Podcast

Starting solids at 20 weeks old: what to expect | S2 Ep61

Starting solids at 20 weeks old: what to expect? That’s what’s on the moms minds in this week’s episode of Sense by Meg Faure. Meg and Christina Masureik sit down to the real-world challenges and triumphs of life with 20-week-old baby, Connor. Mom of 3, Christina shares Connor been consistently improving in terms of routine, sleep, and regulation despite battling a cold these last few weeks. This turns the conversation to talking about building immunity in our babies.

Our baby’s immune system

Meg emphasises the importance of building immunity during early childhood. She notes that it’s normal for children to experience several illnesses before reaching school age. Meg talks about the foundations of immunity, such as antibodies transferred from the placenta during pregnancy and colostrum obtained through early breastfeeding. Christina shares that she breastfed exclusively but switched to formula after she experienced severe mastitis and infections of her c-section wound. She expresses gratitude for modern formulas, which have been a helpful alternative for her family’s situation.

Christina goes on to share that feeding has been a bit more challenging this week due to nasal congestion caused by the cold. She noticed that Connor struggles to breathe while feeding and needs frequent breaks. This leads the moms on to talk about Connor starting solids. They are just at the start of their journey and Christina shares that she’s managing her expectations because Connor is consuming very little at this point.

Starting solids: what to expect?

Meg reassures Christina that this is typical for this stage of the weaning journey. She emphasises that it’s all about experimentation and exposure to new flavours at this point, rather than focusing on calories or impacting sleep. Although weaning is currently a messy, non-productive mealtime experience, Christina is enjoying the introduction of solids and observing Connor’s facial expressions and new development every day.

Meg and Christina talk about some ideal foods to start babies on in the early days of weaning. They then discuss conflicting advice about the introduction of grains and protein into a baby’s diet. Meg explains the scientific basis for starting with fruits and vegetables, particularly orange vegetables, which are gentle on the baby’s stomach and offer unprocessed carbohydrates. She also talks about the importance of early introduction of a variety of flavours to decrease the chances of allergies and picky eating later on.

Choosing the right macronutrients

Meg discusses her experience with introducing solid foods to her first baby and regrets the choice of highly processed rice cereal as his first solid food. The moms agree on the importance of feeding babies’ foods that resemble their original form and avoid boxed cereals. Meg offers the advice that the ideal diet for a baby should reflect the nutrient composition of breastmilk which is mostly fats and protein. She questions the idea of transitioning babies from milk to a purely carbohydrate-based diet, which we tend to do.

For more about weaning from the experts and authors of Weaning Sense, watch the webinar below:

 

 

Christina shares that Connor’s sleep is improving and he’s making the transition from short naps to longer ones. They discuss the impact of routine on baby sleep patterns. They talk about awake windows and the fact that Connor is enjoying tummy time more. He’s started reaching and grabbing objects, and upcoming milestones Christina can look forward to, like finding his feet.

Listen for this and more with Meg and Christina on Sense by Meg Faure.

For step-by-step guidance about starting solids, download Parent Sense app. Based on the best-selling book, Weaning Sense, the app offers scientific guidance when it comes to weaning complete with a variety of delicious baby-friendly weaning recipes and nutritionally balanced meal plans.

Guests on this show

Christina Masureik of The Honest Hour podcast

Christina Masureik

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Starting solids at 20 weeks old: what to expect

 

 

Intro

Welcome to Sense by Meg Faure, the podcast that’s brought to you by Parent Sense, the app that takes guesswork out of parenting. If you’re a new parent, then you are in good company, your host Meg Faure, is a well-known OT infant specialist and the author of eight parenting books. Each week, we are going to spend time with new moms and dads just like you to chat about the week’s wins, the challenges, and the questions of the moment. Subscribe to the podcast, download the Parent Sense App, and catch Meg here every week to make the most of that first year of your little one’s life. And now meet your host.

