Eva (00:37):
Hey there, you’re listening to the My Sleeping Baby podcast, which is all about baby and child sleep. I’m so excited to teach you how you can get your little ones sleeping so that you can sleep too and enjoy parenthood to its fullest. I’m Eva Klein, your resident’s sleep expert, mom of three, founder of the Sleep Bible online coaching program, and lover of all things sleep and motherhood. If you’re looking for tangible solutions for your little one sleep woes or you simply want to learn more, this podcast is for you. For more information, check out mysleepingbaby.com and you can follow me on Instagram and Facebook @mysleepingbaby, and you can follow me on Instagram and Facebook at My Sleeping Baby.
(00:44)
All right, welcome back to the show. Today I wanna address a very common question that I get around whether or not to ever wake a sleeping baby. This is a topic that I get a lot of questions about because anytime I am working with a family and I tell them to wake their baby by a certain point, a lot of the time I will be met with confusion. I'll be met with people saying, but I thought you're not allowed to ever wake a sleeping baby. So how am I supposed to do that? Well, you guys are in lack. I'm gonna delve into this question in much more detail. The short answer about whether or not you can wake a sleeping baby is yes, you can absolutely be waking a sleeping baby in certain circumstances. So I'm gonna delve into what those circumstances are and why you would want to wake a sleeping baby in those situations.
(01:43)
And then of course, not be waking your sleeping baby in any other situation. Now, of course, it goes without saying that we're not just gonna wake a sleeping baby for the fun of it because babies and young children need good quality sleep just like the rest of us. Sleep is very important for a baby's growth and development, and they need much, much more sleep than the average adult does. The average adult needs about eight hours of sleep over a 24 hour period, whereas a baby can need anywhere between 14 to 17 hours of sleep over that 24 hour period. So to begin with, we would never just wake up a sleeping baby, but as I said, there are many, many circumstances where you would want to wake us sleeping baby in the interest of having them sleep more and better. Alright, so I'm gonna go through the top five reasons and circumstances when waking a sleeping baby would be appropriate, okay?
(02:40)
Reason number one is if you have a newborn who has day night confusion, in other words, they have their days and nights mixed up, they don't know when it's daytime and when it's nighttime, which is very common when a newborn is born because they've been living in the womb for nine months and haven't been to natural or artificial light the way that you and I have. They don't have a biological clock yet that's developed, allowing them to differentiate between day and night. And this can make it incredibly challenging for you if your little one thinks that the daytime is meant for sleeping and the nighttime is meant for partying. Now, I remember very early on when my oldest was born that I noticed something that really does exist more or less across the board with a lot of newborns in terms of their sleep patterns, and that's that my oldest baby would give me this four hour stretch of sleep one time over a 24 hour period.
(03:42)
Now, one thing that I saw very early on with my first baby that, and I have seen that pattern continue with many other newborns, is that this baby would give me one four hour stretch of sleep over a 24 hour period. And I saw very early on that that was probably her night stretch of sleep emerging, and I wanted that four hour stretch of sleep to be happening at night, not during the day. And so this is one of those situations where if your newborn is sleeping a lot during the day and then not sleeping nearly as much at night, they probably have day night confusion, and you're probably going to want to wake that baby of yours up and avoid allowing them to give you these massive stretches of daytime sleep so that this way they can figure out their days and nights you can help their biological clock develop.
(04:43)
And most importantly in that time period is if they're giving you that stretch of sleep, you can take it with them at night as opposed to during the day. The second reason why you would want to wake your sleeping baby is if they are sleeping too much during the day that it is taking away from their nighttime sleep. You see, let me elaborate on this because I know about the very famous saying, sleep beget sleep, the better your baby sleeps during the day, the better they will sleep at night. And that is true, but only to a certain extent. You see what sleep baguette sleep means in actuality is that if your little one is very o overtired from only sleeping very short periods of time and not sleeping enough during the day and being up for periods of time that are too long, they're going to be overtired and that can cause their nighttime sleep to fall apart.
(05:37)
That being said, there is absolutely such thing as too much of a good thing here. There is still only so much sleep that your little one of any age can give you over a 24 hour period. So for example, an average two year old, a 24 month old usually needs about 13 hours of sleep over a 24 hour period. This is an average amount, so obviously there are gonna be two year olds that need a little bit more, and there are some that are gonna need a little bit less, but this is, you know, the average middle mark. And so mathematically, if your two year old needs an average amount of sleep and he is sleeping three hours during the day, then mathematically that only leaves over 10 hours of nighttime sleep. Now, that schedule might work for you, but for a lot of people it's not gonna work because 10 hours of nighttime sleep could easily end up getting you an early rising problem.
(06:35)
If they're going to bed for the night at let's say 7 30, 10 hours later, that's a five 30 wake up. And so in that situation, part of the solution would need to involve capping your little one's nap at let's say two hours maximum, so that this way you have that extra hour of sleep left over for the nights. Now, I will just share that JJ was that baby and toddler that I had to wake up from his naps all the time. I kid you not constantly daily, I was waking him up. He loved napping so much, which by the way is a great problem to have. It's not, it's not necessarily a bad thing because the solution is very easy. It's a much easier solution than having a baby or a toddler who is just not good at napping and really needs lots of help to be able to nap longer periods.
