Hi, this is Jessica Sawicki with Luli Sleep Consulting. And today on the Sleepy Q’s podcast, I’m going to be talking to you about things that can affect your child’s sleep. So before I go into those eight things, I want to ask you guys my listeners today to go ahead and submit reviews on the Sleepy Q’s podcast. Also, don’t forget to send in your questions. We love to hear from you, and we’ll love to answer any of your sleepy questions.
So let’s talk about those things that affect sleep. We all want our children sleeping through the night, but we have to understand that they’re humans, right? They’re not robots. There will be a couple of nights here and there that your child will not sleep through the night, especially those first couple of years. They’re babies, they’re infants, they’re toddlers. They’re going through a lot of changes that can affect their sleep.
Developmental readiness
So let’s talk about the first one, age. We have to understand that there’s a certain age that our child will start sleeping through the night and before that we cannot expect them to do so. So those first three to four months, we should not expect our newborns to be sleeping 11 to 12 hours at night. They physiologically, just can’t sleep through the night. Their bodies can’t really do it for them. Once your child hits five, six, seven months old, they can sleep through the night. They have decreased their light sleep and increased the capability of doing deep sleep. They’re secreting and producing melatonin, which is that calming soothing hormone. So if they are taught correctly, they are able to sleep through the night 11 to 12 hours starting at the age of five months and above.
Medical issues
Now let’s talk about the next thing that can affect sleep, medical issues or illness. So those are two different things. A medical issue would be reflux, apnea, allergies, a consistent issue with your child’s health that you will need to seek special attention. I always tell my clients make sure that you have crossed off any doubt in your mind of any medical issues that your child has, before you start working on their sleep. Illness on the other hand is more like a flu, the virus, a cough or a cold. Those are just short term, when your child is not healthy, and of course will wake up at night. So in both these cases there is a medical reason why they are not sleeping through the night. Either they have a medical issue or they’re just temporarily sick.
Engrained habits
Next is, habits. So this is a very big topic around sleep training. Once your child hits six months and older, all the things that we were doing to or for them to help them fall asleep, now become a habit. They’re able to learn how to put themselves to sleep. But if we continue that habit, they depend on it. So, if they depend on it to fall asleep at the onset of sleep, they’re going to need it in the middle of the night as well. Why? Because when they fell asleep, they were either being held or rocked or fed to sleep. The next time they wake up, when they’re going through that partial arousal or partial awakening in between the sleep cycles, they won’t be able to connect them. They’ll wake up and not know how to go back to sleep because they don’t have that rocking, holding, feeding that’s helping them to fall back asleep. Once your child is six months or older, she will learn that this is the only way she can fall asleep and then it becomes a habit. She will need it throughout the night. And this is where sleep training comes in. This is when we want to remove those habits and have our child put themselves to sleep, so that they can put themselves back to sleep.
Milestones
Next are milestones. Your child will hit developmental milestones that first year to year and a half, even the first two years. There’s a lot of milestones! Rolling over, sitting up, going from sitting to laying down, getting on their knees, standing, walking, talking, you name it. It takes a good year to two years for your child to hit all those milestones. And unfortunately, every time they hit it, their sleep might regress. Why? Two reasons. First, when your child is going through a developmental leap or a milestone , they tend to do more of the light sleep. And the other is they get stuck. So if your child learns how to roll over on his belly, but doesn’t know how to roll back onto their back, they’re stuck, awake in the middle of the night, and they need help. Same thing- they learn how to stand around nine or 10 months. They pull themselves up in the crib and now they don’t know how to sit back down and lay back down. You’d have to imagine that that can cause more wake-ups.
