In the beginning almost every baby wakes and cries about five times a night, and almost every parent expects that they will. But by the time they reach nine months the average baby wakes only once or twice a night (Anders, 1978), and he may no longer call out.
How Common are Sleep Problems?
Very common. Somewhere between a fifth and a third of all families say they have a sleeping problem during the pre-school years (Messer and Richards, 1993). Of course it’s not always the same children waking all the time. For example, only 5% of children have a sleeping problem which lasts from their first to their second birthday.
‘At 14 months Erica just suddenly got it and slept … well, like a baby at last. I don’t know what we did but I’m definitely going to do the same thing with the next one.’
Karen
The fact is that some sleep problems last for months, some for years and some come and go but, roughly speaking, sleeping problems fade away as your child gets older.
‘With your first baby you go in with the expectation that the baby will sleep for four hours at a time, and you believe that you can be your own person in that time. When your baby isn’t that sleepy you think it’s you, or that your baby is weird, or that there’s something wrong. At toddler group last week we looked around and everyone looked tired and we said how many of you have been up all night? I think it was about 80% of the mothers who put their hands up. You could see the other mothers, the other 20%, looking round and thinking: “What’s wrong with my baby, why does he sleep?’
Teresa, mother of three, who tried ‘everything’ with her first
Although many children with sleep problems improve without specific treatment, many improve a lot more quickly with a little help.
‘Some babies just do it, and I kept thinking: “He’ll just do it.” People kept saying “He’ll do it when …” and I kept living for those milestones.’
Karen, mother of David
Deep and Light Sleep
REM Sleep
• body twitches
• eyes flicker
• smiles and frowns
• 50% of all sleep at birth
• 20% of all sleep for adults
• older children and adults may dream
• occurs mostly in the later part of the night for adults
• learning is organized and stored
• irregular heartbeat and breathing in tiny babies
• inability to regulate temperature in tiny babies
• adults woken from this sleep may be disorientated
NREM Sleep
• more peaceful sleep
• 50% of all sleep at birth
• 80% of all sleep for adults
• no dreaming
• slow and regular heartbeat and breathing
• harder to wake from
• occurs mostly in the early part of the night for adults
• the immune system is boosted
• physical growth occurs
If you watch your child sleeping, you may notice that there are times when, eyes closed, he seems to be watching some particularly frenetic cartoon. Beneath his eyelids his eyes may flick from side to side and he may frown or smile and wiggle his fingers and toes. If your baby could watch you he’d see the same thing happening from time to time, though not so often. This is REM sleep, which stands for Rapid Eye Movement. This sleep state is also called active sleep. Adults and older children dream during REM sleep but it’s difficult getting a straight answer out of a baby, so there is no way of knowing whether babies do or not.
New-born babies spend about half their sleep time in REM sleep, and babies born before 30 weeks’ gestation initially spend a massive 90% of their sleep time in REM sleep; whereas for you and I, REM sleep only accounts for 20% of our sleep. The point about this is that most of the arousals your baby makes from sleep are from REM sleep. Which explains why premature babies wake more often than term babies and all babies wake more often than adults. However, don’t lose heart if your baby was born prematurely because premature babies are often better than term babies at soothing themselves back to sleep.
As they get older, babies have less REM sleep and therefore wake less often.
When he’s not in REM sleep your baby will, perhaps obviously, be in non-REM sleep or NREM sleep. This sleep state is also called deep sleep or quiet sleep. NREM sleep can be divided into four stages. Stages 1 and 2 are lighter, and stages 3 and 4 deeper and harder to wake from. You are more likely to wake up during stage 2 sleep than in any other part of NREM sleep. In NREM sleep things are more peaceful – no eye movements, with slower, more regular heartbeat and breathing. There is a theory that NREM sleep is the time when bodily processes are restored, when the immune system gets boosted and physical growth can occur.
Sleep Gates/Windows
• Just as active (REM) sleep is followed by quiet (NREM) sleep, so we have active and drowsy periods during the day as well.
• Look out for signs that your baby is tired and put him down to sleep then – it will be easier for him to fall asleep at this time.
• Start to get him ready for sleep when he is still in an active phase so that he can enjoy his bath and be dried and dressed just in time to feel drowsy.
• If you miss one drowsy period you may have to wait an hour or so for another, as the whole cycle takes about this long to complete.
Cycling Through Sleep
NREM and REM sleep alternate through the night in both adults and babies. Babies cycle between the different types of sleep faster than adults. At birth it takes your baby about 50–60 minutes to complete a cycle, whereas it takes you about 90–100 minutes. The reason that this matters is that as you come out of REM sleep, ready to drop back down into NREM sleep, you arouse briefly. Your baby does the same. These brief arousals may or may not become complete awakenings depending on what you or your baby make of being awake alone.
Naturally, as your baby moves through the REM/NREM sleep cycle once every 50–60 minutes there’s a chance that he could wake you every 50–60 minutes. What’s more, these arousals happen with greater frequency towards dawn (Carskadon and Dement, 1989), just when you are having most of your REM sleep, the sort that helps you cope mentally with the day.
REM Sleep
• Pessimistic?
• Lacking in energy?
• Upset over trivialities?
• Can’t see the wood for the trees?
Maybe you’re not getting enough REM sleep. When you have a baby you may need more REM sleep than usual to help your brain ‘organize’ your thoughts and feelings, and file away yesterday’s business.
People who are deprived of REM sleep for a long time become depressed and disorganized. They are unable to focus on what is important because they haven’t been able to deal with the debris of the previous day before they start the next. Try to arrange things so that you can get a block of REM sleep at least every other night – you’ll feel more energetic,