A good bedtime routine is essential for little ones - but often, getting kids to sleep a few hours straight throughout the night feels like a neverending uphill battle, let alone for 12 hours.
Often, children will wake up in the middle of the night, screaming and crying, vying for attention from parents. But one woman, who has been hailed as a "super mum", has cracked the way to get kids sleeping for 12 hours without drama. She's tried and tested the method too, as her children have been sleeping right through from an early age.
Sophie Middleton, who is professionally known as The Night Night Nanny, said her two daughters were sleeping full nights from 7pm until 7am from the ages of 10 weeks and 14 weeks - and she's shared her methods.
Sophie said that the system has worked other than night feeds, and the occasional early morning which she can "count on one hand", encouraging parents to try it for themselves. The woman, from Darlington, County Durham, worked as a nanny for several years before having children herself, and initially thought that the babies she had looked after had just been good sleepers, Teesside Live reports.
So when she gave birth to her first daughter Isabelle, she decided to put everything she knew about helping babies sleep into practice, and managed to get her little one to sleep 12 hours a night from the age of 10 weeks. To prove it wasn't a fluke, Sophie also tried her methods with her second daughter Ruby, and had the same results - despite people telling her she wouldn't get "two the same" when it comes to sleep.
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She said: "Everyone can have one baby and that one baby sleeps well, but when Isabelle was eight months, then I fell pregnant with Ruby. When Ruby was born everyone said you won't get two the same, the second one will be up all night, she won't sleep. And even though she had horrendous reflux, she slept 12 hours a night from 14 weeks and she's four in July and she still sleeps like that."
So how does she manage to do it? The sleep coach insisted the most important things are routine and independence - which means teaching your baby to be comfortable lying by themselves in a cot without being held. Sophie said she isn't an advocate for "sleep training", but does feel there are healthy ways to get your little ones into the right routine, such as setting them down by themselves whenever they aren't fussing or needing to be fed or changed.
When a baby is held all the time, Sophie says it becomes used to that type of comfort and sleeping in the arms of mum or dad will become a routine for the baby, which is why they may not be able to settle after being put down to sleep. When it comes to setting a good bedtime routine for children, the sleep coach said that it's vital for kids to feel "comfortable and safe" before bed.
She added that screen times need to be regulated and "ideally" children shouldn't be in front of screens for two hours before bedtime. Sophie says that for her children, their bedtime routine means they eat dinner and then go straight up to the bath before getting ready and reading a bedtime story.
She explained: "The routine that works for us, it's what we've always done, is as soon as the kids have their tea, they go straight upstairs and then they have a bath and then it's normally 45 minutes between them going in the bath and them going to bed. That's absolute quality time, so there are no phones allowed in the bedroom."
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