Is your baby not sleeping and are you going back to work soon? Are you wondering how to navigate your baby’s sleep routine with the childcare transition? These are everyday anxieties and worries facing most working mums as I discovered during my conversation with Donna Moala, founder of Bub2sleep, a certified Sleep Sense consultant, and a mum of three on the Working Mumma podcast.

Sleep is a learned skill and it can define the newborn months and years by the amount of sleep our child has had the night prior. This has a big impact on how we function and how alert we are during the day, especially with lack of sleep. The stress and anxiety can go up another level when you are returning back to work after maternity leave and your baby still isn’t sleeping as you would like and they are transitioning as well to childcare. To help navigate this period I spoke with Donna who shared tips on when to start preparing for childcare and key foundations you can begin working on.

Donna shared that the childcare transition is a change to the sleep routine you may have at home, and after a couple of weeks, your child will be able to differentiate between childcare/other locations and home. Your child will most likely have less sleep at childcare given the environment, so instead focus on the awake times rather than the ‘normal’ bedtime, and on the days they are home you will be able to apply your foundations and boundaries to focus on the good sleep at home. Another key foundation Donna speaks about is independent sleep and teaching babies how to learn this new skill.

During the chat we spoke about:

* Tips for managing sleep with children

* How to prepare your child for the childcare transition

* The importance of awake times (here is the link to Donna’s awake time resource)

* Juggling different childcare and home routines

* Navigating children waking during the night once you have returned to work

Donna shares tips you can implement right away with your children and I hope this supports you in knowing that everything will be ok. As Donna mentioned, “everyone is doing the best we can, we are all feeling the same“.

Connect with Donna and Bub2sleep via her website bub2sleep.com.au, Instagram @bub2sleep or Facebook https://www.facebook.com/bub2sleep/

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