Ep 52- "Surviving 2 year old sleep: Why is it so tricky and what actually helps"

0:00Welcome to the Holistic Baby and Toddler Sleep Podcast. I'm your host Georgina Winterbank, a qualified naturopath, a holistic sleep consultant, a mother to a little boy and I have been pregnant four times. At the Holistic Sleep Project and through my membership the Sleep Collective, I have helped countless families locally and internationally resolve their sleep issues which affect not just babies and toddlers but the entire family unit and how smoothly it functions. My approach is unique as it is completely Holistic just like the naturopathic philosophy. Naturopathy and Holistic sleep together create a deeper understanding between the philosophy of sleep and its relationship to other crucial parts of child development. In this podcast you will learn plenty of solutions and gain an abundance of knowledge so you can confidently tackle any sleep challenge that comes your way. These discussions will address child sleep as well as nutrition, emotional well-being, resilience and experiencing family loss and trauma. This is an informative thought-provoking podcast about pregnancy,

1:02parenting and of course sleep. I am so glad you're here as we navigate together one of the toughest jobs in the world and reduce sleep deprivation in the process. Let's get started. Welcome to the Holistic Baby and Toddler Sleep Podcast. This is episode 52 surviving two-year-old sleep. Why is so tricky and what actually helps? I am really looking forward to diving into this episode all about two to three- -year-old sleep and in the next episode I'm going to deep dive into three-year-old sleep. So here's the thing about two-year-olds. They are defined and they push back. If you haven't set many boundaries with your parenting to date and particularly around sleep you might actually find that this bites them in the butt when you hit the two-year-old era because they push back on boundaries which you try and set. I'm going to discuss in this episode why two-year-old sleep is so hard. Specific challenges you might be experienced or you actually want to

2:07avoid if you're not quite at this stage yet and the steps that you need to take to improve your two-year-old sleep. So the top three reasons why your two-year-old sleep is so hard is one this pushback that they do at this age as they gain more independence with tasks to the lack of boundaries which may be in place and then three sleep may have already been hard up until this point. So now when you try and fix things or change things they are now old enough to push back on these changes. Interestingly I really love working with two-year-olds because I have no problem holding boundaries. I have no issues doing this because I've always been firm with boundaries with my little boy and I have no issue holding these for other people as well because I know the solution is in these boundaries. So I'll give you some examples of how these boundaries have benefitted us in parenting

3:11and sleep and then I'll talk about two-year-olds and some common sleep issues and what we can do about it. So for us we have always had a bedtime routine with our child ever since he was a couple of weeks old, bath, book, feed and so on and there's no doubt that this routine changes over time over time but we've never strayed from having a secure routine. I've never had no routine and I've never plonged him in the cot and expected him to go to sleep without connection or without a one-down period. We have always had expectations around dinner as well. So dinner is always when he was going to bed at seven o'clock, dinner was always five to five thirty four years. So it wasn't five or five thirty or quarter to six or anything random. He was a set pocket of time and these kind of things can anchor your bedtime routine to have your children expect what is coming next. So it's

4:13not good for any child to not know what's coming next. It can create anxiety and that can create pushback. So it's really important that you have set times or set sequence of events that occur in the lead up to bedtime if you're looking for a calm bedtime. We would always have one book, do one book in that lead up to bedtime when he was little. Then from about two years old it was two books. We didn't do three, we didn't do five, we didn't do however many he wanted. It was a set amount of books. They're a really good cue to let the child know that bedtime is coming but what can happen if you do more than two books is they actually are winding down and then on the third, fourth or fifth book all of a sudden they've rebooted and they've got a burst of energy and they're ready to go again. So it doesn't mean that you can't read them books at other parts of the day but it just means that the boundary and the expectation is is that we will just do two books or one book

