Episode 155: How & When to Put a Baby Down Drowsy but Awake?

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 view 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.

Hey, everyone, welcome to this week’s episode. My name is Courtney Zentz, the founder and creator of tiny transitions. And for almost a decade, I’ve been helping tired families with my team all over the world, build healthy sleep habits from birth. And today we’re going to talk about probably the number one worst piece of advice that I see parents get, which is how to put your baby down, drowsy, but awake. Should you do it? Does it work and what does drowsy but awake, really mean? So we’re gonna dive into that today in this episode, because I think this is something that’s super crucial for you to understand. Otherwise, sleep training, your baby will not work. So let me dive in and explain. First and foremost, what is drowsy but awake? Well, in the space of sleep coaching I’ve seen over the years, a lot of people talk about oh, just put your baby down drowsy, but awake. And eventually they’ll learn to sleep better. Now there is some truth to that. But it is a very finite amount of time where it will actually work. And we’re going to break that down today. But what it means is that your baby is awake for a bit of time, what we call awake window, meaning that for each agent stage that they are, especially through the first year of life, the amount of time that they can be awake in between sleep cycles, is going to differ, right? So if a baby’s a newborn, for example, they should only be awake 45 to 60 minutes in between sleeping. That means that their body can’t really tolerate being awake too long. So they do a lot of sleeping. And they do a lot of eating, which makes sense. As a baby grows, for example, at three months of age, a baby can be awake about 90 minutes. At four months, it’s about two hours, at five months, it’s about two and a half hours. And around six months upward between six and seven months, they can be at three hours of an awake time. Now, as baby grows, the ability for them to actually get a really good scheduled and consistent nap also grows. Right? You’re not going to put a newborn on an app schedule just doesn’t work. You can have some structure around the day. But a strict schedule that babies will follow to give you predictability, consistency, long naps, that really starts to happen somewhere between about four and five months of age. Some of it is developmental. Some of it is habit based, and we’re going to talk about that. So the term drowsy but awake means that you are watching the week window for your baby. And they are fully fed. They have a nice clean diaper. There is no trapped burps are hidden gas, anything like that. And you are watching that weak window to swaddle your baby and go hey, they should be taking a nap now. For example, it’s been 45 minutes, I’m gonna put my newborn in the bassinet or crib so that they can sleep Great. drowsy, but awake means that you’re putting them down awake, but ready to not off right? Their eyes are a little heavy, maybe they’re kind of glazing around looking. They’re not fully asleep, but they’re also not like hey, I’m ready to party, right? So it’s a little bit of that in between stage now. You put them down in the crib or bassinet on their back in a safe sleep space. And you give them a few minutes. Now surprisingly many newborns will actually doze off asleep. The problem is that drowsy doesn’t work when baby gets older, right. So I see this advice a lot, especially in other baby sleep training courses that say, Oh, just put your baby down drowsy, but awake. And like that is the worst advice ever. Because after a child hits somewhere between three and four months, it doesn’t work anymore. You are not some ninja, who’s going to transfer this baby that’s already in stage one sleep into a crib and expect they’re going to stay there. It doesn’t work that way. And what happens is a baby knows they were in your arms, they know how they were feeling when you tried to ninja transfer them, and then scoot yourself out of the room. And what happens is they jumped away because they feel the change in their space. They were in your arms. Now they’re not their position changed, they have to get comfortable, right. So drowsy, but awake can be an effective strategy as a newborn. But once your child hits that three to four month mark, it is not something that I see in my sleep consulting practice, that actually continues to work. And it can cause a lot of confusion and a lot of frustration with parents, especially because maybe they purchase a sleep training program with a newborn. And then they try to use that same approach or program with an infant or with a toddler. I see this happen a lot in the space of actually sleep training and toddler. When somebody had previously purchased something to sleep train an infant, they’re two totally different ways of approaching things, and it will never work and you will have a lot of tears. And yes, your toddler will scream for hours because it’s not an effective way to sleep train. Right. That’s for another episode. But with drowsy but awake. The reason it works is because your child before three months of age, is sleeping in two stages of sleep, REM and non REM sleep about 50% Each time, the only time in their life they will do that is when they are a newborn. So around three months sleep starts to consolidate babies develop a circadian rhythm, that circadian rhythm leads to have ebbs and flows in their patterns. But things also get more regular, right? So your child is going to have the deepest and most restorative sleep, generally the first six hours, so they go down to bed at seven, and they’re gonna go from REM sleep all the way down into stage four sleep. Okay, around one or two in the morning is when I find that babies then really hover the rest of the night between REM sleep and stage one sleep. What does that mean, Courtney? Well, that means your baby is ping ponging between rem and light sleep. So the whole back half of the night, they’re waking every time they’re passing through a sleep cycle. 