 

Meg: Welcome back moms and dads. It is my absolute pleasure to be here with you. This morning, we are joined by Christina Masureik, who has been with us a couple of times already before. We are tracking her journey with her youngest little Connor. He is her third baby. So, she is a seasoned mom of three boys, which in my mind makes her a super mom because I’m just having one boy in my hands; was a lot of work. My girls were a whole lot easier. But yeah, Christina’s really had an incredible journey with little Connor. And so, Christina, welcome back today.

 

Christina: Thanks Meg. It’s good be back today. It is definitely hard work having three boys, but I don’t know any difference.

 

Meg: It definitely is. The busyness. The busyness. Yeah. It’s quite funny because I mean, and you know, you don’t want to gender stereotype children and of course there’s also sensory personalities, but wow, my boy was like three children. So, I see moms of three boys. I’m like, right, that’s got to be maxing out.

 

Christina:  keeps me very busy.

 

Meg: Yeah, I’m sure. And your gap, just to remind moms. How old is Everett? How old are Everett and Lincoln now?

 

Christina: So yes, Everett is my oldest. He’s turning eight in 2023 and Lincoln is turning six. And then we have little Connor who is going to be 20-weeks in 2-days.

 

Meg: That’s incredible. And we started tracking you when he was…I think he was about 14-weeks old or just after he was 3-months old and we’ve been tracking…

 

Christina: Yes. Right about there.

 

Meg: … his journey.

 

Christina: Yes.

Meg: Really, really amazing. So, how has he been this week? What has the mother of a 20-week old look like?

 

Christina: Well, ever since we first started tracking, he’s just improved and improved and improved in terms of routine and sleep and regulation. But we’ve gone through a new hurdle recently where he’s overcoming a bit of a cold.

 

Meg: Wow.

 

Christina: Yeah. Shame. But he’s handled it like a champ. There’s so many lurgies

 

Meg: And especially when you’ve got older children because they tend to bring back all the lurgies from school. And so, you end up dealing with that. It’s really is tricky. So, is how’s his feeding being with that?

 

Christina: So, he’s still feeding quite eagerly. It does look like it’s a little bit more of a struggle. So, we are bottle feeding from 2-weeks old and you know, it’s just that congestion in their nose. You can see he’s struggling to breathe while he feeds. So, there’s a lot of breaks. But I’m so impressed with him. He’s been quite happy and chilled considering the fact that I can see he’s battling with congestion.

 

Meg: Yeah.

 

Christina: So, it’s disrupted his night for a bit, but I would say it all started on Thursday. Today’s Wednesday and last night was a much better night. And he’s still coughing and sputtering a little bit. We’re not completely through with it. He’s still getting the congestion out, but I’m very happy to see that he’s continued to do quite well. It hasn’t turned into a secondary infection and we haven’t seen any viral induced asthma, which for my family is amazing because I get high viral induced asthma, as does my second son Lincoln. And that’s very scary because what just goes from normal cold flu-like symptoms and basic congestion turns into a difficulty to breathe and that’s very scary.

 

Meg: No, that is really, really scary. And building immunity is such an important part of early childhood and getting these little bugs is a very important part of that. I mean, I’m sure that, you know, that little ones have to have a whole lot of illnesses before they actually arrive at the doorstep of school, kind of 6-years old.

 

Christina: Yeah.

 

Meg: And it’s establishing that immunity over the years and I always kind of talk about the foundations of immunity when we chat about things like cold. So, the first one obviously comes from the placenta. So, in utero you would’ve transferred all of your wonderful, you know, kind of antibodies across to him as well. And those antibodies do start to wane as they get a little older and they’ve got to start to build their own antibodies. And that comes also from breast milk in colostrum. So, he would’ve had colostrum in the early days, which would’ve given him that nice little boost there. And then obviously breast milk does carry antibodies as well. Are you bottle feeding formula or are you bottle feeding express breast milk?

 

Christina: So, we’re bottle feeding formula. We did exclusive breast milk, so all that good colostrum up until 2-weeks when I got a really bad case of mastitis.

