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.
Blog Posts 159 and 194 are parent’s reports describing how moving the bedtime earlier helped their child sleep better.
Here’s another mother’s report from the Netherlands. As described in Blog Post 101, Dutch mothers prioritize naps. Dutch babies have longer naps compared to American babies. But sometimes, Dutch mothers, like mothers everywhere, do put their babies to bed too late!
9/17
First off, thank you for your book – it’s been a game changer for us! Our daughter is 2 months and 4 days old, weighs 4.4 kilos and drinks exclusively breastmilk. We wake her up and give her, her first feed of the day at 7:30 and she’s sound asleep by 22:15/30 after her last 21:30 feed of the day.
Throughout the day we plan for 5 high quality naps and 6 feeds and we pay close attention to her wake windows making sure she’s in her dark bedroom drowsy by the time she shows signs of being sleepy.
We’ve noticed that as the day progresses her wake windows become longer, she doesn’t want to take her last nap and she’s incredibly sleepy for the last two feeds. She also wakes up 2-3 times per night and she doesn’t fall back asleep until we soothe her in her crib.
Should we make her bedtime earlier or is she still too young for such a long night without food? What time should be put her down for the night?
MW: Rust’, ‘Regelmaat’, and ‘Reinheid’ are important but ‘Rust’ (rest) and ‘Regelmaat’ (routine) for sleep will change dramatically as your daughter grows. My suggestion is to go with the flow in the morning because she is so young and not wake her up. Based on drowsy signs, look for nap opportunities during the day but don’t expect much of a pattern to develop until 3 or 4 to 6 months of age. However, night sleep circadian rhythms does start at about 6 weeks of age (6 weeks after her due date, not her birth date). Because she is older than 6 weeks, focus on an earlier bedtime. Night sleep will start around 6:00-9:00pm. Your current 10:15/30pm time is too late and her presleep arousal is causing her to have difficulty with consolidated night sleep. Because she is growing so well, be a little more flexible about feeding (feed her only when she seems really hungry) and a little more careful about drowsy signs.
Does this help? FYI: Blog Post 101 is about differences between Dutch and American infants. Does it ring true to you?
9/25
We would like to thank you for all your advice above. We have been ruthless (preferring check & console over extinction) with your methods and couple rough nights (each one got easier), our daughter sleeps well, wakes up happy, has way more energy and drinks better. Last night she slept a 9 hour stretch without calling for us.
Much like you mention, we were blind to her sleep deprivation on account of our own. We are now also reaping the benefits. Her longer, better quality sleep has also tremendously helped with my baby blues and with our relationship as parents.
We can’t thank you enough for helping us turn things around. We will keep up her self imposed wake up time, protecting her naps and her 5-6pm bedtime.
On blog post 101, Yes, absolutely. Short commute distances in the Netherlands also makes it possible to travel during wakefulness and provide motionless naps when baby gets drowsy. e.g., a 10 minute walk to the park with our daughter in the stroller and one-two hours of stationary time in the park until she wakes. There is definitely a culture of not always needing to stimulate and entertain ones child and indeed offering fresh air naps.
Narrative
When our daughter was a little over two months old (gestational age), I started noticing that she’d fall asleep at every feeding and be quite fussy throughout the day. I couldn’t understand why but I suspected lack of quality sleep may be the culprit. We followed Dr. Weissbluth’s advice on letting her decide when to wake up in the morning alongside making her “bedtime” 17:30, becoming aware of her drowsy signs and putting her down for a nap or down for the night before she became over tired.
We introduced an evening bedtime routine which has evolved into a fun new family tradition! Her dim lit bedtime routine involves a bedtime story by her favourite light and being given a kiss goodnight with her pacifier. The first night two nights were rough, she’d wake up many times and cry for us.
They were also tough times for us. It felt odd putting her to bed so early when we were used to her joining us as a cooked and we ate dinner together.
Throughout the night but also for naps, we decided to implement the ‘check and console’ method because we couldn’t bare to do (gradual) extinction. Something about hearing our little one cry for us and disregarding it was just too tough for us. Hats off to parents that manage to do extinction!
