Wake Up Your Baby: Why “Never Wake a Sleeping Baby” is an Old-School Trend
Is it ever ok to wake a baby? YESSSS!!!! “Never wake a sleeping baby” is so old-school. 🙂 Sometimes it’s necessary to shorten a sleep period on purpose in order to protect the next one. It’s a purposeful action that yields restorative, healthy sleep in the long run when done correctly! Here are some scenarios to help you understand when it would be a good idea to cap a nap:
1. Your baby takes two naps a day. The morning nap typically lasts 2 hours and the afternoon nap 1-1.5 hours on a good day. Ultimately, the goal is to have the afternoon nap be the longest one so that your child will have an easy time transitioning to one nap down the road. I can’t tell you how many sleep issues are caused by this transition when a baby is accustomed to getting the most sleep early on in the day. Also, a short afternoon nap results in overtired, cranky babies by day’s end, which then creates a cycle of overtiredness…ie nightwakings, restlessness, dependencies, etc. The easiest way to solve this problem is to cap the morning nap at 1 hour, then start the afternoon nap 3 hours later. After 5-7 days the afternoon nap will stretch out and the baby will be well adjusted to getting adequate rest throughout the day.
2. Your child consistently naps for 3 hours in the afternoon and then has trouble falling asleep before 9pm at bedtime. Since the hours between 5:30-8pm are the best sleep your child can get in a 24 hour period, we want to protect them! Those hours are of much higher quality than an afternoon nap can provide. In this case we would shorten the nap to 2 hours to see if bedtime gets earlier. If not, cap it at 1.5 hours, etc., until bedtime is naturally occurring closer to 7/7:30pm.
3. Your baby’s naps fall at times that aren’t restorative. The optimal napping windows are 9-10am and 12-2pm – any other start times result in junky sleep that leaves our kids feeling groggy and grumpy. Most of the time, naps that happen later like this are happening because the morning wake-time is too late…which is caused by the too-late bedtime, which was caused by the too-late naps, which were caused by the too-late morning wake-time. See where I’m going with this? It’s a vicious cycle that needs to STOP! The best way to end it and start anew is to wake him at 7am for 5 mornings in a row. Get the day going on time and the rest will follow! Even if this means he’ll be overtired for a few days, it won’t last long. The positive benefits of getting the highest quality sleep possible is worth the effort to make it right!
There you have it! Wake up your baby if your concerns match any of these examples. You (and your little one) will be glad you did!
My daughter is one month old. At what age do you recommend implementing your tips on sleep scheduling and no longer nursing at night? She is gaining weight really well. Do you recommend nursing more frequently during the day so she’s fuller at night? What age do you think she can move from our room to her room in her crib?
Racial hi!!! I’m way, way behind on answering this and I’m so sorry. Somehow I didn’t see it until now! You daughter is 3 years old by now. Hopefully someone will find this helpful out there though! I recommend implementing a sleep schedule between 16-20 weeks of age, and no nursing at night no later than the 9 month mark. Most babies start sleeping through the night without eating much sooner! I recommend cluster feeding in the late afternoon/early evening, and keeping daytime feedings to every 3 hours at her age. If she’s still napping, 4 hours is ok once in awhile – otherwise she’ll wake more often to eat at night to compensate. Moving a baby from the parents’ room to her own room varies from family to family. I always say that moms have a gut instinct about it, so I encourage them to wait until they feel that inner nudge to move their baby out! I have 7 and each one moved out a different age…from 2 weeks all the way to 6 months difference! I hope this is helpful!
Hi! I am glad to find your blog post. I am starting to cap my 10 months old’s morning nap to extend the afternoon nap. This has worked for a while, and he had a few days of short naps (due to over tiredness I’m guessing) so we are trying to get things right again. We think we might have to cap the morning nap at 45 minutes soon or even 30 minutes around his 1y birthday to start the transition to 1 nap before he starts his daycare when he is 14 months old. When the morning nap gets shorter, do you recommend shorter wake windows? Or do you think they can stay awake for the same length of time even after 45 minutes nap vs 1 hour nap? He can currently go just over 3 hours, but I am not sure if we should bring him down for the second nap at or even before 3 hours. Baby sleep is so complicated and difficult:( Thank you for your help in advance!