November 11, 2025
Infant and Toddler Sleep During the Holiday Season: Podcast Episode #316
In this episode of the Ask the Doulas podcast, we talk with Jackie Viscusi, infant and toddler sleep specialist with Gold Coast Doulas, about navigating sleep challenges during the busy holiday season. Jacki shares practical tips for maintaining routines while traveling, managing family gatherings, and setting realistic expectations when schedules are disrupted. Whether you’re staying local or heading out of town, this episode will help you protect your child’s rest—and your sanity—through the most wonderful (and often exhausting) time of the year.
This episode is sponsored by Cozy Earth. Use the code GOLDCOAST to receive a discount in addition to their Black Friday sales.
Hello, hello! This is Kristin Revere with Ask the Doulas, and I am thrilled to bring back our own Jackie Viscusi. She is one of our sleep consultants and amazing all around. Not only does Jackie work for us, but she is also a private sleep consultant, mom to two, and a baby and toddler music teacher. So good to have you back, Jackie!
Hi! Thank you! Yeah, it’s good to be back!
I know that sleep is our most popular topic in my Becoming a Mother course and when we do live Q&As and when I am on other podcasts. It’s nice to have one of our expert certified pediatric sleep consultants to chat about the holidays and sleep.
Yes! It can be a tricky time. Sometimes us moms are stuck in that wanting to please everybody and wanting to make all of the holiday events and make sure we see all the family members. We also have to look out for ourselves and our sanity and especially families with really little littles – you’ve got to make yourself and your family the priority because otherwise it’s not going to be as enjoyable to do all those things. I have suggestions about sleep and travel, as well as just kind of, you know, from one mom to another type of info.
And sometimes during the holidays, we’re traveling by plane; could be train or car. So what you need as far as toddler and infant gear can vary based on how you’re getting to see friends and family members.
So a go-to, nonnegotiable for me are travel blackout curtains. So no matter where you’re going, east to west, north to south, in the car, in the plane, grab some travel blackout curtains with suction cups on them. You can get them on Amazon. I don’t recommend a specific product, honestly, because I want it to be affordable. There’s $25 ones on Amazon. The reason I want it to be affordable, too, is sometimes I suggest buying more than one. These have little suction cups on them. They can go behind the blinds or curtains, so that seals that extra lighting out. And if you have a couple of them – you know, let’s say you’re in an Airbnb or a family member’s home and they don’t have blackout curtains. They don’t have a baby in the house, so why would they have all the things? You can fold them up and they’re easy to travel with, and then you can take them out and just black out the room for the nighttime. That will help with transitions if you’re traveling across time zones and your baby is used to going to sleep at a certain time, but maybe it’s still light out. And it will help with their melatonin production. It will get it nice and dark in there, and it will definitely help them transition better.
And if you are staying with family members or in a hotel, then there’s also the concern about noise. And especially if your house or neighborhood tends to be quieter, and all of a sudden you’re in a metro area or near a train, how do you handle the noise differences with travel?
Great question! Also, my family, we’re loud Italians, so asking them to stay quiet is not really – you can only ask so many times, and I don’t want to kill the party. I want them to have a good time, and I also want my baby to sleep. So I bring my white noise machine everywhere. I actually sleep with one, as well. I always suggest a white noise sound machine, and there are portable ones. You can get portable ones so that if you’re in the car and you want to squeeze a nap in – I always suggest napping on the go as much as you can instead of fighting a new nap right away. The most important thing if you’re traveling is just that your baby is sleeping. So try to give yourself grace and forgiveness about getting the perfect nap in, in their crib in the perfect environment. If you’re on the go, if you’re in the car or on the plane, do a contact nap on the plane and get that little portable white noise machine. Or they have apps on your phones. Put that on. It’s a cue for them, as well, to go to sleep, but also it will help with outside noise. In the car, as well, you can play it in the car. When you’re at a family member’s house or if you’re at your own house hosting, make sure that sound machine is on, and don’t be scared to put it on a little louder. I always suggest that you be able to hear it outside of the room when there’s a lot going on because you do want to minimize noise disturbance. A lot of us who have babies who aren’t great sleepers maybe naturally – I call them FOMO babies; they have a fear of missing out. So if they hear that there’s a party going on in the other room, they might want to come join.
