Live webchat with baby sleep expert, Jo Tantum, Wednesday 4 March, 10-11am

[RachelMumsnet]

On Wednesday 4th March between 10-11am Jo Tantum will be on hand to answer all your questions and hopefully guide you and your babies towards a more peaceful night's sleep.

Jo is a baby sleep expert from Pampers’ Love, Sleep and Play expert panel with 25 years' experience and the author of bestselling book 'Baby Secrets'. She is a trusted name within the parenting sector and provides expert advice, literature and professional services to parents everywhere. Put the date in your diary to join Jo at 10am on Wednesday 4th or put your question to her in advance on this thread.

Over the past month Pampers has been working with Jo Tantum and parents across the UK to gather the most valuable and useful #BabySleep tips to help ensure a good night's sleep for babies. Now it’s your turn to share your #BabySleep questions and Jo will answer as many as she can get through on Wednesday 4th March.

This Q&A is sponsored by Pampers

Hello Jo , I have a 2 1/4 year old, who has had a few patches of sleeping all night but generally has woken at least once a night, she has been potty trained since she turned 2 , when her brother was born, and since then refuses to wear a nappy at night, not that it would actually make a difference , but she seems to be waking when she needs a wee, which on the one hand is good but now she has just started waking up and not needing a wee, as I have cut down her fluids before bedtime. She's easy enough to settle after as we've told her she can have a toy in the morning if she goes straight back to sleep ( she went through a phase of being up for 2 hours having tantrums) she has an hours nap 1.30 -2.30 ish and falls asleep with one of us sitting on a chair in her room. It's as far as our gradual withdrawal has got! Any suggestions would be great. Please excuse my terrible grammar. Also have a 5 month old waking every 2 hours!

@LondonJen

Dd is 5 months old, she mostly uses a dummy to settle for bed and naps sometimes at night i will replace it. She has a comforter with a tab that can hold a dummy. I am wondering whether its a good idea to use it with a view to taking the dummy away in the end but she'd still have the comforter. Is this a good idea? When is it safe to use one of these in her cot? She has rolled from back to front in the last couple of weeks but she can't always manage it. TIA

At 5 months old you can still get rid of the dummy if that’s what you wanted to do, dummies can cause lots of sleep issues as babies cant put their dummy back in until around 10 months old and sometimes later. This can obviously cause lots of night wakings and you having to go in and replace the dummy. It is fairly easy to get rid of the dummy at this age, and I always start in the day time for naps so they can start practising sleeping without it. I would offer a comforter instead of the dummy. But I would use a muslin square knotted in the middle as this is a light breathable material. To help get rid of the dummy if you are finding It difficult let her have a few sucks on the dummy while she is in the cot then stroke with your fingers from her forehead down to the tip of her nose and continue this until her eyes start to close. Then you can gently remove the dummy whilst stroking and this can always hypnotise her because she is so relaxed and she will go to sleep without the dummy and without crying. This usually takes between 3 and 5 days so be consistent and good luck!

@barmybunting

Hi Jo,

Like others on here I am wondering about naps. My 3 month old daughter will have a 45 minute morning nap in her cot about an hour and a half after she wakes for the day, and we have had limited success getting her to have another 45 minute nap in her cot at lunchtime. However she often wakes still tired from this nap. The only way I can get her to sleep for longer is in the sling for her lunchtime and afternoon nap.

I am wondering if I need to be persevering more with trying to get her to nap at lunchtime and in the afternoon in her cot, and how to get her to nap for longer. Is this a developmental thing that comes with time or do I need to work on this now?

You are doing exactly the right thing by putting her down after 1.5 hours of wake time, at this age this is her natural sleep cycle in the day. At 45 minutes she is only doing 1 sleep cycle, babies do this as they wake after 45 minutes when their internal alarm clock goes off and as we hear them wake we get them up and therefore the internal clock continues when actually she sounds like she still really needs to have more naptime. I would definitely persevere with this. Try and have blackout, put her in her sleeping bag, give her cuddles and settling her in her cot. When she does wake wait a few minutes to see if she will go back off to sleep, if she does get upset in these few minutes go straight in and soothe her. Try one hand on her chest and one hand under her shoulder or her bottom and gently pulling her body towards you in a rocking motion always saying “shhhhh” can really help soothe her and reassure her that you are there. Try this for a few minutes and then leave the room and listen to the noises she is making. If they are rhythmic sounds including ummm and ahhhhhh or if there are any quiet gaps then leave her a little bit longer as she is trying to resettle herself. If you do this for her naps then she will soon start to understand that she has permission to go back off to sleep and doesn’t need to wake with her internal clock. If you are consistent with this for the next week you will see great results – good luck!

@RozTheSchnoz

Hi Jo. Great to see you on here. I loved your 'baby secrets' book with baby #1 and am re-reading for #2! DS is now 2 years old. We never have issues with the daytime nap nor getting DS to get to sleep at bedtime thanks to a strict routine. The problem comes in the middle of the night when he insists on having a drink and won't settle until he gets one. This sometimes happens 3 or 4 times a night He'll usually go straight back to sleep afterwards but surely he can't be THAT thirsty?! All the interrupted sleep is exhausting us. Plus we seem to be getting through ridiculous amounts of nappies! Please help! TIA.