As the days went by, we became much more aware of her drowsy signs. Once she started displaying them, we’d soothe her to sleep. With enough time we were able to hear when she became drowsy without looking. Within a week, we started seeing signs of self-soothing on the baby monitor, she’d wake up, cry for a minute or so and swiftly doze off again well into the night. Nowadays, she wakes up, wiggles around, coo’s a little and then doses off again.
Throughout the night, she tends to wake up twice and display signs of hunger. I go in and breastfeed or my husband brings her a bottle, unlike throughout the day, she falls back to sleep right after being burped. Working in shifts has really helped us. My husband does the late night feeding so that I can get much needed rest. After less than a week, we noticed that she has started sleeping 6-9 hour stretches night after night.
This “sleep begets sleep” approach has done wonders for our family because its meant that we too could start sleeping much longer for the first time since her birth. Her increased sleep has truly helped diminish my baby blues.
In parallel, we’ve become a bit more careful about what we do with her during the day. She is no longer being brought from place to place as much. Sure, we still have our moments where she simply needs to experience light and motion when she’s trying to nap but my husband and I try to avoid it if we can. Small habits like, having one of us stay home with baby whilst the other goes out or going for walks during our daughter’s wake time has really helped. Today, we protect her naps and bedtime sleep whilst still remaining realistic about what works for us as a family. It’s made us cherish quality time with her when she is awake even more.
Hi Dr Weissbluth
I am hoping you might be able to venture an opinion or offer us some help.
Our son, now 2 years old, generally sleeps well. We followed your book closely and I think he has developed some good sleep habits. He now is usually in bed around 630pm and sleeps through until at least around 6am, and then will happily wait patiently until we get him up just before 7am for nursery. He has one nap in the day that tends to be between 1 and 2 hours.
However, in the last few weeks, he has started, at random times during the night, sitting up in his crib and then falling asleep sat upright. There is no typical time he does it – sometimes very soon after he goes down and sometimes not until just before we get him up. He will “sleep” upright and often ends up nodding his head (as if he were asleep on an airplane for example, like a nodding dog!). Sometimes he falls or bangs his head on the cot but doesn’t seem to hurt himself… The next day, if he sat up early in the night, he will clearly be tired but so far it hasn’t seemed to drastically affect him, though I am concerned he is slowly building up a sleep debt.
We have tried going back into the room to place him back down in a lying position and/or to re-soothe, but this doesn’t seem to help – he cries to start with and he will sit up again when we leave the room. Our GP thought it might be an ear infection but the antibiotics didn’t seem to change anything. The health visitor suggested a toddler pillow, which hasn’t made any difference. We also tried moving him to a travel cot thinking that the mattress might be softer and this seemed to help a little but he was still sitting up. Finally, an earlier bedtime seems to help when he’s clearly tired but doesn’t seem to remove the sitting up altogether.
We’re not really sure what to do now and we’re running out of places to ask. There don’t seem to be many people who have had similar problems although some forums online suggest that it’s a phase. We’re very concerned that this will start to cause bigger issues and tiredness but we’re a bit stuck in terms of what you do.
Do you have an opinion? Have you seen or heard of examples like this before? Could it be a phase or could there be something else at play? Any thoughts or suggestions are more than welcome. Thank you in advance
Paul
When is his birthday?
Before this sitting up sleep began, please describe his mood and behavior when alone with toys (no screens or parental involvement) between 5-6:30pm.
Exactly how many times per week does the sitting up sleep occur? Has this frequency changed over the past few weeks?
What is the duration of the sitting up sleep mode when left alone?
After such a night, when is the subsequent night’s bedtime?
When does the nap usually begin?
His birthday is September 17, so he’s 2 years and 1 month now.
Before the sitting up sleep period, I would have described his behaviour as cheerful – he would happily entertain himself with toys even up until bedtime routine starts which is normally at 530/545pm. In the week, that’s when he comes home from nursery and they report that he’s in good spirits. He doesn’t have any screens, but usually when he returns from nursery he has a snack and then is happy to come upstairs and start bedtime with minimal encouragement. We have been in a very consistent routine and we protect his sleep so there has been very little variation even when we recently moved house and he changed nursery (in May).
