Mum's The Word! The Parenting Podcast - Why are Babies so ACTIVE at NIGHT? - with The Sleep Mums!

Episode Date: September 17, 2023

Sleep is sacred for both parents and babies, but don't fear The Sleep Mum's are here! Between them they have over 30 years professional experience and hands on practice with babies and sleep. - They really are baby whisperers!We discuss the best practice for naps, why children are so active at night and whether or not we should invest in comforters...Find the Sleep Mums at https://www.sarahcarpentersleep.com/the-sleep-mums Or on Instagram @thesleepmumsAre you struggling with sleep? Get in touch with us at [e-mail] OR on whatsapp on 07599927537.---A Create Podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome back to Mums the Word, the parenting podcast. I'm Grace Victory and I'm your guest host for this week. I'm mummy to Cypress who is two and a half and Kimiko who is one very very soon. One of the hardest things I found when I became a parent was just the constant being switched on and needed I found it really really tough and one of the most surprising things I found from becoming a mother is how much healing your inner child gets through your own children it's a really beautiful a beautiful thing one of the biggest tips I can give new mums is take the help if anyone offers to help with cooking cleaning taking the kids to the park take it don't be that person to be like oh I'm fine and it's all good no take the help so you can rest now that's enough

with me let's get into this week's chat as we all know especially me as a new mum sleep really is hard to come by with our little ones and can be a source of great stress. Routines can go out the window and a baby's sleep can change a lot in their first few years. But how can we keep on top of this so we can sleep better? Luckily this week I am joined by the lovely BBC presenter Kat Kuby and sleep expert Sarah Carpenter, also known as the Sleep Mums. And between them, they have over 30 years professional experience and hands-on practice with babies and sleep. Welcome to the show. Hello. Thanks so much for having us.

Thank you for having us. Thanks for coming on. So was there an event in your own parenting life that led you to start the Sleep Mums podcast? Becoming a parent. So a wee bit of backstory. I had my eldest daughter, Indy, eight years ago. And like many new parents, I really struggled with sleep. She had quite a lot of feeding issues and there was a lot of uh you know things going on as often as the case when she was brand new

I read all the books I was a total parenting junkie um and I and she still wouldn't sleep and I was completely broken you know and there will be lots of parents listening you may even feel this yourself Grace but I was up sort of every 45 minutes and I just was not coping and um a friend actually put me in touch with Sarah and um I I've I I spent ages with her number not calling her because I felt like such a failure you know I think that uh we kind of are sort of sold this myth that you're going to become a parent and know what to do and that and and if you don't then you're rubbish and you're failing and I totally I felt that so much anyway I did eventually call her she turned up at my house

uh eight months pregnant um and so she stayed she stayed the night um that's what she does um with with with newborn support or one actually andy wasn't a newborn but uh sleep support and um uh she was like yeah i'll sleep on the floor i was like oh my goodness this woman is a total trooper and um uh yeah we bonded at sort of 3 a.m um and through the course of several weeks she helped me with indy's sleep and helped me to get her sleeping and just actually the the biggest thing i think sarah gave back to me this is like a total loving at the time but like um you know was really my enjoyment of being a parent it wasn't just sleep on its own she helped me to feel more in control of it because we all know that the reality is sleep isn't linear it

doesn't fall in a in a straight line you know even with that eight that baby that is now an eight-year-old the other night she was up a couple of times during the night with growing pains and needing a wee, you know, so it doesn't, it just doesn't go away. Sorry, but in some ways, if you know that, I think maybe it makes it feel better. But anyway, so that happened. Sarah and I ended up becoming really good pals. I was working a lot in the parenting space, writing about parenthood. And we always were like, oh, we should write a book. And then the pandemic happened and I was like why don't we start a podcast we'll just do six

episodes to help parents through those sort of first couple of months when there's so little support available particularly face-to-face stuff Sarah was like absolutely not because she's uh she's a reluctant star and then but I was like just absolutely not. Because she's a reluctant star. But I was like, just do it for the children. And I managed to persuade her and it completely kind of exploded from there. We've now done over 70 episodes, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of downloads. And we got an agent and a book deal. And we published a book with HarperCollins last year called Sleep Better Baby.