 

Meg: Oh.

 

Christina: And at the same time that that happened, my c-section wound got infected twice. And so, it was very insane and I just let the breast milk dry up. That was the best thing I could do for our whole family as a most at that time.

 

Meg: Yeah. And for your stress levels. Absolutely.

 

Christina: So, I feel the stress levels. And just coping with three kids and the new dynamics and he’s been doing really well. So, I’m very grateful for modern formulas.

 

Meg: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And then from now, what ends up happening is that they then now start to build their immunity based on the nutrition they’ve taken, plus all those little bugs that they are exposed to that they can do a little bit of a fight against and then recover from. So, that’s the way that immunity develops, which is exactly what he’s doing. And when we last spoke, we had just started solids. How’s that solids journey going?

 

Christina: Yeah. So, I wanted to chat to you about that today. It’s definitely going. I have to manage my expectations because I think they’re supposed to consume so little at this point. So, each time is very messy.

 

Meg: Yes.

 

Christina: And quite non-productive. So, at the moment we are doing the fruit. I’ve made him an apple and pear blend that we do in the morning and then we do a yellow, or sorry, an orange veg and a green veg and he’s just doing like an ice cube size, which is one to three teaspoons.

 

Meg: Yeah.

 

Christina: And its sort of like you put it in and he spits it out, you push it back in, spits a little bit less out, you get another scoop and this just sort of goes on until the tiny little portion is done and half of it’s on his clothes and half of it got in.

 

Meg: Well that, I mean, that kind of is exactly what we are expecting at this age, of course. And you know, I think a lot of moms, when they start the weaning journey, they think, number one, this is going to like magically be a whole lot of calories that my baby’s going to be taking. And then number two, that’s going to have an impact on sleep. And so, they’ll start to sleep through. Those are kind of the things that people think. But the truth of the matter around early weaning, and this is particularly between four and expensive age, is that it’s all about experimentation. That’s all it is. It’s just exposure. It’s not the calories. It’s not the nutrients and it’s really definitely not about sleeping through. So, that sounds like he’s doing the perfect job of experimenting with the food as it goes in.

 

Christina: Yeah. No, it’s been, it’s fun. I loved introducing solids with my older boys as well. It changes up the day a bit from the mundane and you get to see them make different facial expressions and I’ve seen him now start to like suck his hands while he’s eating. And it’s very much like you said, it’s almost developmental and sensory and super fun.

 

Meg: That is what it is. Yeah. And are you following the weaning Sense book or the Parent Sense app? What recipes are you following for him?

 

Christina: So, I’m sort of integrating what you’re suggesting on the app in terms of where I am on my profile. I look at the routine and it will tell, give me ideas of what he should be having for each meal. But at the same time, I’ve taken on board what I’ve discussed with my pediatrician. And this is what I wanted to discuss with you, is I find that the information available is very different everywhere you look. So, I was advised from his clinic nurse and the pediatrician to start with fruits and veg. But when I looked today on the Parent Sense app, it said that he should have like a bit of a porridge in the morning. And then the veg with a protein for dinner.

 

Meg: Okay.

 

Christina: And for the other guide that I was given, he’s still not supposed to have any grains or protein.

 

Meg: Yeah. Okay. And you bring up a very, very important point here and that is that particularly when it comes to weaning, there is so many bodies of knowledge and advice and it’s super conflicted and really actually quite confusing for new moms. So, let’s talk through a little bit around the science behind why we recommend what we recommend. So, I also recommend starting with fruit and vegetables a hundred percent on that. And the veggies that I normally recommend starting with are the orange veggies. And the reason for that is that they’re gentle on the tummy.

 

Christina: Okay.

 

Meg: They’ve got a nice amount of unprocessed carbohydrates. And so, I think that is the perfect start. And so, if you actually do…

 

Christina: Okay, great.

 

Meg: …look in your first 2-weeks of weaning on the Parent Sense app, it is predominantly butternut, orange, sweet potato, sweet potato carrots. It’s a lot of your orange and starchy vegetables that we start with.