Just after his second birthday (so also before this period), we changed his routine slightly as he stopped his evening breastfeed. He now usually sits with me or mum and reads a book with some cows milk before switching to soothing (which tends to be singing for a short period) before he goes down. If anything, he’s taken well to this change and we have fewer protests about stopping the feed. Even then, those protests were usually minor. There were a couple of toddler meltdowns just as he turned two, I think due to him not getting his way for some reason, but these seem to be rarer right now.
I think he sits up and sleeps 4 or 5 times a week. It was every night initially and it has varied a lot over the past 3 weeks or so. Last night, he went down fine, slept until 9pm then sat up. The night before he sat up at 11pm. The night before that, he didn’t sit up and sleep, and was awake after 6am. Then before that it was between 3am and 4am I think. Before that I think he had a couple of nights with no sitting and sleeping, and then I struggle to recall exactly. However when this first started, he would sit up immediately on being put down, which he hasn’t done since the first 2 or 3 nights – he will fall asleep and then at a varying time sit up and continue sleeping.
Last night was unusual in that he did wake up and cry at around 3am. I took this opportunity to go in, change his nappy and soothe him again and lie him down which did work and he slept through until 720am this morning. Prior to that, if we had gone into the room while he was sitting and sleeping, this would have caused him to become very upset and even with long periods of soothing, he would quickly get up again. Therefore we had decided not to intervene as it seemed to be doing more harm than good, and we were hoping it might be a phase he would grow out of.
The duration will be as long as he is left for. That could be all night if he sits up early. He doesn’t lie down himself (we have practiced this in the daytime) and even if he falls over while sitting and sleeping, he will usually sit himself up again quietly and fall asleep sitting up again.
In terms of naps, again it depends on how he’s doing. If he’s at nursery, I don’t think they change the schedule so he will go down for a nap at 1230/1245pm. They haven’t reported any ill effects on those days. If he’s at home at weekends, then his nap is at 12-1230pm. We’ve sometimes given him an earlier nap after a bad night if he looks like he needs it. On Sunday, for example, he had an earlier nap at 1015am for 30 minutes and then a second nap slightly later than usual at about 130-315pm. We also decided not to let his naps go past 330pm (which they sometimes used to) as this seemed to correlate with more sitting up sleeping. Before the sitting up sleeping he would tend to nap for 2 hours when at home in his cot, and sometimes longer. He has sat up in his naps only once or twice in total, it’s much more common that he sleeps as normal during the nap.
After a night with lots of sitting up sleeping we will try to get him down for bedtime earlier if he seems tired, although again we noticed that his actual asleep time would not vary too much – i.e. he might be in bed by 6pm or 615pm but take longer to fall asleep so that his sleep time is similar as when he’s in bed at 630pm or 645pm. His general bedtime had been 6pm for a long time and we shifted it to 630pm at the start of the summer as it seemed to work better for his sleep pattern overall.
Generally we are having trouble connecting what we’re doing with naps or other interventions like the pillow with whether he sits up or not, other than it might get worse for a few days then he sleeps better for a few days. It honestly looks a bit like he’s sleepwalking in that he seems to sit up even with his eyes closed and most of the time even a bang of his head on the side of the cot won’t wake him.
Hopefully I’ve answered all your questions sufficiently. Let me know what you think or if there’s anything else that I can let you know. Thank you in advance, your book has been our bible to date but this seems to be quite unusual and I can’t find much advice other than one or two examples online and the suggestions as originally posted.
Thank you for the detailed response.
When did start going to the nursery and what is a common duration of his nap at nursery?
“On Sunday, for example, he had an earlier nap at 1015am for 30 minutes and then a second nap slightly later than usual at about 130-315pm. We also decided not to let his naps go past 330pm (which they sometimes used to)” weakly suggests that the bedtimes that you are using might be a little too late.
“His general bedtime had been 6pm for a long time and we shifted it to 630pm at the start of the summer as it seemed to work better for his sleep pattern overall” weakly suggest that cumulative sleepiness might be occurring (Blog Posts 84-86).
