Troubleshooting Schedule 101: Figuring out your baby's sleep requirement

[u/omegaxx19]

[EDIT 12/27 to add this note: There is zero need to get anxious about "baby is not getting enough sleep". I read up on the literature around sleep and development (medical researcher myself). While there is physiologic basis to suspect that good sleep -> better development, the evidence is quite slight and biology is so powerful that the vast majority of babies/parents are probably getting enough sleep for normal development. More consolidated sleep/normal schedule are great for parental wellbeing, and parental wellbeing is super important, but there is zero need to feel guilty as a parent if your baby isn't doing those AND you are okay with its effect on your lifestyle and still able to function the way you want to. However, if you are getting too tired/burnt out by your baby's sleep patterns, understanding his/her sleep requirement may help you get him/her on pattern that enables you to function better.]

So I've been on this sub for a while now and learning a lot from everyone. One recurrent thing that is almost behind every post I see: is my baby getting too much or not enough sleep?

In troubleshooting every sleep issue with my own baby, the most useful piece of info that I have uncovered is my own baby's sleep requirement. I can say pretty comfortably now that my almost 8mo's sleep requirement is about 13.5-14 hours a day, and has been around that since 4 months. It doesn't matter to me if the AVERAGE baby is sleeping 13 hours around this age: I know he is maximally happy with 13.5-14 hours. Knowing this has made figuring out his schedule SO MUCH easier, because I know his total wake time needs to be 10-10.5 hours, BUT if he had a few days where he didn't get 13.5-14 hours I'd need to catch him up and let him sleep a bit more. So I just wanted to share some observations that I made while uncovering that piece of info.

To uncover the info, I took a week where I thought my baby is getting enough sleep and averaged the daily sleep over that week. And then I applied extrapolation based on the following:

-babies sleep the most in the first 2 months, then sleep requirement decreases by about 1 hour between month 3 and month 12 (https://parentingscience.com/baby-sleep-chart/) -- however, babies stay in their percentile, which means that a high sleep-needs newborn sleeping 17 hours a day will in all likelihood need 16 hours at 6 months

-while reading about averages in the chart above, realize that those are averages of how much babies are sleeping, not how much sleep they need - it is very difficult to make anyone, babies or not, sleep more than they need, but it is easy to make a baby not sleep enough, therefore the amount of sleep babies need is probably higher than the average amount slept that babies are getting

Five criteria to tell if baby is getting enough sleep

1. Stable schedule that doesn't vary a ton from day to day (consistent wake up time and bedtime, roughly consistent amount of day sleep and night sleep);
2. Easy to settle at nap time (<10 minutes) and at bedtime (<20 minutes);
3. Good night sleep with a long, continuous stretch of sleep where wakings are very brief, don't require resettling, or only requiring a night feed if age appropriate;
4. Baby stays awake on stroller rides, car rides, and during feeding (unless it's at the very end of their wake windows);
5. Baby and caregivers are all happy with the schedule. A happy baby is energetic, calm, eats well, and poops well.

Stability is the most important criteria. This is because a hallmark of overtiredness/chronic sleep deprivation is bad nights interspersed with a good night/day here and there, the "crash" night/day where the baby is so exhausted he/she crashes for a 12/24-hour segment and has the edge taken off just enough that he/she is ready to be unsettled again. During the "crash" night/day his/her sleep duration may be higher than his/her actual sleep requirement.

What if there never seems to be a good week?

Then it is probably safe to assume that your baby is NOT getting enough sleep, and address the main reasons:

1. a schedule that doesn't allow for enough sleep (e.g. wake window too long OR too many naps/wake windows) or has sleep in the wrong places (e.g. not enough time for night sleep [time between bedtime and out of crib time])
2. sleep association (having a parent-led sleep association and not being able to fall asleep or connect cycles independently)
3. psychological needs in older babies / toddlers (e.g. anxiety, fear, boundary testing)
4. insufficient caloric intake during the day
5. inappropriate sleep environment (temperature, sleep wear, light exposure, noise)
6. medical illness (e.g. sleep apnea, reflux)
7. disruptors, e.g. developmental milestones (last weeks), teething (usually no more than a few days)

[u/charmaanda]

I just stumbled upon this thread while desperately looking for answers during the 18 month sleep regression. My son is about to turn 17 months old and we’re convinced he may be going through it a bit early, but I’m worried maybe he’s way under his sleep needs.