 

Christina: Yes.

 

Meg: And we do pop fruiting as well because we’ve got no problem with popping and fruiting and mixing them in with veggies or having them on their own. So, a hundred percent agree with your pediatrician and your clinic sister, definitely.

 

Christina: Okay.

 

Meg: So, the question comes, why did you see a grain on his meal plan this morning? So, the other thing that we do believe is that we talk about fairly rapid introduction of a variety of flavors and foods and there’s a lot of science to support this. And Kath Megaw who’s a pediatric dietician, who is on the advisory panel for the app and has informed the choices of the recipes and when they get introduced. She cites an enormous amount of studies and literature that show that early introduction of varieties important for two reasons. One, that it decreases the chance of allergies and two, it decreases the chance of picky eating. And that’s because little ones under the edge were about 8-months are much more receptive to a wider repertoire of tests than they are when they get a little bit older. And that’s because the bitter taste buds come on later and they just develop their own will and so they can become quite rigid. So, that’s why we like to use that early weaning stage. So, that’s anywhere between four and kind of 7-months of age to introduce a really nice variety of flavors to decrease picky eating.

 

The second thing is that we know, and the science is telling us that in the context of a baby who is not a high risk allergy baby, and we spoke about that for people who want to know what a high risk allergy baby is, go back and listen to Christina in my last podcast where we actually spoke about Connor, who is a high risk allergy baby because he has got significant allergies in his family, but he has been tested  and he was only tested because he has a high-risk allergy baby. So, not every mother has to go out and get their babies to have a skin prick test, but he was tested and he is clear. Now, what we know about babies who are not high-risk allergy and also now in the case of Connor because we know he’s not an allergic baby, is that earlier introduction of allergens is very protective against allergies. So, as opposed to the old train of thought, which was early introduction of allergens could increase the chance of allergies, we now know it’s absolutely the opposite. And that’s why things like grains and wheat in particular and our proteins come in under 6-months inside the app. So, if you look at the app, by the time Conner hits 6-months, he would’ve already had peanuts, fish, egg, which are your high-risk allergy foods.

 

Christina: Yes.

 

Meg: The foods that are more typical to create allergies and also definitely wheat and glutens and that’s type of thing.

 

Christina: Yeah.

 

Meg: And that’s because the research shows that if you delay those too late and look, I mean the research is talking about after eight to 10-months, but if you delay it too late, your risk of allergies increases. So, we bring it in earlier on. What it does is, it does not increase the chance of allergies in a typically developing baby, like Connor of is. And it also gives him a wide repertoire of food, which is actually what we want. And another reason why we do this is because our social butterflies tend to get really bored if they’re not actually accelerated onto new foods quite early on.

 

Christina: Okay.

 

Meg: So, what a typical day could look like for a 20-week old and remember the app is very specific as it only shows you what foods to introduce depending on when you actually introduce solids. So, in other words, if you were a 20-week old, which he is today and you introduced solids yesterday, your app will only show you orange fruit or orange vegetable because you super early on in that journey and that’s what’s appropriate. But in your case, because you probably introduced solids, I’m guessing 2-weeks ago.

 

Christina: Yes.

 

Meg: And maybe 3-weeks, two or 3-weeks ago. He’s now starting to move on to having more meals in a day. So, he’s either having two or maybe even three meals in a day, which case one of them will be a carbohydrate meal that has porridges in it.

 

Christina: Okay.

 

Meg: And our porridge recipes if you look at them, are incredible because they’ve got a little bit of porridge, which you can make yourself because you can just grind up the oats yourself or you can grind up the millet or, you know, whatever rice, even you can get that really powdery on your own. They’ve also all got, most of them have got fruit in them and then most of them have actually got a spice in them as well. So, you’ll see an oats porridge pear and cardamom recipe, which is divine as an adult breakfast, but it’s really, you know, interesting flavors coming through for them right from this age.

