The Science of Pediatric Sleep
May 31, 2024‘Have you tried changing his wake-windows?’
The urge to answer “What a brilliant idea Karen! Never crossed my mind as I read the twentieth ‘Baby sleep’ article at 3am over the last 8 weeks’... Is strong.
When dealing with a baby, toddler or even a preschooler who struggles with sleep, information isn’t lacking however the vast majority of it… is well… terrible.
There are only so many tips and tricks you can try before feeling like you’re about to lose your mind. To make things worse, you never really know why you’re trying tip A, B and C, what the reasoning is behind it, and most of the time the person telling you to do so, doesn’t either.
Now I believe that when it comes to the sleep/sanity of those raising the next generation of humans… we actually need to know what we’re doing, and why we’re doing it. I mean… those tiny humans will rule the world and take care of us when we’re old and brittle… we kind of need to do a good job!
And that starts by making sure their growing brains get enough sleep!
As simple as it may sound, in order to properly address a child’s sleep problems, we need to go back to the beginning and take some time to understand the science of sleep, in other words what is happening in their brains.
Here at BeBaby, we don’t ‘throw spaghetti at the wall’ and hope it sticks! When it comes to the health of the babies and parents who seek our help, we make the right sleep plan based on a full and complete holistic evaluation and always based on science.
In this article we will talk about some of the basic information we believe every parent needs:
- Newborn sleep
- Sleep cycles in babies and toddlers
- The 4 month sleep regression
- Overtiredness
- Patterned wakes
Newborn Sleep
‘Eat, sleep, poop’ is how most describe the life of a newborn and in all fairness it is pretty accurate. That being said newborns are precious and sensitive little beings whose sleep can very easily get derailed.
Newborns go from light sleep to deep sleep within a few minutes and have very unpredictable lengths of deep sleep which may vary from 30 min all the way to 4h.
They do not have sleep cycles and this causes them to be very unpredictable. The length of their sleep is mostly dictated by things such as:
-Hunger
-Blood sugar levels
-Comfort
-Startling
-Environmental factors such as noise
-A noisy fart…
Seems fairly simple but this is why some newborns struggle to sleep well: Many small things can disturb their sleep and if they get overtired… We enter a whole new world of issues. More on that later!
Sleep Cycles in Babies and Toddlers
Once your little one turns 4 months their sleep changes, ALOT for the best OR the worse.
At 4 months babies go through the infamous 4 month sleep regression, which in reality isn't a regression. Babies begin sleeping in sleep cycles much like we do as adults, and thus this is not a temporary regression but rather a permanent change in which babies sleep.
It goes a little like this:
Your baby goes from awake to light sleep stages one and two, then transitions into deep sleep stages 3 and 4 before rotating back up. However you’ll notice that at the sleep cycle peak, your baby won’t actually (or isn’t supposed to) wake completely, in fact this is where the famous REM sleep happens, or Rapid Eye Movement Sleep.
This stage of sleep is very light and where you, or anybody above the age of 4 months who sleeps in cycles, does an ‘Environmental check’.
This environmental check is a period where while you are in a light stage of sleep your brains does a quick mental check of your environment to make sure it’s safe for you to dive into the next sleep cycle.The reason being that once you hit the super deep sleep of stage 4… well you’re partially paralyzed and if a bear wanted to have you as a snack he would be able to take his time chewing you. During an environmental check your brain asks:
- Are there any weird noises?
- Am I too cold or too hot?
- Do I need to pee really bad???
And that explains why sometimes you wake in the middle of the night with an urgent need to wee!
The issue is that during this transition some babies learn to do this seamlessly and without any troubles however some struggle a little more and actually fully wake at every one or two sleep cycles.
Each sleep cycle lasts 45 min to 1h30 which means you may start seeing wakes at intervals anywhere between 3h to 45 min at its worst.
And because this is a permanent change in the way babies sleep, sleep issues arising from it wont go away on their own either.
Overtiredness
In fact one of the issues we see after the 4 month sleep change is that parents wait for things to get better because everyone told them it would… And yet their baby accumulates overtiredness and as a result fights sleep more and becomes more overtired leading to more superficial and shorter sleep cycles making their wakes every 3h go to every 2h and then every 1h and finally every 45 min…
See babies, toddlers and preschoolers, due to a little thing called adenosine, tend to fight sleep and sleep less well when they get too overtired (too much adenosine). So in other words if little Johny misses his nap he may get overtired and fight bedtime, and because he went to bed too late, he may sleep less deeply and wake more often, thus waking overtired and as a result fight his nap…
It’s a nasty cycle.
Patterned wakes
But assuming you’re still being told to ‘just wait, it’ll get better!’ this is where you can give Karen the middle finger.
The brain is a computer and LOVES patterns. It tries to make patterns with everything in order to simplify things. Basically by creating patterns you and your brain have less conscious decisions to make, like remembering to breathe for example.
The thing is that can sometimes backfire and when your baby has gotten into a habit of waking every hour the brain can decide this is a new pattern it needs to solidify which means that even as your little one ages, the wakes can stay extremely consistent at 1h intervals.
Navigating your little one’s sleep challenges can be overwhelming, especially with the abundance of conflicting advice available. At BeBaby, we understand the science behind your baby’s sleep and tailor our approach to meet your family’s unique needs. I’d like to formally invite you to get off the struggle bus and book a complimentary call with one of our experienced sleep consultants and see what all the fuss is about!
