Restfully Sleep Coach - Whitney

A few more days until the clocks spring forward, how will this affect your baby’s sleep? 🥱

Luckily for parents, this is a the easier of the two time changes! (If you baby rises at 6 am, it will now be 7 am starting this Sunday) ☀️

Although this is the easier of the two changes for your little one, their physical, mental, and behavior health may all be affected being that their body’s follow a 24 hour cycle!

During daylight savings you may experience

💤 nap issues
💤 overtired babies
💤 bed time and wake up time changes
💤 changes in feeding schedule

So, for worried parents just how do you prepare for daylight savings?

Click link in bio to take the Restfully pediatric sleep quiz.

5 newborn that all parents need to know! 👶

💤 New borns do not have circadian rhythm’s

⚖️ It is normal for new borns to lose weight after birth

☀️ Some baby’s are born with day and night confusion

🤫 Newborns only have two stages of sleep: active and quiet

⏰ Newborns can only handle 45-60 minutes of awake time

Want to learn more about your baby’s sleep development? Sign up for our first ever
Dreaming Tree webinar! 🌙 *link in bio and stories*

Sleepy cues! 🥱

Do you want to be able to read your newborn’s sleepy cues like a pro so that you can give them exactly what they need?

Swipe over 👉 and save this for later so that you can be a master sleepy cue reader!

It’s no secret that getting an overtired newborn to sleep can be more than difficult which is why it’s so helpful to identify these cues and start prepping your little one to rest! 💤

Want more information from Restfully expert sleep coaches?
Head over to the link in our bio and register for our Dreaming Tree webinar! 💙

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Here at Restfully, our coaches work with many families whose children go to daycare. We understand that daycare sleep can be stressful for our clients. It's important to understand what we can and can't control when it comes to daycare sleep. AND to know that even if naps are poor, you can still salvage nighttime.

YOU CAN CONTROL

1⃣ Always speak to your daycare director about your child's sleep needs. It can be helpful to share a loose schedule with them for feeding and sleeping. Here at Restfully, we prioritize the first two naps of the day for infants. We like these naps to run at least an hour long in order to be restorative. Likewise, for children on one nap, we aim for 90 minutes. If a baby wakes prematurely, we're cool with daycare teachers helping a child back to sleep. If a child wakes prematurely, we're cool with daycare teachers helping a child back to sleep.

2⃣ For infants, it's great to send in a sleepsack they're familiar with. This can serve as a comfort object. For an older child no longer in a crib, a blanket from home can be a nice comfort object.

3⃣ This is a big one and a tough one! Many parents with infants stress themselves out staring at the notifications on their daycare app, or calling daycare to find out how their baby is sleeping. It's best to remember that while your child is at daycare, there is only so much you can control. BUT... this leads to number 4.

4⃣ If your child has had a rough day sleep-wise due to a loud or bright room leading to short or skipped naps, ALWAYS depend on an early bedtime. An early bedtime helps ensure your child is not going to bed crazy overtired. An overtired child will fight sleep. They may have difficulty falling asleep, struggle with night wakings, or wake up extra early.

Long story short, try to let go a little and understand that you can't control everything. And remember, early bedtime is your BEST FRIEND on a bad nap day.

Got more questions about daycare sleep? Drop 'em below!

ANNOUNCEMENT: This is your TWO WEEK warning!

If you have a flexible child, don't stress too much. Know that it will take a day or two to adjust to the new time and offer bedtime or naps 30-minutes earlier (after the time change) for a day or two.

If you have an inflexible child, you can try to plan ahead and start prepping about a week in advance.

With the end of Daylight Savings Time, your child will be going to bed one hour “later” than their body is used to.

One way to ease your child into the transition is to adjust their schedule by pushing nap time and bedtime later by 15 minutes every other night starting one week before the actual time change.

Here is how it will look, assuming a bedtime of 7 p.m.:

• Sunday and Monday: bedtime at 7:15 p.m.