 

Christina: Okay. Interesting. No, that makes sense now what you were saying about the different approaches. It’s just a little bit of a faster introduction in terms of variety for the Parent Sense approach. But I’m very excited because I’ve been looking forward to introducing grains.

 

Interlude
This episode is brought to us by Parents Sense, the all in one baby and parenting app that helped you make the most of your baby’s first year. Don’t you wish someone would just tell you everything you need to know about caring for your baby, when to feed them, how to wean them and why they won’t sleep. Parent Sense app is like having a baby expert on your phone guiding you to parent with confidence. Get a flexible routine, daily tips and advice personalized for you and your little one. Download Parent Sense App now from your app store and take the guesswork out of parenting.

Meg: Yeah. And you know, I think it’s so interesting, I think grains got a bad rep. So, grain’s, there was a period of time in history where grains was always the first line of defense for infant food. In fact, my son was one of those, I mean it was like babies stay on rice cereal for like 3-months from time, they’re four months old list, 7-months old. It was like the most ridiculous thing. And of course, what we were feeding them and you know, I mean, I’m embarrassed to tell you about my first introduction of solids to James. We’d gone to Mauritius, my husband and I on a holiday when he was 3- months old. We were both just feeling like we needed to get away obviously with him. Took him with…, he was a breast feed baby, took him with, and we went to Mauritius. So, I took with me my breast pump because I would express after meals and so I would have some after feeds and then I would also have my bottles because then I could give him the top-ups of this expressed breast milk in the evening. And that was my process. But I took no formula and I took no cereals because he was…  I think he was about 4-months old. So yeah, he must have been 4-months old. Anyway, we arrived there and gosh, he got completely disrupted and started showing all sorts of signs that he needed solids or more formula.

 

Christina: Oh. My goodness.

 

Meg: I decided, well I’m not going to do formula because he’s an exclusively breastfeed baby, but I’m not too opposed to solids, I’ll introduce solids. Anyway, it went off to the local, I mean I think it was a Chinese cafe on the corner, you know, somewhere in the south of Mauritius and the only rice cereal they had was this kind of Chinese rice cereal. And you know, honest to goodness, in retrospect when I think about what I put into my baby’s mouth as his first solid food, I could absolutely cry because it was…

 

Christina: Shame.

 

Meg: …highly processed. If you tasted it, it tasted divine like sugar. It probably had sugar in it. And I couldn’t read the ingredients on it. So, I mean, when you look at all the principles for introducing first foods, I made every single mistake possible. I mean, he’s still alive and he’s fine. He did have allergies but I don’t know that that had anything to do with the food I was offered. But the point is that the principle now that we understand is the food you want to feed your baby in the early days needs to look like it looked when it came out the ground as you start to repair it. And you know, boxed cereals don’t look like it looks when it came out the ground, it doesn’t. Button, it does, you know, and that’s why we…

 

Christina: Absolutely.

 

Meg:  actually, go for those whole foods. Fast forward after James kind of 15-years, you then had the whole Tim Noakes debate, or maybe it was maybe 10 years later, there was a whole Tim Noakes debate around having absolute no carbohydrates and suddenly babies had no carbs in their diet. You know, there was no…

 

Christina: Even for babies.

 

Meg: Oh yes. Oh, my goodness. That was one of, I mean if you need to go back and have a look at some of the controversial tweets and drama that happened around that. You know, there was no carbohydrates for babies. And of course, thank goodness wisdom has prevailed and we understand carbohydrates are not all evil, it’s just the way they’re prepared that can be evil. So, what I fed James was evil; it was horrible. No baby should have had that.

 

Christina: Shame.

 

Meg: But a nice wholesome porridge, oats porridge, oats cereal is absolutely awesome for babies. And so, it’s not that the carb is the bad thing, you know, it’s just how it’s prepared and do you know what’s in it?