Separation anxiety peaks
The next thing that can affect sleep are separation anxiety peaks. Separation anxiety peaks means your child is going through a point in her life where she’s trying to understand object permanence. She is trying to understand that even though she doesn’t see mommy or daddy, they still exist. So that point of separation where you drop off your child at daycare, or you hand her over to the nanny, or you even put her down for one second to go get a quick drink of water. You’re leaving, and so she no longer sees your face. She now starts getting anxious and doesn’t want to separate. Because she doesn’t realize you are coming back or that you still exist, even though she doesn’t see you. So the way this affects sleep is you’ll put her down for bedtime and she’ll start crying. And in the middle of the night, she’ll be looking for you. She’s going through a separation anxiety peak. This is absolutely normal. They happen between six to nine months, 12 months, 18 months. And at two years old.
Teething
So another reason why your child would be up in the middle of the night is if she’s teething. Teething does not happen every single night those first two years. A lot of parents see a little bit of drool , or the child hand in the mouth and they automatically think; ‘Oh, that child is teething.’ And they start using it as an excuse every night, she’s teething, she’s teething. She’s not always teething let me tell you. If your child is perfectly fine during the day, eating well behaving well, her gums are okay, then she’s not just teething at night. Now, if she’s actively teething in pain during the day, you will see her gum swollen. You’ll see your gum try to open. You’ll see her cranky, clingy, not eating well, not herself. Then, of course at night she’ll have wake-ups. She’ll be uncomfortable and in pain. You can always give some pain relief medicine to relieve that pain. The teething lasts a couple of days, and then she should go back to sleeping through the night.
Schedule/awake window
The last two reasons why your child would be up at night are related. One is the schedule and the awake time. And the other one is going down to drowsy at bedtime. So let’s talk about the schedule and awake times. Our children have a certain amount of time that they can be awake before they enter their sleep window. These awake windows increase as the child gets older. So for a one month old, that awake window is about an hour. But for a six month old, you’re looking at two, two and a half hours. So you really want to know your child’s correct awake window per age so that you don’t exceed it. Because when we exceed the awake window, that means that our child is now overtired. She’s accreting and producing cortisol as opposed to melatonin, which is a calming, soothing hormone. So when we exceed those awake windows, we have an overtired child. At that point, your child has been up for far beyond the suggested time. And instead of secreting melatonin and getting ready for sleep, she secreting cortisol, and staying up and wired and has a second wind. So make sure you know, your child’s awake windows because putting your child down over tired or on cortisol can definitely cause wake ups in the middle of the night.
Too drowsy at bedtime
And the last reason why your child would be awake is too drowsy. Again, this has to do with the awake windows. If you’ve exceeded the window and you get to the point at bedtime where your child is way too drowsy or way too sleepy, you’ve got the incorrect window. You’ve missed it. And now you’re putting your child down too drowsy. So when I mean too drowsy, I mean, on a scale from 1 to 10, 10 she’s asleep, she’s like a number 9 or 10. So that is way too drowsy. That means you have assisted your child to falling asleep and now she’s entering the crib completely asleep, or almost asleep. When we put our babies in their cribs to sleep, we want to put them down awake on a scale from 1 to 10, 10 being asleep, she needs to be a number 6. Alert, awake, and aware that she’s going down into her crib space. So when we talk about drowsy but awake, what we mean is if your child is drowsy, she needs to be awake enough to enter the crib. But if she’s awake, she doesn’t necessarily need to be drowsy. Because again, if we go far beyond the drowsy state that we want her to be, or we get into a too drowsy state, now your child is going down completely asleep. You’ve assisted her. And now she’s going to need that in the middle of the night as well.
So just to recap, there are eight reasons why your child would be up in the middle of the night. You always want to make sure that they don’t have a medical issue with it or not sick. Take a look at how old your child is, because again, under the age of five or six months, we should not expect them sleeping through the night, they should be waking up. Check her teeth and her gums, see if she’s teething. Look at her during the day. Is she trying to reach a new milestone? Is she trying to crawl? Or is she really going through that separation anxiety peak? And know your child’s schedule. Know, they’re awake windows and their sleep windows, because that is a huge piece to your child’s sleep.
Hope you enjoyed this podcast. And of course always send in your questions and comments. We’d love to hear from you. Thanks for listening in.
