It’s not your job to ‘teach’ your child to connect sleep cycles

Hi friends! If you follow my work you know that my son has bedshared with us since birth. He has recently started asking to sleep in his own bed, in his own room. It’s been so interesting to witness this process. The typical pattern lately is that he will sleep in his ‘new bed’ as he calls it, a few nights in a row, and then he’ll ask to sleep in the ‘na-night bed’ (with me) a night or two, and then switch back. At first it was challenging for ME to have him away from me in another room, but I’m getting used to it, and it’s actually been reeealllly nice having some space and time in the evenings. I’ve been really trying hard to attune to him and follow his lead and TRUST that if he asks to sleep in the na-night bed, that for some reason, unbeknownst to me, he needs to be close to me. When I approach his sleep in this way, it puts me at ease, and helps me feel confident that I am in fact supporting him in the way that he needs.

Sometimes I don’t know the ‘why’ of his requests, and I don’t need to, I just have to honor that there are emotional needs in his little heart that he is just organically responding to.

So, what happened this past week is that he asked to sleep in the na-night bed several nights in a row, and when I got curious about this with him, he mentioned the ‘cold air.’ What I realized is that the air conditioning vent blows right onto his new bed, and it IS cold! I wanted to share this because when we look at babies and toddlers being able to connect sleep cycles, there are all kinds of reasons why they may wake and signal to us between sleep cycles. When they’re babies, they of course can’t tell us, but could it be that the wind is a scary sound, or the light is noxious, or the air conditioning is cold?! It’s important to know that we all rouse slightly between sleep cycles, these are called partial arousals, which is a quick scan of our brain to make sure we’re safe and well. If we don’t have a need for warmth, the bathroom, or thirst, for example, we may shuffle around a bit and go back to sleep.

Fun fact: no one actually ‘sleeps through the night’. We all have these partial arousals, all night long, between sleep cycles.

Infant sleep cycles range from 45-60 minutes, and adult sleep cycles range from 90-120 minutes. Babies brains start maturing to more adult-like sleep cycles around 4 months (hence the 4 month sleep progression). So if your child is sleeping more than 1.5 hours at any given time, rest assured that they are in fact connecting sleep cycles.

Some children are considered signalers, meaning they call out for a caregiver, and some are considered self-settlers, meaning they rouse slightly between sleep cycles and may just go back to sleep easily on their own. These differences have more to do with temperament than anything else. And if you have a highly sensitive child, it could be that there are things in their environment that are bugging them, maybe they have a little discomfort in their body, or they just need a lot more closeness with you to feel secure, so they signal for it. This is why there is absolutely nothing wrong with responding to your child when they signal for you. And responding to them doesn’t mean you are ‘keeping’ them from ‘learning’ to connect sleep cycles.

Connecting sleep cycles is a biological function that develops on its own. We have to trust that a child’s communication between sleep cycles has meaning behind it, even if we don’t know what the meaning is.

So here are 4 things to consider if your child is signaling for you a lot in the night:

Look at the environment, and don’t be afraid to play around with some things. If you use white noise, maybe you try a few nights without it. My son is super sensitive to loud noises. He asks for his headphones whenever the blender or coffee grinder or lawn mower is about to turn on. We used white noise excessively in the early days, and I do wonder if he simply didn’t like it! If there’s a little night light in the room, maybe you try turning it off for a few nights. Or if it’s very dark, maybe you try a little night light and see what happens. Consider the temperature and if your child is overly dressed or under dressed for their unique body temperature (my guy’s a hot sleeper).

Consider their need for the sensory sucking they get from nursing, drinking from a bottle, or using a pacifier. These things can be very soothing for some babies, and they may need that type of sensory support to get back to sleep. Sucking activates digestive juices, so it can be soothing if they have an upset tummy, and it also activates the parasympathetic nervous system, the rest and digest system, which naturally brings them to calm.

Consider how much connection you’ve had throughout the day. Connection and attachment are a child’s greatest need. He/she wouldn’t survive without a loving caregiver, so waking up alone can be a real sense of danger in the brain. This is where a partial arousal may turn into a full arousal in order for your child to get the closeness they need with you. Have you been super busy socializing or running errands, and haven’t had a lot of time connecting, distraction-free, with your little one? One thing you can rule out is proximity. We need to remember that sleep is separation. Ten hours is a long time for some children to be separated from their parents at night. Some children wake much less when they are next to you, so if you can safely bedshare, that can make a big difference for some families.

Consider your child’s need for stimulation. Is your child waking because they haven’t had a chance to get all their energy out? Has your very active baby spent too much time in containers (carseats/strollers)? Has your super mellow child had too much activity and feeling a bit overstimulated? Has your baby had lots and lots of sensory nourishment and a chance to work on new skills throughout the day?

These are all things that can affect sleep and it takes time to get to know your little one, a lifetime actually! So give yourself grace, have a good laugh at the hardness of it all, and keep being amazing. This parenting thing is tough stuff.