Surviving the Baby Sleep Escape: Silent and Stealthy Tips
Some babies sleep well and others don’t. If you are a parent you have probably experienced at least one of those nights.
He knows it All
You know them. You know the ones. If only you could float around like a ghost to the door because every time you tiptoe away from the room she wakes. Her subconscious knows. It’s the way it is…
She finally falls asleep after a marathon of rocking, singing, or patting. You think so. All signs point to yes. You gently push her down, removing all skin contact areas one by one in the hopes that she won’t be able to notice.
You sneak a few steps ahead of the critical pause where you look back to see if your partner is stirring. So far, everything looks fine. You double-check the situation and then continue to move in a slow tiptoeing manner. Your body is slightly bent forward, your arms are near your chest, etc. You briefly wonder why tiptoeing causes you to do this, but decide to leave that for later.
Does He or Doesn’t He Awaken?
The floor creaks. Damn you, floor! You try to not breathe as you stand there like a ninja while you assess the damage. Did she awaken or not? You wish that you had spread butter underneath your slippers to eliminate the dangers of floor creaks. You make a mental reminder to use butter the next time. Not that you should need to – you could’ve sworn you’d followed the slightly-zigzag-but-tried-and-tested creak-free path to the door.
Then, to your great joy, you realize that she hasn’t woken up. You continue to the door after some time. It’s a huge win. Three previous attempts in her bedroom tonight had not been as successful. The situation is improving. You want to fist-pump, but you’re afraid it might create a draft.
You Are Not Yet Safe.
You’re still not safe. Still, there are dangers. You close her door so that no noises from outside can wake her up – such as your heartbeat, or the whirring of the refrigerator at the opposite end of the home… In your exhausted state, everything sounds so loud.
You finally make it to your bedroom. As you climb into bed, you breathe as quietly as possible – even if her bedroom is a good distance away. You slowly pull the covers up. You lie down on your pillow with your head lowered and think, “Yippee!” I’m back to bed! I’m warm! “My back is healing from the marathon, and I’m ready to sleep!”
You cuddle up, pull the blanket to your ears, and enjoy the silence. As you picture sweet dreams, your eyes are heavy. Just as the relaxation of near sleep washes over you and your lids get heavy, she awakes.
OH MY GOD!
Silence is needed again until you realize that it’s no longer necessary. You start to wonder how many silent curses you have made tonight, and you realize that it is no longer nighttime. It’s the dawn of a new day. The birds are chirping and the sun is sure to follow. When did that happen??
Although you may feel as if you need to clamp your eyes shut, you tell yourself: You. Can. Do. This. You can. You can do it.
Not really. You begin to cry and ask your partner, mother, heck, and even your new neighbors, to take your child for a few minutes. Ten minutes is all you need. Three hours and ten minutes is the maximum. You’ll be as good as gold. No dramas here. This is what you do as a mother.
Healthy Baby Sleep: The Science Behind It
Sleep Regressions Don’t Exist. Sleep Regressions Are Not Real. Twelve Hours of Sleep is Not the Gold Standard. Scientists Want You to Know the Truth About Infant Sleep.
When you mention that you have a new baby, almost everyone asks one question: How is she sleeping?
Many parents are eagerly awaiting the day when their child will finally sleep through the night. In the West, a sleep coach industry, books, and articles have sprung up to help parents achieve what they see as the Holy Grail: a baby that sleeps all night in his crib alone and takes several long naps throughout the day. Some pediatricians have warned parents that if they don’t achieve these goals, their children will not get enough sleep to grow and thrive.
This idea of a baby sleeping independently and uninterrupted is not universal. It is also different from how infants slept for most of the history of our species. If taken too far, this can lead to anxiety and stress in parents and be dangerous for babies.
The professor at Durham University and director of the Durham Infancy and Sleep Centre, says that the way we sleep in the 21st Century in an evolutionary sense is a bit odd. We weren’t designed to sleep for eight hours and then not wake up in complete darkness and silence. “But it’s something that people in Western society have grown accustomed to.
Are You Sleeping Enough?
It’s not a new thing to worry about your baby getting enough sleep. The first “scientific guidelines” date back to 1897. A Russian physician, who wrote a book about sleep for London’s Contemporary Science Series recommended that newborns sleep 22 hours per day. The recommended amounts of sleep decreased over the next century, but they remained around 37 minutes higher than what babies got. This led to decades of worried parents.
