Episode 163: The 7 Month Sleep Regression & Nap Schedules

Disclaimer: Transcripts were generated automatically and may contain inaccuracies and errors.

Welcome to the kids sleep show, podcast where we dive into the magical world of sleep and all things parenting. Join us as we embark on a journey filled with expert advice, practical tips and heartwarming stories that will transform your little ones into sleep superheroes and empower you to navigate the beautiful chaos of parenting.

I’m your host, Courtney Zentz,

and I’m on a mission to change how the world views sleep and provide accessible sleep coaching resources for all families to build healthy sleep habits in their home for children and adults of all ages. As an award winning speaker, author and pediatric sleep expert, myself and my team of consultants work intimately with families around the world to teach healthy sleep habits to children and adults. I believe wholeheartedly that sleep is the foundation for which a happy home is built. So let’s sleep together.

Hello and welcome back to this week’s episode of the Kids sleep show. My

name is Courtney Zentz. I am the founder of tiny transitions and the creator of the sleep steps membership program, the first and only membership program for sleep training your child, because every month there’s going to be something going on, and you’re going to want that help, and you have it now with us here at tidy transitions through either private coaching or that sleep steps membership program, but we are jumping in today to talk about something that comes up, oh so often with this particular age, and it is the seven month sleep regression. Why at this age does it seem as though there’s a sleep regression,

there’s a nap shift,

there’s a ton of developmental leaps right, and your child all of a sudden has increased night wakings. They’re taking shorter naps. They’re having trouble falling asleep at bedtime. For some kids, they’re even waking up super early, and everything really just seems to compound over the course of the days and weeks that you’re currently in. So we’re going to start first with talking about what causes the seven month sleep regression. Because I think there’s a lot of misunderstanding about sleep regressions, just in general, as a practitioner who’s done this for 10 years, I see everything really get blamed on sleep regressions like, Oh, they’re call, they’re crawling. So it’s a sleep regression, oh, they’re sitting up now, sleep regression,

oh, they’re teething. Sleep regression, right?