 

Christina: Yeah. You raise an important point when we talk about these big debates and things that we see online. I think the most important thing we can do for ourselves as people, but especially as parents, is just literally look at the signs ourselves and educate ourselves because that argument made so many people think, or I mean, I’m thinking of previous ones because I didn’t know about that debate. But I mean there was also the Atkins diet, which was very similar to the Tim Noakes diet. And it made people on a general level think that carbohydrates were incredibly bad for you. And that’s an entire group of a macronutrients, which you’re not then looking at food groups and processing and micronutrients that come. So, if you just take some time to educate yourself, you’ll understand that we all need fats, proteins, carbohydrates.

 

Meg: Yeah.

 

Christina: We need animal sources, plant-based sources. And that you just have to be balanced and try to cook to cook your own food as much as you can. And like you said, “Have it come in its original form.”

 

Meg: Form, exactly.

 

Christina: Before you start cooking and at home.

 

Meg: And do you know what’s so interesting is that Kath Megaw did a talk, and this is also going back to 2014 that really kind of blew my mind away. And she said, “Let’s have a look at the composition of breakdown of breast milk.” And she said, “If you think about it, just think about it logically, your baby’s gut is prepped for breaking down breast milk.” And breast milk is incredibly high in fats and high in proteins and it’s obviously got carbohydrates as well, but it’s a really nice mix of the three. And so, why would you take them from this absolutely, like kind of balanced, you know, every micronutrient is on display there. Why would you take them into a pure carb diet? You shouldn’t do that, you know?

 

Christina: Mm-hmm.

 

Meg: And one of the things that you’ll notice in the app is that we have carbohydrates with fats very early on. I mean you’ll start to see it coming through that add a little bit of coconut fat to this or you know, add some olive oil, or add in your dairy fats as well. So, we really do look at getting our fats in as early as possible into those meals. Avocado is one of the best fats known to man, you know. So, mix that into any of your vegetable and fruit dishes and your meat dishes. So yeah, we do want it all to be really balanced.

 

Christina: Lovely. Well, I’m so excited to feed him avo. We are an avo loving family and so that was why it was really hard when my second son was, one of the things he was allergic to in the beginning, which thankfully he’s outgrown this one was avo. That was really hard. And till this day, he won’t touch it. So, now that he’s not allergic, I have to put avo oil in as many of his meals as I can. So, he is getting the protein of that plant but not eating it, you know. No, does…

 

Meg: Yeah, avo is fabulous. Yeah. So, what does he be up to this week developmentally?

 

Christina: Yeah. So, I think the last time we spoke he was doing very short amounts of tummy time before he would start to cry. And I think it was like three to 5-minutes. And now, he’s super happy on his tummy. He is just sitting there on his stomach like playing for ages like up to 20-minutes.

 

Meg: Wow.

 

Christina: Yeah, I know, it’s really good. He’s very, very animated, and excited by his environment. We set up his little play mats and put him on his tummy with a little mirror in front of him and a bunch of soft baby toys in front of him that he can try to reach and grab.

 

Meg: Brilliant.

 

Christina: He is reaching and grabbing a lot, pulling things to his mouth. He’s started to try to eat his bath toys now, which is a new thing as well. And the biggest milestone I’m starting to look out for, this is the next one that he should be reaching by 25-weeks according to your app is finding his feet. So, I’ve seen him start to when he is laying on his back, lift his legs up in the air and look at his feet, but then they go back down again quite quickly. So, he’s close.

 

Meg: Brilliant.

 

Christina: And I do help him.

 

Meg: Has he discovered his knees?

 

Christina: No, he hasn’t.

 

Meg: Okay. So, he’ll discover his knees and then his feet and that’s kind of the progression that they do. You know, they kind of put them up and then the hands will go to their knees and then their hands will go to their feet and it’ll happen certainly. Look, the fact that he’s bringing his feet up, because when we spoke about that last time, we spoke; it was in reference to rolling.

 

Christina: Mm-hmm.

 

Meg:  So, at the time your question was, you know, what is the right edge for him to roll? And I said, “Look, aside from working his back muscles, which he’ll do in tummy time, he’s not going to work his tummy muscles by raising his feet.”