5:14depending on their age. We don't ask questions to our son like are you ready for bed? Now of course a child is going to say no I'm not ready for bed. He doesn't get choice about when he goes to bed. I am choosing his bedtime based on his day nap based on his age based on signs that I've seen through the day about how tired or not tired he may be but we give him ownership and choice in other aspects of bedtime which really don't affect us at all or affect the sequence of event but it gives him the ownership that he gets to have choice in some of these things. Ultimately the routine is set and the aspects that we need to be firm on that we are but if there's things that we can give him choice on we will. So for example I might have said to him would you like to wear the gray or the blue sleeping bag tonight? Now it's near the heat to me, it's near that doesn't matter to me which one he wears but that is something that doesn't affect us or doesn't affect the routine but he needs to feel like he has choice in ownership in that.

6:22I will also choose as I mentioned the number of books so I'm choosing that it's one book up until two that works fast and then two books two after that but what I will do is he can choose which one so I might choose one and he might choose one or he can choose two but I find that even that becomes too much it's probably easier for time and things like that if you choose one and they choose one that's also about sharing and things like that. So those are the boundaries around those kind of things but there is ownership and choice within that. These type of boundaries are instilled and upheld in my opinion from when they're babies. It's going to hold you really ingress there from when they're toddlers preschoolers and even primary schoolers. It will help you with this two-year-old pushback which many parents experience. Interestingly just to give you some comparison or example of how it can be at bedtime we never got pushback. Now why would that be?

7:23Well I think it's because the expectations were set so we never deviated from this. He didn't get to stay up and we had plenty of conversation and connection time with him during the day and before bed so there was no fear of feeling like his cup hadn't been filled up or being left on his own for bed. I always made sure that he wasn't over tired so therefore I always avoided a big emotional outbursts before leaving him in in the cop for sleep time and we always did the connection period which is so important for all children. So some of these things were the reasons why we never got pushback. We had strong boundaries. We held those boundaries. We didn't deviate from them. We gave him ownership and choice in particular decisions. I never allowed him to be overtired so therefore there was never this big emotional outbursts and connection was always at the forefront of my mind. He also had no issue being away from us so when we were putting him in the cop I love

8:24you and then leave because he wasn't reliant on us for anything to go to sleep. I'd always encouraged independent sleep so if there ever was a problem he could absolutely call out but I didn't actually need to sit with him or rock him or do any of those things. He also didn't push those boundaries and he'd never asked for more cuddles or more water or another nappy change or another trip to the toilet. There was none of these stalling tactics for us and part of that is the boundaries that I've spoken about. Part of that is the sleep pressure was always 100%. So if you have a child who's not tired you will find that they will that will be delaying they'll be stalling because they're not tired so they're asking for water they're asking for a cuddle they and sometimes you might get that if they're overtired but mostly undetired because they're just not ready and willing for sleep. Now I tell you all of these things because I want you to know that sleep can be easy and straightforward for two-year-olds if the right approach is taken. The families that I finished

9:31working with together when we work one-on-one often will report that now the child loves their cot they love sleep and they walk to their cot when they're ready for their nap and they wake up happily from night sleep and day sleep. However this isn't like this it wasn't like this when we started working together. So let's run through a couple of things that might be happening developmentally which I'm sure you've recognized in your two-ish year-old developmentally from 19 months to 24 months. One of the paramount things is really happening are these temper tantrums as they exert their independence with tasks. Interestingly separation anxiety is also at a peak which is why connection is absolutely crucial and we'll go through that in one of the solutions shortly. They can scribble, they can brush their teeth with your help, they can throw a ball, they also talk to them, talk about themselves always in the first person which is so glorious to

10:32listen to, they can identify people and objects, there are so many super cute and cool things that they do at this age. I absolutely loved this age. So now let's talk about where you might be right now or just if you're not quite there yet it's really great to listen to this episode so that you are aware of what is coming up and how to prepare for these challenges. Some of the common issues that I see with two-year-olds around their sleep are the following, nap issues specifically too much day sleep and I may say at the wrong time so it's placed at the wrong time of the day so it doesn't necessarily support night sleep but mostly it's too much day sleep so just because a two-year-old will sleep for two and a half hours it doesn't mean you allow them to sleep for two and a half hours because what that will do is affect your night sleep. So really the majority of the sleep happens overnight and the day nap is just about getting them through the day taking off some sleep pressure