He typically wakes up around 7/7:30 or I’ll wake him at 7:30. Naps from 12/12:30 for an hour (he will NOT nap for longer than an hour, I’ve tried…) and bedtime is between 7:30 and 8:00. He averages about 10.5 hours overnight usually, but frequently wakes up for random, weird stretches. Usually these wakings are happy and he just rolls around his crib, but more recently, he’s been waking up very upset and struggling to settle. He also has a very hard time settling for bed if his last WW is shorter than 6.5 hours.

That leaves only 11.5 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period. How do we break out of this cycle? Do I just accept that he has low sleep needs, or is there anything else I can do? I’m exhausted.

[u/omegaxx19 → u/charmaanda]

> He averages about 10.5 hours overnight usually, but frequently wakes up for random, weird stretches. Usually these wakings are happy and he just rolls around his crib, but more recently, he’s been waking up very upset and struggling to settle.

He's not low sleep needs if he's doing this--he's under on sleep. My guess from your description is that he's still struggling a bit with 1 nap WWs. My son struggled with those up until closer to 18mo.

He's an independent sleeper I take it? Below would only work if he's an independent sleeper

I'd try moving the nap up earlier.

-start offering it at 4 hour WW (so 11-11:30)

-give him his lunch around 30min before, or if he's not super hungry, a large snack + a bottle of milk; this will give him time to poop before the nap if he's so inclined

-make sure nap environment is perfect (dark, temperature ~70, continuous white noise to block out any outside noise)

-when he wakes up from his nap, note how he wakes up (crying or quiet) and wait 20min before getting him----this gives him time to fall back asleep, esp if he wakes up crying

-if nap ends up being short and he's up before 1, offer a second nap around 3.5 hour WW2 (so ~4:30); leave him in the crib for the full hour to try to fall asleep; if he doesn't sleep at all, put him to bed at 730p, the time in the dark will help him make that long last WW; if he does sleep, wake him up in15min so you can still put him down at 8p

-on days the midday nap ends before 1, I'd go easy on afternoon activities

-if nap is consistently <1.5 hour on 4 hour WW and he wakes up happy and can't fall back asleep no matter what, increase it to 4.5 hour WW

Give this a try for a few days if you're inclined and let me know how it goes. If you keep and post a log I can help you troubleshoot (like "Thursday: 7:30 woke him up, 11:30 put down for nap, asleep 11:45-12:45, woke up crying, didn't fall back asleep in 20min").

[u/charmaanda → u/omegaxx19]

This schedule saved my life. He hasn’t napped longer than 45 minutes in weeks and today he napped from 11:30-1:00. Thank you for your recommendations, we’ll keep following this schedule for the next few days and see if it continues to help us get back on track with sleep.

[u/omegaxx19 → u/charmaanda]

Yay glad to hear it helped! Remember: Night wakings in this context = sleep debt. With a 730-8 bedtime long-term, a 630-7 desired wake time is reasonable----any waking before you should treat as night waking. Sounds like a WW of ~4.5 hours is where your LO is at right now so stick to that.

Given how bad sleep has been the last few weeks, I'd offer bedtime today at 6-6:30. Your LO may not look tired but I bet he can use the catch up sleep. Night wakings may will persist for a while (esp the early morning waking) but should start getting better within a few days. Good luck!

[u/charmaanda → u/omegaxx19]

The only question I have is if he does wake up at 1, do we still follow a 6.5 hour WW before bed? So bed at 7:30? Or should we offer that later nap at 4:30 and then plan for bed closer to 8:30?