So that was the journey. And Sarah, how did you start being like a baby whisperer, a sleep whisperer? So I did my training, gosh, like it must be 22 years ago now down at the Norland Nursery Training College. So I started my career as a Norland nanny and I knew during my training that I wanted to kind of specialise more with the younger ages. And so that obviously meant that I was much more focused on routine and sleep and things like that. obviously meant that I was much more focused on routine and sleep and things like that and I was a very after I finished nanny and in London I went out to Australia and worked as a very traditional maternity nurse so I was moving in with families for six to twelve weeks and getting them into a routine and you know really sort of helping them become parents and when I

moved back to Scotland I realized that you know times have changed not as many people needed that service but people did need help still but it was much more specific sleep related help that people were looking for and so just over time with different families I kind of tailored the help more to what people were requesting and became who I am now I suppose so um so yeah I've done it for a lot longer than I've been a parent um and I certainly found that when I was pregnant with my first who is now 11 I felt that instead of everybody asking how I was the first question on everyone's lips was you know and how are you going to get your baby to sleep? So it was very, I felt a lot of pressure during the pregnancy that I had to have this perfect baby who slept really well. And actually with my first, he did

that for me and he was a fantastic baby. But with my second, I did have to put a lot of what I talked to clients about into practice. And yeah, it really opened me up to seeing how difficult it is as a parent. It's very easy for me to come in and work alongside people and support them. But actually, when you've got all those hormones flying around, it's a completely different situation. Yes. Sarah's very self-deprecating. She's like, she's so good at what she does because she's so holistic about it.

And she has all this, like she has the training and then she has the experience, but she also has a personal experience as a parent. And she's a lovely person. It's empathetic, I feel like. Yeah, yeah. So why don't babies sleep? I need answers.

The question we'd all love to answer i think it's really important to try and sort of rephrase how you think about that question because babies do sleep they just have very sleep different sleep needs to us as adults yeah so it's not you know where all our needs can be fed into so many hours during the day. Babies' needs are much more complex than that. And so I think there's so much negativity around baby sleep, especially now with social media being so in your face. Yeah, and you compare yourself.

Yeah. And in the last few weeks, there's been a lot on Instagram about people opening up and saying that they feel like failures because of the way that their babies are sleeping. And actually what their babies are doing is completely developmentally normal. So, you know, if you've got a three, four week old baby who's up three or four times a night to feed, that's what they need to do. And you're meeting their needs by doing it. so all the focus that we have on sleep and getting more sleep i think has made people really negative about sleep and actually misunderstand what sleep needs are so yes babies do sleep it's just that they don't sleep the same way as us when they're tiny babies and

in those really in the first year but it doesn't mean that you can't get sleep yeah because i see people online and they're like oh yeah you yeah, you know, my five-month-old has started sleeping through the night. And I'm like, Kimiko is one next month and she is still like, hi, at 3 a.m. And she's not hungry because I offer her a bottle and she pushes it away and she just wants to talk to me. She's up, bop, bop, bop, bop,'s like, bab, bab, bab, bab, bab, bab. And I'm like, you're joking. You're joking. You're just too fangirls, you know.

It's because she loves her mama. Yeah, when she's with her dad, she doesn't get up. It's when she's with me in my bed or next to me that she's like, hi, mom. Hi. me that she's like hi mom hi so you just before we uh jumped on on the podcast you were chatting about the fact that she's learning to pull herself up and you know and that's such a big element of why you know I was saying that sleep isn't this thing that that just happens it's not like you crack 12 hours and then it's going to be like that forever and ever we know that as adults and and they learn so much in those first few years and whenever there's something developmental going on um it's likely that they're going to be up during the night um practicing those things so

it's so important to you know the things that you can do to kind of help that is just make sure they're having as much time during the day to practice those things, giving them the space, giving them the time to do it. Because I think, you know, so my youngest is 20 months and he just comes along to everything. He does not get space to practice these things because he just he's number three and he gets chucked in the carrier or in the buggy and he just has to accept that so I am aware that he quite often will do that be up through the night because he's not not having time to practice what he wants to yeah that's very interesting in that situation as well when your little one is developing and wants to sort of be enthusiastic at night it's really important to just make it as boring for her as you possibly

can so don't give her that sort of enthusiasm back you know oh my god i'm like come on You can stand, you can do. Oh my God. Yeah. I'm like, let's go, babes. That's what I always console myself with, you know, that if it is, you know, that my kids wanting me over my partner, it's just because I'm so much more fun. 100%. I'm the favorite.