11:37and getting them to bedtime. So it's really important to know your routine and to know the amount of sleep which is appropriate for a two-year-old and I will give you a resource later on in the podcast which you can check out which will 100% help you with this. Another thing you might be doing is you still might be doing dummy runs. So if you have a child who has a dummy just because they're two years old or they're about, it doesn't mean they can actually replace it on their own. So this could be causing sleep disruptions either for your nap or overnight and you're still in there giving back the dummy and then you might be getting into some other situation where they're speaking to you and they're wanting to be picked up or they're wanting you to stay. So it's very disruptive at this age. Parents are often one of the biggest things I see as well is that they're actually parents are taking their two-year-olds out of their cots too soon. Now I get it. It is so exciting when your child moves on to the next step, the next stage when they walk when they start

12:39uttering words when they start solids. It is so super cool to see your child doing these developmental things. So when parents, they will do these because they just decide that it's a great idea and it's really exciting. It's something that they want to do at this age. But most often the families that I see are taking their children out of their cots and putting them in a toddler bed or a big bed because they're trying to solve a sleep issue. Now if you've heard any of my material before, my stories, my TikTok, my Instagram, years, six and a half years of material that I've been doing, you would know that I always say don't make bold moves when you're trying to fix sleep problems because what it actually does is amplify the problem. You need to solve the problem first and figure out what is going on and then when the things are calmer and sleep is going well, then you would take them out of the cot and put them in a big bed. Equally, it's actually too soon developed mentally

13:40to take your child at two years old out of a cot. They don't have the impulse control to stay there, to stay in a big bed and they don't have the maturity to do so. So we really want to get them to three years old or they're about before we even think about taking them out of their cot. Another thing you might be struggling with with your two-year-old is still having the reliance on feeds. This might be a milk bottle, so cow's milk or an alternative, or it still might be breast milk or something like that. You might also be still rocking your two-year-old to sleep, which can occur and sometimes with the feeding still, you might also be having co-sleeping. So if you're a breast feeding mama, for example, you're still feeding them throughout the night. It could be quite a lot and you've probably brought them into your bed because it's just easier to feed them like that. So this is still happening at this age and you may be struggling with this because in actual fact it's not getting you any more sleep, you're still getting plenty of nightwaking

14:41or disrupted nap in that case. Other things that might be happening might be a new sibling has come into the mix, which means that they need to share their time and energy and that sibling may be in a cot in your room, but you've had your child in your bed and all of a sudden all your room and all of a sudden you need to figure out how they're going to go into another room, otherwise it's going to be two children that are waking you up in your bed. And this happens, I often get discovery calls and inquiries around this time when the mama is pregnant with her second or third child and she's already struggling with the first child's sleep. So she's wanting resolution and that second child, the two-year-old, to have a bit more independent sleep so she can moreso direct her attention to the baby. My advice if you're in that camp is to not wait until you're 36, 37, 38, 39 weeks pregnant, take action earlier, particularly if we're working together, it takes a bit of time to actually get a spot and get in. So make sure you

15:43think ahead if that's your situation. Other things that can happen is you as the mother or one of the parents might be the primary care and might actually be taking on more work, which means that you might be then sending your child to child care when you haven't before or some sort of care arrangement. And this means that someone else needs to put your child down for their nap. This could be your parents, your in-laws or some sort of care arrangement. So if they're already not sleeping well or if they're really reliant on something or someone to get to sleep, this is going to be problematic as you then need to send them off to child care. So again, being proactive and realistic about your situation early on is the best way to go. Have this sorted, have the sleep really cleaned up and beautiful so that when they do go into their care environments, it is not stressful for your child, it is not stressful for you and is not stressful for the other caregiver. This is actually probably one of the main reasons why I worked on

