Is Your Baby Overtired?

"I don't let my child's naps hinder
me from doing my grocery shopping!"

Sleep is under-emphasized in our society.  We burn the candle at both ends.  We work weekends.  Yet our kids are important to us, too, so we tote them around, taking them with us to Wal-mart at all times of the day and night and bringing them along to parties.  The general consensus is that you've got a "good sleeper" if your kid will crash anywhere.

The problem with this is the quality of sleep.  In a nutshell, sleep is a complicated state that occurs best when it's the right time.  Fluctuating hormones cause us all to enter sleep states and wake states throughout a 24 hour period (see the Napping Window).  It is possible to put a child to sleep during a wake state (although it will probably take a long time!) but because of the increased cortisol hormone, the sleep will not be as deep and the sleep period will probably be short.

All of that to say that, after 4 months of age, a routine helps to train a child's body when it's time to sleep. 

Just as important as the timing is the place.  Although she looks completely zonked, a soft blanket and a shopping cart are no substitute for her bed.  You're familiar with sleep cycles, right?  Fall asleep, get deeper into sleep, cycle up to a lighter sleep state, and then without waking, go back into a deeper sleep.  Many cycles per night.  The reason that still, quiet sleep is the most restorative is because the motion and the noise hinder getting into that deep sleep state.  Her mind is not able to rest.

I don't want to make anyone mad, but I do think that parents are sadly unaware of some facts about their child's sleep.  First of all, some things I've heard parents say.

•  My child just isn't the type to conform to a sleep routine.
•  My child doesn't need as much sleep as other children.
•  Our family is on the go.  It's best if our child just gets used to it now!

If you've found yourself thinking or saying something like this before, please consider some of these symptoms of over tiredness in babies and young children.

•  Waking grumpy vs. happy
•  Unable to play happily by themselves during their wake time

He crashed.  Kinda funny, but
really just kinda sad.

•  Unexplained fussing
•  Yawning or rubbing eyes a lot
•  Fidgety or spazzy
•  Easily startled
•  Irregular sleep patterns
•  Fights naps and/or bedtime
•  Random unexplained night wakings

•  Complains of headache or stomach ache
•  Seemingly not tired when you know they should be
•  Waking within minutes after being put down for a nap
•  Crashing randomly

Imagine what it feels like when you haven't gotten enough sleep.  Miserable, right?  What's work like the day after you haven't gotten enough sleep?  I'll skip to the chase because I think you get my drift.  A bad attitude and a hard-to-pin-down schedule today are the least of your concerns when your child is sleep deprived.  Weissbluth writes, "Small but constant deficits in sleep over time tend to have escalating and perhaps long-term effects on brain function."  Not to mention the affect sleep has on health.  Some long-term affects of a child who does not get healthy sleep can be decreased mental focus, insomnia, ADD and ADHD.  People take medicine and suffer from these ailments that might have never occurred had they been getting enough sleep.

Eliminating a child's sleep deficit is not easy, but anything you can do to help your child get more sleep (the right kind of sleep... still, quiet, consolidated, and regular) will benefit their health and development.  If you want to get started, you know the book I'll recommend.  I love to talk about this stuff (can you tell?) so please let me know if I can be of any support.

The Napping Window

This info is for a baby 4-8 months old.

If your baby isn't sleeping as well or as much as you think he or she should, then you're probably always searching for something else to try.  You're clinging to hope that maybe this is the key.  If you're like me, you optimistically go ahead and make yourself a to-do list for next week because you just know you're going to have all of this free time to kill while your baby sleeps.

In case you don't know, my Declan (7 months old) is was a serial cat napper.  He would take four to five 30-45 minute naps a day.  Not only was this frustrating because I'm supposed to be working from home, but I knew deep down that it wasn't healthy.  I know that consolidated sleep is best (did you know that?) and that 30 minutes is like 1 sleep cycle... no bueno. 

The past couple of days I learned some more.  Short naps can be an indicator of over tiredness.  How did I miss that one?  I guess I didn't think that falling short of the recommended 14 hours minimum of sleep for his age by just an hour (he was getting about 13 hours in a 24 hour period... on good days) would still have him being so overtired that it would affect him this way.  But I'm here to say that almost enough sleep is not good enough!  The deficit, no matter how tiny you may think it is, can still cause sleep problems (like short naps, or night wakings... check, check).

So now I have something for you to try!  (Get your to-do lists ready (c;)

If your routine is loose, like, your baby is napping at different times every day (outside of a 30 minute flex range), then you may feel like you don't have a good idea of when your baby naturally grows tired.  Or maybe you feel like you do.  Either way, consider this:  very common nap windows occur at 9am and 1pm.  If your baby sleeps past 7-7:30am-ish, you might want to consider waking him or her at 7 each day in order to maintain a routine.  I know, I know, it hurts if you are accustomed to sleeping in.  But if your little one is having sleep problems, think of it as part of the solution.  Feed, play with, change your baby, etc.  But at about 8:45am, start soothing your baby down for the first nap.  Your baby probably won't seem tired at this time, but understand that you are trying to catch them before they get too tired.  When a baby gets too far into the "tired zone," their bodies release hormones to keep them awake.  That's why they fight sleep if they're overtired. "It's not logical, it's biological."  Whenever Declan fights his naps, I know it's because I waited too long to put him down.  So, the goal is to get them to sleep as close to 9am as possible. 

Over a couple of days of trying this, you may find that your baby needs to take his/her naps earlier or (be careful with this one) later.  9am and 1pm are common nap windows, but it's up to you to tell if that needs some tailoring.  For Declan, 9am and 1pm happen to work great, although he has been fighting his 1pm nap for the past 2 days, I might try to put him down at 12:45 (start soothing at 12:35) today.

Focusing on these nap windows has Declan taking 1hr 15min (sometimes longer) naps at 9am and 1pm.  I also give him another nap at 4:30pm which is ideally an hour, but it is preferable that the baby has an early bedtime rather than a 3rd nap.  We have found, at least for now, that Dec won't go down for the night unless he goes to sleep at 8pm, not a minute earlier.  I suspect that he's too overtired to calm down by then, so my plan is to get him rested up through our new improved nap routine and then try an earlier bedtime in a week or two. 

As always with baby sleep, when you're trying something new give it 4 days.  After trying it consistently for 4 days, you'll know if it's working or not.  Don't be surprised (but you're welcome to be impressed) if better naps help nighttime sleep, too!