Well, so those things, yes, they’re developmental leaps, but no, they don’t necessarily cause a sleep regression. Now let me explain in that example, what could cause a sleep regression, right? Your child sits up, well, they don’t know how to get back down yet. So what do you do as a parent? You go in and lay them down, and they sit up again, and then you go in and lay them down. Well, now you’re the mechanism to lay them back down, and now they expect to see you, and when you lay them down, you’re naturally probably like giving them a kiss and cuddling their face and rubbing their back, and like all of those extra things, right? So it’s not stuff that they technically need. It becomes things that they technically want. Now, yes, there’s an argument that people would say, well, they need to lay back down so they don’t hit their head. I get that, and certainly you want to manage that. But what I would tell you is, very quickly, in the daytime, you can teach a child who is sitting up to lay back down on their own, right? So if your child sits up and they kind of get stuck, as many people refer to it, right, just spend five minutes, four times a day, showing them how to get back down. So sit them up, and then show them how to lay back down, and then sit them up, and then show them how to lay back down. And let them sit up, show them how to lay back down, and after a day maybe two, they’re past that leap. So it doesn’t impact sleep and cause a sleep regression at this age, right? And that kind of goes for anything sitting up. Some kids this age are already pulling themselves up in the crib or standing, and then parents get nervous and they lay them back down, and you just create the sleep regression because you’re doing something to get them back to sleep. So it’s it’s hard, it’s definitely a balance. There’s way more increased awareness and curiosity about their environment. At this stage, you start to incorporate a little bit of separation anxiety. I think as a working mom, I had working mom guilt, right? So there were always like, Oh, well, this is my chance. Oh, they must miss me, right? And, you know, when I became a practitioner in the space, I realized that the independent restorative sleep and the impact on their cognitive development and how good they feel and their emotional balance was like, way more important than me satisfying my own need to give them one extra hug. I spent a ton of time being present in the day when I had the opportunity to be and that was exactly how I balanced a little bit of that mom guilt I had that I know so many working moms have for sure, but it was just about being conscious of the daytime and the activities we were doing and the one to one attention that was uninterrupted. It so that I didn’t feel that in the middle of the night. And, you know, I really had a good balance around things like, is it separation anxiety, or is it that they just lack the skill to settle independently for sleep, right? And so you want to make sure with the seven month sleep regression, you want to do some different strategies, right? So making sure things like your bedtime routine is very consistent, right? Same time, same process, and frankly, they are offering some comfort and reassurance, like during the bedtime routine, but that they’re also settling independently for that sleep, right? If you’re still rocking to sleep, feeding to sleep, nursing to sleep, anything with the term to sleep, it doesn’t matter what age they are, it’s going to cause a sleep regression. Okay? Because a sleep regression is really where sleep was going, Okay? And now your baby relies on you to go to bed, so their sleep regresses because they want you and you don’t necessarily want to do whatever it is that they want, not that they need, what they want to go to sleep. Okay? And you’ve got to manage one your parental stress and fatigue, because it’s important that you get sleep or you’re not your best version of yourself, right? We also have to make sure your child’s in a good sleep environment. Sometimes I have clients that are like, Oh, well, we let the baby sleep in our bedroom, but my husband watches TV all night and like, that’s not going that’s not conducive to good sleep. You still hear it, right? And so you want to make sure your baby’s getting that restorative sleep, because they’re growing so rapidly, and when they sleep at this age, there’s just so much repair and growth happening in the brain. So certainly want to make sure it’s a calm environment, it’s a cool environment. It’s conducive to sleep. It’s dark. You’ve got maybe like a nice, quiet noise machine on right? Nothing in the crib, but baby and everybody can get good sleep in their space where they’re feeling comfortable. Okay, so from a sleep regression standpoint, I’m going to leave that there, and we’re going to dive into nap schedules, because that could also be another part of why your child at seven months old is having a sleep regression, because their schedule is wrong. And that’s common. Lot of people ask about schedules out on our website, which is tinytransitions.com you can go right to the homepage grab a sample schedule for every age and stage, along with all of our other free trainings and library of information that’s out there. I’m a huge believer in teaching and building your trust with me and with our team here, and the value that we bring with all the great education that we provide, and if and when you’re ready to need some additional help, we’re always here to do so. So we’re going to talk now about schedules, because, like I said, that is such a huge challenge with people at this age. Okay, nap schedules for a seven month old at this point are two. There should be two naps. That’s what a child will do best with I will tell you, my kids were both in daycare full time, and I couldn’t control the nap schedules. So we did have three naps some days at my child’s daycare, other days we had two. I think it gets closer to two, for sure, even at daycare as they approach eight months old and nine months old. But it can still happen where daycares just don’t understand sleep as well, right? So you have certain awake window needs, right? And yet you also have a lot of kids you’re trying to manage, and if you’re not getting the long restorative nap, the Wake window might need to be adjusted, which then triggers a child needing three naps instead of two. So I’m going to tell you how you balance both, because I understand the realities of both sides of parenting, but I will say whatever school is doing at daycare, try to mimic that at home, so there’s consistency in their body clocks until they’re ready to make the jump. And perhaps you have, like, a long weekend where you can sort of make the jump for the daycare, and then when you send them back, say, Please don’t put them down until I’ve had families do that as well. Oh my goodness, I need some more coffee. It’s pretty early when I’m recording this, but I’m usually an early bird gets the worm kind of girl. I’m gonna grab a quick sip here, and we’ll continue talking all about the ideal maps for a seven month old.