16:46my son's sleep so soon because I don't have any immediate family, my parents have passed, my in-laws had passed. I had to, I put him into a care arrangement and was more like a family day care scenario and there were three or four children, but these carers were going to have to put him down for at that stage a two-hour nap and I wanted to know that he was going to go down swiftly, no stress, no anxiety from him, no stress for the carer. And so I did that and it was absolutely one of the best things I've ever, ever done. Another thing you might be experiencing is the complication of illnesses and sleep. This can align with something like child care or just older siblings bringing home illness or in just fact illness. So that's something really difficult that I think really is relevant at all ages but definitely at this age. At two-year-olds can stall at bedtime. This is a huge one and all the families that I've worked with over the past six and a half years have all experienced this at bedtime.

17:49This might mean and present like asking for another drink, asking for another cuddle, asking for another toy to come into the bed, asking to go out and say good night to dad in another room. It can go on and on and on and this is where those boundaries, if you haven't had boundaries in place with your child, this is when the stalling can really amplify because you're then trying to put boundaries in place. But the other thing that happens with that is that there's often an outburst of emotion from the two-year-old and then parents are really uncomfortable with that outburst of emotion, be it crying or screaming. So then just to appease them, they give them what they want. But in actually giving them what they want, you could be there for an hour with the amount of requests that some families get. So in order to offset that, it's actually better that you preempt those things and say, okay, this is your last class, this is your last drink before bed, last cuddles before bed, do you need to go to the toilet? So you're offsetting all of these requests

18:54so that when they come up and say, well, we've already done that, you've already had your glass in, you know, sip of water. That is a really big one for two-year-olds. Also, as I mentioned, they might be sleeping in different care environments. I mentioned that, so that's something another motivation to get their sleep sorted before that is the case. Your child still may be reliant on milk or you might be thinking about removal of milk. That is another thing for two-year-olds that we need to consider. The lack of boundaries I've mentioned, also fussy fussiness around food, particularly I guess in this case, dinner. If your child has fussy eating behaviours which I can absolutely relate to, parents will often pander to this and then they'll offer them a second dinner. So if it was bolognese for dinner, the child didn't eat the bolognese, they'll often go, oh gosh, they can't have nothing in their stomach and they won't sleep through the night, so I'm going to offer them a cheese sandwich. So there's a lot of this pandering to the refusal of dinner with a second dinner or in fact giving them dessert,

19:56so fruit and yogurt or something delicious because you want something in their stomach. When again, this is a boundary and an expectation that should be set is this usual dinner and you can't have dessert until you finish your dinner or until whatever the amount is that you want them to have and you can encourage that and there are ways of encouraging that without putting too much pressure on, but offering a second dinner is really not beneficial to anybody and making sure that you're having a variety with your offering. Sometimes families will say, well, they like bolognese, you know, I get it to them three nights in a row and now that I want it or every time they have bolognese and now that I want it, I mean we don't have the same things for dinner necessarily or we sometimes we do because it's so hard to come up with new ideas, but mostly we don't, we want variety and they want variety too. So it's important to offer different things even if they don't consume all of it or they're picked, push it around the plate, they actually do have the capacity to sleep through the night, even if they skip dinner. They're much younger than this

20:58actually, but definitely for two year olds, even if they refuse dinner, they can still sleep through the night based on their caloric intake for the entire day. So which of these that I've mentioned, these challenges around sleep do you resonate with? Usually there are one, but usually there's multiple of these issues which is happening for two year olds that I work with. So what are we going to do about these challenging two year olds? So firstly, think about what are your goals for your two year old sleep? What are you wanting to achieve? And I'll give you some suggestions because I've obviously worked with so many gorgeous two year olds, I'll give you some ideas. Have you been co-sleeping and now you want them to be in their own room or in their own cot in their own room? This might be driven by the fact that you have been working up so much or another sibling's on the way or you're just ready to have a bit of your body, your own body back or you think they're of an age or you think you're both disrupting each other. So that might be a

