If you're counting down the weeks until you go back to work and your baby still isn't sleeping well, I want to share something with you.
I've been exactly where you are.
I went back to work when my daughter Isabel was four and a half months old. At that point, sleep was still tolerable. Not great, but tolerable. I told myself things would improve with time. She was still young, surely she'd grow out of it.
Then she turned six months old, and everything unravelled.
She was waking every two to three hours overnight and needing to latch back to sleep every single time. I tried different approaches, read everything I could get my hands on, and kept telling myself it was just a phase.
It wasn't.
For the next eight months, I worked full-time while running on broken sleep. There were mornings when I sat down at my desk and genuinely wondered how I was going to get through the day. I wanted to be fully present at work. I wanted to be fully present for my baby. But when you're exhausted, even simple things can feel really hard.
What finally changed things was a conversation with a friend who had been through something similar. She'd worked with a sleep consultant, and her daughter was sleeping through the night.
I remember thinking, why did I wait so long?
I engaged a sleep consultant, and my daughter slept through the night on Night 2.
The change was so life-changing for our family that I eventually trained as a certified sleep consultant myself, and now I work with many families who are navigating exactly what I went through.
I share this because I know how easily mums end up in the same position. And I also know that with a little planning, it doesn't have to play out the way it did for me.
In Singapore, maternity leave is 16 weeks.
Most healthy babies are developmentally ready to begin learning independent sleep skills from around four months of age.
In other words, by the time many babies are ready, most mums are already back at work.
It's not poor planning. It's simply how the timeline works.
The newborn stage is all about survival. You're recovering from birth, feeding around the clock, learning your baby, and adjusting to a completely new life. Sleep is rarely top priority during those early weeks.
Then just as things start feeling a little more settled, maternity leave comes to an end.
To make things even trickier, around four months many babies go through the four-month sleep shift. Their sleep cycles mature, and they often start waking more frequently between sleep cycles.
So many mums find themselves returning to work just as their baby's sleep becomes more disrupted.
You tell yourself it'll pass. Sometimes it does.
But often, like it did for me, it doesn't.
When you're on maternity leave, a rough night usually means a tough day at home.
When you're back at work, a rough night can affect your focus, patience, decision-making and energy levels — before you even get home to a baby who still needs you.
I know how hard it is to function on chronic sleep deprivation.
While some babies eventually outgrow sleep challenges on their own, many continue struggling because the underlying sleep habits haven't changed.
I spent eight months hoping things would improve on their own. They didn't, until I got the right support.
That said, if you're already back at work, please know it's not too late. It is absolutely still possible to turn things around. I’ve been there too.
Many of the parents I work with are working parents. With a consistent plan and support, many families see meaningful improvements within two to three weeks.
The key is having someone to guide you through the process so that you're not trying to figure everything out alone while juggling work, parenting, and life.
But if you do have an opportunity to address sleep before returning to work, it's a window that's absolutely worth considering.
One option that's worth thinking about is Singapore's shared parental leave scheme.
On top of maternity and paternity leave, eligible parents can now share up to 10 weeks of government-paid parental leave between them. If your family has some flexibility around when that leave is taken, setting aside a block around the four-month mark can create exactly the breathing room to work on sleep.
Having a parent at home during this period makes a huge practical difference. It allows you to stay consistent, work through the learning process without the pressure of work the next morning, and catch up on rest when your baby rests.
A structured sleep plan started around the four-month mark can often lead to significant improvements in your baby's sleep before either parent returns to work.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed, you don’t need to figure this out alone.
At BurrowLittles, I work with families of babies aged 4 to 23 months to build independent sleep in a calm, sustainable way.
Book a free 20-minute discovery call and we'll talk through where your baby is right now and map out a realistic path forward together.
You don’t have to push through months of exhaustion the way I did.
With the right support, things can look very different in just a few weeks.