You're right, at 2 years old he really shouldn’t be waking that often for a drink and this is obviously affecting his night-time sleep, and yours. Often toddlers go through a stage of waking in the night and wanting something this can sometimes be an attention seeking ploy. Instead of getting the attention for waking in the night let's turn this round with positive reinforcement for not disturbing you and asking for drinks. Firstly have a sippy cup near him, so he can have a drink himself. Have a reward chart next to his cot with stickers on so if he doesn’t shout out, he gets a sticker in the morning. You can also start a lucky dip box with cheap prizes that he can have in the morning. Always explain to him at bath time and give him lots of praise when he starts to improve because at the moment he is no incentive to stop his constant waking. Be consistent with this for 1-2 weeks and you should see a massive change. So happy that Baby Secrets helped you – good luck with baby no.2!

@TeamEponine

Hi Jo,

Really hoping you can help as I'm really at the end of my tether

DD is 5.5 months and a total sleep disaster. We are making slow progress with things, but everything relies on her being swaddled. She is close to rolling, and I've been told that we can no longer swaddle her once she can roll.

Do you agree with this? And... Do you have any advice on how to wean her off of swaddling?

I've tried several times to put her down without swaddling, and it ends in hysterics, choking and vomiting where she gets into such an over tired state. She just constantly claws at her face, pulls her dummy out and generally gets herself into an inconsolable state.

Cry it out, leave her to it and cold turkey type solutions really don't work with her, she just works herself into a state that feels dangerous.

I'm so hopeful you can help!

Thanks.

Swaddling is a really great option in the early months as It can really help your baby to sleep better. The way that you can help your daughter to transition from swaddle to sleeping bag is just to swaddle with one arm out so she can get used to that in the day time in the week and fully swaddle at night. Then take one arm out at night aswell and then you can start getting both arms out in the sleeping bag. If your daughter is getting so upset and scratching her face and being sick there may be some underlying medical issue with her sleep if she is waking often and having to have a dummy so please go and see your GP. Good luck!

@KitKat1985

Hi Jo.

Okay, the holy grail question, when realistically can you expect a baby to start to sleep through the night with no night feeds? My nearly 6 month old DD still has me up anywhere between 2-6 times a night for feeds and I'm exhausted! I don't want to deny her food if she's hungry and still needs feeds, but I'm wondering if I'm creating bad habits? Especially as she feeds to sleep. Help!

Yes the question of when can my baby sleep through the night is one I am asked often! It of course depends on each different baby, baby’s weight and how they are able to settle themselves to sleep. If a baby is fully weaned and is having the correct nutrients in the day time then of course they can sleep better. I work with paediatricians and the consensus is that after 6 months of age a baby will wake for a feed usually out of habit then out of hunger. So rather than feeding your baby to sleep in the day time try and break that habit and at night time if they are waking so often then every other time your baby wakes then soothe back to sleep rather than feed her back to sleep. If you continue to do this you can gently encourage your baby to go back to sleep without feeding and this will start getting better at night time and she will start sleeping for longer and you can get your much longed for rest!

Thanks so much everyone for your great questions and I'm sorry we've run out of time. If you want to look through the questions I've answered as these may apply to you and, as before, you can follow me on twitter, facebook and on my website or if you have a baby up to 6 months, you can get my Baby Secrets book. I look forward to helping you all in the future on mumsnet, Take care and I hope you get some sleep tonight.

I see the questions relating to evidence for unfounded / false assertions re not needing milk / parenting at night were completely ignored then??
If you want information that's based on evidence, then ISIS from Durham uni has loads available online as Magadrils (sp, sorry!) said earlier. It's free too, no need to buy book or employ a 'sleep expert'.

I would agree that Kellymom and ISIS might give an actual evidence base for infant sleep and frequency of feeding instead of what I'm sad to say is "Health-Visitor" style advice.
I think I'll set myself up as a "sleep expert" >

Yes, it's a shame those questions were ignored. Maybe MNHQ could get Helen Ball from Durham Uni to do a webchat for balance?

Hi
my daughter is 10 weeks and not a bad night sleeper but has only now has very short nap in the morning and only in her pushchair/pram hardly ever an afternoon nap. Do you think she is just a wakey baby? How can I get her to take naps in her crib in the morning?
Thanks

I think the Helen Ball idea is a great idea.

Hi, I have a 9 month old baby who I think has got too used to being cuddled and held to sleep as a baby and now will go sleep very happily at 8 o'clock in her cot however wakes up numerous times in the night, half asleep scratching up the cot or screaming and will only settle if you pick her up and cuddle her for about 30 minutes and put her back down however every morning around 5 wakes up properly but will only get in the bed not cot. Having a nightmare because not getting any sleep due to the times she waking. Any suggestions? Thank you in advance.

I'd also like to know on what evidence advice not to feed under ones in the night is based? More pressingly, what evidence is there that this isn't actually dangerous? Thank you.

It would be very interesting to hear how useful parents have found the advice that jo has kindly taken the time to give on here.
I found the comments about babies being overstimulated and overtired very interesting: have others found this helpful?

But on the whole, the advice on here seems to be quite one size fits all, and invested in a wave machine, a sleeping bag, a cot, and not Breastfeeding at night.

I didn't know that babies were at risk of suffocation from front sleeping either... I definitely think I'll be Approaching sleep and nap times differently with this baby.

Thank you mumsnet and jo tantum.