 

Christina: Yes.

 

Meg: And he hadn’t quite started to do that at that time and that was just 2-weeks ago. So, he’s doing really well now because he’s now found his feet and is bringing them up.

 

Christina: And he rolls onto his side.

 

Meg: Excellent.

 

Christina: Especially if he sees his bigger brothers walk into the room or walk past him, he rolls onto his side so he can turn his head and look.

 

Meg: Oh. That’s brilliant.

 

Christina: Look at them. It’s very cute. Yeah. So, developmentally, he’s absolutely where he should be and we’re really happy about that. Your app is just incredible because sometimes I think, okay wait, he’s sort of been the same for a few weeks. Like should something be happening here? And then I go back and I look and I’m like, okay, I’ve got 5-more weeks for that to happen. And then you also give such great tips every day for helping us push them along. Like, you know, the activities that help them develop how they should to reach those milestones. Those are incredibly helpful.

 

Meg: Yeah. So, there’s activities. It’s so interesting. We did a survey just last week. We asked mums what the best part of the app was and what the feedback that came back was the play activities, which was amazing because obviously the meal plans and the recipes are there and the routine is there as well. But what is people are really loving are those play activities. How do you find the routine? Because I know that you… I mean, do you enjoy a routine with him and how does that work out?

 

Christina: We are big advocates for routine.

 

Meg: Yeah.

 

Christina:  So, what’s happened in his routine now is that his awake windows are a little bit longer. He’s going for about 2-hours now and he’s also starting to have longer naps. In fact, yesterday and today I had to go in and like open the windows, so he would wake up after two and a half hours.

 

Meg: Wow.

 

Christina: But that was only one nap each day that he did that long one and then the other two were short. So, he is gone from five short naps a day to three naps a day. One of them being really long and the other two being short.

 

Meg: That is absolutely incredible. And I think you’re going to have a lot of mums who really green with envy because it’s not usual for them to get that down that path so early. So, often babies are doing those very long sleeps until about 6-weeks and then suddenly they become more wakeful.

 

Christina: Yes.

 

Meg: And then they start doing those 45-minute sleeps and you can literally set your clock, you know, you know when 45 minutes happens because like 45 minutes bomb, they’re awake. And these moms get really frustrated because that you can’t do anything in 45 minutes. I mean if he’s having five naps of 45-minutes, it’s like you can’t even get a shower and get dressed in that time just about. Some mom’s gets huge frustrated and for most babies they only start to stretch that one long sleep at 6- months.

 

Christina: Wow.

 

Meg: And it’s usually when they’re having full solids. So, he started to do that earlier, which is, is really, really excellent.

 

Christina: We will see if he consistently does that because for the past few weeks,

he’s done that occasionally.

 

Meg: Yeah.

 

Christina: So, yesterday, he did it today, he did it this morning for his first sleep. And I think like a week and a half ago, he did it once or twice as well. So, it’s not at this point in time a very consistent thing but is something I’ve started to see a little bit of.

 

Meg: Yeah. Which is amazing.

 

Christina: And then, one confusing thing about the routine is when they finish that last nap of the day, when they wake up anywhere between like 3:30 and 4:30 or maybe 3:30 is a bit too early. It’s like that feeling of should he have one more short nap before bedtime or do I just sort of stretch his awake window a bit longer?

 

Meg: Yeah, yeah.

 

Christina: Do you know what I mean?

 

Meg: I know exactly. And it’s exactly the stage that that happens. And you’ll see on the app what it says is a catnap. He’ll be able to do a…

 

Christina: Yes, I read that.

 

Meg: … catnap. And those cat naps can be 15-minutes. What I used to do with my little ones at this stage is I would go for a walk around the block with the dogs and the baby and the pram and literally they would fall asleep in the pram and I would only be a 15-minute walk. And when I got home, I would raise them up out of the pram and get them awake or in the carrier.

 

Christina: Okay. That’s a good idea.

