Identifying a baby's sleep type

Identifying Baby's Sleep Type

What Type of Sleeper Is Your Baby?

It's possible, though, that by identifying your baby's sleep type, you'll be able to relax more, and you all can get more rest.

While baby sleep types aren't labels used by the general scientific community, Dr. Ethan Benore, a child psychologist at Akron Children's Hospital with a special interest in babies' sleeping patterns, feels they help parents categorize and respond to their baby's sleep habits.

"I like to define sleep habits as any other habit, something your child does over and over without much planning or effort," says Dr. Benore. "Knowing the pattern of your child's sleep behaviors can best help you identify what steps to take to encourage more healthy sleep habits – this translates into better daytime mood and behaviors for them and better sleep for parents."

Let's take a look at various possible baby sleep categories into which your baby may fall.

It's really not unusual for babies to have their days and nights reversed, being more active at night. Keeping them as active as possible during the day may help them adjust.

To keep them from waking too often during the night, Dr. Benore suggests putting your child to bed drowsy but awake. "If your child learns to fall asleep on his/her own, he/she will easily return to sleep during these nighttime waking," says Dr. Benore. "Avoid over-responding to your baby's cries during the night. Though this can be difficult for parents, imagine what you are trying to teach your child. Just like crawling or walking, babies need to learn to soothe themselves at times. By over-responding, parents can interfere with children learning this important skill."

Dr. Benore also recommends weaning nighttime feedings as the infant grows. "Infants older than 6 months likely do not require nighttime feedings but may have learned to become hungry at that time," he says.

"Henry, from about 4 months on, was sleeping through the night but waking up around 5 a.m.," says Brian Reich of Cambridge, Mass., whose 19-month-old takes one nap a day and goes to bed easily about 7 p.m. "I am an early-bird and enjoy getting up in the morning and having some time with Henry before our day starts."

Not every parent would be so appreciative of an early riser, though. Some tricks to keep Baby from rising with the sun might include room-darkening shades and making bedtime a little later at night.

Annie Stange's 7-month-old daughter, Amelia, is the definition of cat-napper. "During the day she generally sleeps for no more than 30 minutes, although sometimes if she is really beat she'll go for one hour," says the Portland, Ore., resident. "The exception to the rule, however, is if someone is holding her. [Then] she can sleep for up to two hours (sometimes even more)."

Unfortunately, cat-napping Amelia also wakes up between three to six times a night.

Babies naturally learn to consolidate their sleep into longer periods of time as they get older. Creating a good sleep environment can also help eliminate late-night waking. "Create a calm, dark sleep environment," says Dr. Benore. "Low-level noise is OK. Often children prefer the room cooler than adults so avoid multiple covers/sheets."

Other things like a white noise machine or fan (which will also circulate the air) can cut down on outside disturbances and encourage longer sleep times. The tips above for Nocturnal Baby may also help. Over-responding to nighttime wakings just encourages the behavior.

Maybe your baby is nocturnal or a cat-napper, but maybe he's just restless. Again, over-responding to this could make things worse.

"Infants may be active sleepers, appearing restless though they are sleeping quite soundly," says Dr. Benore. "Don't worry about trying to wake them or settle them down, but talk to your doctor if you have concerns."

While routine can be a great help in getting young children to recognize bedtime and go to sleep more easily, some infants get a little too attached to the items that soothe them.

Sleep Onset Association is a type of insomnia common in infants and toddlers and includes difficulties in initiating sleep, maintaining sleep or both. According to Dr. Priyanka Yadav, pediatrician and sleep medicine specialist at Somerset Medical Center, Sleep For Life Center, in Hillsborough, N.J., this is when the infant or child has developed an inappropriate association with an object (bottle or favorite toy); setting (lighted room, parents bed); or stimulation (rocking) to help him or her fall asleep. "With the absence of any of these associations, they are unable to fall asleep at bedtime and after nighttime awakenings," says Dr. Yadav.

Dr. Yadav suggests reintroducing the "familiar" conditions to help them fall back asleep. "Developing sleep associations is very common in infants and young children," says Dr. Yadav. "They become a problem when parental or caregiver intervention is needed such as extensive rocking or the child needs to sleep in the parent's bed."

Maybe the easiest to deal with, the predictable sleeper sleeps when she should sleep.

Memory Morgan's 15-month-old daughter, Eowyn, started sleeping through the night when she was around 3 months old. "I read in a parenting book that you should follow a routine to put children to bed," says the Winter Park, Fla., resident. "So I started giving her a nightly bath, milk and reading to her before putting her to bed, and I noticed immediate results."

Morgan admits bedtime has become more of a challenge recently, but understands this is normal. "Once she gets to sleep, she stays asleep," Morgan says. "She usually sleeps around 12 hours a night and takes one to two naps a day, ranging from one to three hours."

Don't despair if your infant seems to be stuck in a sleep style that's driving you crazy. There's always room for change.

"Environment can really affect change," says Suzy Martyn, parenting consultant and author of Enjoy the Ride: Tools, Tips, and Inspiration for the Most Common Parenting Challenges (Mother's Friend Publishing, 2009) and Sleep Tight: Help Your Child Attain a Good Night's Sleep in Three Days (Mother's Friend Publishing, 2010) "Of course, children will always have their sleep style at the core, but you can adjust things quite a bit with some planning and work."

For instance, Martyn suggests a very light sleeper can be taught to get used to more sounds while asleep by slowly adding in noise gradually while the child is asleep. "If parents are consistent and persistent, over time, the child can learn to block out sounds and sleep deeper and longer than they used to," says Martyn. "Also, often times as children grow and mature, they become deeper sleepers overall especially after age 5."

"Don't beat yourself up over a poor sleeper," says Dr. Benore. "Sleep is a habit and whatever the reason bad sleep developed, you can help your child develop a good habit with time, patience and persistence."

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