We consider the following to be the most important reasons:
- Incorrect daily routine and amount of sleep
- Violation of habitual rituals
- Negative associations for sleep
- Abrupt change of activity
- Incorrect sleep atmosphere
- Late bedtime at night
- Health problems
- Period of study
- Lack of attention and care
- Inconsistency in actions
- Early move to a large bed
Incorrect daily routine and amount of sleep
The most common reason why a baby refuses sleep, sleeps little, wakes up often, or cries in a dream is the wrong daily routine, or not enough sleep.
Sleep scientists identify special cyclical periods in the human body in which our hormonal levels change in such a way as to make it easier to fall asleep. At this time, the body temperature drops, and metabolic processes slow down, and it is easy for the child to switch from a state of wakefulness to sleep.
According to the studies, the following periods of time can be distinguished in which these hormones reach their highest concentration:
8:30-9:00 – the time of the first sleep for babies up to 6 months;
12:30-13:00 – lunchtime nap (this time is perfect for all children who still sleep during the day);
18:00-20:00 is the best time to go to bed at night.
It is during these periods of time, taking hormones as assistants, that we will be able to put our children to sleep with the greatest probability of success.
In addition, it is worth paying attention to the fact that at each age the baby has its own norms for the total duration of sleep and wakefulness intervals, compliance with these norms will allow the child not to overtire.
An overtired child is not able to fall asleep soundly, because in his body “passions rage” from the stress hormone cortisol released during untimely bedtime or a short fragmentary sleep.
What to do:
We form the daily routine of the child, taking into account his physiology and biological rhythms
We comply with the age norms of sleep duration (day + night)
We make sure that the intervals of wakefulness correspond to the age of the baby and do not overtire him
Violation of habitual rituals
All children need routine and order. Knowing what lies ahead for them gives them a sense of security, comfort and the opportunity to prepare for a change of activity.
Children cannot tell the time by the clock and are guided by the repetitive actions of their parents, which is why the rituals that precede sleep are so important.
You can start accustoming to rituals and creating your own unique ritual from birth, and then just slightly modify it, depending on the age and needs of your child.
Common bedtime rituals include, for example: cleaning toys, taking a warm bath, massage, reading a book, lullaby, kissing before bed and wishing “Sweet dreams”.
Traveling, sleeping in a new place or simply not performing rituals often deprive children of the opportunity to get ready for bed and lead to crying and protesting before bed.
What to do:
Come up with just your unique family ritual before bed. Include in it something that you will repeat with pleasure every day.
Be patient, try to ensure that, regardless of where the baby is put to sleep, the time is the same, take the child’s favorite blanket and pillow with you, the toy that he loves the most, and this will allow him to feel at least a little at home.
Download a white noise app on your tablet or phone to reduce distracting sounds. If possible, repeat the entire home ritual, this will calm the child and give him the opportunity to fall asleep faster and more peacefully.
Do not use watching cartoons or playing games on the tablet as a ritual. The flickering blue color of the screen irritates the child’s optic nerve, destroys the resulting sleep hormone – melatonin and has an exciting effect on the child.
Do not abandon the rituals for as long as possible, but introduce them into the life of the baby as early as possible, and the results will not be long in coming.
Negative associations
What parents just don’t come up with to lull a child: the obligatory presence of a mother nearby, rocking in a crib or in her arms, jumping on a fitball, additional feeding before bedtime, which is designed for the child to overeat and fall asleep, a dummy, a trip in a car or sleep only in a moving baby stroller, even sometimes chest and this is not a complete list.
Anything we use to help a baby fall asleep can become a kind of “crutch” that actually prevents the baby from sleeping soundly and peacefully.
If a child, waking up, can no longer fall asleep on his own, but looks for and calls his mother, asks for a bottle or rocking, waits for this or that help from his parents, then it’s time to get rid of a bad habit (relevant for children after 4 months).
The sooner we begin to teach the child to self-soothe, the deeper and longer his sleep will be, because he will not need additional incentives to fall asleep. Negative associations with sleep are one of the most difficult problems, but, nevertheless, solvable.
What to do:
First, determine what is a kind of “crutch” for sleep in your child.
Make a decision for yourself that you will work on teaching your baby to fall asleep on his own and stick to it, even in the most difficult moments.
Do not forget that you are doing this for the good of the child, because sleep with bad habits does not have a complete restorative effect, since it is often fragmented, which means that it does not give the baby enough rest.
Choose a path for yourself: fast or gradual and start taking action.
Abrupt change of activity
Children cannot quickly switch from one activity to another, especially since they need time to get ready for bed. And, of course, if you try to put a fun-playing child to sleep, then he may not like it and will cause a real protest with crying and screaming.
