The Leakies with Rebecca Michi
We asked sleep consultant Rebecca Michi to come help us all get some more sleep and we asked the Leakies to share there current sleep struggles. Here are a few of the responses followed by Rebecca’s support.
Chris: My 20 month old has an average 7 hour window of awake time after she wakes from her nap- this is killing me when she doesnt go down for nap til 1:15-2 and then sleeps til 3:00! I can’t stand a 10pm bedtime!! What should I do? should I drop the afternoon nap? My mom said I stopped napping all together at age 2. Worried we are headed this way as well. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
Rebecca: I would work on gradually reducing down the nap. Have her wake at 2:45pm for a week and see how that impacts your nights. You can then reduce down another 15 minutes for a week. You should be able to find the perfect nap length, though it may be that she is ready to drop the nap.
Take a little look at your night routine, you want it to be between 30 and 45 minutes long, nice and consistent, same thing in the same place in the same order. Take a look at the environment as well, nice and dark (through the whole night), no energy saving light bulbs in the sleep space and no screen time an hour before bed
Courtney: Naps! How can I get my 15 month old to take a nap without getting nursed to sleep. He’s not one of these “drowsy but awake” kind of kids, you can’t rock him because he squirms and won’t settle. I just want to get to the point where I can put him in his crib and he falls asleep on his own. Wishful thinking? We also nurse to sleep for bedtime and when he wakes in the night.
Rebecca: You will need to teach him the skills to get himself to sleep. I suggest some gentle sleep training. When you are gently teaching sleep skills you are always with your child and you can pick them up and soothe them. Take a look at The Baby Whisperer book, Kim Wests book and my book. We all have our own sleep training techniques that are more gentle and hands on. Find a technique you like and stick with it. It’s actually easier to work on nights first, you can work with naps first, but it will be more of a challenge.
Caroline: My 7.5 month old never naps (ok maybe twice) longer than 70 min Is there a way to get her to nap longer? When she was younger than 3 months or so she only ever napped being worn and she would nap longer but in her crib she maxes out around 75 min. We would love it if she took longer naps – is this just what she needs? 3 30 -75 min naps (first two usually lose to an hour but the last one of the day frequently only 35 min or so)
Rebecca: How long is she awake between naps? Try aiming for the 2-3-4 routine (awake for 2 hours, nap, awake for 3 hours, nap, awake for 4 hours, down for the night. With 3 hours of nap you have a 12 hour day). Changing to this schedule should help those naps stretch out a little. Have your nap routine within your awake period, so you want to be actively working on getting to sleep at the 2 hour point and the 3 hour point. The last awake period can be a little longer, we have a longer routine so it can be longer than 4 hours. If she has had shorter naps you can have a catnap in the 4 hour stretch, this nap just needs to be long enough to keep her going until bedtime.
Cailyn: My 7 month old doesn’t nap in her crib. If I put her down she either wakes up immediately or within 5 minutes. We are currently doing cuddle naps, but would like to get her napping in her crib. She sleeps fine in her crib a night, provided she has napped well in the day. We have been using a lovey to try and get her to associate it with sleep time, and not the cuddling, but so far that hasn’t made a difference. Do we just have to keep trying to put her in her crib for naps, knowing that if she doesn’t nap for long her night time sleep may not be good?
Rebecca: It’s not unusual for children to sleep very differently for naps and night sleep, the reason behind this is due to day sleep (naps) and night sleep being managed by different areas of the brain. Make sure she has plenty of playtime in the crib each day, she needs to be comfortable with the space to nap in the space, this comes with play. When you do work on having her sleep in the crib you will probably notice that the naps get short, this is very normal, naps do reduce in length as we make changes to them. The naps should begin to lengthen out but themselves, but it may take a week or more for them to lengthen out. As we don’t want nights to be too impacted I would suggest having and emergency nap towards the end of the day. Maybe run some errands so she can fall asleep in the car or go for a walk so she can nap in the stroller or carrier, this way she can catch up on a little lost sleep, but you are not going going back to doing those cuddle naps.
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Be sure to check out Rebecca’s book Sleep And Your Child’s Temperament and don’t miss out on the scholarship opportunity to participate in her Sleep Academy LIVE, here.
If you have a question you would like Rebecca to answer next time, please use this form to submit your inquiry.
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The Baby Whisperer was one of the worst books for me to read as an inexperienced breastfeeding mom. Although somewhere- perhaps- there is some generally good advice or suggestions that may work for some cases, it’s a horrible recommendation to list, especially for newborns, as it sets up completely unrealistic expectations of how much or how long a baby can be induced to sleep based on weight, food, and basic sleep tricks alone, like setting a routine. In particular, the recommendations on breastfeeding and sleep training are not only ignorant, they are contradictory to the process.
This book did nothing but convince me that something was wrong with my care, my milk, or my baby. I’m genuinely disappointed that it is listed as a recommendation on the Leaky Boob website.
Hi Rachael,
Though the book can be quite hard to read, the techniques are good. I did suggest the technique for a 15 month old not a newborn.
Rebecca Michi