Sleep is serious business. If you have not already done so, please read Blog Posts 1 through 5 that describe how sleep is important and beneficial, from the point of view of the United States of America Department of the Army. A major point, emphasized by the Army, is that more sleep produces more benefits for Soldiers:
“Sleep duration is paramount because the health and function of the brain is primarily a direct function of the amount of sleep obtained-the more sleep obtained the better.”
“Cognitive ability and readiness vary as a direct function of the amount of sleep obtained. The more sleep Soldiers [Children] get, the greater their mental acuity, with faster response times, fewer errors, and fewer lapses in attention. Also improved are judgement, problem-solving, situational awareness, mood, resilience, and general well- being.”
“The relationship between sleep duration and cognitive readiness (and thus military effectiveness) is best thought of as a continuum, with more sleep always producing improved performance.”
“Even for those who regularly obtain the generally recommended number of hours of sleep per night, more sleep can result in even better alertness and mental acuity…Insufficient sleep degrades the brain’s function. The more sleep the brain gets, the better it functions…Insufficient sleep negatively effects not only cognitive performance, but emotional and social functioning…In short, the brain has a physiological need for sleep, and sleep promotes the ability to think and maintain mental toughness. And the more sleep, the better. Although obtaining ample and regular sleep generally results in the ability to sustain normal levels of alertness and performance during the daytime, obtaining even more sleep results in greater brain readiness-enhanced mental sharpness and resilience in the field.”
Also, more sleep produces more benefits for children. Even small amounts of extra sleep help. At every age!
When children, like Soldiers, get more sleep, even if it is only a few minutes each night, there are many benefits. It may take some time to see the benefits, but sometimes, the extra sleep produces benefits immediately, even overnight.
We tend to not appreciate the power of small changes. What we do day by day often has a rhythm, and there is a natural temptation to assume that small changes in our routines are probably not very important. It’s human nature for adults to vary our patterns of behavior by several minutes and correctly think, “What’s the big deal?” In our young children, however, this may be a fallacy, because biologic processes often operate as if they were a finely tuned machine with many interacting parts. Like the famous “butterfly effect” in meteorology, in which the movement of a butterfly’s wings in Asia produces a hurricane in the Midwest, an extremely tiny change may produce dramatic damage.
Here is another helpful analogy. Our healthy body temperature is about 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. When our temperature is greater than 104 degrees, it usually means that there is a serious or perhaps life–threatening illness. However, when our temperature is only slightly elevated, say 99.6 degrees—-an increase of just over 1 percent—-we still might have a life–threatening disease! A low fever does not necessarily mean a mild medical problem. The thermometer is a useful tool that measures body temperature, but it does not tell the whole story.
Unfortunately, we do not have a “sleepometer” to measure sleepiness. Nevertheless, consider that the work of healthy sleep is to keep the nerve cells in the brain functioning optimally. What happens if your child needs ten hours of sleep but you keep him up just an extra twenty minutes later every night? Twenty minutes seems like a small amount, but this represents a 3.3 percent loss of sleep every night.
A little less sleep each night might be harmful causing brain damage. But the brain is resilient and adding a little more sleep each night will have a cumulative effect and restore brain health.
There are four types of studies proving that just small amounts of extra sleep help children. All these papers were published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
Delaying school start times caused 15-year-olds to sleep in later and five months later, they demonstrated improved mental health, better prosocial behavior, peer relationships, and attention level but the average increase in night sleep was only 2.4 minutes.
Lower levels of sleepiness and improvement in alertness and well-being among 15-year-olds was observed in another study of delaying school start times. The increase in night sleep time after nine months was just 10 minutes. Similar results were observed in three other studies involving delaying school start times with an additional 17 minutes, 29 minutes, and 34 minutes more sleep producing less sleepiness, less tardiness, and increase in grades.
In an additional study, a 15-year-old was “classified as having low mood if he answered “yes” to the following question: During the past 12 months, did you ever feel so sad or hopeless almost every day for two weeks or more in a row that you stopped doing some usual activities?” Delaying the school start time caused a significant reduction of almost 5 per cent of the prevalence of low mood with a 30-minute increase in sleep duration. Also, in this study, among 13-year-olds, starting school earlier caused a decrease of sleep duration of 15 minutes and a 2 per cent increase in low mood prevalence. So, a few minutes less sleep every night also makes a big difference!
Experimentally extending sleep by adding one hour in bed for five nights caused adolescents to sleep 13 minutes more at night with a reduction of insomnia and depressive symptoms.
