It is common to think that if a child or an adult “is tired enough he or she will sleep” and there is some biological truth to that. At some point, all of us become so exhausted that we will crash out and be able to sleep almost anywhere. Unfortunately, that sleep tends to be choppy and short, and not the most restorative…
A child who crashes to sleep is more likely to wake up during the night and to wake early in the morning before his/her body is all the way rested. This tendency occurs because overtired children’s (and adults’) bodies are in a state of stress due to lack of sleep. When children do not get the sleep they need, their bodies go into survival mode, producing excess hormones, including cortisol, that keep them awake. In our practice, we routinely see children add hours to their sleep, even resuming naps parents thought were over, when given the opportunity to sleep. In addition, they often decrease or cease night waking and drop night feeds.
A common misconception of our clients and the parents in our group presentations is that yawning and “looking tired” are signs to use to determine when their child is ready for sleep. Unfortunately, these signs are all overtired signs. It is only in the first three months that we can look for sleepy cues or drowsy signs. These are: decreased activity, slower movements, less vocalization, sucking is weaker or slower sucking. The baby becomes quieter, calmer, appears disinterested in his/her surroundings, eyes become less focused, eyelids drooping, or the baby may avert her/his eyes, or turn head away. These cues cease to be helpful near the 4th month, and only overtired signs remain.
The Overtired Signs are: yawning, fussing, rubbing eyes, pulling on ears, irritability, and/or crankiness. Parents then believe these overtired signs are the ones to look for and then mistakenly wait for their children to yawn and look tired before putting them to bed. When their children fall asleep quickly they see this as evidence that they are putting their little ones to sleep at the right time, especially when they have tried to put their children to bed earlier and they won’t go to sleep. The natural question I receive when I tell parents their babies are going to bed too late is why then will their children not go to sleep earlier, and if they are so tired, why do they keep waking up at night and early in the morning? This is a great question and the answer lies in a dysregulated circadian drive.
The circadian drive is a complex balance between interrelated hormone secretions. Children who are overtired have increased hormone secretions that keep them awake when they really need to go to sleep because their bodies have learned that they will not get enough sleep. The effect is similar to caffeine or any other stimulant: it makes it hard for a child to go to sleep. The child’s body is in a bind with conflicting signals both to stay awake and to go to sleep. Their circadian rhythm is out of balance. Parents who have tried to put their children to bed earlier than usual and find that their child will not go to sleep usually still put their child to bed too late. Additionally, a compounding factor is they have usually unwittingly been putting their children down too late for naps, having been using overtired signs as the indicators of when to put the babies to sleep, resulting in even more overtiredness and more hormone secretions to keep their children awake. Once my clients and class participants begin to realize their use of faulty sleep cues has led to their children being chronically overtired, they want to know how to fix it. Again, great question, and the answer is regular sleeping times and going to sleep before the overtired signals exhibited.
As stated earlier, when a baby over 3 months of age is overtired, the body responds by producing the hormone equivalents of stimulants. A good idea is to notice when your baby is typically overtired and start your going to sleep routine a little earlier, thus avoiding the stimulant rush. Additionally, all humans are biologically predispositioned to align with a sleep schedule. In fact, there are studies showing that people who do not have regular sleeping times have poorer quality of sleep and are thus overtired. A child’s ability to benefit from consistent sleep times develops between the third and fourth month and is fully established by the sixth month. This is when keeping regular sleeping times becomes so important. As a parent, you have the opportunity to support your child’s sleep by keeping a consistent schedule that offers sleep before he/she is tired. By so doing, you help your baby’s circadian rhythm regulate, which allows it to do the job of supporting your little one’s sleep.