So right now, as I mentioned, somewhere between two and three. Okay, two is ideal. Three is going to happen. Both can be managed to balance your day. So at this age, I really still love a seven o’clock bedtime and a seven o’clock wake up. That being said, it’s anywhere between six and seven in the morning. So the average nap schedule for a seven month old, really, through 12 months of age, looks like this, three hours of an awake window, three hours of total daytime sleep across two naps. So if you’re waking at seven, you’re going to wake up and eat, then you’re going to take your first nap after eating about 945 right? You’re going to put baby down around 10 o’clock awake to settle to sleep. Okay, so the first nap of the day should be always 10. O’clock in the morning that’s going to balance the right sleep pressure levels, which is really a neurotransmitter called adenosine that your brain releases, so it rises when you’re awake and falls when you sleep. And that’s what keeps your body clock kind of in check throughout the day without getting over tired. So there’s my bit of a science lesson. So you’ve got 10 o’clock as the first nap. Okay, you’re going to have three scenarios with your baby’s nap at 10 o’clock, if they’re on a two nap schedule, and all three are perfect and fine, and will time you out exactly as you need to Okay, so it’s going to be either 10 to 11 a one hour nap. Some babies sleep longer in the morning, some in the afternoon. Okay, some split the difference right down the middle. So you’re going to have 10 to 11 three hours later would be two o’clock to four o’clock. Okay, they’re gonna do 10 to 1130 so three hours later would be 230 to four o’clock, or you’re gonna have 10 to 12 if they take the longer nap in the morning, and then three hours later is three to four. See that all three of those schedules give you three hours of total daytime sleep, a three hour awake window and a last nap to bedtime window, three hours to avoid overtired. Okay, there are some sleep consultants who will say, Oh, four hours is acceptable. At this age. I do not find that. I find your baby gets over tired. They cry a lot more, and then the nights suck. I keep all of my private sleep coaching clients at three hours, and we will tweak as necessary, but I will tell you, 95% of the time you’re waking up at four and you’re going to bed at seven, kids are tired. They’re learning and they don’t want to be overtired, because that derails everything for the next 18 years of your life when kids get over tired. Okay, so generally, if you’re going to have a two nap schedule, that’s what it’s going to look like. If you’re going to have a three nap schedule, I basically give you this baseline, 930 1233 30. Okay, because they’re shorter naps all one hour, you’re still getting the total three hours of sleep that you need, but you’re getting kind of a missed balance of the wake windows because you have the shorter nap, and then you’re trying to balance a day where you can still get them to bed at seven. That is the best way you can do it with a daycare is 930 1233, 30. And then that balances the sleep pressure, the right timing, the fact that it is what it is at daycare, again, ideally, I like two naps at this age, but sometimes that’s just going to be the schedule and the way it is, and you can conform to it and still keep sleep really balanced and really good. And as a sleep coach, I did that with my baby, and they slept great every night for 11 and a half hours from the time they were three months old. So you just have to balance what your child’s sleep cues are uniquely when you start to see sleep cues, you’ve often missed the ideal window. So if your baby’s eyes are red or cheeks are rosy, or they’re yawning a lot and like grinding their kind of head into your chest like a cat, you know that often means you’ve missed the ideal window, because those sleep cues come out really after they should have already been in bed. So you want to make sure that you are again, from a nap standpoint, trying to create a good, consistent schedule, but you’re also doing a modified miniature routine as well, right? Like, you want to have calm, cool and dark as best you can, like, I would always at daycare be like, can you put my kid in the back and here’s the sound machine. For the infant room, because they didn’t have one, and so I was like, the sleeps are there, but my kids slept great. And they were, you know, it wasn’t super dark at daycare, but they still slept well. But at home, I still try to make it calm, cool and dark on the weekends, I don’t emulate the environment at home. I just emulate the schedule at home. Okay? And you want to balance the nap times with nighttime sleep, because it’s all connected. I promise you, it’s all connected. And so from a connective standpoint, right? It’s like, well, how much sleep do children need at this age? Typically, between 14 and 15 hours in total sleep in a 24 hour period. So that’s where I say you want to get about three hours across the day, because your baby still has those sleep needs, you can’t be like, Well, I’m just going to put her on one nap a day, like, they’ll never make it. They build up too much adenosine, which triggers stimulant hormones in the brain, and it just causes hormones too. So you can’t do that like, you have to have at least two, probably three, but certainly not four. If you’re still on four naps, you’ve got a supported sleep issue or something else that’s causing a trigger of needing help to sleep, that you can reach out to us, and we would be happy to chat with you about you want to make sure there’s good distribution between daytime and overnight, but each child is going to have individual sleep needs