My gentle suggestion is to continue with what you are doing except move the bedtime 20minutes earlier for the next 4-5 days and monitor his latency to sleep onset. If he falls asleep earlier, then we will know, after the fact, that his current bedtime is a little too late. If so, maybe we’ll try another additional 20 minute earlier bedtime after 4-5 days. If he does not fall asleep earlier, then we will know that your current bedtimes are fine.
Please review Drowsy Signs (Bog Posts 83 and 115X)
If he falls asleep earlier, I honestly don’t know whether his sitting sleep behavior will change and maybe more than 4-5 days will be required to clarify this.
Hello again
Apologies for the delayed reply – I wanted to give it a bit of time and gather some more data.
It’s obviously been over a month since the above posts, and over 2 months since the sitting up sleeping began. We’ve unfortunately not seen a huge amount of change compared to when I messaged above. We did try bringing the bedtime forwards slightly and initially he fell asleep earlier although after a couple of days and since then, his asleep time went back to around the same time and has been quite stable since. Moreover, he genuinely has shown very few, if any, signs of lack of sleep, which is surprising, given the sitting up sleeping has not disappeared. If anything, he has been more cheerful and ‘on form’ over the past few weeks, apparently not impacted by the sitting up periods. Nursery reports a similar situation, even though he’s had a couple of periods of short illness over the past month or so. He usually naps at nursery for around 1hr30 to 2 hours, and he’s been going to nursery since he was around 11 months old so is in a good rhythm.
However, the sitting up sleeping hasn’t gone away and even from tracking his asleep, sitting up and ‘fully awake’ times closely, I struggle to discern any pattern. On some nights, he sleeps through until the morning (and then does tend to sit up when he wakes), and on other nights he sits up at around 9pm and sleeps sitting up until the morning…. and everything in between! I was starting to think that he sits up earlier in the night when he has had a longer nap, and vice versa, but a few occasions now seem to run counter to that theory. He also slept a bit longer before sitting up on the two or three times we’ve had to give him ibuprofen over the past month or two, which is obviously not something we can do every night! He doesn’t sit up during his naps at all, neither at home nor at nursery.
He has been in a travel cot as the sides are soft; in his normal cot with wooden sides, he does tend to cry out if he loses balance while asleep and then bangs his head on the sides. But I’m also thinking that this isn’t a long term solution and perhaps we should just move him back into the full size cot.
Do you have any further ideas or suggestions?
Please send a picture of your son sleeping sitting up in his travel cot and a picture of the full size cot to Deb Pedrick at The Family Sleep Institute (familysleep@gmail.com). She will forward the pictures to me and we will try to figure this out together.
Most importantly, I think is your observation that he is a well rested child. How old is he?
Hello – and Happy New Year. Apologies again for the delayed email. I have sent on some photos and videos to Deb Pedrick as requested. Thank you so much for the support.
Henry is 2 years and 3 months old. As you say, I think he seems very well rested still, although the sitting up sleeping has started to lessen, to the extent that we’ve moved him back into the full size cot. Unfortunately, Henry caught flu just before Christmas which caused some disruption. However as he has recovered, he seems to be sleeping lying down a lot more – not completely (yet) but hopefully progression in the right direction, which is good.
Hopefully Deb will send on the photos and videos to you soon. If you need any further information, please do let me know. Thanks again
In the recent past, when not ill or traveling, how many times per week did the sitting-sleeping occur?
Currently, how many times per week does the sitting -sleeping occur?
At its worst – back in October when this started – it was 5 or 6 times a week. It has decreased since then, but was still 3 or 4 times a week prior to his flu illness. We are currently on a run of around a week without any sitting up sleeping, although the first couple of days of that week, we were still giving him ibuprofen before bed. So it’s more like 3 or 4 days since he’s been back to normal and no sitting up sleeping so far (hope I’m not tempting fate!).
In October, or at its worst, did he have sweating at night or snoring or mouth breathing during the night or day?
Hmmm interesting question. He didn’t have sweating at night. I recall a couple of occasions when he’s fallen over from sitting and is asleep “slumped” where he has snored, but I don’t think it happens when he’s upright or asleep on his back normally. He’s often had a cold this winter which may have caused a bit of mouth breathing when he’s had a blocked or runny nose.