Before I had my own child, I didn’t know much about baby sleep.
We’ve all heard the saying ‘sleep like a baby’, so I expected that a new baby would sleep a lot. I also knew that newborns have to eat a lot, so I also expected a new baby would wake up often to eat. I didn’t know, or think much, about the actual process of going to sleep. I also just thought that as babies grew, they would just start sleeping better and for longer periods of time. I never realized that a baby could struggle with falling asleep or that they might resist naps! Since becoming a parent, and a sleep consultant, I have learned so much about baby sleep and I’m going to share some of the biggest things I have learned with you.
1. It can sometimes be hard to tell when your baby is tired
I thought that my baby would sleep when she was tired and that she would sleep how long she needed to. I expected I would be able to tell when she was getting tired by her yawning or doing something else that clearly showed she was tired. It turned out that I was wrong! Looking back, when my daughter was an infant she didn’t always show obvious sleepy cues like yawning and would end up overtired. Unfortunately, this did not make sleep easier. This is where I wish I had known more about sleepy cues and also the idea of awake windows. Following age appropriate awake windows can help with so many struggles including short naps and difficulty falling asleep.
2. If you let your baby or toddler stay up later, that doesn’t mean they will sleep later!
Nope, sorry to say but it just doesn’t work that way. I was given this advice by so many people too. If you’ve tried this though, you may have noticed that it tends to backfire. Letting your kiddo stay up later, often just means they are going to bed overtired and possibly missing out on a sleep cycle. This means they aren’t going to get the best sleep and most likely in the morning they will wake up at the same time as usual or even earlier. This doesn’t mean that you should never let your child stay up past their bedtime, but it’s just not something I would suggest as a strategy to use if you are trying to get them to sleep later.
3. It’s harder to sleep when babies and kids are overtired
So, if you’ve read about the last two things I learned, this might not be a big surprise. This just wasn’t something I expected. I always thought that if you got really tired that you would sleep really well, but that isn’t necessarily true. It is true that being physically active during the day can help with better sleep, but not getting to the point of being overtired. Sometimes when we get too tired, we will find we get our “second wind”, and this can be true for kids too. Also, not getting enough sleep can sometimes cause our bodies to become stressed and produce higher levels of cortisol, which is a hormone that keeps us awake. If you feel like your baby is so tired but you are finding they are fighting sleep, try not to feel frustrated as this is a very normal thing. They will eventually sleep. I find that naps tend to be shorter when babies are overtired, but a great thing is that there is always another opportunity for sleep. In general, we want to try to catch our babies and kids before they get overtired so that they can get better sleep.
4. Some kids need early bedtimes, and bedtimes will change as they grow
I never would have imagined starting my 4 year olds bedtime routine at 6 pm, but it turned out that was just what she needed. She had dropped her nap at around 3.5 and seemed to do fine. Shortly after she turned 4 though, our schedule changed and she had to get up earlier. I started to notice she seemed tired in the afternoon and she would fight going to bed at 7:30. We couldn’t bring back her nap, so we just started to slowly shift her bedtime earlier and all of a sudden she was no longer fighting bedtime, in fact she started asking to go to bed! When she was napping, she did fine with bedtime at 7:30 and her bedtime changed depending on how many naps she was taking and how long she was napping during the day. When she was a newborn we often did bedtime late, like around 9, and found that would give us a better stretch than if we tried a 7:30 bedtime.
5. Babies can be noisy sleepers
Going back to that saying ‘sleep like a baby’, I never expected newborn sleep to be noisy! My daughter was often grunting, squeaking, and making sounds so there were times that I felt like she wasn’t sleeping even though she was actually sound asleep. Babies can even fuss in their sleep, while still being totally asleep. I probably woke my daughter up more than once because I thought that she was awake when she wasn’t. Of course, if you have concerns about sounds your baby is making while they are sleeping or if they are snoring, you should check in with their pediatrician.
Help is available!
When I was a new parent, I had never heard of a sleep consultant. I had heard of sleep training, and I think like most people associated it with the cry-it-out method which was not something I was interested in doing. If I had known that there were sleep consultants available who could help me create better sleep habits and that I wouldn’t have to use the cry-it-out method, I think I would have been a much better rested parent in those early years! There’s no need to do it alone and use trial and error when you are just so tired it is hard to think. So, if you are struggling with sleep in your house, I am here to help! You can read more about what it is like to work with a sleep consultant here and you can also see all of our available services here.
Were any of these things about baby sleep surprising to learn, or were they things you learned as a new parent? If you know any expecting parents or parents of newborns, please share this post with them! Or, if you could use help with sleep in your house just click the button below so we can connect with a free discovery call.
