Sleep Deprevation 

One thing for sure is that “sleep breeds sleep” and if babies or children aren’t sleeping as they should, sleep deprivation builds, which causes sleep to become even more more broken as cortisol levels rise.

If you’re finding it impossible to help your baby or toddler sleep, you’re certainly not alone. The American Academy of Paediatrics estimates that sleep problems affect 25–50 per cent of children and 40 per cent of adolescents. Understanding your child’s sleep-needs is the first step towards providing better sleep for them. Through a combination of good sleep hygiene, age-appropriate routines, close attention to any sleep disorders or underlying digestive issues, and by following my books, you can help your baby or child get the rest and sleep they need to grow up strong and healthy.

Sleep deprivation in the early months and years takes a toll on all aspects of a child’s health and, if not resolved, can have a hugely detrimental effect on their development. Sleep is such an important part of your child’s mental and physical health because, while sleeping, a child’s mind and body are able to rest and rejuvenate. The brain needs to sleep so that it can restore resources that were used up during the day, and a well-rested brain can solve problems, learn new information and enjoy life much more than a brain that is overtired. A baby’s brain needs a lot of sleep for crucial development, including brain maturity, memory consolidation and learning. Sleep helps form neural connections, strengthens memory and supports overall cognitive and physical growth.

New research is frequently being published, stating that instances of childhood sleep problems are escalating rapidly and having witnessed first-hand the ever-growing number of parents who are struggling to get their babies, toddlers and young children to sleep – I can confirm that cases of childhood sleep deprivation are indeed on the increase.

One report claimed that sleep deprivation is a ‘hidden health crisis’ – and that’s based only on recorded cases! This particular study was reported in the Guardian using data analysed from NHS Digital, the national information and technology partner to the health and social care system in England.

Over the past few generations, a new parenting ethos seems to have evolved which has normalised and even accepted the fact that infant sleep is simply unachievable and that they are not even designed to sleep! It truly has become the accepted norm that babies won’t, don’t and can’t learn to sleep - and certainly not before six or even twelve months of age. Even though, as many of the reports state, lack of proper and rejuvenating sleep is hugely detrimental to a child’s health and development, any sleep issue with a baby is now passed off with a label such as a ‘sleep regression’ or an age related ‘developmental phase’ and therefore it must just be accepted and you – as a parent – can’t change things this as ‘just how babies are!’

My first Baby-Book addresses the sleep issues that many parents face in those first few months and sets out a plan that, if followed, will result in your baby naturally sleeping 12 hours through the night by around eight to twelve weeks old. The book also details my incredibly popular reassurance sleep-training technique which is aimed at babies aged three to four months and designed for those still sleeping in a cot. However, from twelve months on, as babies develop and head towards toddlerhood, sleeping – even in a cot – can present many different challenges. They’ve learned to sit up, stand up, use words, throw their comforter, refuse bedtime milk, demand one more story, beg and plead you to sit with them, insist on having the door open and a light on, undo their sleeping bag, take off their pyjamas and – horror –even remove their nappy! Thankfully, the technique and advice detailed in my second ‘Toddler’ book will ensure solid sleep for your older babies and children too.

Night-time Sleep

How much sleep? Schedules and routines

The amount of sleep we each require varies, particularly when we become adults, but, according to America’s Sleep Foundation, research makes it clear that enough sleep is essential at all ages. Sleep powers the mind and restores the body, fortifying virtually every system within it. But how much sleep do we really need in order to get these benefits? The Sleep Foundation says that healthy adults need 7–9 hours of sleep per night (7–8 hours for those over 65), but babies, young children and teens need considerably more, to enable their growth and development.

The following table sets out the total expected daily sleep requirements for older babies, toddlers and young children. Based on the average amount for each age group, it also shows how many daytime naps are needed to promote good night-time sleep.

Daytime Naps

Implementing daytime naps can be a challenge and as a rule of thumb a full night's sleep i.e. 12 hours straight through, needs to be established first after which daytime naps fall into place more easily. It’s imperative to establish positive sleep associations and encourage your baby to self settle without using sleep crutches such as rocking/dummies etc to promote independent sleep. If you find it absolutely impossible to put your baby down at nap time, then I would research reflux issues and digestive discomfort as a possible cause.