That's what I tell myself. They just love me more. We console ourselves with that because it makes ourselves feel better. What other tips do you have to try and help babies to sleep or just mums that are struggling with a lack of sleep? I think the main thing is get help. And we don't just mean from people like us, but tap into help from everybody that

can give it because it can be so lonely in those first few months and years being a parent and actually if you are more open if people are more open and honest about what's really going on then people can actually support each other so you know like you were saying with people online saying oh my baby is five months and sleeps through the night often when you actually ask them their definition of sleeping through the night it could be like 10 till 5 and that's sleeping through the night to them so by posting that their babies are sleeping through the night they're actually you know either not being completely honest about what other people think of as sleeping through the night but it's bringing other people down and I think when people genuinely start to talk about you know what's really going on and how they're all really

feeling it can make people feel so much more supported. I just don't post about sleeping just don't do it like that's what we always say like you know don't never be too smug when your baby is sleeping because you never know what's gonna happen totally years and years ago i worked for um about eight clients at the same time and none of them admitted to getting help but they were all with the same nct group so that i would go to people's houses and they'd be like oh and so andand-so's getting so much sleep and this is happening and I knew and obviously client confidentiality I said nothing but I knew that they were not getting sleep and I was going in and helping them as well and it wasn't until all the little ones were between two and a half and three that they all confessed to using me. I'm in total agreement because I often feel like I don't need a break from my kids I need a break from everything else the cooking the washing work like all that admin of life definitely and I think that's so

important like I think if you can acknowledge that then um you know you're you're already halfway there because actually you're saying this isn't just about the baby this is about the bigger picture and that parenting is like even now I mean mine are um god I've actually forgotten my only children's ages seven ten and eleven and I've got two of them off school sick today and the first thing I wanted to do when I got up this morning was phone my mum and be like can you come over and help and I haven't done it because I'm like I can do this but it doesn't change like that need for kind of your village to come and help sticks no matter how old they are oh really that's so interesting okay hi all it's tv's gail porter here I am so excited to tell you that I am joining the Paranormal Activity family

and will be hosting a number of live podcast recordings across the UK. The first is on the 5th of October at London's haunted Richmond Theatre. Expect terrifying tales, audience interaction and hopefully a spirit or two. If you want to join me and share your own paranormal experiences, get tickets at www.paranormalpod.co.uk. I definitely feel like I need my mum. Like, oh my goodness. My mum is my village.

And I just think kids are just, they're more chill with their nan. And I'm like, if that was me, they'd be kicking off. So yeah, that's really interesting. Do you have any advice for toddler sleep? Because my toddler in particular right now is going through something he's not wanting to go to bed until about 10 p.m and then waking up every night

and I'm not sure he is also though talking a lot more like he's able to do like three or four words now like in a sentence which is like incredible um but yeah it's obviously very very tough on mum so how old is he he's three in december they quite often do go through such big developmental leaps that um at that age they do have a bit of disruption but it can also be really massively connected to um nap times as well so nap times and bedtimes can completely change so is he still having a nap yes because if he doesn't have a nap at 4 p.m he's like ko he's asleep yeah someone like cypher is like wake up and he will not wake up in the car, on the sofa. It's like he wants to drop the nap, but he's not quite there yet.

And he gets really moody in the afternoons. Yeah. So I would think about how long he's napping for and what time he's napping. So try and keep the nap as early as possible and as short as possible. So you want it to be, you don't really want him to go through two sleep cycles if he's getting to that stage where he's dropping it. So you want it to be around about 30, 35 minutes. And then you, and try and keep it like closer to kind of two o'clock is a good time for a quick cat nap like that.

