Babies often need less daytime sleep than we think

Why our babies' need for daytime naps can be overrated

Baby sleep needs are highly variable. The number and length of daytime naps typically shrinks, too, throughout the first year of life. You can find out about this here.

A low sleep need baby may be awake almost all of the day, taking only the briefest of naps, and may also go to bed rather late in the evening. Caring for a low sleep need baby is challenging, that’s for sure. But we can’t teach a low sleep need baby to sleep more. Low sleep need babies have the same developmental outcomes as high sleep need babies.

This is why it doesn’t help to estimate how long your baby should be awake for before taking a nap during the day. Estimates of wake windows are usually quite misleading. All you can do is experiment with your own unique and precious baby.

A primary carer often feels under great pressure to get baby to sleep during the day. There are a number of reasons for this. It may be that you're

• Desperate for a break or desperate to get some things done

• Worried that baby is grizzling and dialling up due to lack of sleep

• Worried that if your baby doesn’t get enough sleep during the day, it will impact on your little one's capacity to learn and develop well.

It’s completely normal to long for your baby to fall asleep during the day, so that you can have a break! But despite what you might have heard, the situation with your baby's sleep doesn't impact on his capacity to learn and develop. And if you take off the sleep lens when your baby dials up, and put on the sensory lens, life becomes a lot more manageable, overall.

What does it mean to take off the sleep lens and put on the sensory lens?

You are the one who knows your baby best, and you'll know when your baby's sleep pressure is rising, so that he is becoming more fragile, more likely to grizzle and fuss. But that doesn't mean that you need to put him down to sleep straight away.

I often tell parents a story about my own sleep pressure, which is rising rather high if I come in after a long day of work at seven o'clock in the evening, let's say. I could lie down and go to sleep right there and then! But I don't, because I know that going to sleep at seven o'clock in the evening would disrupt my body clock setttings. I would find myself waking at three in the morning, or I'd wake up and lie awake for a few hours in the night. I wait until my sleep pressure is very high, at half past nine or ten o'clock in the evening, before I go to bed. This way, my body clock stays aligned with other peoples', and with day and night. I might yawn during the day, or notice some tiredness, but that doesn't mean I should immediately go to sleep! I try to keep my sleep regulators operating in a healthy way, so that I can live a vital life.

The days are easiest when you're caring for a baby if you experiment with your two superpowers, frequent flexible feeds and sensory motor nourishment, to keep your baby dialled down until the sleep pressure is really high, and she drops off to sleep easily. With an older baby, experimenting with rich sensory motor adventures alone is a very powerful way of keeping your little one dialled down so that the two sleep regulators work easily.

Sleep doesn’t breed sleep, although you might hear this said. You could experiment with taking off the sleep lens, and putting on the sensory lens. Your focus then is on keeping your baby’s dial turned down. In this way, daytime naps take care of themselves when baby's sleep pressure is high enough, in the midst of a satisfying day outside the home, meeting your own needs for social contact, walking, or getting (outside the home) tasks done.

If your baby naps in the midst of light, noise and lots of activity, your baby only takes the sleep she really needs, to take the edge off the rising sleep pressure. You're not trying to get your baby to sleep. You're not trying to keep your baby asleep. You're just trying to live the most enjoyable day for yourself that you can, with a reasonably dialled down baby.

The problem with big naps during the day is that over time, depending on your child’s sleep needs, your baby may end up with a disrupted circadian clock and excessive night waking. That's something we want to try to avoid!

Selected references

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Matricciani LA, Olds TS, Blunden SL, Rigney G, Williams MT. Never enough sleep: a brief history of sleep recommendations for children. Pediatrics. 2012;129:548.

Paavonen JE, Saarenpaa-Heikkila O, Morales-Munoz I, Virta M, Hakala N, Polkki P, et al. Normal sleep development in infants: findings from two large birth cohorts. Sleep Medicine. 2020;69:145-154.

Price A, Brown JE, Bittman M, Wake M, Quach J, Hiscock H. Children's sleep patterns from 0-9 years: Australian population longitudinal study. Archives of Disease in Childhood. 2014;99:119-125.

Teng A, Bartle A, Sadeh A, Mindell J. Infant and toddler sleep in Australia and New Zealand. Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health. 2011;48:268-273.

Williams JA, Zimmerman FJ, Bell JF. Norms and trends of sleep time among US children and adolescents. JAMA Pediatrics. 2013;167:55-60.