Separately, adding one hour in bed for five nights in children 7 to 11 years-old provided an additional 27 minutes of sleep with improvements in emotional lability and restless-impulsive behavior.
Parent-set bedtimes among 14-year-olds caused an earlier bedtime which was associated with an extra 19 minutes of night sleep which caused improved daytime functioning.
Another study of 7 to 11 years-old showed that 18 minutes of extra sleep caused improvement in grades for mathematics and languages.
When 6- and 8-year-olds sleep 30 minutes less than their peers, they are more likely to have symptoms of psychiatric disorders two years later.
A FEW MINUTES OF SLEEP EACH NIGHT ADDS UP TO MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE
Dr. Weissbluth,
I purchased your book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child and I cannot find an answer I’m looking for. When baby is put down for a nap, how long do I let them sleep for? Until they wake? My 3 month old naps for long periods of time and I am unsure if I need to wake him. I’m hoping you can answer this for me. Thank you for your time and help.
In general, never wake a sleeping baby.
Rarely, to get an early bedtime or correct a messed up sleep schedule, usually after 6 months of age, a parent might wake a baby from a nap.
Hi Dr. Weissbluth,
I am a big admirer and adamant follower of your method! We recommend your book to all our friends and acquaintances who are having babies, and even those with toddlers who still have night awakenings or bedshare with their parents.
Anyway, I wanted to get some advice on baby #2- we have decided to start sleep training a bit earlier with this one due to the fact that there is now a toddler to contend with, and due to our second son’s colicky start. He was induced at 37 weeks due to a diagnosis of maternal cholestasis.
Our son took contact naps and motion naps in the swing the majority of his life (they usually lasted 2-3 hours but were inconsistent), but he was able to sleep in his bassinet from 9pm-2:30am, be fed, then return to sleep until 5am and eat again.
We have established a decent nap at 9ish am, that lasts up to 2.5 hours at times, and another nap around 12:30 that lasts 1-3 hours as well. I do let him cry for about 10 minutes with each of the naps, check in with him, reposition and replace pacifier, then leave and see if he will sleep. He usually is asleep in less than 20 minutes total. When he isn’t, I usually decide to rescue the nap by holding him so as to not negatively impact the night time.
However, what I am finding is that my baby (10 weeks, 7 weeks adjusted for sleep) is yawning almost all day, and it starts once he wakes up and consistently continues on. Also, he likes to rub against a blanket and have a paci in while he sleeps. Do I need to take those things away? Should I also unswaddle him? If I choose to leave those comfort things behind, will I need to re-sleep train him once those items will need to be faded out?
My final question is this- Can too much daytime sleep at this age interfere with adequate feeding? I found that on days when my little guy slept 2/3 hour long naps, and went to bed early (6:50PM), he awoke every 3 hours to nurse hungrily and consume full feedings each time, then immediately fall back asleep.
Today, he awoke at 3:20 pm from his second nap and is showing sleepy cues, I put him down drowsy but awake and he cried and never fell back asleep for this “No cry nap”. Do I aim for a 5:30 bedtime on days like this despite him having sleepy cues starting at 4:15/4:30? I am afraid of the overtired second wind coming from being awake for over 2 hours at bedtime if I don’t interject a nap in between.
Thank you!
At 6 weeks of age, adjusted, a baby’s brain wants an earlier bedtime and there is also around this time peak wakefulness, fussiness, and crying and sometimes, naps deteriorate. Because you have two children and number two had colic, my suggestion is to consider the following, if, and only if you feel comfortable with this and can commit to 3-5 nights:
1. No new nap starts at or after 3pm. If he’s asleep at 3pm, don’t wake him.
2. Strict 5:30pm falling asleep time ( you have bathed him, fed him, soothed him, and you are leaving the room with lights out at 5:30pm).
3. Extinction at night with the expectation that there will be one feeding sometime after 9:30pm and another feeding at least 4 hours after the first feeding. A very early morning feeding may also occur. Are you breast feeding? if so, is your milk supply ample?
4. Do whatever works to maximize day sleep and minimize daytime crying. No strict nap schedule for now.
5. Keep a detailed record of day sleep, night sleep, etc.
Let me know your thoughts.