And then set your bedtime initially to eight o'clock and then start to bring it bring it back so if eight o'clock is working really well then move it to like 10 to 7 and then 20 sorry 20 and then 20 until it's back at half seven which is a great bedtime for that age and then as i was saying earlier like keep things super boring so you want to meet his bedtime needs like teeth toilet drink story and then if you're sitting in the room with him or if you're just sitting by the door you want to be really silent and calm and not engage in chat but you can see you know you're doing really well and your language is really good so we're going to talk about that in the morning and make sure anything that he has come up with at night you do address

in the morning so you come back to that conversation that it's been left on at night always come back to in the morning so he gains that confidence that um that you are going to remember things and you are going to talk to him about it. Okay, cool. One thing I have to, have to talk about is the crying out method. Because personally, it's not for me. It's not for me. But I know that some people are all for it. What are your thoughts on that? Does it work?

Do you think it's traumatizing because i do so there's always going to be methods out there that we don't agree with and people don't like and generally cry out control crying they are not methods that we would promote or work with. I have had clients come to me and say, we've done our research, this is what we want to do. Can you support us with that? And I will talk them through the process and what it's really going to look like and the benefits of doing it in a different way

and see if they then come round to that way of thinking and that's what we'll implement. I personally would not do cry out with any clients and I didn't do it with my own children but there are always going to be people that it's worked for so as with everything there shouldn't be judgment you know if you've chosen to do it that way you shouldn't feel judged for choosing to do it that way just like you shouldn't feel judged for being a more gentle parent but do I think it works in a nutshell no because if you use cry it out you're not learning the tools and techniques to support your child through the process and so it might work or appear to work in a point in time but then the next time your baby has disrupted sleep then you don't have anything to fall back on other than oh my god we're gonna have to do cry out

again and I cannot tell you how many people have come to me saying okay we did cry out at this age and um it worked but here we are again and we don't know what to do so you know that says a lot to me comforters what are they do you recommend I mean I'm all for a dummy I'm not gonna lie um but I know some people are really against them what are your thoughts I mean I love a dummy too but my my first daughter you know my daughter didn't take one so it's not always an option but I think Sarah and I feel quite I mean this is like connected to the whole judgment thing you know you've got to do about what works for for you and for your baby and dummies are brilliant for some and not for for others and also they have a brilliant place until some point and then they are you know you maybe want to get rid of them so I think any

comforters are have a good and a bad side to them that's the thing um between my three we had various different ones um and yeah like my daughter's still at age seven she still has her baby blanket so you know I don't think there's anything wrong with that I think the main thing is and the thing that we would always say to everybody is that you're in control of the comforter initially so if it's something that you think by the time baby gets to like 18 months you're going to want to take away from them don't introduce it in the first place if you're comfortable using it for a long period of time until they decide to give it up then it's fine or if it's a dummy and you're going to use it for a few months and then take away then that's fine but try not to remove things at really vulnerable ages and you know anything really

from kind of 11 months to three can be really really difficult to take a comforter away it can really affect the child so so just think about it and you know you don't want you don't want to be making it harder on yourself by giving something that you then want to remove. The most important thing is to to to make sure it's safe and age appropriate. So, you know, for example, a dummy is absolutely grand from the get-go. Actually, with both of my boys, they had a dummy, but I took it away at six months, and I thought it was going to be super painful, but it was absolutely fine.

Like, that's a really good stage to do it. But if you don't do it at that point, as Sarah's saying, it's kind of better often to just wait until they're older and you can actually talk it through with them but when it comes to you know cuddly toys and things like that you just have to be really mindful of them being breathable and the age of the baby but of course we all need comfort you know like I cuddle a pillow at night sorry my husband doesn't get a look in but you know like and and that is I guess like my comforter very very very true I think going back to the judgment things I think it's that's one of the hardest parts I think of motherhood and parenthood is is that the judgment and like

the looks or the other opinions that you get around how you're raising your your child I think social media doesn't help that it's nice to have a check-in I think sometimes you feel really lonely you feel like you're the only person going through like lack of sleep or your baby's not sleeping through but then talking to people like you it's like oh okay like this is very very normal we aspire to normalize normality as daft as that sounds but like you know um I think that you get snapshots on social media and that's been the case even before social media existed you know you would be shown these like things in movies or on any kind of content uh adverts and stuff like perfection and you know it's not like that it's