22:00goal for you. Do you want to move away from so much milk overnight or in fact to induce a nap or get to sleep? This could be via the bottle or the breast. Do you want your two year old ish two year old? They're about to sleep through the night. Do you want to have calm bed times without resistance? Do you want other people in your other carers to be able to put your child to sleep without any fuss and do more independence around their sleep? So once you figure out what your goals are, the next thing to do would be to try and achieve these with using my holistic framework. So this is the holistic framework that apply to any single family I work with when I used to do group work or now when I'm doing my one-on-one work. These are the kind of topics that we need to address to get a result for your goal. So the first thing is check the environment. Now you might think well my

23:02child's two years old. It's always been the same. I'm good. Well not necessarily because maybe you haven't had it correctly the whole time and I would all say that a hundred percent of the families I've worked with that is the case. Even if they've got older children, a hundred percent of them don't have the environment right. Especially if they're going to a new environment like their own room or cot, you really need to assess that to make sure it's conducive to sleep. So is it too cluttered with toys? Is it actually too quiet? That can be just really disconcerting. You want some noise in the background. Is it a hundred percent dark? What are they wearing? You know if they're getting, if they're giving you pushback on the sleeping bag, there are ways around that and that in my opinion would actually be a boundary that they need that you need to get them in the bag and there are ways to do that or suit if they're in a suit so that they're warm enough and they don't wake up because they're cold. The second thing to think about in the holistic framework is get that

24:03routine correct. Often what happens with this two odd age group is their sleep needs change and parents don't know how to accommodate those changes. So they've been having a two hour or two and a half hour nap and they keep doing that duration of nap and they just keep going with that. But in actual fact, the child is showing you by either resisting bedtime night waking or early rising or resisting the nap. In fact, that something is changed. Developmentally, they actually need less sleep. So how do we make that happen? How do we change the routine to make sure that it is correct to support nighttime sleep? And the best way around this particular number two of the holistic framework is to grab my ultimate feeding and sleep guide. I'll put it in the show notes because this is a really uncertain topic for parents. And as I said, they just let the children sleep if they're sleeping during the day, but it can have a fix through the 24 hour sleep cycle. This guide

25:06will give you all the times to feed meals and milk and all the times that are correct for the amount of day sleep and also the starting time for the nap. That's also important too. Bed time, all of those things. It will actually serve you from birth all the way till about three years old. So if you are intending on having more children or you have younger children, this guide will also serve you for those little ones as well. The third thing you need to think about is one on one time. This is crucial for two roles because as I mentioned, separation anxiety is a peak. Plus, this might be when you've sent them to a care arrangement for the first time or you've increased your daycare days. So they're missing you like crazy. So we need to get little pockets of time and connection. You know, coming in the door from daycare and then going straight into dinner, straight into bedtime routine, rush, rush, rush, rush. And they really don't get any one-on-one time sometimes with each parent, which is crucial to then being comfortable to go to sleep, to feeling like

26:10their cup is full. And then to sleep through the night without needing that reassurance, I cannot emphasise how much you need one on one time with your two-year-old. Number four of the holistic framework is about a climatisation to new sleep space. Now, it may be a new sleep spacer, it may not. They may actually still be in the cot, but maybe they haven't spent too much time in the cot. So whether a family that I'm working with has introduced the cot or not, so they might have just been co-sleeping and really not spent much time in the cot or maybe they've been doing some daynaps in the cot. Whichever the case is, I am acclimatising that child to the cot. So they love the heck out of it and they're so happy to go to sleep at night and they don't require any reassurance from their parents. Number five is the tricky one. So once you've done one, two, three, four of the holistic framework. Number five is about gradually moving away from whatever asleep crutch that you

