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.
When the time of falling asleep is too late, a baby becomes overtired. To maintain wakefulness when overtired, the brain produces stimulating chemicals to enhance arousal. But this higher state of arousal makes it harder for baby to subsequently fall asleep and stay asleep at night. This heightened state of arousal in the evening before falling asleep is called ‘pre-sleep arousal’. Pre-sleep arousal causes some fatigue signs, the ‘witching hour’, and a ‘second wind’. In this state of hyperarousal, during the soothing bedtime routine, your baby might fight sleep to maintain wakefulness for the pleasure of parents’ soothing.
IIn 1922, in Sundell, C. E.. Sleeplessness in infants. Practitioner, 109, 89–-92. “ A sleepy child who is kept awake exhausts his nervous energy very quickly in peevish restlessness, and when preparations are at last made for his sleep he may be too weary to settle down.
A 1985 paper published ‘The Development of the Pre-sleep Arousal Scale’ which was designed for adults.