45 To 60 minutes. Now, as a parent, you’re like, oh, my gosh, please just sleep. Please just stay asleep for the love of the Lord. Right? And they don’t. And they wake and they’re looking for you to hold them until they are drowsy but awake, aka already sleeping, and you put them back in the crib, right? And then every 45 minutes, they’re waking up. That’s where you start to run into the problem. Okay, so drowsy, but awake can work. But really, it’s only meant for newborns because you have to watch their awake window, make sure they’re fed and then every 45 to 60 minutes if you lay them down, drowsy, but awake and give them the ability to settle themselves to sleep, which they will just by kind of dozing off. Okay. You just taught your child the ability to independently settle aka sleep training a newborn. Okay, sleep is a skill. So I want to make that fundamentally clear your child will sleep based on how they learn to sleep. Okay, so as you practice that, as a newborn, the skill gets stronger, you never need to sleep train your baby. But you have to start when they’re a newborn, and you have to pay attention to wake windows and maximizing intake. Kids need 24 to 32 ounces of milk in the day, breast or bottle doesn’t matter. When they get that and they have the skill, they will sleep through the night. Okay, I’ve done this for 10 years. As a baby and toddler sleep Coach, I know what I’m talking about. And it works. But every baby is different, right? So I could just sit here be like, Oh, just drowsy but awake when they’re a newborn. And then because they picked up that skill, they’re going to be awesome when they’re three or four months, and they transition to cycle sleep. And then what happens right sleep can sometimes hit a regression people talk about the three months sleep regression or the four month sleep regression. The problem is the term sleep regression usually means that we as parents inadvertently have done something to sleep. Okay, so yes, your baby might have been sick. And then you held them for three days, the sleep regression didn’t happen because they were sick, it kind of happened more because you were holding them for three days. And they prefer that. Now they don’t want to go back to bed without your help you see. So we sort of inadvertently create challenges in the expectation around sleep, but we do so out of the fact we have to balance our kids if they’re not feeling well or they’re sick. I mean, my son had RSV and I was totally freaked out. And I held him every night for like a week and when he was better and I was confident and I was done sitting in the recliner because I was so afraid from a safe sleep standpoint, but I was also so afraid to lay him down that just sat there all night stone faced, right. And after about a week of total chronic sleep deprivation between my husband and I, we put them back in the crib. And the first bedtime was a little bit of an adjustment. Couple tears are shed, right? Because he’s used to being held for a week. And after that he went right back to sleeping through the night, right. So it’s kind of like picking up from a bicycle, you sort of learn how to ride a bike, and then maybe you stop for a while and you get back on. That’s essentially the sleep skill. Okay, so drowsy, but awake can work with a newborn, but it doesn’t typically work with infants. And here’s why. Because they feel that transition, right? They know that you’re putting them down, and then they they don’t like that. And they don’t have the ability to independently settle. Okay, so you have to look at how do you balance starting as a newborn, right. And then between three and four months, allowing them to take that skill and strengthen it into settling independently at bedtime? Whenever you’re starting a sleep training journey, I actually don’t ever touch naps. I don’t touch naps at all. In our sleep steps sleep training course. I don’t touch naps at all in our sleep, private sleep coaching less sleep training private consultations that we do until week number two, here’s why sleep skill. So if you can teach that child at bedtime, and overnight the skill, okay, then when they come into the daytime, and they already have the skill guess what’s a heck of a lot easier. Nap training, right? The one thing I hate that sleep consultants do and it’s poor advice and poor training, frankly, because I’ve been through the trainings

is they tell you to do it all at once. Well, here’s why. The person who you hired to sleep train, your baby doesn’t have to sit and listen, your baby cry. And I guarantee the advice they gave you was let baby cry for 45 minutes. And then if they don’t fall asleep for their nap at 45 minutes, pick them up and rock them to sleep. Hmm. So you’re telling parents to number one, listen to a baby cry for 45 minutes. And then pick them up and rock him to sleep. So then you just reinforce the behavior of crying for 45 minutes only to rock them to sleep, which doesn’t teach them the skill of independent sleep. Hmm. terrible advice. Okay. If you start with bedtime and overnight on your sleep training journey, and your child understands that they possess the skill, and they’re not looking for all these things, rocking to sleep, bouncing to sleep, driving to sleep, holding to sleep, nursing to sleep, bottle to sleep, right? Anything with the term to sleep is asleep. Proper Association, okay. So if you can teach your baby to settle without these right at bedtime, and overnight, then you build the skill, then you incorporate the naps. And then over the course of about three weeks, everything comes together, I can tell you that most of our private clients sleep through the night in three to five days. But you know what, that’s only half the battle, you’ve