Don’t Believe These Sleep Myths

Although when it comes to kids, I think the sleep discussion may eclipse politics for the sheer divisiveness and claiming opinion as fact. So today, I want to focus on my area of expertise, that being sleep, and try to dispel some of the more popular myths I’ve seen in parenting forums, heard from Mom meet-ups I’ve talked with, or seen angrily shouted in all caps on some Facebook groups.

 

1. Sleeping too much during the day will keep baby up at night.  Not likely, except in extreme cases. Unless your little one is sleeping practically all day and up all night, you probably don’t need to concern yourself with the length of their naps. Newborns especially need a ton of sleep. In fact, up until about 6 months, I don’t recommend that your little one be awake for more than about 2 – 21/2 hours at a time. For newborns, that number is more like 45 minutes to an hour.

What keeps infants awake at night, more than anything else, is over-tiredness. You might think that an exhausted baby is more likely to sack out for a full night than one who slept all day, but it’s actually just the opposite. The reason we refer to it as being “overtired” is because baby has missed the calming phase and their bodies must kick back into gear, producing a cocktail of alerting hormones which keeps them from falling and/or staying asleep. A baby who has gotten a decent amount of sleep during the day is far less likely to miss the sleep window.

 

There are substantial variations depending on baby’s age and the length of their naps, but up to that 6 month mark, it’s really not uncommon for baby to be sleeping around 5 hours a day outside of nighttime sleep, so if your little one is still within those guidelines, let them snooze. As toddlers they may need to cut naps at age 2.5 years, but some happily keep them until age 4.

The typical “bad sleeper” of a baby isn’t less in need of sleep, or more prone to waking up. They’ve just learned to depend on outside assistance to get back to sleep when they wake up. Once your little one has figured out how to get to sleep without assistance from outside sources, they start stringing those sleep cycles together absolutely effortlessly, and that’s the secret to “sleeping through the night” as most parents understand it.

 

3. Babies will naturally dictate their own sleep schedule.  Our babies need extensive care and help in their development, and often their sleep cycles are erratic if left unregulated. If they miss their natural sleep cycle by as little as a half hour, their alerting hormones can increase which causes a surge in energy, and things quickly spiral out of control. So as much as I wish babies could just fall asleep when they’re tired, it simply doesn’t work that way. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t respond to their cues, but you shouldn’t rely exclusively on them either.

 

4. It’s not possible for babies to sleep through the night.  Be wary of the advice of those who tell you that babies should dictate their schedules and stay up until 9 or 10pm. You’re in charge because you want to keep your child healthy and you can see that the whole family is happier when they are better rested.

Parents are teachers and if there is one strategy you’ll be happy you taught them, it’s how to go to sleep confidently all by themselves. When they are empowered to do this, they will love sleeping through the night!

 

There are plenty more myths and misconceptions surrounding babies and their sleep habits, but these are some of the most important to get the facts on. Find peer-reviewed scientific studies on all things baby-related, and trusted sources like the American Academy of Pediatrics, the National Institutes of Health, Britain’s National Health Service, Canada’s Hospital for Sick Children, the World Health Organization, and other national children’s health organizations are excellent sources of information you can feel confident about using to answer questions about your baby’s health.

 

And if you want more information on your child’s sleep habits in particular, I’d love for you to join our Facebook community, where I offer a weekly Q&A. You can also book a free evaluation call if you know you’d like special 1:1 support.