Taking a holistic approach to your baby’s sleep can support long term improvements without the stress and effort! I don’t know about you but having as many ducks lined up in a row to make my parenting journey as easy and enjoyable as possible is where I am at! Check out my three tips below that can do wonders in optimising sleep for you and your baby.

My last blog was all about early rising, what it is and some quick and easy fixes to try if your bub is waking earlier than ideal. You might recall that early waking can arise from a disturbance in any of the body processes that control sleep. But what happens when you’ve exhausted all of those quick fix solutions – you’ve adjusted for light, noise, temperature and hunger – but your little one is still waking early what now!?

Is your baby waking up at 4 or 5am, happy and ready to start the day? While this might be a routine that works well for parents who are also early birds, it isn’t going to be everyone’s cup of tea. So before we accept this as just the norm in your household , I love to do a bit of investigating!

Studies have shown that children who regularly get an adequate amount of sleep have improved attention, behaviour, learning, memory, and overall mental and physical health. Over time, not getting enough quality sleep each night can produce a range of behavioural, cognitive (mental) and emotional symptoms that can flow on into adulthood.

he most important thing to note with a nap transition is that most of the time your child will not just wake up one day requiring one less nap, just because they fall into the appropriate age range. Lots of factors can influence when it happens, including how well your child naps in the first place and how much day sleep they are actually achieving for their age. Check out my how much day sleep post on Instagram for recommendations. Transitions can be smooth, or they can be super messy and disorganised for a few weeks! I have personally had the pleasure of going through 9 separate nap transitions as a mother, as well as helping clients figure out if their own child is ready.⠀

A sleep clock is another tool that can be really effective when it comes to children’s sleep. It can help us as the parents, to positively reinforce some healthy boundaries surrounding sleep, in a child friendly way. Sleep clocks are designed as a visual cue, that is simple for toddlers to understand. Just like any tool, they need to be used correctly in order to see any results and help to solve the problem!