got early wakings that you’ve got to manage because your timing has to balance. But sleep begets sleep. So it’s a very slow progression of how you have to incorporate things in order for everything to align into that perfect day. Because then you’ve got to manage the naps. And then once the NAPS get good, right. So that’s why I say week one bedtime and overnight, week two, we’re focusing on naps. And then in week three, we’re tweaking timing. Is the bedtime a proper Are they sleeping in at the right time? Are they napping? Good? Are they at daycare two days a week and home two days a week, right? Every family and solution is totally different. So whether you’re working with us from a private coaching standpoint, or using our sleep steps sleep training course, both give you the same results over a period of about two to three weeks that lead to consistent apps sleeping through the night and sleeping in in the morning. The Drowsy but awake thing is such a taboo term. And I see it searched tons and tons all over the internet. And unfortunately, it’s really not valuable for anybody over 12 weeks of age, because you’re just creating stage one sleep, you’re putting them down already asleep and 45 minutes later, they’re going to wake after bedtime. Okay, and throughout the rest of the night because typically if you’re having to put them down drowsy, but awake, they don’t have the skill without the skill. They’re looking for the habits. And then you get in this hamster wheel of my baby won’t sleep through the night. They won’t take long naps and I’m a big fat dumpster fire. Right hence the name of a lot of our sleep coaching packages. I tried to bring a bit of levity to the fact that having a child who doesn’t sleep means you’re not sleeping and you’re not feeling well. And that’s how I was I had brought my son home night three when we were home. It was our first night home from the hospital. And I literally very clearly to this day remember pacing our little way to split level house in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania. And my husband was the CFO for eBay for the international business. Okay, so he was month end. My son was born on the 28th You’re not taking any time off. So he went back to work basically the day we got home from the hospital. I was alone with no village and I very clearly remember walking my newborn around the living room to the kitchen to the dining room. It was all kind of attached. And I was losing my mind. I was strung out i hormones were all over the place. I had just nursed him for like 30 minutes on both boobs and I was like why are you still growing? Like, what do you want? It’s two o’clock in the morning. I just found you, right? Turns out he was hungry. And I didn’t know that my milk hadn’t come in yet. But that’s hindsight, right? Which is always 2020. But he was also tired. And when I then had my second, I felt so much more prepared because I understood impact of weight Windows impact of eating full feeds every three hours making sure you kind of went through this mental checklist of did they eat? Do they have gas? Are they overtired? Right. And then I balanced you know, as baby grew, I would do some naps supported some naps, unsupported because I needed to manage overtired, right at this point, I was a baby sleep coach, so I understood what I was doing. But you have to look at it as avoiding overtired, your kid will never settle independently if they’re overtired. So if your schedule is wrong, your baby won’t nap. Well, they won’t sleep at bedtime easily, and they won’t sleep through the night, right? Everything is connected with baby sleep. And I think the problem is you think of drowsy but awake as like a quick hit to like get them down and sleep through the night. They won’t. You have to build skills just like anything, right? Kids are born with a blank slate, tabula rasa. And then what happens is, as the first couple of weeks unfold, we teach them how to do things, they learn that that’s how you do the thing. And they have tools to do it, they just don’t know they’re in their tool belt, right? So every baby can sleep, how we teach them to sleep is the part that starts to get a little wonky. And between three and four months, people believe it’s a sleep regression, when in fact, it’s that their awareness is a little more and they’re relying on something to go to sleep. Right. And so yes, there is a regression, yes, things do change around three to four months, they get the circadian rhythm, they develop more of a regulated sleep cycles, etc. But ultimately, it’s because they likely are requiring you to sleep for something. Okay? So if you’re listening to this, you might be in the position of thinking, Hmm, should I put my newborn down drowsy, but awake, or Gosh, my infant is going down, drowsy, but awake, but is now waking 45 minutes after bedtime, that’s your cue to kind of take a step back and assess what you’re doing. Okay? Because it can work. But I find in my practice, that it really only works those first three months of life. And then after that, you’ve got to make sure they have the skill that they can grow to thrive and be an independent sleeper. Right. So that’s the first part. Now, let me talk to you a little bit about the way you begin coaching, as I talked about, I start with bedtime, and overnight, you have choices in the space of sleep coaching, whether it’s going to be a self paced sleep training course, whether it’s going to be private coaching, or what’s in the middle, I developed a program that fits in the middle, here’s why. Because courses are great, but you buying a 200 page ebook that has a bunch of videos, a PDF, and you know, maybe some fancy emails every day that tell you what you should be doing isn’t helpful, because the part that’s missing is the coaching. But not everybody can afford what can be cost prohibitive in hiring a private sleep coach, which I get, I’ve done this for 10 years, right? So I