Sleep is essential for children and babies (and adults too). Lack of sleep is associated with cardiovascular risk factors ADHD and poor cognitive performance. It has also been linked to emotional regulation, academic success, and quality of life.
The majority of these findings are based on children who are school-aged, and not infants. These are correlations and not causalities. Studies that show a correlation between ADHD and children who sleep less at night would suggest this. However, a controlled randomized study is the only way to determine if certain amounts of (or a lack of) sleep are “causes”. It would mean sleep-depriving a group of children for years. This is unethical. It is hard to determine how much the association could be reversed: children with ADHD might simply sleep less.
Sleep may affect development in both directions. In short-term controlled randomized trials, babies were better at a memory test when they napped. And, to the surprise of no parents, tired infants found it harder to cope with stressful situations.
While this might suggest that we should not do anything to prevent sleep (like forcing a baby to stay awake), it does not mean that all babies need 12 hours of uninterrupted sleep every night, and multiple two-hour naps each day.
The professor of psychology at the Goldsmiths University of London who specializes in sleep and author of Nodding Off: The Science of Sleep, says that just as adults sleep differently, so do babies.
She mentions that the National Sleep Foundation recommends that babies under three months should sleep 14-17 hours in 24 hours. However, she also notes that 11 to 19 hours may be sufficient. Recommendations for sleep duration from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine do not make any recommendations for infants younger than four months. Both bodies do not make specific recommendations about napping versus nighttime sleeping.
She states that “these slightly different guidelines show how even the most respected experts are divided on infant sleep.”
It is also evident how much variation there is when you observe the way babies sleep. In an Australian study, was the average sleep time over 24 hours for 554 4- to 6-month-olds. When you look at the data, it is clear that the difference in sleep between the two groups was more than 8 hours. A pediatrician and co-author of the study. She says that there are large differences between sleep durations at the 2nd percentile and the 98th.
Staying on Schedule
What about a routine that includes naps and feeds throughout the day? The seven-to-7 schedule (where your baby sleeps from 7 pm until 7 am) is recommended by many baby sleep books.
This kind of schedule is especially hard to stick to in the early days. It’s because physiological functions, which tell adults nighttime is for sleep, like melatonin production and a body temperature cycle, don’t begin to emerge until babies are eight to eleven weeks old. Exposing babies to light in the day, and darkness at night will help to activate these systems. Babies don’t need to take naps in the dark, despite what some sleep coaches claim. Melatonin isn’t produced during the day and disrupts their circadian rhythms.
She says that the main theory on sleep regulation suggests two processes control sleep and wake. The homeostatic (the idea that we get sleepier the more we are awake) and the circadian processes (a clocklike process that makes us more alert or sleepy at certain times during the day and night) are the first two.
Both processes are underdeveloped in infants, which explains the differences in sleep between babies and adults.
Numerous studies have linked an earlier bedtime to outcomes such as improved academic performance, and lower obesity risk. However, these studies were conducted on preschoolers and older kids and not babies. It is also not clear if the bedtime itself makes a difference. Children who go to bed earlier tend to sleep more overall. Families that put their children to bed earlier may also prioritize healthy habits. It is difficult to unravel these other factors.
It is also possible that children are more likely to release melatonin (the “darkness hormone” that makes us sleepy) earlier in the evening. It’s not as early as people think. A small study conducted in Providence, Rhode Island found that, even in the US where children are often put to bed early, the toddler average didn’t start experiencing dim light melatonin until 7:40 pm. Naps may also delay Melatonin production. It’s important to note that this hormone release, which is not a switch but a process, does not necessarily mean that 7:40 pm should be the optimal time for bedtime.
Some families find that a 7-to-7 nighttime schedule works perfectly. For some families, forcing it may cause sleep problems. Our data suggests that young children who are put to sleep at an unnatural time will feel unprepared for bedtime and may resist. Researchers from Rhode Island state that children who are put to bed at a time when they are not biologically ready will resist (e.g., come out for a drink of water or call-outs, refuse bedtime, and tantrum). If your baby doesn’t need 12 hours of sleep, putting him to bed at 7 pm may have unintended effects, such as “split night” where the baby is awake for a long time during the night or an early start.
