Why Won’t My Baby Sleep Through the Night?
Ahh, the question we all want the answer to. And right now please!
Baby wakes up during the night frequently and the fussing starts, waking you up and disrupting everyone’s sleep. You have to go in there and soothe them back to sleep somehow. And then hope everyone else can fall back asleep as well.
I wish I could say there was a simply “one-size-fits-all” solution to this problem, but sadly there is not. But I can say, there is almost always a single cause for a baby or toddler not being able to sleep through the night, and it’s the same reason in about 90% of the cases I deal with.
But before we get to that there are some easy issues to rule out.
- HUNGER
If your little one is less than six months old, there is a pretty good chance they might still need a nighttime feed to get them through the night. That’s not a hard and fast rule, but on average, six months is around the age when you can expect your baby to sleep a good 11-12 hours without eating. - DISCOMFORT
Conditions like acid reflux or indigestion, being too hot or too cold, or just being stuck in an uncomfortable position can all lead to baby waking up at night. If you suspect that your little one is experiencing some kind of discomfort, you’ll want to address the issue before you attempt to get them sleeping through the night.
If your baby is comfortable and fed, then there is really only one major reason for why they can’t sleep through the night.
Are you ready for it?
It’s because they don’t know how.
I’m sure you’ve heard people say: “Babies will sleep when they’re ready!” “Sleep is developmental!” “Just ride it out. It won’t last forever,” and so on. Hearing these phrases frustrates me because:
a) It doesn’t help anyone and
b) It tells people to avoid fixing an issue that absolutely can and should be fixed!
What do I mean when I say that babies wake up because they don’t know how to sleep through the night?
Everyone, babies and adults, go through sleep cycles throughout the night.
At the end of a cycle, we’re no longer in a “deep” sleep. We’re right at the cusp of waking up, and a lot of the time, we do wake up. As adults we have so much experience falling asleep, we can usually just look at the clock, realize we still have time before our alarm goes off, close our eyes, roll over and fall back asleep.
But babies haven’t had much practice falling asleep, often they are getting a bunch of help to fall asleep. They get bounced, shushed, cuddled, rocked, serenaded, taken for car rides, rolled around in their stroller, or fed to sleep.
So when baby wakes up after a sleep cycle (again, totally normal), he can’t get back to sleep again without that extra help. So mom or dad needs to get up and repeat whatever bouncing/rocking/feeding/shushing process baby is accustomed to.
That’s the issue, and like I say, it’s the issue with about 90% of the babies I work with.
How do you address that issue?
Well, like I said before, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. You need to find an approach that works for both baby and parents. But ultimately, you need to get rid of baby’s dependence on assistance from a caregiver to fall asleep and teach baby to fall asleep on his own.
So when you hear someone say that babies don’t sleep through the night, or that it’s natural for
them to wake up several times, that’s absolutely correct.
When they tell you that all you can do is wait it out, that’s absurd. You can absolutely teach your little one the skills they need to sleep through the night. And I’d be delighted to help show you how.
