If you have not already done so, please read Blog Posts 1 through 5 that describe how sleep is important and beneficial. I will post specific information for parents and children based on my book, “Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child.” Please do not be put off by my book’s length. This is a reference book. Read only the topic of interest to you.
Professor Caroline Hoyniak objectively studied presleep arousal and showed that presleep arousal makes it harder for your infant to fall asleep at bedtime.
At bedtime, does your child seem to be:
Using objective measurements of sleep onset (actigraphy) and measurements of arousal (heart rate and levels of skin conductance), it was shown that at bedtime, children who appear:
A separate study showed that the hormone associated with stress responses, cortisol, is higher during a presleep arousal.
So keeping your baby up past his drowsy time triggers a response in his body that makes it more difficult to fall asleep and stay asleep.
DROWSY SIGNS
As your young child enters the drowsy period, your child begins to move away from an alert, engaging, calm, and relaxed state.
Early, as the drowsy period appears, your drowsy signs are:
· Appears less animated.
· Becomes quieter.
· Appears less interested in toys or people.
· Sucking strength is weaker or slower.
· Yawning.
These behaviors are most noticeable when your child is in a quiet and relaxed environment, for example, when being read to. These behaviors might be absent when you anticipate a sleep onset time from past experiences and soothe your baby to sleep at a clock time that is in synch with the brain’s sleep output. These behaviors might be present but not be noticed if you are distracted by looking at a digital screen or on a phone call. These behaviors might be “masked” if your child becomes hyperalert in a stimulating environment such as at busy mall or when placed in front of a television or screen-based media device.
Try to begin soothing to sleep early, before you notice changes in the eyes which occur later in the drowsy period:
· The eyes become less focused on the surroundings.
· The eyes appear glazed over, staring, not as sparkling.
· Your child seems to look “through you”, not at you.
· Drooping eyelids.
· Long or slow blinks.
FATIGUE SIGNS
Fatigue signs occur when your child is over-tired or short on sleep. For example, the bedtime is too late. Or the duration of the soothing to sleep was too long and the prolonged soothing efforts interfered with the rising sleep wave and prevented an easy transition to sleep. Fatigue signs occur as your child is becoming overtired, moving toward an irritable or tense state:
· Rubbing the eyes.
· Less able to entertain himself.
· Less cooperative.
· Drooping of the head.
· Slightly “wired”.
· Pulling the ears.
· Mild fussiness, irritability, moodiness, whining, crying, cranky, clingy, peevish.
· Easily upset, frustrated, short-fused, rough around the edges.
Currently struggling with my 2 year old and his naps. He usually is a good napper. Sleeps 12 hours and naps for an hour but recently he’s been napping sitting up and sleeping sitting up in his crib. Throughout the night we notice him connecting cycles by sitting and laying down but it seems during his nap if he sits up and falls asleep he can’t connect his nap cycle and only does 30 minutes. We have been putting him down earlier to prevent overtiredness
Please describe his bedtime, his falling asleep time, his mood and behavior when alone (no screens or parental interaction) during the hour before the bedtime, and the nap time.
Hello. I have 8-month-old identical twin girls (born at 37 weeks) that have been sleeping through the night since they were 3 months old and are sleep trained. However, one of them is now waking up 45-60 minutes after being put down for the night and needing to be soothed back to sleep (they haven’t needed this since the first few months of their life and we were sleep training). We will wait for 15 minutes but she will scream and start choking and be all congested and angry and wake her sister up. We don’t get her out of the crib, just rub her belly and place a pacifier which will calm her after 10-15 minutes. The other twin is fighting the second nap of the day. Recently we’ve transitioned to 2 naps per day since the 3rd nap was getting pushed later and later and then interfering with their 5:30pm bedtime (they were also fighting it). Here is a typical schedule for us:
6:30-7am: wake up
9am: Nap #1 (90-120 minutes long, they are put down 10-15 min beforehand)
1-1:30pm: Nap #2 (45-90 minutes long depending on if they fight it which can go for 15-20 min)
5:30pm: Bedtime (in crib, lights out, leave the room)
We’ve tried pushing that first nap later by 15 minutes but they would shorten their nap to barely an hour, same with the second nap. Since dropping the third nap they are definitely fussy (needing to be held constantly while in motion, yawning, rubbing eyes) before that second nap and between 4-5:30, which is when we’ll feed them a solid food meal and take them on a stroller ride to keep them happy until bedtime. During their bath they will seem happy but I notice the pre-arousal fatigue signs setting in and they’ll be wired while we’re doing their bedtime bottle. It just seems like they’re always tired and we’re looking at the clocking thinking “it’s way too early for you to be tired already.”
What was their gestational age at birth?
Temporarily, for 4-5 days and nights only, shorten the interval of wakefulness before each nap by 15-20 minutes and temporarily bathe, feed, and soothe them with a lights out at 5:00pm.
Keep a record of mood, behavior, fussiness, and sleep.
How does this sound?