(07:31)
He was the complete opposite, but I will tell you that if I did not wake him up from his naps on a daily basis, he would literally just sleep forever. In fact, I remember he was two and a half going on three, like two years and you know, nine months to be exact. And there was one day that I let him nap as long as he wanted because I knew that I had my nephew's bar mitzvah that night and that it was gonna be a very late night and I didn't wanna have to leave early. And so I let him sleep as long as he wanted, and he napped for three hours from one 15 until four 15, he woke up on his own. And so this is something that he would have done regularly had I not been waking him up. Now that night it worked out amazingly because he was able to stay up until 10, 11 o'clock, no problem.
(08:31)
But ask me if I'd want him staying up until 10, 11 o'clock on a regular basis. The answer would be no. I love him dearly, but he's gotta go to bed at a certain point. And so this is a very, very common scenario where waking a sleeping baby or child is absolutely the right thing to do in the name of protecting your little one's 24 hour schedule. Reason number three that we would want to wake your sleeping baby is when we don't want your little one skipping any daytime feeds. You see, infants of any age, especially those infants that are breastfeeding, need to eat frequently during the day in order to ensure that their daytime intake of milk is optimal, allowing them to give you longer stretches of sleep at night. But if your little one takes a three hour nap during the day and then goes for four plus hours before eating again, that can cause your little one to wake up more at night because she's gonna have to compensate for not getting as many calories during the daytime as she could have.
(09:40)
Waking your little one up in the name of ensuring that there is some amount of regularity to your little ones schedule, to their naps and to their feeds is definitely going to be a good thing. The fourth reason why you might need to wake your sleeping baby is because of potential health concerns. Your pediatrician might recommend waking up your newborn if he's not eating very much. If he's very sleepy during the day and skipping quite a number of daytime feeds, you are going to need to wake him up to ensure that he's getting in enough calories. This is especially applicable to babies who are born premature or born with other health conditions. This might also be applicable to babies that are not gaining as much weight as your doctor would like. So definitely when it comes to anything medical related, always follow the advice of your little one's pediatrician to ensure that they are healthy and growing properly.
(10:41)
And the fifth and final reason why you might need to wake your sleeping baby is to protect the rest of their daytime naps. You see, a lot of people think that when it comes to meeting your little one's daytime sleep requirements, that ensuring that you get to that magical number of hours of daytime sleep is all that matters. So if your little one is napping for three hours in the morning and then only napping for 30 minutes the rest of the day, who cares? It's fine. You're still meeting that magical number when the reality is that that's not so accurate. We don't want your little one just taking one big massive nap in the morning and then not having enough sleep totals and sleep pressure left over throughout the rest of the day for them to be giving you subsequent better naps. We ideally wanna see those daytime sleep totals somewhat just distributed on an equal basis throughout the day.
(11:41)
It doesn't have to be completely 100% equal, and of course, it is normal to see some cat napping happen with babies under the age of four to six months, but especially your little one is at that five to six month mark and onwards, we're going to want to see two really solid naps happening during the day, and if they still need a third nap, of course that third nap can be a cat nap, but we don't want to be seeing two cat naps. We really only wanna see one. And if that first nap or one of those naps is really, really long, then there might not be enough sleep totals left over for that second nap to lengthen. So sometimes what we need to do in this situation is as the saying goes, Rob Peter to pay Paul. So you might have to cut back on the amount that your little one is napping for one of their naps so that we can redistribute those sleep totals to some of your other little, your other naps of your little one.
(12:40)
Because even though you might be getting the required amount of sleep during the day, your baby can still get over tired if the rest of their naps are just too short. Now, if you know that you need to be waking your sleeping baby from a nap or from their nighttime sleep, do it gently. You know, try waking them up by talking softly or stroking their back. You don't wanna be using loud or sudden that loud noises or sudden movements because that can really startle them. You can also try, um, scheduling the wake up times around when you know that your baby is gonna be hungry, so that this way it'll be easier for them to wake up. Um, if your little one really struggles to wake up, despite the fact that they need to wake up, you can turn on the lights, try changing their diaper, undress them, throw them in the bath if you need to, to help stimulate them.
(13:34)
If your little one is still swaddled, you can carefully unwrap the swaddle blanket so that you can allow their arms and legs to really move around, and then that should help wake him up. So that basically sums it up. The reality is that waking your sleeping baby in these circumstances really means that it is helping your baby with their sleep because you're helping your baby's circadian rhythm develop. You're saving your baby's biggest stretch of sleep for the nights. You are preventing your little one from skipping daytime feeds, and you might be addressing any health concerns that your little one has. And of course, this benefits you directly because it means that you will be setting your little one up to be able to get uninterrupted nighttime sleep during this stage. You can help your newborn in particular, establish healthy sleep habits, getting you that four hour stretch of sleep happening at night, which can hopefully, eventually extend to 5, 6, 7 plus hours of uninterrupted sleep. You want to allow this to happen, and you will thank me for this in the grand scheme of things, I promise you. So we're not just gonna wake a sleeping baby for the heck of it, but in these situations, you definitely want to wake a sleeping baby. It is in your baby's best interest and in your best interest. So I hope that this was helpful and that you all have a wonderful day.
(14:59)
Thank you everyone for listening, and I hope you all have a wonderful day. Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a review and share this episode with a friend who can benefit from it. I also love hearing from my listener, so feel free to DM me on Instagram at my sleeping baby or send me an email at eva@mysleepingbaby.com. Until next time, have a wonderful restful nights.