Absolutely. You’re also navigating around the holiday season flu, COVID, RSV, all of the illnesses. So having travel but also going into stores, public transit, and also navigating family members that may be ill. How do you try to focus on keeping your own family healthy during the holiday travel season?
For me, if somebody is fever sick, I wouldn’t really want to be probably at the same holiday party. That’s for me, though. Everybody has their own comfort level. But I obviously would hope they wouldn’t come if they weren’t feeling well. But even if they had recently had the flu or COVID, wear a mask if you’re worried about that, and really try to kindly ask people to not kiss the baby and maybe consider not passing them around to everybody at the party. I know that’s going to be really hard because everybody’s going to want to see the baby, but you can definitely have them meet them. But I would try to avoid mouth kissing, and have everybody wash their hands if they can before holding the baby. That’s always good. Any sort of preventative measure that you can.
And don’t be scared, if you’re local and you guys aren’t feeling well, to not go. That’s a big thing. I know everybody wants to go and celebrate, and you don’t want to just be stuck to your baby’s nap schedule or how your toddler is feeling because they’re sick every other week, right? But really try to do a temperature check, literally and figuratively: is this what’s right? How is my gut feeling? Do I feel like we should not go because Aunt So-and-So just got over COVID, or because we’re coming down with something, and if we go and push it, it’s just going to be a disaster? Just trust that. That’s a big thing I would say.
I like that you mention don’t kiss the baby and passing them around. I found when my kids were little that babywearing and keeping them wrapped and close to me helped a lot with that because it was challenging to get them out of the wrap. And my kids would fall asleep in it, so I could be socializing, helping, and they are with me. Same with a quick run into the store; it was worth it to me to not deal with having the shopping cart and the car seat and all of that out. Just babywearing was my way to try to keep them as protected as possible during the holiday germ season when you know you have to run to the store.
Yes, babywearing is always helpful with that. With sleep, as well, like you said, and with not catching germs and letting them stay close to you and safe. And that’s another thing; if you’re in a nap battle and they’re not going to go to sleep easily with this nap; there’s just too much going on – please, just babywear them, because honestly, some babies will sleep even better when they hear mom talking and they hear other things going on and they’re just close to you. They hear your heartbeat; they’re safe and secure. They’ll probably fall asleep when you’re just helping decorate or whatever it is you’re doing.
And I also found it to be challenging with feeding for the breastfeeding moms or even like finding a place to pump in a crowded house. Feeding and sleep go hand in hand, and navigating that and getting yourself some privacy, if you’re in a family where you can’t with a cover openly breastfeed.
It’s funny; I almost miss those times when I would find a quiet room and go in there because I could decompress. The holidays are really overstimulating, so feeding your baby in a quiet area, it also gives you a break from all the stimulation. And if you can’t find a place for that, just do an hour. Do an hour at the party, and then if you want to go home, you want your baby to just go to sleep and it be low stress, do that. I keep hitting that home, but I think that’s because I felt a lot of pressure around the holidays when mine were really, really little. And I just really want moms and families with little kids to know that it’s going to get better. They’re going to be able to stay out later. They might be getting sick, but they’ll be able to fight it off better. It gets easier as they get older. Right now, it’s such a vulnerable time, and if you didn’t sleep well the night before and you think your baby’s coming down with something and you need to breastfeed them – maybe they have an earache, and the breastfeeding will help with that. It’s liquid gold. And if then you need to just put them down and you need to put on a holiday movie – you do that.
Whatever it takes. And it’s not only infant or toddler sleep. It’s also that parents and their sleep.
