Why Babies Don’t Sleep Through the Night

Every new parent struggles with the problem of sleep. It seems that everyone has different advice for you. Should you let your baby cry it out and teach themselves to go to sleep, even if it means hours of screaming? Should you co-sleep with your baby and parent them to sleep every night, even if it takes hours of work on your part? Should you follow the Ferber method, the Pantley method, the Spock method, or some other method you haven’t heard of yet? For some parents, their babies learn easily to fall asleep and stay asleep without help. But for other parents, that seems an impossible goal that their child will never accomplish. If you’re the parent of a baby who doesn’t sleep the way you want them to, life can be terribly frustrating. You’re sleep-deprived and exhausted, and everyone else seems to know exactly what you should do to get your baby to sleep. There are plenty of resources to choose from, and ultimately you have to find a method that works for you and your family. But in the meantime, it can be helpful to know why your baby doesn’t seem to sleep through the night.

Some pediatricians will tell you that all babies should sleep through the night by a certain age. But what that magical age is is open to wide interpretation; some say as young as six weeks, while others say not to expect it till your baby is a year old. In any case, all doctors agree that newborns, at least for the first part of their lives, need to wake during the night. It’s not a bad habit to break, at least not at first; it’s an instinct that is necessary for your baby’s very survival. What are some of the reasons why babies need to wake during the night?

1. To eat. Especially if they’re breastfed, but even if they’re bottle-fed, tiny babies can’t take in enough food at a time to last them for a full eight hours. Newborns, on average, need to eat at least every three or four hours if not more often in order to thrive. Remember that this is an average! Some babies need to eat every two hours, while others can go as long as five hours from a relatively early age. Frequent feedings are so important for newborns that doctors will even tell you to break the cardinal rule of parenthood and wake your sleeping newborn if they’ve gone too long without a feeding. Discuss your baby’s growth with your doctor to find out how long they can safely sleep without eating.

2. To eliminate. Most parents will do their best to teach a baby to eliminate in their diaper and go quickly back to sleep as long as it’s just pee. But some babies are more sensitive than others, and some newborns are bothered enough by a wet diaper that they simply can’t go back to sleep till it’s changed. And, of course, if a baby poops in the middle of the night, it’s necessary that you change the diaper immediately to prevent them getting a rash. Since newborns eliminate so frequently, this can mean several diaper changes a night until the baby is older. Diaper changes can be especially disturbing to sleep in the middle of the night, especially if the baby is wearing a lot of clothes and blankets, so it’s a good idea to use blankets and clothes that allow easy access in the middle of the night so diaper changes will be as little disturbance as possible. Once the baby is older, they’ll stop pooping during the night, and most babies will soon be able to sleep all night without a diaper change.

3. To make sure they’re still safe. For parents who would like their babies to sleep all night in a crib, these can be the most confusing wakings. Your baby ate only an hour ago; they’re clean and dry; so why are they waking up again? Our culture urges us to teach babies independence almost from birth, and parents who desperately need sleep are puzzled and confused by a baby’s desire simply to be held during the night. But consider this from a biological perspective. For most of human history, babies didn’t sleep in safe, sturdy cribs inside houses. They slept in tents, or in caves, or in other places where they could easily be accessed by predators. In that kind of situation, a baby’s only protection was the arms of its parents. Babies are biological programmed to want to be close to an adult at night, because historically that was the only place they were truly safe.

4. To continue their normal sleep/wake patterns. These are probably the most frustrating midnight wakings for parents. Some newborns will sleep all day and then wake in the middle of the night wanting to play. By keeping lights dim and not talking to your baby, you can help them learn that night is for sleeping and day is for playing. But in the meantime, be patient: waking in the middle of the night is actually a very normal pattern for all humans, not just babies. In fact, most adults used to wake up for several hours in the middle of the night before the invention of electricity. In the days when sunset forced an early bedtime for everyone, it was common for adults to enjoy a “first sleep” and a “second sleep” (as they’re referred to in medieval medical literature) with a period of wakefulness between. Today in undeveloped countries, this pattern is still common. Even in developed countries, there are many adults who frequently wake in the middle of the night.

Getting a baby to sleep through the night is often one of the primary goals of new parents, and it’s neither bad nor impossible to teach a baby to sleep through the night. But as you’re working toward that goal, be patient with your baby. You’re not just working against their natural habits; you’re also working against biology.

Source:
Gail Hapke, “First sleep, second sleep.” Scribal Terror.