In the first year of a baby’s life, there are so many things happening developmentally in rapid-fire succession, or even simultaneously. It can be really hard to know if your baby’s disrupted sleep is due to teething, illness, a scheduling issue, or IS IT THE DANG LIGHT ON THE SMOKE DETECTOR?! (seriously though, have you ever slept under one of those, and why are those things so bright?) Let’s dive into reasons you may be wondering why is my baby having trouble sleeping; I’m going to try to keep this clear and concise while sticking true to the “comprehensive” part as promised!
Why is my baby having trouble sleeping?
To be concise, this blog will assume you have already gone through the process of helping your baby learn the skill of falling asleep independently. If you are helping your baby to sleep still, please know that there is nothing wrong with that as long as it is working for you! How your baby is accustomed to falling asleep is what they will expect if they wake in the middle of the night as well. If the wakings are becoming more frequent, you may need to reassess if you are content with assisting them to sleep each time. If you are helping your baby to sleep and experiencing some of the common infant sleep problems listed below, then working towards independent sleep skills may be something to consider.
You also want to look for a pattern of these issues, not just one bad day. I would not change anything based on 1-2 days of a rough night or naps. When it becomes a pattern, you will want to get curious about what is happening. Consider their developmental milestones, schedule, sleep environment, health/teething, and appetite, and remember to look at the whole picture of what is happening for your baby before making changes to their schedule.
The most common reasons your baby is having trouble sleeping that we encounter as sleep consultants are (in no particular order):
Early wakings
Short naps
Night wakings/Split nights
Teething/Illness/Growth spurts
Troubleshooting Early Morning Wakings
Early wakings are when your baby wakes up for the day earlier than 6 am, does not fall back to sleep, and has less than an adequate amount of sleep overnight (10.5+ hours).
It is NOT an early waking if:
6 am or later
10.5+ total hours of overnight sleep
They fall BACK to sleep after the early waking
It’s within 30 minutes of their desired wake time
They are reaching their average sleep totals between naps and night sleep
Reasons and solutions for early wakings:
Overtired
Large amount of total awake time for their day, mood is irritable, becomes tired then gets a second wind before sleep, wakings happening early in the night.
Solution: reduce awake time, usually by bringing bedtime earlier by 15 minutes.
Undertired
Large amounts of total sleep for the day, mood is typically content, seems to have low sleep needs, happy or not tired-seeming night wakings, happening in the later half of the night.
Solution: add awake time, or shorten naps. If awake time is much lower than the average you can add there first and give the changes about 5 days to see any improvement.
Solution: if day sleep is very high (very long naps) you may also need to start shortening, or “capping”, the naps in order to shift some of that daytime sleep to the overnight sleep total. Start by shortening the nap by 15-30 minutes, and giving the change some time to settle as well.
Dependent sleep associations
Feeding too close to bedtime, going into bed drowsy instead of awake, and if they also struggle to return to sleep for ANY night wakings without your assistance.
Solution: work on independent sleep skills and move the feeding 30+ minutes away from bedtime if a feed to sleep association is suspected.
Environment
Early mornings can be caused by a little bit of sunlight peeking through the windows, changes in room temps, or the sound machine not being loud enough to drown out the sounds of the morning (traffic, birds, coffee machine whirring)
Solution: make the room dark as a cave and so dark you can’t see your hand in front of your face, even covering those PESKY green lights from the smoke detectors with black electrical tape. Dress them appropriately overnight or keep your home temps comfortable, and bump up the sound machine to ~60-65 dB.
If you have an overall early schedule the way to get out of that cycle is by pushing their morning out of crib time later each morning (or every other morning) by 15 minutes. As a result, this will push your baby’s entire schedule for the day later as well including naps and bedtime. It is possible for your baby to also need more awake time in their day to get this later schedule and later wake time rolling.
This might look like:
Day 1: 5:30 am out of crib (OOC)
Day 2: 5:45 am ooc
Day 3: 6:00 am ooc..and so on until you get to your desired out of crib time.
Troubleshooting Short Naps
Anything less than 45 minutes (or one sleep cycle) is technically a short nap. IF your baby is still on 3+ naps, then it’s fine for the last nap to be a shortie, even as little as 30 minutes, to act as a bridge to bedtime. That leads to the next point that for babies younger than 5 or 6 months old short naps are developmentally appropriate. You can do a little investigating into timing and environment to help them connect those sleep cycles, but avoid over tweaking their schedule if things aren’t coming together for them yet. You can always extend the nap by helping them back to sleep for second or third naps when they wake early if possible/necessary to avoid overtiredness or to make it to a decent bedtime.
Reasons and solutions for short naps:
Baby is younger than 5 or 6 months old
Nap lengths can vary from 20 min to 2 hours (keep nap lengths no longer than 2 hours to keep their feeding schedule on track). Naps usually will improve individually, with the first nap lengthening out first, then the second, and so on.
Solution: keep the faith and keep practicing their independent sleep skills for nap one, and help them to extend nap two+.
Solution: to extend a nap, pause initially before responding to a waking, then after 10 minutes or so you can go in and assist them back to sleep either by replacing their pacifier, patting their back, rocking, etc.
Solution: crib hour is what we call pausing when your baby wakes early from a nap, and either waiting to respond or responding with your sleep training method to encourage them to go back to sleep for a longer nap. For example: baby wakes up 50 minutes into their nap, you pause for 10 minutes to see if they can return to sleep, and when the crib hour is complete just go get them out of their bed and start the next wake window at the time.
Environment
Solution: Cool, dark, white noise!