Hi There,
Coming back significantly later, we wanted to let him get past the rest of his “colic” and fussiness as he was still experiencing a lot of gut issues at this time. At 15 weeks old, we saw the “colic” essentially disappear, and within a few days decided that it was time to implement your method. At this point, Charlie was sleeping 2 sometimes 3 hours during his naps, and waking 3x a night to eat and going back down well by himself following these feedings. He however insisted on rocking all the way to sleep with numerous fruitless attempts to be placed down into his crib, waking back up, and demanding more rocking… this turned into a full time job that I wasn’t interested in keeping long. Despite that, I kept up, and he was sleeping well. Usually about 10.5 hours a night and between 3-5 hours of napping a day, but his time of falling asleep was 9 PM most nights which definitely wasn’t something we were thrilled about.
At 15 weeks we started implementing the “sleep training” with early bedtime. Earliest we could muster was 6 PM due to work schedules.
Day 1, I put him down after his soothing at 6PM and left the room. He cried for 59 minutes exactly then fell asleep, slept until 11PM and woke for a feed, another at 2:30 and another at 4:30. He cried for an hour after I put him down from 4:30 feed, but I let him go on with it. That morning, he woke up at 7AM and I put him down for a nap 8:30, he slept from 8:40-9:30. We continued the short naps that day and tried again for an early bedtime.
Day 2 -6 PM; This time he went down to sleep, and cried for 25 minutes, but it was mostly whining and complaining, no expansive episodes of wailing. He woke up at the same time intervals that night, but didn’t have any profuse crying issues after night feedings. He woke up at 650 AM, and was put to bed at 840 am for a nap, fell asleep independently until 0850 and woke up at 1035 am. His second nap was noon until 2:42 pm. He was unable to stay awake past 430PM no matter how hard we tried, and he fell asleep and woke up at 514PM.
Day 3- We had to push back bedtime to 7PM because he wasn’t tired at 6PM This seemed to be ok for him. He woke up at 1AM for a feeding, then again 5AM for a feeding, and woke up at 650 AM. He was put down for a nap at 0838, my husband was home that day and stated that he seemed very tired earlier than the other days. He woke up at 0915, but seemed grumpy to my husband who helped him back to sleep and put him back down at 0944. He then slept all the way until 130 at which point, my husband woke him to feed him. He was tired and returned to sleep at 2:40pm until 3:20PM. He had a short nap from 450PM until 520PM.
Day 4- bedtime had to be 7PM to accommodate the 520 ending of a nap, and to try to keep things relatively early. Charlie woke up at 730PM and didn’t fall back asleep in his crib until 8PM. He woke for a feed at midnight, and again at 230am, and both times I believe my husband helped him back to sleep. He woke up for the morning at 0636AM, and was put to bed around 0840AM, fell asleep at 0851. He woke up at 0933 and didn’t extend his nap in the next 30 minutes but quietly lay in the crib. He went back to sleep at 11:23 AM and woke up at 1:11PM. Per my sitter, he was tired at 240 so she put him down and he fell asleep at 251PM and slept until 320, and did not extend his nap but laid quietly in the crib until 350PM. Since this time was closer to 4PM, and he seemed content, I kept him awake using bathing and going outside this afternoon to attempt to re-try the early 6PM bedtime.
Day 5- bedtime 6 PM, asleep by 0605. Wide awake at 640PM. He laid in his crib wide awake from then until 8PM without sleepy signs. I picked him up and played with him, fed him, changed him, and put him back down at 8:54 PM. I am writing this now, and have no clue how the rest of the night will play out.
I am curious about why he seems to wake up shortly after being put down to sleep, usually within 20-30 minutes of bedtime for two days now. His naps seem pretty irregular right now and having a strict set bedtime seems very difficult. Day 2 seems like him most “ideal” sleep day so far.
The interesting thing is, since his stomach issues have passed, he is now extremely happy and even tempered at all times. After waking early from naps, he is usually happy in his crib to look around without asking to be picked up, and we would never know he’s awake if not for the video monitor.
In hindsight, I think that the bright lights in our bathroom during bath time might be a factor… I think they might be stimulating him before bedtime instead of allowing his melatonin levels to peak. I will be eliminating that factor this weekend.
Is it possible that at now 16 weeks old, 13 weeks adjusted, he is ready to be awake for more than 2 hours at a time? Or are we keeping his awake times too broad by not putting him to bed earlier between naps? I think for being a colicky boy, he has managed to be well rested, and he responded to extinction in record timing within less than 3 days which was a huge shock to me. Based off his temperament… I am having difficulty reading his drowsy cues as he’s constantly smiling and cooing.
I’d like to find a more consistent sleep schedule for him that would help achieve some predictability in my life, and I would also like to help to wean back some of those night feeds more as well. The “false start” bedtimes seem a hurdle to that at this time. What do you suggest? Is this simply developmental?