looked at the space of sleep coaching, and I said, Alright, how can I take the value of some of the information that frankly, doesn’t change by age, right? And then marry it with the customization that we do in our private sleep coaching programs, but moreso access to us as coaches, right, and marry something in the middle? And that’s what I did. I created sleep steps because it fills the void of giving you one to one coaching in a group capacity, join a weekly zoom, we have several, ask your question in the community guests who you’re going to hear from me or a certified sleep consultant on my team. And guess what? It’s 47 bucks a month. Why would you make something so cheap, Courtney, because everybody deserves the gift of sleep. You want to have confidence in your parenting, okay? You don’t want to be guessing what you’re doing. But I want people to come for the sleep, you’ll get it just stay for a month 47 bucks, you can sleep train your newborn, your infant or your toddler because you get all three courses in one program. And then you stay, why do you stay because there’s always going to be another sleep progression. Because sometimes you don’t have a village, I didn’t have a village, I wanted to create a village. And that’s what I’m doing with sleep steps. Some people might prefer private coaching with someone on our team. And they’re amazing. And we have a ton of people that book with us every single month for private sleep coaching. But we also have a ton of people that we can’t service with that because they can’t afford private sleep coaching. Okay, but the courses just don’t work in the way that you’re going to need them to for longevity. I’ve had so many people hire us privately, because they tried the course and it didn’t work. And that can be expensive. So I wanted to create sleep steps to create something in the middle. You get the course you get the videos, you get the written sleep plan, you get access to us and you can talk to me every week. Every Wednesday we do a call one on one. And as sleep steps grows, we’re adding more calls. In addition, we have a ton of extra calls about things like meal prep and pelvic floor and frankly just sometimes the parenting socks and it’s such a cool way to get your unique questions answered. Because it’s one to one intergroup capacity. So I’m excited to teach you more in the sleep Steps program or through our private coaching about drowsy but awake. And if you’re stuck in this right now and you’re trying to figure out how to do it, reach out to us because I was alone at 2am in the middle of the night going, what am I doing wrong? Okay, and now, all of my clients will have a baby that lives quietly to go to sleep, whether they’re a newborn and infant or a toddler, they lay, and they take it in, and they decompress from the day. And it’s absolutely perfect to allow a baby to do that, and let them settle to sleep. And if they lay there too long, and they’re not upset, it’s usually a sign that you have to adjust their weight window, they’re probably ready for a little bit longer of an awake window. If you put baby down, and they already know how to settle independently, but they immediately start crying. They’re probably overtired. Now, if they don’t know how to settle independently. That’s your problem. They’re used to you doing something to sleep until laying them down awake, you’re gonna be like, Yeah, I know things, right?

So what you have to do is you have to start somewhere. And you have to say, Okay, what am I willing to do? What are the gaps in what we’re doing? And then how do I put a plan in place to move forward, and we’re always here to help you with that through the podcast here, through our YouTube channels for all of our free resources out on tiny transitions.com I have more freebies than anybody in the space. If you need help and can’t pay anything. There is a ton of content. There’s a five day video series, there’s a ton of sleep schedules, everything is out there either on the podcast or out here, I teach you all of it. The problem is, it’s by episode and you have to kind of search around and find it. Okay, which is why I created sleep steps. Sleep should not be something that’s cost prohibitive to families. And that is my mission, to create sleep and to bring accessible and affordable coaching to all families. So I’m glad that you found me here on the kids sleep show or out on YouTube. And I’m glad to be able to support you further on your journey through the working with me or the working of with my team. They are amazing. I have the best lumbar squad I have the only male pediatric sleep coach in the entire country. We’ve got experts in ADHD and autism. We have experts in toddlers. We have experts in twins, we have newborn experts, carseat experts, right? You name it, we can help you on your parenting journey. So I hope that you jump in and learn more by booking a free consultation with us. We’ll talk to you about the types of programs. We have the sleep steps course we have 30 minute Ask Me Anything sessions if you just have a question about an upcoming vacation. Or maybe you’re kind of struggling with a timing thing, but you got everything else pretty good. You can schedule a 30 minute call with us or you can work with us for private coaching. If everything is a big dumpster fire, we’re happy to help. Thanks so much for tuning in to this week’s episode. I’m Courtney Zentz, the founder of tiny transitions, and I wish you the sweetest of dreams. And remember, don’t forget and remember, don’t forget to click subscribe and to follow us because every week we put out new content based on your questions to ensure we’re helping you bring sleep into your home because healthy sleep foundations start at birth. 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 joined sleep steps today. The most comprehensive sleep education you need to get everyone sleeping through the night. Learn more by visiting tiny transitions.com