspective and making tweaks where needed in the following areas:

* Their feeding and sleeping routine
* Their sleep environment
* Their sleep hygiene
* Their feeding / nutrition

For example, altering your little one's routine slightly, to make sure that they are getting the right amount of sleep for their age, at the right times of the day, may have a positive flow on for better overnight sleep.

When working with clients, this is ALWAYS my first port of call. If you don't have the basic sleep foundations in place, it will be like fighting an uphill battle.

If you would like some support to establish a solid sleep foundation for your little one, I would love to help ❤

Thank you Tayla & Jack - small, but important, changes can yield amazing results!

The absolute BEST part of my job is knowing that I have been able to help beautiful families get better quality sleep. Thank you Melanie ❤

Thank you Taylah, it was a pleasure working with you and Lucy ❤

Thanks Katy, it was a pleasure working with you and Luna ❤

"My baby sleeps so much better in the morning so why is the morning nap a short nap instead of the lunchtime nap?" I hear this question so often from clients and it's a great question! But there is a really sound reason, well a few actually, why I recommend you focus on a long, quality nap in the middle of the day - so let me explain.

1. Around 3 - 4 months old your little one will start to develop biological sleep windows - these are times during the day when their body is geared towards sleep, so it makes sense to work with these naturally occurring windows. The first window is between 9 and 10am, the second between 12 and 2pm and the third between 6 and 7pm. As these windows become more pronounced, your baby will actually learn to sleep better, and longer during the middle of the day when the longest sleep window is, and their quality of sleep at this time will also be much better and more restorative.
2. As wee one's get older they are able to tolerate increasingly longer awake times. For most babies, they will be ready to drop their morning nap between 15 and 18 months of age, whereas the midday nap will remain until roughly 3 years old. So because the midday nap is the last to go, it's a great idea to focus on making this a long, quality nap and keeping the morning nap short so when it's time to let this one go, it's much easier to do so.
3. You would most likely find that if you let your baby sleep for two yours in the morning, they wouldn't have enough sleep drive to replicate this and sleep for two hours again in the middle of the day. So at best, they would probably only be ready for a short nap and this isn't going to set them up for a happy, contented afternoon, evening and bedtime.
4. Napping for a long time in the morning can create early morning wake-ups - and you definitely don't want those!! If your baby's body clock knows that a nice long sleep is coming at around 9/9.30am then it will begin to wake your baby up earlier in the morning to compensate.

So keep the morning nap short and sweet and focus on helping your little one have a good quality nap in the middle of the day ❤

Thank you Jess ❤❤

Do you have a question about your little one's sleep? Pop your question in the comments below and I will get back to you with an answer as soon as I can 💙

The term extinction burst is a psychological concept that relates to all kinds of different behaviours - not just sleep.
When changing unwanted behaviours, extinction can work very well and can have a rather quick effect. But often, when you stop reinforcing a behaviour you are trying to change, your child will ramp up that behaviour in a last ditch attempt to protest.
So how does this relate to your little one’s sleep? If your baby has an established sleep association such as feeding to sleep, being rocked to sleep, falling asleep on you – in essence, relying on you to fall asleep or get back to sleep – they haven’t mastered the ability to self-settle. You might be at the point where you are utterly exhausted and are ready for your baby to learn how to settle and re-settle themselves, but in order to gently teach your wee one to do this, you must stop the reinforcing behaviour (feeding, rocking, walking etc) and replace with another settling method.
After a couple of days of some resistance you might have started to see some progress, but then all of a sudden your baby starts waking at night again, crying even louder than before, or fighting their naps or resisting going to sleep at all in the evening. This can leave you feeling completely bewildered and wondering what on earth is going on. Perhaps it was a mistake to try and change your baby’s sleep habits, why did you ever think it would work? It wasn’t that bad feeding your little one to sleep every few hours……Cue an extinction burst, a sudden and unexpected burst of the behaviour you’re trying to change.
Instead of throwing in the towel because you think this new settling method just isn’t working, rest assured, this bump in the road is actually a sign that everything is on track. Developmentally, your little one is having a completely normal response to the extinction of your ‘normal’ response to their night time cries or overnight wake-ups. As hard as it may be in that moment, getting through an extinction burst by continuing to be consistent in your new approach is actually leading you and your child one step closer to more restful nights and more restorative sleep.