Are you breast milk or formula feeding?
Here are some observations that might, or might not be important, for you to comment on:
“Day 3- We had to push back bedtime to 7PM because he wasn’t tired at 6PM…my husband was home that day and stated that he seemed very tired earlier than the other days. He woke up at 0915, but seemed grumpy to my husband who helped him back to sleep and put him back down.” Because the bedtime was too late, his behavior was off the following morning.
“Day 4- He woke for a feed at midnight, and again at 230am, and both times I believe my husband helped him back to sleep. Extinction means you do not “help him back to sleep.” Well-fed infants might need to be fed 4 hours after a feeding, not sooner.
Please review the section on ‘Extinction’ and tell me if you are comfortable with doing this.
Thank you for that response, your points definitely warrant more attention from us.
I am bottle feeding him, he gets formula. He is a small portion eater as I believe he became accustomed to “snacking” all day while he was very young and suffering from colic. He would spit up and scream if he had more than 1-2 oz per feed at that time, and we’ve had a hard time getting his intake up since then. He currently eats about 4.5oz at each feed, about 3-4 hours apart. He weighs 14.5lbs, so he is gaining weight well.
I am ok with complete extinction, I just need to reinforce the concept with my husband who is a much bigger softie than me. I did use it the first couple nights when I was by myself, but by night 3 or 4 when my husband was home, things became much less predictable due to variable approaches in the night, and attitudes about a nap after 3PM, as I can see now based off my response.
I will try again with an early bedtime tonight, and see if we can get back on track… we had a rocky night.
He had gone down at 6PM, woke up at 630PM wide awake and looking around- then stayed awake until almost 9PM and ate at 1230am, and again at 5:30am. I woke him up at 7:10AM to try to keep the 9 AM nap. However, he appeared drowsy to me earlier, so I put him down to sleep by 0820AM to prevent a second wind since the night sleep was so bad. He is sleeping 2 hours and 25 minutes into this nap now, at 1045AM. I do not plan on waking him from any naps today, and I will not allow a new nap to start after 3PM to preserve the early bedtime.
I reviewed your blog posts on extinction, sleep training success in 3-4 days, and drowsy/fatigue signs so that it is all fresh in my mind.
I think the biggest hurdle to overcome with this sleep training is our inconsistency in approach and deviation from the rules as we are both extremely tired ourselves, I find coffee wakes up my body, but my mind is about 10 beats behind. I am physically dropping items, and cannot focus. My husband is also struggling as he works in the ER and has variable hours, but usually doesn’t get to sleep until 3AM and is up at 8AM to help me with the kids. I feel we will need to re-sleep train ourselves once this is all said and done.
One thought is to make your husband read the chapter on sleep solutions so that you can pick a sleep solution that you both feel confident with to be consistent. Inconsistency will doom any sleep solution. Maybe take a break now and do whatever you can to get more sleep for both of you without regard to solving your baby’s sleep issues. Then, when your batteries are recharged, consistently execute a sleep solution. Here, often the second attempt is successful because you are better rested, you have a team approach, and maybe you are more highly motivated to stick with it. Alternatively, you execute the sleep plan of your choice with the understanding that your husband does not interfere, no excuses. I wish you the best; please give me a follow-up.
After further review, are going to recommit to extinction! I will keep you abreast of our progress. I am not going to shy away from the very early bedtimes, and even go earlier than 6PM if he cannot stretch further.
My quick troubleshooting questions that I believe threw me off this last time-
1. When baby wakes up 20-45 minutes after falling asleep independently at bedtime, and is awake for 1+ hour in their crib without crying, do I go in to keep them awake until they are ready to go back to sleep? Or does this create issues. I would not go in if the baby were crying.
2. When the baby wakes less than 4 hours from the most recent middle of the night feed, do I allow to cry until 4 hours has passed and then feed, or until 4 hours has passed, baby is no longer crying, and then feed to avoid rewarding crying with food and confusing extinction process?
These were the only things I was unable to find answers for within the blog or book.
Thank you!
Because of his age and because you are bottle feeding, I think that feeding him once in the middle of the night and maybe again early in the morning would be sufficient. Most children his age can easily go 4 hours or more between feedings.
Pages 203 and 558 in my book discuss in detail feeding at night.
Let me know if you have further questions.