So many parents feel a lot of stress about implementing and achieving daytime naps with their little ones. In the early months, naps will rarely fall into a routine until a full night’s sleep is properly established. Many will follow advice to wake their baby after a 45-minute morning nap, enforce a 2-hour sleep after lunch and/or not let their baby nap again after 4pm, but I don’t advise this because as I’ve said – ‘sleep breeds sleep’!

My advice is somewhat different from most, because I suggest you implement a more flexible nap structure that better follows your baby’s natural sleep patterns. During the first 8–10 months, the easiest daytime nap to establish is usually the first one of the day. It’s also the most rejuvenating and the best-quality daytime sleep your little one will have, even after a full, 12-hour sleep at night. This often means that the after-lunch daytime nap that most parents try to achieve may not be quite so successful and may be frustratingly variable in its length. However, as your baby heads to twelve months old the need for two daytime naps will lessen and by eighteen months you can expect your little one to be having only the one nap, after lunch, which stays in place for another year or so.

Also, most problematical bedtimes and babies experiencing ‘the witching hours’ at the end of the day and getting very upset – it is usually because they are overtired, so I will always encourage a late afternoon nap anywhere between 4pm and 6pm, which is often what I refer to as the late afternoon power-nap. This is usually 45 to 60 minutes in length and there have been many occasions where I have woken a baby at 6pm to bath them, feed them and put back to sleep for a 7pm bedtime!

Let's look at the expected nap structure in more detail.

• At 6 months: Around this time, if you’ve followed The Sensational Baby Sleep Plan, I would expect your baby to be dropping the late-afternoon nap and just having a nap in the morning and one after lunch. To cope with the longer afternoon from wake-up after the second nap through to bedtime, you can push back the timings of the naps so that the first is at around 9/9.30am instead of 8.30am, and then the second nap starts at around 1/1.30pm instead of 12.30.

• Approaching 12 months: Some babies seem to need to drop the morning nap around this time, though some do it sooner, or later, than others – the earliest I have seen was at ten months and there are some who keep two naps until they’re almost two!

• 2–3.5 years: Once your little one is down to just the one, after-lunch nap as they head towards three years old, they may then drop the nap completely. The earliest I would expect a toddler to be able to do without the nap is around two and a half years, whereas some will keep their beloved nap until around three and a half.

Sleep Problems

It’s never too late to address sleep issues and I help manage and resolve sleep problems with babies during the first few weeks and months, following on into dealing with non-sleeping toddlers and older children.

Obviously the older a baby/child gets the more complex things can become because as the night disruptions and poor sleep patterns evolve over a period of time, they easily become set as part of habitual behaviour, so not only do we need to then address the underlying and original cause of the sleep problems, the habit that has become the norm needs to be changed too.

I rarely find that it is a case of just ‘getting tough’ or letting a baby or child just ‘cry-it-out’ as more often than not, there does prove to be an underlying – and often previously undetected - cause that has driven the poor sleep associations and therefore we need to first, find out this cause and ask ourselves – “WHY”. Why the baby/child does not want to go to bed, sleep alone, sleep easily and /or keep waking during the night and once we discover the cause, then we can address this and then devise a forward plan to implement, that will facilitate the necessary change and ultimately bring resolution…….alongside retraining the built up habitual patterns that have become established.

Easy for me to say – and often much harder to implement, but those who choose to follow my plans, books and advice nearly always get through and, in the end, achieve great success.

Here are some of the common sleep problems, causes and what you can try to bring resolution.

Difficult to put down, can’t seem to ‘self-settle,’ being held, rocked or fed to sleep

