I promise your baby does not hate sleep!
Let’s talk about why your baby fights sleep though. Figuring out why your baby fights sleep is easy sometimes and challenging other times. In this blog I will discuss five common reasons your baby might fight sleep and what to do!
New Milestones
When babies learn a new skill, they might have a hard time thinking about anything else, even if it’s time to sleep. They will fight their sleep more during these times. Their desire to master the skill ranks higher than anything else. This can be true for developmental milestones such as rolling, pulling up, crawling, and walking. Walking is the milestone I typically see affect sleep the most.
I’ve heard it explained like this: What if you, as an adult, learned how to fly one day? You would probably want to be flying around all the time and wouldn’t care about sleeping much either. Regardless of the milestone your baby is working on, you can help by practicing the skill during the day. Get on the floor with your baby and physically help them roll over or go from sitting to lying, etc. Once the “newness” of the skill wears off, things will get back to normal!
Overstimulation
A baby might fight sleep if they are overstimulated. Overstimulation is caused by too much noise, too much light, or too much touch, among other things. A bright, busy household, screens, noisy toys, etc. can be too much to handle, resulting in overstimulation and the urge to fight sleep. If your house is often full of visitors and action, your baby may fight sleep due to overstimulation. Keep the nursery conducive to sleep no matter the time of day. Try to avoid stimulating activities at least an hour before baby’s bedtime. Just as you might find it hard to go to sleep immediately after returning home from something fun or exciting, some babies have a hard time settling down after lots of stimulation too.
Over-tiredness
Make sure to know how long your baby’s wake windows should be. Many parents keep their babies up too long between sleep times. I know I made this mistake with my oldest child! Watch the windows AND follow your baby’s sleepy cues and help them get to sleep as soon as they’re ready. If your baby pulls at their ears, becomes clingier, rubs their eyes, zones out, or loses interest in people or toys then they are starting to get tired. This is the ideal time to get them to sleep. If your baby starts to get fussy and is crying and difficult to calm, they are likely overtired. When your baby fights sleep for any reason it just makes them more overtired and then things can really escalate. So try to avoid this as much as possible!
Temperament
A large percentage of the babies I work with have an “alert” temperament. You know those babies who watch everything intensely from the very beginning. They have serious FOMO and do not want to miss anything! They are born this way. It is harder for them to shut everything out and just go to sleep. For more info and tips on alert babies click HERE.
Inability to self-soothe
I often hear parents say their baby just hates to sleep. I can assure you this is never the issue. Most of the time, the issue is that they just don’t know HOW to sleep. This may be the most common reason why your baby fights sleep. There are a couple of different reasons why a baby wouldn’t have the ability to self-soothe. This may be due to the fact that they are too young to have the skills to know how. Sleep may still be developing in the brain of a baby under six months so they truly may not have the ability to soothe themselves. If they are older than six months and still can’t self-soothe, it simply means they just haven’t been given the consistent opportunity to learn how. If you need help teaching your baby healthy sleep habits check out my consultation options HERE.