and individual sleep drivers that you want to track and check. Sometimes you’re going to have things like early morning wake ups that can be caused by habit. They can be caused by temperature, by sleep drive. If your kid’s sleeping four hours for a nap in the day and they go to bed at seven and sleep through the night, well, if they’re getting up at 530 that’s because they don’t need any more sleep, so stop letting them sleep four hours. Die. Them back to three hours, and in about a week, that hour will tack on to the early mornings, right? So I kind of say you’re robbing from Peter to pay Paul. So you want to make sure that anytime you have a resistance in independently settling, that’s generally where sleep regressions come in, right? And as a parent, asking yourself, okay, are they fed? Are they changed? Are they going down at the right time? Is the environment conducive to sleep? If the answer is yes to all of those things, but they need you to rock them or bounce them or hold their hand or cuddle or do something to sleep, you have a sleep Association you have to break. Okay? And there’s two ways to do that. Working with us in the coaching capacity, or joining our sleep steps membership program where you get all the support you need from me and my team. There’s two open office hours every week for you to ask questions as you move through the program. And there’s three separate complete sleep training courses for newborns, infants and toddlers. And it’s newborn sleep shaping infant sleep training and toddler behavior modification that are all available in the program. It is the only program on the market that is really making sleep coaching accessible to all families, and it’s quality, and you get access to the coaching. So I’d welcome to see you out in the sleep steps membership program. We would always love to have you, and if you prefer private coaching, because you just know yourself, and you want one of us on you every single morning to say, how did it go? Here’s what we’re going to change. Here’s what we need to do, because that’s what we do in the private coaching capacity. You’re working privately with someone anywhere between about 15 and 20 hours over the course of you know, our duration together, we really are, like, hands on coaches in the capacity of, like, whatever you need, you want to talk on the phone, you want to email, you want to email, you want to message like we have options for all the different ways that parents want to work with us, and you know, we’re here to support you in all of those common sleep challenges. But definitely don’t think that things are going to change on their own. If you have Association, kids don’t grow out of bad sleep habits. Frankly, I’ve done this for 10 years, and consistency and patience is the biggest thing, right? I think parents try one thing, it doesn’t work. Try something else doesn’t work, and then kids get confused, like you have to understand first why a sleep regression might be happening. You’ve got to then look at schedules, then look at total sleep needs, and then give yourself some grace and seek practical advice from us or from someone in the space to help you sort through it. People struggle for far too long, frankly, and you don’t have to, like, I could fix your sleep by next week, for sure. So it’s just a matter of being ready to take ownership of the fact that, like, I am going to commit to getting help and sleep. Steps is $47 a month, my friends, you can come for one month sleep, train your kid and be done. Or you can stay for the community. Stay for the fact that you know next month something might happen or you’re going on vacation. That’s the whole point of the program. You can get quality sleep, education and coaching for $47 or you can choose to stay and just get that coaching whenever you need it, because there’s so much that happens the first couple years of your child’s life. That’s the reason we structured it as we did, and we have families that still obviously work with us every day on private coaching. It can just sometimes be cost prohibitive for families. So we wanted to make sure, as a part of my mission as a founder, that sleep was accessible to everyone with quality education, but most importantly, the coaching that’s the deal breaker there. A lot of the courses out there today do not provide any coaching, unless you pay for it, and you need coaching, frankly, because your baby is different than the other babies that we work with, and we can pick out what’s going on pretty quickly when we work with families. So I really appreciate you. I appreciate you tuning into the kids sleep show. I would love it if you’d write a review, if you’d share the podcast with others and certainly subscribe so you don’t miss any episodes. We’ve got a whole bunch of great content coming up over the next few months, and I look forward to seeing you around here at the kids sleep show. Again. My name is Courtney Zentz, the founder of tiny transitions and the creator of the sleep steps membership program. Have a great week. Talk to you soon.

Bye for now, one more thing before you go. Did you know that we offer the industry’s first affordable and effective, self paced sleep coaching program that includes time with a pediatric sleep expert here on the tiny transitions team. It’s the industry’s first and only membership program like this that you can cancel anytime. And the best part, it’s cheaper than a cup of coffee every single day. So say goodbye to the ebooks and courses that are not helping your child sleep better and join sleep steps today, the most comprehensive sleep education you need to get everyone sleeping through the night. Learn more by visiting tinytransitions.com you.