Baby – Obviously newborns are going to need loads of cuddles, skin-to-skin and contact naps, but with each week that passes it should be fairly easy to start putting them down in the crib for a sleep and independent sleep should start to become established. However, sadly for many it doesn’t seem to prove that simple and every time you attempt to put baby down for a sleep, baby will fuss, protest and even cry – sometimes, really scream! Try putting a heat pad [but don’t put baby directly on to this] to warm the sleeping space before putting baby down, keep your hands on baby so they still feel your warmth. You can try patting, stroking or holding their hands and a shushing noise that mimics that of noise in the womb can often really help – in fact I often advise using white noise and buying one of the portable units to create a constant fan-noise can really be useful. Please note though – the white noise must stay playing for the whole of the nap and all through the night, not turn off after 20 or 45 minutes. If your baby loves falling asleep whilst feeding you will need to start keeping them awake or rousing them somewhat before putting them down for a sleep and just persevere with some settling techniques to help baby learn to fall asleep in the crib rather than being fully asleep on the boob or bottle. Some babies, simply hate being put down because they’ve been comfy curled in your arms or on their tummy on your chest and then as you go to put them in the crib, you flip them over to put them down, flat on the back in accordance with recent guidelines. However, this back-to-sleep positioning often proves to be one of biggest causes of babies seeming to be unable to sleep easily and comfortably as they should.

If you imagine how curled up they have been in the womb and then we expect them to accept lying completely prone, on their back and fully ‘exposed’ rather than being snuggled up and feeling secure – it’s not rocket science to realise that they might struggle with it. There are very few animals in the natural world that will sleep stretched out, belly-up and open to the elements. In fact, very few grown adults will sleep flat on their back with most offering to adopt a side, or even tummy position. Please note: you will find further details of sleep positioning, the guidelines on safe sleeping and my views and advice on the subject in my baby book, recorded podcasts and videos.

So, if you think your baby prefers a different sleep position then simply buy and under mattress breathing sensor and with this in place – it doesn’t really matter what position they sleep in. These monitors are used in special care and neonatal hospital care where many babies are indeed slept on their tummies with alarms in place – so I fail to see why this can’t be safely replicated at a home! The real problem is that what ever scenario baby gets used to falling asleep with – being fed, rocked, cuddled etc, when they go through a lighter sleep phase or move through a full sleep cycle, instead of being able to drift back into a deeper sleep by themselves they will crave and need the same scenario of being fed or rocked and will wake, actively looking for the sleep-association they’ve become used to!

Frequent night wakings, continual demands night feeds/milk

Contrary to popular belief, most healthy newborn babies are capable of sleeping 12 hours straight through the night, without the need for nighttime feeds from 8 to 12 weeks of age. If you have been following The Plan as written in my baby book, it should be much easier to try to work out why your little one is still waking frequently in the night and or still looking for milk. Here are some things to check; that daytime feeds are going well, weight gain is as it should be, baby is napping enough during the day and that baby is not getting too overtired or is it that your little one is actually waking during the night because of discomfort? Many babies that have an underlying acid reflux problem, dietary related intolerances some degree of gut sensitivity they may well continue to wake at night simply because they are uncomfortable. It’s very common for babies to look for milk to try to wash away any rising acid or gut discomfort and it is a frequent cause of continuing and excessive night wakings. In fact, many parents have even tried to implement some form of sleep training only to discover that their baby gets more and more angry the longer they try to resist giving milk or a feed as the baby has become reliant on this milk to ease the discomfort rather than wanting it through genuine hunger. As with every sleep related issue it is imperative that you try to ascertain why your baby is waking, what is the underlying cause and address that first before expecting them to be able to sleep.

Sleep regressions

“Sleep regressions are the phenomena when your once good (or even just “OK”) sleeper all of a sudden doesn’t sleep well anymore. Multiple wake-ups, increased fussing and crying at uncommon times, or even fighting bedtime can happen in babies who had been sleeping soundly through the night. True sleep regressions are different from a few rough nights of sleep. In fact, they can last between 2 and 6 weeks. Not every baby deals with noticeable sleep regressions, and for babies that are tricky sleepers, you might not notice a difference at all! However, sleep regressions are incredibly common and something to prepare for.” This is just one statement about supposed sleep regressions, that you can find when searching on the web. I do not and have never, believed that any baby will suddenly just stop sleeping because they have reached a specific age or hit a particular developmental milestone! It’s utterly bonkers to me that the recently coined term - ‘sleep regressions’, now injects more panic and even fear into parents who are already struggling with non, or difficult to sleep babies. When I first started working with babies 30 years ago, there was no such thing labelled as a ‘sleep regression’ – regressions in sleep simply didn’t exist and were not a real ‘thing’! The first time I even heard the saying, it was only ever in relation to the 4-month age and this saying; ‘the 4-month sleep-regression,’ was the ONLY one ever talked about. It now seems to be accepted that regressions occur, not only at 4 months, but 6, 8, 10, 12, 14 and 18 months and with an allowance for individuality it gives leeway of these regressions occurring at least 1 month before or after the stated age! So, basically this means that, babies could be experiencing some degree of ‘sleep regression’ for most of their first 18 months!!!