Hi Dr Weissbluth,
My 14 months old daughter has been waking up at 5:30am since a long time and i want to get her to sleep later in the mornings. We put her to bed between 6:45 and 7pm. She was doing two naps a day. One at 9am for one hour to one hour and a half. The other at 1pm for one hour to one hour and a half. A few days ago she started not doing her after naps anymore so I moved her to one nap for the first time yesterday. She slept for 12:15pm until 1:30pm. I would be grateful for some advice.
Have you read the age-appropriate Chapter in my book?
Please describe her behavior and mood when alone with toys (no screens or parental interaction) between 5-7pm.
Going from 2 to 1 nap might temporarily cause her to need an earlier bedtime.
Sometimes an earlier bedtime will allow a child to sleep in later in the morning.
My first suggestion is to try an earlier bedtime (maybe 20-30 minutes earlier) trial for 3-5 nights to see if she does fall asleep earlier and in fact what happens to the wake-up time.
If this fails to produce a later wake-up time, than consider a later bedtime.
Often later bedtimes will eventually cause a child who is not napping to wake up later.
Later bedtimes in a child who takes one nap, sometimes will cause a later wake up time but the later bedtime might backfire and cause pre-sleep arousal and difficulty falling asleep and/or staying asleep and/or an even earlier wake up time.
Later bedtimes in a child who takes two naps usually messes up sleep and doesn’t cause later wake-up times.
Does this help?
Yes I have. She is fine playing on her own between 5 and 7 or plays with her sister who is 2 and a 1/2. She is normally calm during that time
Very helpful, thank you Dr. I will try an earlier bedtime for a few nights. Fingers crossed 🤞
Hi Dr Weissbluth. I am not sure if you check these comments but on the off chance, I have a couple of questions about our 4.5 month old (who is not technically sleep trained but goes to sleep independently most of the time).
1. Is there a limit on how much sleep she should have in 24h? A lot of advice I get (from eg Reddit) is that she needs around 10h awake per 24h.
2. I know you advocate an early bedtime often. However if she wakes from her second nap around 2pm, she obviously can’t get to even 530pm without a nap. So then her third nap might be eg at 430-5pm. Then I just adjust bedtime to be around 7-8pm when she starts showing drowsy signs? Or would you advocate a short 10m Power Nap somewhere in there and stick with a consistent 7pm bedtime?
Thank you in advance!
To determine how detailed my reply will be, have you read the age-appropriate and topic-appropriate sections in my book?
1. No. Read Blog Posts 1-5.
2. Carefully read Blog Posts 83 and 115X for onset of sleep times.
Does this help?
Thank you for your swift reply! Yes, I have read those (and apologies if I have missed the answer within those pages).
Thank you Dr! On 2), I have re-read / watched and I think I know what I am looking for drowsy wise; and I *think* what you are saying (also looking at Chap 6 in the book) is that this third nap can still happen and I don’t need to cap it at 10 mins, but a) it will probably be a short nap anyway and then b) bedtime then fluctuates off the back of another full “wake window” after it, and eventually the third nap will disappear and bedtime can come earlier. Let me know if I have misunderstood though! Thank you again.
You are correct. The 3rd nap will most likely disappear between now and 6 months of age.
Published “Wake windows” are bogus; bedtime is based on drowsy signs.
Do you agree?
Thank you! Yes, I think I do – and your book has been an eye opener. I bought it to try and fix my daughter’s constant false starts (she’s up 3-4 times between 7-9pm every night despite falling asleep at bedtime ok). So I will try to implement the strategies and hopefully those false starts will fade away. Thank you so much for helping!
To encourage other parent, please consider writing, and posting here, a narrative report of your sleep adventure that I would use as a Blog Post or perhaps an Amazon book review.
I wish you sweet dreams for your child.
Of course – I will wait until she (hopefully!) fixes those false starts and then report back. Thank you again.
Please help!! It is so incredibly difficult to get my 9 week old to nap during the day. I try my best to maximize his daytime sleep in order to help with his night sleep, but I am finding it to be tedious, exhausting, and not sustainable. The only way I can get him to nap during the day is if I put him in a carrier and walk with him around the house. As soon as I sit down he will wake up. As you can imagine, walking for hours on end with him in the carrier is exhausting and I don’t think I can keep doing it much longer. The only other way he will nap is if we are driving but, again, he will wake up as soon as the car stops, even if it’s at a red light for too long. I am at a loss of what to do. From your book and the blogs I have read, I’m thinking maybe it’s related to his night time sleep? We usually try and put him down for bed at 6:30pm, but we have not yet implemented extinction, so this process usually involves walking around with him until he falls asleep. This can take anywhere from 30min to an hour, so I’d say he’s not actually falling asleep until 7:30 or later most nights. He usually gives a long stretch, and will wake up around 2:30am to feed. I feed him and then he usually does not fall back asleep, and we again have to walk him around for 30min to an hour until he falls asleep. After that he will usually start to wake every 2-3 hours and will not go back down in his bassinet. I have resorted to letting him sleep on my chest most mornings from around 5am until 7-8am.
