The watchman

Your little one has finally drifted off to sleep for the night, and just as you begin to wind down for the evening, they are awake again. Unfortunately, this continues throughout the night. While frequently waking at night is considered normal for newborns and young babies, older babies and toddlers should be able to achieve longer stretches of sleep. So if you know that your baby is old enough to sleep for longer stretches but they are still waking up multiple times during the night, it can be really frustrating and difficult to identify why, especially when you are exhausted too.

 

There are a number of reasons why children wake during the night, and this can also be dependent on their age. Some of the most common causes are hunger, sleep associations whereby they need support in order to fall sleep, overtiredness, scheduling issues, teething, illness, developmental milestones, separation anxiety, and discomfort due to the room temperature or clothing. It is, therefore, important to identify the cause of the night wakings in order to appropriately support your child. Once you have considered this, it is worth looking at your child’s day and night sleep schedule to see if any adjustments are required. It is also important to review your child’s sleep environment, as this can impact their sleep quality too. I recommend assessing any support you may be providing them with in order to fall asleep. In many instances, children may have a sleep dependency, whereby they are reliant on a crutch or a sleep onset association to fall asleep and have not mastered their self-settling and resettling skills. Some examples of sleep associations are needing to be rocked or nursed to sleep or simply wanting your presence in the room in order to fall asleep. If your child is dependent on you or a sleep crutch in order to fall asleep, they will look for this to be reinstated every time they wake up during the night. If you would like to resolve this, it is certainly possible to teach your little one the skills they need to fall asleep independently. Implementing some simple changes with consistency can be very effective.

 

Once we have identified and addressed the cause of the multiple night wakings, your little one will be well on their way to sleeping for longer periods. So rest assured, it can be possible to reinstate sleep for you all with an effective plan in place and a little consistency.