In addition, the older the child becomes, the more he likes to spend time with his parents, play, learn something new, develop new skills, and babies can consciously refuse sleep from 4-5 months.
To avoid this, try to think over your daily routine in such a way that the time before daytime and nighttime sleep is filled with calm games, reading books. Do not let your child watch cartoons before going to bed.
Form and adhere to at least a short bedtime ritual every day that will allow the baby to prepare, tune in to sleep and calm down. Moreover, the daytime ritual can be even more important than the nighttime one, because it is with daytime sleep that difficulties often arise.
What to do:
10-15 minutes before putting the baby to bed, try to pick him up, hug him, calm him down a bit. Older children can be warned about what awaits him: “Honey, soon we will go to bed.”
Just make sure that the child heard you, even better, repeat this several times, using different phrases, for example: “If you want to grow up like a dad, you must rest, because when you sleep, you grow”, “Look at your hands, look at your legs, they are very tired, you played and ran so much today, let’s have a little rest now”, “Come on, let’s put the doll to sleep and rest a bit ourselves.”
Fold toys before bed if your child sleeps in his room so that they do not distract him.
For children older than a year and a half, you can tell a therapeutic bedtime story.
Don’t forget the rituals. Of course, during the day we do not always bathe the child before going to bed or read a book, but dressing in special clothes for sleep, darkness in the room, white noise is already a kind of preparation for sleep.
Incorrect sleep atmosphere
We all heard the phrase: “Sleep like a baby” and, indeed, for the first 3-4 weeks, the child falls asleep easily with almost any noise and even in bright light, but children grow up and very soon they need more comfortable conditions for sleep.
The baby can be distracted: sounds from the street or household noises – this is not difficult to fix by closing the window and turning on “white noise” in the room where the baby sleeps, which will absorb harsh sounds and allow the child to sleep more peacefully.
Bright light gives the brain an indication that now is the time for wakefulness, and it stops producing the sleep hormone – melatonin, which is why it is worth closing the curtains in the room where the baby sleeps. It is especially important to close the curtains during daytime sleep, which is often difficult.
It is also worth taking care of the fresh air by airing the room before going to bed, and the temperature, which for comfortable sleep should not be higher than 21 degrees.
Humidity, especially when the heating is turned on in winter, will help keep the humidifier or at least a damp towel on the radiator.
What to do:
Install a thermometer in the room where the baby sleeps to create a comfortable temperature for him.
Use dark curtains or blinds that block as much sunlight as possible.
Use “white noise”, it is not addictive, does not form attachment, and does not become a prerequisite for sleep in the future. Noise can be applied even in adults.
“White noise” is the sound of a stray radio wave, the sound of rain or surf. It not only muffles harsh sounds that can scare the baby, but also puts him back to sleep with light awakenings.
Remove all distractions from the crib: extra toys, extra blankets, pillows. Remove the mobile and canopy if the child is already sitting up in bed and can reach them.
Late bedtime at night
If the child is overtired, then it is much more difficult for him to sleep. The baby’s sleep is disturbing and fragmented, he cries in his sleep, wakes up and is no longer able to fall asleep himself – this is how the cortisol accumulated in the body, which is also called the stress hormone, works.
The best bedtime for a child, up until school age, is between 7:00 pm and 8:30 pm. At this time, a child’s body produces a sleep hormone that will allow him to calm down and sleep soundly.
Many families delay bedtime so that the baby has time to talk with the father who comes home late from work, so that the parents can go to go outside in the evening, either because it seems that he is not tired yet, or so that the child wakes up later in the morning.
But whatever your reason, consider that by putting your baby to bed in accordance with his biological rhythms, we provide him with a healthy and deep sleep that restores the baby’s strength and develops his brain.
What to do:
Of course, communication with the father is very valuable, but after all, we feed the child when he is hungry, without waiting for the whole family to come to dinner, so why tire the child with late bedtime if morning time can be allocated for communication.
For example, while you are preparing breakfast, the father can play, feed or just be with the baby, and the father also has all the weekends and holidays. Try, at least, not to play with the baby, coming home late from work, but to include dad immediately in the ritual of putting the baby to bed.
Don’t forget about yourself too, early bedtime frees up the evening for mom, meaning you can make time for yourself.
Health problems
A month after birth, almost all parents are faced with the terrible word – colic. If after almost every feeding, at least three times a day, not for one hour, and every day without days off, the baby cries, then it is safe to say that the child has colic.