I am at a loss of what to do. Is it too early to start extinction at night? Is it okay to do extinction while he is still being swaddled (he likes to use his hand to self sooothe)?
For the next 3-4 days, do whatever you can to maximize day sleep. Use brief intervals of wakefulness. No new nap starts after 3:00pm. If he is asleep at 3:00pm from an ealrier onset nap, do not wake him.
For the next 3-4 nights, strictly enforce a 5:30pm expected falling asleep time (he is bathed, dressed for sleep, fed, soothed, and you are walking out of the room at 5:30pm)
Over night, choose a sleep solution that comports with your values and lifestyle, but overnight, no contact sleep nor family bed.
Keep a written record and let me know how it goes.
What is the role of the father?
How does this sound?
I am worried about the 5:30pm bedtime, as I am not sure he will go down that early using our current method (walking until he falls asleep). Would you suggest implementing extinction? Do you think he is too young?
My husband also doesn’t get home until around 5:30 so it might be difficult for me to do this by myself. His dad is usually the one who walks him to sleep, both at bedtime and when he is waking up at night to be fed.
Other than that I am willing to try this for 3-4 days and will report back.
At my website, read ‘Parents’ Reports Topics’:
Graduated Extinction and Extinction (by age of child)
You are leaving the room at 5:30pm, hopefully he is drowsy but awake (to learn self-soothing skills)
No more walking until he falls asleep.
Dear Dr Weissbluth,
You have helped us tremendously with our baby and toddler, through both your book and blog.
I would like to get some assistance with my daughter’s sleep patterns at the moment, she just turned 3 yesterday.
Each day she gets an opportunity to nap in her cot. I usually put her in the same time as my son who is now almost 13 months. They both get put down for an afternoon nap at 12.45. However, she sometimes takes very long to fall asleep, and is maybe only asleep by 1.30pm. I usually go and wake her up no later than 2.30pm. When I wake her she is very sleepy and doesn’t want to get up. Other days she doesn’t nap at all and just plays in her cot. You never know how the nap will go that day. If she does nap, she then struggles to fall asleep at night. Sometimes only falling asleep somewhere between 8 and 9pm.
My question is what to do in the two different scenarios:
Scenario 1: If she takes a nap, what time range would be ideal for her at her age to take a nap? What time should her bedtime then be on days that she does nap?
Scenario 2: If she does not nap that day, what time should she go to bed then? (I usually aim for 5.30pm but I’m not sure if that is too early for a 3 year old. An early bedtime has always worked well, but lately I feel she doesn’t fall asleep that easily at 5.30pm as she has in the past, sometimes she wakes up after a while and then struggles to fall back asleep when she goes to bed very early).
Her morning wake up time is somewhere between 6.30am – 7am. It is usually 7am on the mornings after she went to bed later due to taking a nap.
Please note: We do not have a monitor in her bedroom and we sleep on a separate floor level to her. This makes it difficult to know exact times as to when she wakes up and falls asleep.
Thank you!
A little more information is helpful:
How often does this occur ” does not nap that day”
How often does this occur “sometimes she wakes up after a while and then struggles to fall back asleep when she goes to bed very early”?
Here is a variable to consider based on age: At 36 months, about 90% of children are taking a nap 6 days a week, but this drops to about 50% by 48 months on 5 days per week.
Here is a variable based on timing: If the bedtime is too late, increased homeostatic pressure during the day might cause a need for naps and/or long naps but if the nap occurs too late, increased pre-sleep arousal might cause difficultly falling asleep for a nap, a short naps, or no nap.
To sort this out, I suggest that you dedicate 3 days only to watch her mood and behavior for about 15-20 minutes when alone with toys (no screens nor parental or sibling interaction) for drowsy signs before nap time and bedtime. Soothe her to sleep at these time when she is drowsy. Keep a written record. Then you will have more clarity on her need for sleep. Afterwards, I’ll help you make the adjustments needed fo coordinate sleep for your two children and your lifestyle.
How does this sound?