By Kate Curry
“How do you stop night wakings?”
“She is up every 1-2 hours every night.”
“I haven’t slept more than a few hours at a time since she was born.”
As the kids used to say – The struggle is real. So many parents that I talk to have this same question, “How do I get my child to sleep through the night?” The truth is that there are multiple factors that go into helping your child learn how to sleep through the night, but I am going to tell about the BIG one today.
Before that though, I want to share with you that I was also one of these parents. At about 4 months (the dreaded “4 month regression” that many of you have heard of before), my daughter started waking throughout the night, every 1-2 hours. Sometimes I would get a 3-4 hour chunk when she first went down, but after that it was 1-2 hours like clockwork.
Initially, I took it as a potential growth spurt and was up feeding her throughout the night. Then after research into the 4 month regression, I realized that this was her new sleep pattern. So then, it was a combination of feeding and trying various things to get her to go back to sleep.
Have you ever bounced a baby on a yoga ball at 3:00am? I have. It’s just as fun as you think it would be.
This continued on until my daughter was about 8 months old. At this point, I was so sleep deprived that I would literally be looking in the fridge for my keys, and there was a pretty good chance they might be there (or at least another item that was missing would be).
One day after describing the struggle to someone, they said, “Wow, I hope you’re not driving around like that.” Initially, I thought that was a silly comment. Of course I was driving. We needed food, baby had doctor’s appointments, etc.
But I kept thinking about that comment. Oh my God, it is really unsafe for me to be driving the baby around in this sleep-deprived state. Haven’t I taken so many precautions with this baby from pregnancy right up until now to make sure she is safe from every little thing? (I was a first time mom so I’m talking about all the extra safety things that us first time moms do. If you know you, you know.)
Yet now I’m getting behind the wheel of a car driving my precious little, non-sleeping bundle of joy around??? Did you know that one person dies in a traffic accident every hour in the United States due to fatigue-related error? I didn’t eat cold cuts for 9 months but, here I am driving around like a zombie. This needed to stop.
After many Internet searches, books, and talking to other parents, it became clear that there are many different ways to try to get your child to sleep through the night. However, it all seemed to come down to getting your child to be able to fall asleep independently.
“In order for a child to sleep through the night, they must be able to independently put themselves to sleep.”
Now, as a trained sleep coach, I know all about those different methods. Yet the basic idea remains the same – a child needs to be able to self-soothe themselves to sleep in order to sleep through the night.
Without getting too scientific about it, let me explain why. Every human goes through sleep cycles throughout the night. Between sleep cycles, you enter the lightest portion of your sleep and even wake up slightly. If you’re able to go back to sleep independently, then you probably just roll over and go back to sleep without even remembering it happened.
Now if you are a baby who does not know how to put themselves back to sleep, you’re in trouble. Just about every 90-120 minutes, the sleep cycle ends and you’re up. So you go to your best and maybe only strategy – call for someone to come help you.
You may be very familiar with this pattern. But you’re wondering – what is the key to independent sleep that she was talking about??
Well, it’s all about the sleep associations.
Here’s the basics on sleep associations. People learn to sleep using various tools to help them. If these are unavailable, then you will have a hard time falling to sleep. This includes falling asleep initially, as well as going back to sleep between sleep cycles.
Take you, for instance. Do you sleep in a bed with a pillow and blanket and the light off? Have you ever tried to sleep without these things? It would not be fun or even easy, and you are a seasoned sleeper!
Fortunately for you, these are all independent sleep associations. You do not need anyone to come help you with a bed, pillow, blanket, or light during the nighttime. They are just there as you left them (hopefully – have you ever lost a pillow off the side of the bed in the middle of the night? Bet you woke up to retrieve it so you could get back to sleep!)
Now think about your baby/child. What are they using to fall asleep? Are they using independent associations like you are – bed/crib, darkness, white noise, sleep sack, etc.? Or are they using associations that involve you – rocking, singing, feeding, patting, twirling your hair?
Because here’s the deal: if they are using associations that involve you to fall asleep initially at night, then they will need you to come back again to help them fall back asleep when they wake up between sleep cycles throughout the night (every 90-120 minutes).
So, while I understand that warm and cozy vision you have of rocking and singing your child to sleep each night, it is also what is going to be causing the night wakings that follow.
*DISCLAIMER* Now I do feel the need to say this: DO WHAT WORKS FOR YOUR FAMILY. If you love rocking your child to sleep or breastfeeding them off to dreamland, AND you are fine with continuing to do that for the night wakings, then go for it! By all means, you do what feels right to you.
But if you are like me, who thought that vision sounded all fuzzy and sweet, but the reality was a severely sleep-deprived mommy driving on the occasional 2 hour nap, then you may need to make a change. It is very difficult to assist your child to sleep initially and then expect them to be able to put themselves back to sleep in the middle of the night.
To really break it down for you, here are some sleep associations your child can use to independently fall asleep at night:
- White noise
- Sleep Sack
- Dark Room
- Lovey/Sleep Buddy (for kids over 15 months)
- Pacifier * (depends on if your child can replace it independently and it usually ends up with a more restless night’s sleep for even those who can replace it)
Here are sleep associations that require you/ more night wakings will be associated with:
- Feeding
- Rocking
- Singing
- Reading until they fall asleep
- Falling asleep next to them and then leaving
- Hair twirling
- Back rubbing
- Shushing
If you want to decrease night wakings, you need to move towards more independent sleep associations. There are many different ways and speeds in which you can make this adjustment. Those are decisions that are unique to each family.
As a sleep coach, I love to help families figure out these transitions. What do you need to add/take away? How are we going to introduce these things or fade these old routines? What else can we add to my baby’s schedule to make this easier for him?
The big takeaway here is that if you want your child to sleep through the night, you need independent sleep associations.
(Now please, if you have ever looked for your keys in the fridge and found them or some other sleep-deprived story, please pop it in the comments. I need to know I’m not alone!)