Of course, it is impossible to put the baby to sleep in this state, so first we try to help him and calm him down. Usually this period ends by 4 months, and as soon as the period of colic passes, the teeth begin to erupt in the babies, and again the whole family does not sleep …
In addition, allergic reactions are possible, accompanied by itching and preventing the baby from falling asleep, difficulty breathing due to a cold, snoring, neurological and other health problems that prevent the baby from sleeping. To resolve these health issues, it is often necessary to consult a specialist.
What to do:
If you have any doubts about the health of your baby, be sure to consult a specialist.
Colic and erupting teeth are temporary phenomena, and if you try to stick to the regime as far as possible during this difficult period, then as soon as the pain disappears, the baby will quickly return to normal.
During the period of worsening of health problems, try not to change anything in the routine and rituals of going to bed, do not transfer from one bed to another and do not transfer to your room, wait a while with weaning and giving up the pacifier.
Period of study
As soon as we figured out, as it seems to us, with all the difficulties and taught the baby to fall asleep on his own, so he learned to sit, then get up in the crib, and now we are again faced with the fact that it is difficult for him to fall asleep.
And really, how to fall asleep here, if you understand that you can no longer just lie down, but sit in the crib, and your hands are itching to pull yourself over the side and stand up, and here and there a new word has become attached and is spinning on the tongue.
Children can really start to sleep more restlessly if they master some new skill for themselves, but this is a temporary period and lasts an average of up to two weeks.
What to do:
Try to ensure that the baby has enough time during the day during the wakefulness period to train in independent sitting, crawling, standing, and then, while in the crib, he will also try to learn a new skill – falling asleep on his own.
Sometimes children begin to sleep lightly due to the fact that they master the skill of going to the potty at night. Be patient, it won’t last long.
Stick to the routine and do not forget about the rituals.
Lack of attention and care
We have more and more household appliances to save time, we are constantly in a hurry and still late, we do the urgent, but forget about the important. Whether there is dust in hard-to-reach places, whether cleaning has been carried out with all antibacterial agents that kill all unthinkable microbes – all this does not matter to a child. The baby needs a mother.
Children are very sensitive creatures, and if it seems to them that their mother does not spend enough time with them during the day, then they will seek communication with her at night.
It is possible that you had to leave earlier for work or in a family with several children and the time that you can devote to the baby is limited – do not reproach yourself but look for opportunities to be with him.
What to do:
For example, when walking with older children or doing simple housework, wear your baby in a sling or ergo backpack.
Take a bath with your baby.
Purchase a playpen or place a blanket on the floor so your baby can play with toys in the same room as you are in.
Finally, not being able to pick up – talk to the child.
Inconsistency in actions
Many will agree that children are the greatest manipulators. Since mom didn’t allow it, I’ll ask dad, it didn’t work out with dad – there is a grandfather, and there the grandmother will help to achieve her goal.
In order not to confuse the child in the daily routine, the ritual of sleep, and so on, coordination between parents and relatives is necessary, which can affect the baby.
What to do:
The most important thing in the process of putting the child to bed, changing the routine, abandoning any negative sleep habits and moving to your own crib will be the calm and confident behavior of the mother.
Of course, the baby will make attempts to return to the old routine, old habits, etc., but be firm in your decisions and act consistently.
Tell everyone who lives with you your bedtime rules for the baby, explain them in terms of their importance to your child, and ask them to help you follow them so your baby doesn’t have a chance to manipulate you.
Early move to a large bed
The time comes when the children grow up and the question already arises of how to transfer the baby from the parents’ room to the children’s room or from a small crib to a large bed.
How to understand that the baby is ready for such a step and make the resettlement more peaceful for the child? The best age for such castling will be 2.5-3 years old, it is at this time that the baby can already control himself and his emotions so much that the bumpers no longer become a necessity.
If a new child appears in the family, then do not give him the crib of the elder, but buy a new one or temporarily use a stroller to sleep the baby (if you have a good mattress). A new member of the family, around whom the mother is constantly located, is already stressful, and if he was also given a bed, then troubles cannot be avoided.
What to do:
If, nevertheless, the decision to move to another bed is finally made, then try to help the baby get through this as easily as possible.
For example, you can sleep on the baby’s sheet for the last few nights so that the lingering smell helps him calm down at night in a new place. Also, under the sheet, mom can put her worn T-shirt, bra liners.
Psychological preparation is equally important: before moving the baby out, leave the bed in his room for several days, let the toys sleep there for now, and the baby spends some time playing on it. Read books on the new bed, talk about how wonderful it is that the baby will have his own bed.
You may need to be with the baby for a while as he falls asleep or even sleep next to him on the floor, but gradually try to get out of the room while the baby is just falling asleep. Don’t forget to praise your child for his accomplishments.