• Tuesday and Wednesday: bedtime at 7:30 p.m.

• Thursday and Friday: bedtime at 7:45 p.m.

• Saturday: bedtime at 8 p.m.

• Sunday: NEW TIME: bedtime at 7 p.m., according to the clock

Similarly, you will move wake-up time and nap times by 15 minutes each day. So if your child is waking at 7 a.m., don’t begin the day until 7:15 on days one and two.

If your child takes two naps and naps at 9 a.m. and 1 p.m., move the nap times to begin at 9:15 a.m. and 1:15 p.m. on days one and two, and continue pushing them back 15 minutes each for the rest of the week.

Be sure to get your kiddo out in the sunshine during the day, as this will help their circadian rhythms adjust more quickly to the “new” time.

Also, remember that the sun will be rising earlier, which means it’s important to double-check that your child’s room is DARK to avoid an early wake-up.

Recently finished up with a sweet Mama and her 4 month old son.

While this first time Mama was hesitant to start sleep training her baby, she gave it a shot and asked for help. After two weeks of work together, we were able to get this baby sleeping more consistently during the day with two 1.5 hour naps and a third cat nap to finish the day!

It is a joy to help families meet their goals, lower stress and anxiety around sleep, and get better rest for the whole household!

Hope your Monday isn’t as icky as his pureed spinach and peas 😄
Happy Monday, Y’all!

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Getting your baby down drowsy but awake may seem impossible. We've got a few tips to help!

👉ENVIRONMENT: make sure your baby's room is DARK (blacked out), COOL (between 68 and 72 F), QUIET (think white noise), and SAFE (follow AAP recommendations).

👉SCHEDULE: An overtired baby is flooded with stress hormones that make him fight sleep (and make it much harder to put him down drowsy but awake!). Age-appropriate wake times will help ensure that you’re not putting your baby down overtired.

👉ROUTINE: A consistent order of events prior to naps and bedtime help prepare a baby for sleep. A simple routine may include a bath (at bedtime), massage, change into sleep sack, books, and a short song and cuddle, then into the crib awake. Your baby may protest going in awake - that's ok! You may attempt cribside soothing measures to help them settle. This may take some time!

👉SUPPORT: Teaching your baby to fall asleep independently is just that – a teaching/learning situation. For most babies, this skill does not come naturally. We support our babies from the sidelines as they learn to roll, crawl, and walk. Learning to sleep is no different! We can’t do it for them, but we can provide them with the best opportunities to learn.

Need a little guidance to figure out the right schedule, routine, and support? We're here to help! Drop us your email below or shoot us a message and we'll be happy to assist!

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📌Save this one for future reference!

Have a baby who is 4+ months and up every hour or couple of hours to feed?

Or, maybe you have a baby who wakes to take a full feed and easily goes back to sleep.

Sometimes it can be confusing to know the signs of whether your baby needs to feed for hunger or if he’s feeding to comfort himself to get back to sleep. Whichever it may be, you can reference this list to look for the signs!

If you have a baby who has been ok’d by your pediatrician to cut out some night feeds, and feeding through the night for comfort has become an exhausting cycle for you and your babe, reach out to us at for some help! We know how to coach babies to sleep independently and to wean them from night feeds when appropriate.

**Notes about night feeds:
- you CAN still teach an infant to sleep independently and keep biologically appropriate night feeds
- newborns NEED to feed as often as every 2-3 hours even at night so dropping night feeds is not appropriate (unless babe does it on his own and is gaining steady weight) until closer to 4 months
- your pediatrician SHOULD be consulted first before dropping night feeds to make sure there are no issues with baby gaining weight or that he may have some other medical issues requiring multiple night feeds