Exactly.
Yeah. So much to figure out, not only with the gear and some of the amazing tips that you gave for what to travel with, what would be easy to transport, but what other tips do you have, Jackie, for our listeners who are planning to travel with their infants or toddlers?
So if it is in your power to recreate your bedtime routine and your sleep environment – the best that you can, try to do so. Honestly, even if you have the sound machine on one side of the room usually in your home nursery – maybe you don’t have a rocking chair, but can you bring in a dining room chair that you can sit on and maybe gently rock using your own body to mimic the rocking chair? Do things relatively in the same order, same steps as you do at home. That will help cue your baby and recreate the environment that they’re so used to because it’s already going to be a little bit – you know, might be a little bit of an uphill battle with a new space and new environment and new people and new things going on. So I always say recreate the sameness that you have at home that you can elsewhere. That sound machine, that blackout curtain, same bedtime book. I love getting a book or two especially for toddlers as a sleep book. Read the same couple to them for a few nights at home, and then bring that same book to wherever you go.
Similarly, a Slumberpod is really helpful. It’s basically like a big tent for your baby, and it goes over the pack and play. That can help it be very, very dark and cozy. Some babies really love it, and some babies don’t. If you want to have it in your favor, having them practice in a pack and play and a Slumberpod in your own house a night or two before you travel can be helpful with the transition for when you are there because it’s a little bit more familiar for them.
And in terms of time zones and stuff, if it’s within an hour difference or if it’s just local, I would just try to do the best you can with keeping the same schedule that you have. If it’s over that, if you’re going across time zones, I always say try to split the difference. So don’t try to jump right to that time zone because they’re little people like we are, and sometimes it can take a few days to adjust. But maybe if it’s a three-hour difference, you try to hit that hour and a half mark where you get it maybe an hour and a half close to what you’re normally doing and then fade it by about 15 minutes or 30 minutes each day. And I only recommend doing that if you’re going to be gone for more than 5 to 7 days in a new time zone. Otherwise, you might just want to split the difference of an hour and a half, and then you won’t be too off schedule for when you get back.
One last one that sometimes people forget about: if you’re going in a hotel or in a cousin’s house or something like that, don’t be afraid to look in big closets or big bathroom spaces where there might be a bathroom hallway – make sure it’s ventilated, but check out those spaces for sleep spaces. One time, I used a laundry room, and it was great because it was pretty much dark in there anyway. So I had to do very minimal, and there was very little foot traffic. There was a vent in there. It was close to my room. So get creative with your sleep spaces if you think it’s going to be optimum for less sleep disturbance and light coming in and all those things.
I was going to ask, as far as our listeners wanting to connect with you: within Gold Coast, you offer customized sleep plans, so it’s not just a template that is given to every family. This is customized based on the family’s needs for their infant or toddler. And so how can they work with you?
You can find me on the Gold Coast website and book a free intro call, and that’s where we’ll just chat for ten minutes to get to know each other and make sure that I can help you and you are heading in the right direction of what sort of sleep support you need. Like you said, Kristin, I really think that it’s what makes us stand out because you can find sleep courses that will definitely be helpful, especially for first-time moms, but if you’re having real severe sleep deprivation and sleep struggles, just know that it’s really real. You’re not alone. It’s nothing that you’re doing wrong. It’s just that some babies and toddlers really have more trouble sleeping, and you may need more than a template approach. You may need more than a one-size-fits-all that would work with most babies. You may need a step by step approach and strategy that is customized to your family’s needs, your family’s schedule, and your baby’s needs, because everyone is a little different. So behaviorally, psychologists do this all the time where it’s a very customized plan, and so we do that with sleep behavior, as well.
And you have some amazing videos on Gold Coast’s Instagram and YouTube so our listeners can learn more from you. Thanks so much, Jackie!
Thank you! Happy holidays!
IMPORTANT LINKS
Birth and postpartum support from Gold Coast Doulas