messy and it's um you know there's a lot of body fluids involved and um you know it's it's chaotic and and that's why we're all so overwhelmed because it's so full-on um but yeah of course it's also beautiful and magical and like the best for me and you know like the best thing in the world to have you know cuddles with my children or for them to tell me that they love me so it's like this weird sort of oh I don't I don't even know how to explain it I think that's the thing isn't it there aren't words for parenthood parenting is so extreme it's like you you know in the space of an hour as a parent you you experience extreme lows and extreme highs and you can't put your finger on it because it is just so wild there's my brother is just funny and I'll be so

so tired and like stressed out he's had like 10 tantrums he's just going for it and he goes to me mum are you good and I'm like no no I'm not good um but he him talking to me and like his personality I'm like wow this is incredible but no I'm not okay um yeah but it's so amazing like I think as well like my kids are you know older too a bit older they're doing um they're at school and they're doing so much stuff about emotions and resilience and um kind of things like that in a way that we, I certainly didn't have. And they've got this language to be able to talk about their feelings. And I think it's so brilliant. I know you guys had a question, I think, for us that came in. Megan on WhatsApp has sent in a question. She says, help, I've just had my little boy and feel like over the past week i've only had about

six hours of sleep he's normally up and down throughout the night and by the time my eyes drop like clockwork he will wake up i feel like i'm stuck in a loop he's just coming up to a year old do you have any advice on how i can get him to sleep through and get some more sleep myself? It's sort of what we touched on earlier, but have a look at his needs and make sure that you are meeting them. So think about your routine and schedule. Think about your naps. Think about food. And then think about what you're actually doing when he wakes. You know, if it's too exciting and stimulating, then he is going to wake more.

So think about the environment and things like that. Obviously, like, there's so much on this on our podcast and in the book. But, yeah, like, it's really, really thinking about why he's getting up at night so much. Is he missing something from his day that you need to tweak and change so that he's getting his needs are being met during the day so that you can have longer stretches at night so that could be obviously food it could be like sleep or naps too much or too little or it could as we were talking about be um time to practice new skills which of what there are obviously loads happening uh around

one but I think also something that I really hear in that is also about her and her own sleep and I think that's such a big part that it's almost as soon as I'm going to sleep he he wakes up and I think one of the hardest things too, as parents can be switching off and getting to sleep. My second was actually a really good sleeper, but I was, you know, not in a good place mentally. And I really, really struggled to sleep myself. So sometimes we, I think we have to parent the parent a little bit as well. And actually a lot of the advice we give for babies and young children works really well for adults as well like have a bedtime routine make sure you're not doing the

doom scroll when you get into bed as hard as that is you know um make sure you're the environment that you sleep in is calming you're not too hot you're not too cold you know all of these things that we talk about for babies actually are good for parents um as well and then so you know have a think have a think about how you're getting to sleep as well that's that I mean that's only a part of it obviously if he's up on the regular but um it's something to think about yeah I started um adult coloring books love those wind myself down like before bed because I found myself doing the scrolling on tiktok for hours so that really helped me and switching my phone to red light mode so instead of the blue light which obviously is so like bright and harsh

the red light you can barely see anything on your phone anyway so you don't want to go on it um and magnesium supplements really helped me oh my goodness i'm i'm a huge fan of magnesium both for myself and actually my eldest who um there isn't there isn't science to back this up before anyone gets upset. But anecdotally, she got very bad night terrors from about the age of three until we started her on magnesium tablets herself. And literally within two weeks, her night terrors ceased. So whether it's a placebo or not, it certainly helps with it can help with the wee ones as well yeah agreed it was so nice to talk to you both and thank you so much for coming on the podcast today thank you so much for having us we we loved it and obviously you can find the sleep mums podcast wherever you get your podcasts to there's over 70 episodes on there covering pretty much everything

although there's more to come and our book sleep better baby best-selling book we we put a lot of love and care into and we're super proud of and and it's an amazing bible to help people make their own decisions about what they need to to support them in sleep. And that's available in all good bookstores online and offline. Love that. Had to get a sales pitch in there. Thanks for listening to Mum's The Word, a parenting podcast. Make sure to hit the subscribe or follow button so you never miss an episode.

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