Transitioning a young child to a bed too soon can lead to serious sleep struggles. Cribs aren't simply a piece of furniture for babies. Children need cribs for developmental purposes, too!
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A few things to note about the crib:⠀
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🛏 The four "walls" of the crib provide a feeling of safety to young children. Moving a child who is too young can make them feel anxious or fearful, which often is not something they can vocalize. Instead, you begin to deal with bedtime battles, middle-of-the-night waking, or early wakeups. ⠀
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🛏 Children do not develop the skill of self-control until closer to age 3. Trying to "explain" to a child that they need to stay in their bed or their rooms prior to age three can be quite challenging (and it's no fault of theirs!). Their little brains have literally not developed enough to easily understand expectations.⠀
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🛏 A 2018 study published in the journal Sleep Medicine concluded: "Sleeping in a crib instead of a bed is associated with enhanced caregiver-reported sleep quantity and quality for toddlers in Western countries. Consistent with practice recommendations, deferring the crib-to-bed transition until age 3 years may benefit toddlers’ sleep in Western contexts."⠀
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Safety is, however, SUPER important! If your toddler is an escape artist and attempts to or successfully climbs out of their crib, you'll want to make that transition sooner rather than later. One trick we like to use is the extended use of sleep sacks to prevent climbing!

If you’ve got a climbing toddler and don’t know what steps to take next, message me for help!

The newborn phase is like a marathon, it requires endurance and consistency. The exhausting around-the-clock care is a lot to handle for parents. It can be an overwhelming period of your baby’s life and even more so when you get advice and opinions all around you on how to take care of your baby....well Mama (and daddies too!), I’ve come up with a list of stress-free, non-overwhelming tips to help you through the newborn phase:

* Do give yourself grace, there will be plenty of up and down days
* Do love on and hold your baby as much as you want, spoiling is allowed😉
* Do know and remind yourself often that this is a short phase of his/her life, it will pass, and it only gets better
* Do be kind to yourself and take care of YOU as well as baby
* Do track your baby’s feeds and watch the clock so baby doesn’t get overtired (but don’t obsess over this, and ask for help if you’re not sure about the feeding/sleeping relationship of your newborn; that’s what Restfully sleep coaches are here for 😄)
* Do be consistent with your routine even when tough days are upon you
* Don’t expect him to sleep on a predictable schedule, this will come with maturation, sleep shaping and/or training baby independent sleep skills at the appropriate age
* Don’t be hard on yourself for not always knowing what to do, newborns can be confusing and you’re just doing your best! Just stay consistent!
* Don’t fret if you think your baby is picking up bad habits or negative associations, baby can be trained to have positive associations when he/she is developmentally and biologically ready

Hi there, it’s been a while since I’ve been around here, and since I’m making my way back on the scene I thought I’d re-introduce myself.

I’m a Mama to two little ones, my daughter is 2 going on 3 and my son is 3 months old. I’ve taken a bit of a much needed break since the end of my pregnancy until now because of my son’s birth and adjusting to life with 2 kiddos. It’s an adjustment to say the least. But, I am ready to get back into sleep coaching and help families get more rest!

My journey to sleep coaching started like this:
I hardly slept for 7.5 months of my daughter’s infant life because I didn’t know how to get her to sleep without needing me. I created a feed-to-sleep association for her because it’s all I knew and I was too tired to do anything else. That took a huge toll on me and I finally got to a point where I couldn’t take any of it anymore. NO more being tired beyond exhaustion, NO more irritability with my baby, NO more sadness and loneliness over that stage of my life. I didn’t want any of that anymore. I knew I needed help and I wanted someone to just tell me what to do and how to do it. I was so beyond trying to figure anything out for myself at that point. So I searched the web and found a sleep coach’s training program. I bought it, implemented it, and we soon started to experience the wonders of sleep training through actionable recommendations and tips of a sleep coach. I finally got my sanity back, my much needed sleep, and a happy sleeping baby too!
I then dove into learning more about sleep and sleep coaching, and my interest in sleep and wanting to help other families experience the sweetness of a well-rested household blossomed into pediatric sleep coaching.

I really love what I do because I can empathize with clients while also helping them teach their little ones to sleep using science backed methods which are at the heart of what we do as sleep coaches.