When the 4-month regression label first came into use, I quickly realised what was actually happening in regard to babies and sleep and worked out why sleep around this age seemed more difficult to achieve and there was a deterioration from the sleep baby was achieving at 12 weeks. This is simply because the expected hours of sleep a baby should have has lessened over the last 20 or so years and very few people today believe that a baby is capable of sleeping through the night.

The expectations in this regard have lowered so dramatically, that it has actually become the accepted norm for babies not to sleep through the night for months or even years on end – though this is the complete opposite to my belief and knowledge, along with that of the many thousands of parents who have followed my method from day 1 and have happy, healthy naturally sleeping babies who slept through the night from 8 to 12 weeks and did not experience any so called sleep regression at 4 months – or any other age! What is actually occurring now is that so many babies are not sleeping through the night by 12 weeks, waking maybe as little as 1 or 2 times, maybe more, typically still being given night feeds, but this is not how it should be and interferes with the naturally developing sleep requirements, that fall alongside and work with our natural digestive patterns.

As mammals, we are designed to take on fuel during the daylight hours and then have a long, overnight break allowing our digestive processes to kick in to process, digest, empty, cleanse, rejuvenate and prepare the waste to pass come morning and be ready to start the process over again and begin taking on food again, during the daylight hours.

Understanding this natural pattern, most babies should be able to, and need to sleep through the night from around 12 weeks, but if they aren’t, then sleep deprivation will start to build as a sleep debt and the effect of the sleep deprivation causes sleep to become even more disrupted and disturbed with each passing week. Then, by the time baby is 4 months old, the sleep they were achieving at 3 months with maybe a couple of wakes and feeds, just deteriorates to cause more wakings and night disturbances – which then became labelled as the 4-month, sleep regression.

The problem we have now though, is that by giving the scenario a label, it is now validated as a real ‘thing’ and encourages parents to just believe their baby is not sleeping because of this regression and that you can’t do anything about it, which taps into the quite dismissive attitude that seems to have been adopted these days in regard to all aspects of baby care. Whatever age your baby, and whether they have previously been poor, fair or amazing sleepers – if you are experiencing any kind of sleep resistance or disturbance, then please try to properly assess the situation, follow my advice in the books and find out why things are not as they should be. Once you determine that, you can then work out how to find a resolution.

Daytime naps. Inability to nap at all, broken naps, resistance to the cot for naps.

What you can do

Having researched and read all the information about sleep that I give in both my books, through podcasts I’ve recorded and scrolling though my Instagram page I would hope you now might have some idea of what might be causing your little one’s sleep aversion.

Often, all that is needed is to work out why there is a sleep issue, which then makes it easier to address the underlying problem and bring resolution.

It might be simply ‘bad habits’ have been learned, and they need to be ‘un-learned’.

It could be you need to remove and stop giving night feeds and or a dream feed.

It might be your little one simply hasn’t learned the art of independent sleep and has become reliant on feeding or being rocked to sleep.

It may be that a dummy is causing your baby to constantly wake, looking for the ‘lost’ dummy to be replaced.

It’s possible that you’re little one is simply unable to sleep due to an underlying digestive discomfort, acid reflux and or milk/food intolerance or allergy issue.

Whatever the problem, it can be changed, fixed, rectified and sleep can become the norm in your household!

• You can read both my books.

• You can listen to my webinar recordings that give a deeper insight to sleep, sleep problems and how to resolve them.

• You can listen to the podcasts Alison has recorded on sleep and reflux.

• You can scrutinise my Instagram page and replay many of my ‘live’ posts and Q and A sessions.

• You can seek direct help from Alison through an online consultation.

There is definitely a light at the end of the tunnel and you, like thousands of parents before you, can and will promote and establish positive sleep habits for your baby, toddler or child.

Good Luck!