 

Meg: And so literally, 15-minutes and then they’re kind of a little bit dog tired for about 5-minutes cause they wanted to sleep for the full 45. But just give them 15- minutes and then you’ve reset it. So, the important principle is whatever your bedtime is, so let’s say you want your bedtime to be 6:30 with Connor. And then at by 4:30, you really do want him to be awake because then you’re giving him that full 2-hour awake window. And so, that means that 4:15, if he had… let’s say he woke up at 3:00 you know, three o’clock and you just know he is never going to go from three o’clock to 6:30.

 

Christina: No.

 

Meg: It’s just not possible. Then I would say at 4:15, you just take him, pop him in the sling or the carrier or in the pram, get him to sleep, whatever mean you can, but then wake him after 15-minutes.

 

Christina: Okay.

 

Meg: So, that’s the way to manage those catnaps and they eventually do go away, but only, I mean he’s only going to be ready to go to two sleeps when he is 9-months old. So, you got quite a bit of time still where he’s going to be needing all of those three sleeps.

 

Christina: Yes, absolutely.

 

Meg: Yeah.

 

Christina: Yeah. No, he pretty much does go to bed for the night. His bedtime, it usually ends up always being around 6:30 because it obviously depends on what time he woke up from that last nap. Now, I did attempt a catnap yesterday because he woke up, I think at 4:10 and I thought, oh no, I don’t know what’s going to happen here. I tried to put him down for that catnap and he just coed and played for 20-minutes in his cot.

 

Meg: Yeah.

 

Christina: Maybe if I had put him in the carrier and walked around the block, I mean that’s usually quite a sleep machine. But since for the last like I want to say 6-weeks, he has taken every single sleep in his cot to the point where that is his familiar space. He doesn’t really want to sleep.

 

Meg: Anywhere else.

 

Christina: I went for a walk around the other day and he was just awake looking at the trees and the birds. So, he’s definitely associated

 

Meg: So, he might even not fall asleep on the go. And that can be then a little bit frustrating because he’s also not going to fall asleep in the cot because he is not quite tired enough and you can’t get him to sleep in any other way. I think if that does happen and let’s say he’d woken at three and you just know he is not going to make it to 6:30 in the evening, you know, then you probably are going to need to allow him a little bit of a sleep maybe at 4:30 and then push bedtime out slightly later. So, you can be a little bit more flexible. Christina, we are about to launch a really exciting piece of the app and in fact by the time this podcast flights, I think it will have launched, which will be what’s called the Responsive Routine, which is where whatever you log creates the rest of the… anything that comes afterwards,

 

Christina: Yes.

 

Meg: it creates the day for you. And you can also put in a different sleep bedtime. You can say, well tonight he’s going to go to bed at seven o’clock because we know we are going for dinner or whatever it is. And it’ll adjust your whole routine according to that sleep.

 

Christina: Brilliant.

 

Meg: We’ve got some really exciting pieces of technology coming out in terms of the routine, which I’m excited about.

 

Christina: Wonderful.

 

Meg: Yeah. Well, it has been wonderful catching up with you. I love hearing where little Connor is and we will definitely catch up again. I’m loving following him and tracking him. I’m positive that the next time you and I talk, he will be playing with his feet and rolling over to the side and we’re rolling over probably all the way and that he’ll probably be on full proteins as well. So, it’s incredible to watch his journey and thank you for being with us.

 

Christina: Thanks Meg. Have a good one.

 

Meg: Have a lovely day.

 

 

Outro
Thanks to everyone who joined us, we will see you the same time next week. Until then, download Parent Sense App, and take the guesswork out of parenting.

 

 

 

Meg faure

Meg Faure

Hi, I’m Meg Faure. I am an Occupational Therapist and the founder of Parent Sense. My ‘why’ is to support parents like you and help you to make the most of your parenting journey. Over the last 25 years, I’ve worked with thousands of babies, and I’ve come to understand that what works for fussy babies works just as well for all babies, worldwide.