Help!! My Baby is a Light Sleeper
Have you ever found yourself tiptoeing around your house after FINALLY getting the baby asleep? Does it seem like she wakes every time you walk past her room? Does he sleep beautifully in your arms, but as soon as you lay him in his crib, those little eyes shoot wide open? Do you consider her to be a light sleeper?
If you’ve ever thought to yourself that your child must be a light sleeper, keep reading to find out why that’s a myth.
The truth is all babies are both light sleepers and heavy sleepers.
We're actually that way as adults too. We all spend time in light sleep and deep sleep stages throughout the night, but baby sleep cycles differ from adult sleep cycles, which is why you might think your baby is a "light sleeper."
You see, newborn babies only have two stages of sleep - REM (light sleep) and non-REM (deep sleep) - and they spend an equal amount of time in each. And because babies’ sleep cycles only last about 40 minutes, that’s about 20 minutes in light sleep and 20 minutes in deep sleep. It’s much easier to wake from a light stage of sleep – it’s when we dream and are a little more aware of our surroundings, so environmental changes (whether noises, light, temperature, etc.) tend to wake us up easier. It’s why you might notice your baby only takes short naps. This is because his body isn’t connecting sleep cycles.
During the REM stage (light sleep), you'll likely notice your baby is moving around a bit, her breathing rate increases, he might move his mouth, etc., while that deep stage of sleep is where the "sleep like a baby" phrase comes from. You can make loud noises right next to her, pick her up, etc. and she won't wake up.
The 4-Month Sleep Regression
Between 3 and 4 months, babies gain an additional 2 sleep stages, both non-REM/light stages, and their sleep cycle more closely mirrors an adult's. This is why you hear people talk about the dreaded "4-month sleep regression.” Many parents will tell you their baby is waking and crying more often around this age. There's an actual scientific reason that it occurs, while most other "sleep regressions" are developmental – due to learning to sit up, crawl, stand, walk, talk, etc. Those extra stages of light sleep might make your baby seem like an even lighter sleeper than before.
So how do you encourage your baby to sleep better as a newborn and young infant and get more restful sleep (and for you too)? The key is eliminating sleep props. What is a sleep prop? Sleep props are anything that your child depends on to fall asleep.
These props can be a number of things:
Feeding (either bottle or breastfeeding)
Rocking
Pacifiers
Patting/rubbing/caressing belly, back, or face
Laying on you
Motion (from a swing, stroller, baby wearing, etc.)
Laying with your child until they fall asleep (especially for toddlers)
And can I tell you a secret? When our first was born, we did ALL of these things - and I mean ALL of them. We didn't know any better. I breastfed to him to sleep almost always, and if that didn't work, we used to "swing" him in his car seat until he fell asleep. We also used to hold him and walk him up and down the stairs over and over until he fell asleep. It was exhausting (and most times he woke up as soon as we laid him in his crib)! If we were lucky, he would sleep for an hour or two at a time - all that work for a measly couple of hours of sleep at night!
What I didn't realize is that because he was dependent upon those props to fall asleep, anytime he woke from one of those 40-minute sleep cycles, he couldn't get himself back to sleep without that prop.
Once we figured this out and cut out props from his sleep routines, he started immediately taking longer naps and sleeping 11-12 hours straight through the night! Like, what?!
I also learned that there should be a routine to his daytime as well – not a strict schedule as a young infant – but a routine. I learned that I shouldn’t just let him nap whenever he fell asleep out of sheer exhaustion. He needed to take regular naps, and based on his age, he could only handle a certain amount of time awake before his body became overtired. This is another key component to restful sleep. A child who is overtired will have more difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep (and this is true at night and during the day as well). And you know I was using all those props during the day too!
So when I hear about a child being a "light sleeper," it's a key sign to me that there are props in the sleep routine and their wake windows are probably too long. The #1 goal in working with all my clients is helping their child learn to fall asleep independently, without any props. This is the key to better sleep! And proper wake windows are a very close second.
Some kids are a little more sensitive to environmental changes, like sounds and light, so here are a couple of tools to help your child connect sleep cycles:
1) A white noise machine: this helps drown out any household sounds that might wake her during a lighter stage of sleep.
2) Blackout curtains: to keep light from entering into her room; many babies find it difficult to nap in a room with light - it doesn't signal to their brains that it's time to sleep - so even if she does fall asleep, she's probably only going to make it through one sleep cycle because when she wakes briefly, the light will tell her brain that she should be awake.
Keep in mind that the babies that people refer to as “good sleepers” have the same sleep cycles as the ones who wake up crying. They’ve just gotten the hang of falling asleep on their own, so they wake up, squirm around a little, maybe babble to themselves for a bit, then go happily back to sleep.
If after you’ve read through this, you’re thinking, “But yeah, how do I actually implement changes to make a difference?” then it’s time to schedule some one-on-one time with me.
You can book a free 15-minute call at this link https://calendly.com/nssc/free-discovery-call so I can better understand your unique situation and let you know how I can help. Or you can shoot me a quick email at nichole@nicholesmithsleep.com and we can get a conversation going there.
I promise that we can turn your child into a “Super Sleeper.”
Sleep well!
Nichole