27:13have been using to get your child to sleep or back to sleep. You might have been feeding to sleep, rocking to sleep, laying next to them next to their cot, co-sleeping, laying on the floor in their room, holding their hand, giving them milk. It could be any of these or a bit of a combination. It could also be the pram. I have many a family who are still doing naps in the pram inside because it's what works or in fact on the go in the car. But don't skip to this step first. This is got to be number five. You must always make sure that you work three or one, two, three, four of the holistic process before going to number five or you will get really strong pushback with crying and screaming. It won't work and you will likely give up. So when it comes to gradually moving away from those things, usually a cascade of reduction of support works best. So if you were feeding to sleep, you might rock to sleep and so on. Some other tips I will also give you

28:14is apart from those five categories to address. Make sure you give choice whenever you can. It's really important to empower our two year olds. So when you can and it doesn't affect the structure of the night, please give them choice. Also, if they're under two or just two and you're still wanting to keep the dummy, make sure they can replace it themselves. Work out your boundaries when it comes to dinner or meals or sleep or other sort of behaviour and hold them, hold those boundaries. It will help you in the future and for your situation and challenges right now. Also, I have set wake up time, set nap times and set dinner times. Children thrive on routine and this will mean there's no emotional outbursts, they know what to expect, no anxiety. It will absolutely help your child sleep. And lastly, think about the food topic. So I always do protein

29:16in all main meals. Once a child can have once they're really established on solids, protein is going to fill your child for longer. It's also going to balance mood. It's required for so many developmental processes in the body. It's really, really crucial. Always have the food around you as well. Don't go out and go for a big adventure and not take any good food. Make sure that you're feeding them when they're hungry and regularly interval so that their moods are balanced. If you feel like you have done all of these things or the majority of these things and things are out of control or you're just a bit over it and you just want the result of those goals that we talked about before, then maybe it's time to reach out for some support. As I mentioned at the top of the podcast, I absolutely love working with two-year-olds. I find they actually respond really quickly when the process and the strategy is correct. You can have an independent sleeper who goes to sleep calmly for their nap and bedtime, who loves their room, who loves their

30:20cot, who isn't reliant on feeding or rocking or the pram or the car, who is well rested, feeding beautifully and respecting your boundaries. You can have all of that in just two weeks. So the first place to start, if you're considering any sort of support with me, would be to have a 30-minute complimentary discovery call and we'll chat about your two-year-old. What are you struggling with? What are your goals and how can I support you to get there? That link is in the show notes and also the sleep guide that I talked about which is going to give you the appropriate and the correct routine for two to three-year-olds. In fact, all ages, that will be in the show notes as well. So there is a lot of information there about two-year-olds, the challenges that you're probably encountering or will encounter the strategy to implement, to get out of the situation that you're in and if you still are not able to do that, that's okay. Please reach out for support and how to

31:22do that is in the show notes. My last point of business today is I would really love, I've got a favorite to ask. I never asked this, I've done 51 episodes and I don't think I've ever asked this question. Would you please vote, would you please rate this podcast episode? It's actually in the top 20 podcasts on Australian sleep in this country, but I really want to share all this information and all the time and effort and interviews and and other so much information that I have poured into this podcast. I want to share it with other mums and families to let them know that sleep is possible and we can do it gradually and it's amazing. So if you would rate this podcast, hopefully you'll fast our rating, then it will actually be seen by more families. And the other little request I have for you is would you subscribe to this podcast, the holistic baby and tollicate podcast? If you do that then you won't miss an episode as it comes out and it also means that those things go towards those metrics, go towards other families, more and more seeing this podcast and getting

32:27the right information that will help them get more sleep. Thanks for being here today and I will see you on the next episode, which is all about three-year-old sleep. If you enjoyed this episode, learn something or felt moved by a topic that was discussed. Please share it with another parent who you think would enjoy this episode. Also, don't forget to leave a review on the platform where you listen to this podcast so more families can be empowered about their child's sleep. Make sure to follow me on Instagram so you can get more sleep tips that will help you improve your child's sleep today and head to my website if you would like to work one on one with me. Until next time, happy sleeping.