Dependent sleep associations
Baby is going into their sleep space asleep or drowsy and needing your assistance to connect their sleep cycles, the pacifier falls out and they are unable to replace it, the baby relies on motion to fall asleep and needs the motion in order to connect sleep cycles.
Solution: practice independent sleep skills. Usuallystart with bedtime, and then apply the same methods to nap one once you have 3-4 nights of practice under your belt.
Nap routine needs adjusting
If no nap routine is in place, or if they don’t have enough time to wind down between play and sleep they may struggle to calm down enough to take a good nap.
Solution: establish or adjust baby’s nap routine to allow their body time to relax and unwind.
Not enough or too much wake time
Solution: Adjust the wake window by 5-15 minutes if you suspect timing is the issue
Solution: to the parent, a baby may seem “tired” before their nap and able to fall asleep, but not tired enough to take a longer nap. In this case, adding some awake time to increase their sleep pressure can help the nap to lengthen. You may have to switch up the activity or location that they are playing in to keep them occupied to be able to stretch that wake window! Sleepy cues are not always reliable beyond the newborn stage.
Hunger
Baby may not be able to go 3-4 hours without a feeding, and could be waking early from their nap due to hunger
Solution: aim for 2.5-3.5 hours between feedings. Eat play sleep is a great routine to follow, and even adding a small snack before the nap or bedtime if the timing is a little off. Try to keep the feeding separated from sleep and ending 30+ min beforehand
Baby is dozing before the nap
If baby is falling asleep while feeding right before their nap, even a short snooze can zap their sleep pressure and make it harder for them to take a chunky nap.
Solution: Separate feeding from sleep by 30+ minutes, and do whatever you need to do to make sure they aren’t dozing during their feedings.
Troubleshooting Night Wakings
Extra night wakings are difficult because we are usually so tired and want to get back to sleep as well!
Reasons and solutions for night wakings:
Dependent on parent for falling asleep
remember whatever you are doing at bedtime to help your baby to sleep is what they will be looking for when they wake in the middle of the night.
Solution: independent sleep skills, fade your assistance out if you are still using a very responsive method of sleep training.
Inconsistent response to night wakings
If sometimes you help them to sleep, but sometimes you expect them to fall back asleep on their own, baby is likely to feel confused and continue to wake to hold out for their preferred response.
Solution: commit to your response no matter who is responding. If your baby is still feeding overnight, keep those for after midnight. For most of the night wakings, maintain the expectation that the baby will fall asleep independently as long as they have that skill mastered at bedtime.
Timing
Too much or too little awake time can affect your baby’s ability to stay asleep overnight.
Solution: consider their current schedule and if they are on the low or high side for awake time, adjust accordingly.
Environment
Come on, you know this song and dance! 🎵Cool, Dark, White Noise! 🎵
If your baby is experiencing night wakings that last 1-2 hours, this is most commonly known as split nights. It is so tempting to let your baby (and yourself!) sleep in after they were up partying all night, but this can exacerbate the issue. It is very important to wake them as close to their desired wake time as possible in order to get your baby’s sleep back on track.
Reasons and solutions for split nights:
Short naps and chronic early bedtime
Solution: address the short naps, likely needing more awake time to help the short naps lengthen out, and for bedtime to happen later. (see short nap section above)
Regression disrupting sleep
Solution: keep your response consistent, and support them through the regression. If it is persisting more than a few nights, double check your timing.
Undertiredness
Not enough sleep pressure to carry them through the night (aka too much day sleep and/or not enough awake time)
Solution: stretch some wake windows/ cap naps if they are going long.
Sometimes overtiredness
Too much awake time, your baby may seem very cranky/tired throughout the day and during the night waking
Solution: check their schedule and bring bedtime earlier to help reduce some of their built-up sleep debt
Teething, Illness, Growth Spurts
These culprits are valid reasons for some sleep disruptions but the good news is that they are generally short lived. If your baby is having trouble sleeping beyond just a few days, and they seem to be feeling better otherwise, I would recommend looking at the other common sleep issues for help troubleshooting, rather than just chalking it up to teething for weeks and weeks on end after their teeth have already erupted.
Survival tips:
Establish a good schedule/routine BEFORE your baby experiences a setback like a cold or teething discomfort. This can help them better handle the irritation if they are already well rested.
If you choose to give them medication to help with discomfort (at the direction of your pediatrician), give it about 30 minutes before bed so that it can kick in and help them feel comfortable going to sleep.
Cold teethers throughout the bedtime routine to help soothe inflamed gums
Growth spurts will see an increase in calories during the DAY too, not just at night. Try to offer an extra “snack” or bottle during the day to compensate, rather than upping their bottles overnight.
Take turns soothing a fussy baby if you can! Taking breaks to regulate yourself can make it easier to calm your baby when it’s your turn again.
PHEW! you made it to the end of my Why is My Baby Having Trouble Sleeping guide! If your brain isn’t already mush, please remember to bookmark or favorite this page, and refer back as often as needed for a refresher on how to troubleshoot these common sleep struggles. No one makes it through the first year of their baby’s life entirely unscathed by sleep hiccups, but hopefully with this guide in your toolbelt, you’ll feel confident and prepared to handle anything that comes your way.
Author:
Hello new friend, my name is Lauren, and I’m part of the Heaven Sent Sleep team of pediatric sleep consultants. I am a former exhausted parent, but I learned everything I could about baby sleep and now apply that knowledge towards helping other families get better sleep! I live in Texas with my husband, and two kids. I enjoy being outdoors, the moon, and dancing to the point of injury with my friends! Find me over at Heaven Sent Sleep!