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/PomegranateMuted3603]

Hi Omega! You seem so knowledgeable and I’m really hoping you can help me get my almost 6 month back on track with sleeping. Two months ago we switched to 3 naps on a 1.75/2/2.25/2.25 schedule and he did great. He’s been fully sleep trained since then too. It didn’t last long and he started taking short 39 minute naps and we got ourselves way overtired and I’m not sure I’m even out of it yet. He was averaging about 15.5 hours of sleep 2 months ago. Now I’m lucky if he gets 14-14.5. It doesn’t seem like enough because the math doesn’t add up.  We’re trying 2/2/2.5/2.5 and he can barely make these windows because he keeps waking up early around 5:30/6 and our DWT is 7. I try to leave him til 7 and then base first nap off 7, and it usually craps out. On a “good day” he’s sleeping 1.25 for nap 1 and 2, and 39 mins for nap 3. With 9 hours of wake time with our ww’s, this has us putting him to bed around 7 and he rarely makes it to 7am. We are stuck in this early bed, early wake cycle and he’s still overtired.  I see you mentioning keeping bed and wake consistent and offering naps as needed to get you there. Can you help me understand how to do this but still keeping total wake time low? I want to follow his cues but I’m always worried to have to do a 4th nap to make it to bedtime and not building up enough sleep pressure for him to sleep.  If he wakes up at 5:30 and won’t go back to sleep, when do I put him down for his first nap? It seems his naps crap out when we push him too much. Thank you so much! 

[u/omegaxx19 → u/PomegranateMuted3603]

Don’t push the wake windows if you notice they crap out in that case. Base first nap on actual wake time.

To keep consistent bedtime but low total wake time in the setting of early wakings, you need looong naps. There enough sleep pressure to go around based on how tired your LO is, so you need to play w the pre-nap wake windows to find the longest naps.

If your kid is an independent napper, always wait 10min before getting him after each nap and do your wake window experiments. Remember:

-waking up crying and falling back asleep = still has sleep pressure = preceding wake window a tad long -waking up crying and not falling back asleep = still has sleep pressure -waking up and you able to get him back to sleep w contact -= still has sleep pressure -waking up content and not falling back asleep after 10min = pre-nap wake window too short OR too long

[u/PomegranateMuted3603 → u/omegaxx19]

Thank you. I am still so lost. Today I based first nap off wake and we did a 2 hour ww. He woke up happy at 40 minutes and then started crying. We always leave him for 15 minutes and lately he rarely goes back to sleep but he used to two months ago. If I had pushed him to 2.25 I believe he would have crapped out the nap too.  Now his second nap will probably be 11:30 to 12:45 if I’m lucky. Then third would start at 3:15 and possibly only go to 3:55. That puts bed around 6:20 and he’ll be up early. What would you do in this situation? Shorten wake window before nap 3 and offer a 4th nap and still do 7:30 bed? I cannot get him to sleep much more than 3 hours total with 3 naps lately. I don’t know how to get him to sleep longer. 

[u/omegaxx19 → u/PomegranateMuted3603]

Yes you can try a 4th nap to bridge to the usual bedtime for today.

How’s his energy level during wake windows? If it’s not bad you can try pushing to 2.25 hours just to see if the reason may be his wake windows are prolonging and he’s moving toward needing some 2 nap days. This wouldn’t be my guess but there’s no harm in trying.

[u/PomegranateMuted3603 → u/omegaxx19]

He’s usually pretty good between wake windows but seems to get tired at 2 hours. We have tried pushing him to 2.25 hours between nap 1 and 2, and that typically always makes him wake at 39 minutes and will not go back to sleep. He does okay with 2.5 before 3rd nap but I think he would also have no issues falling asleep at 2 hours.  If we do 4 naps, and his last wake window is much shorter, that won’t cause an early morning waking? 

[u/omegaxx19 → u/PomegranateMuted3603]

I see, then don’t push then. No, the length of individual wake windows have no bearing on early morning wakings; sleep environment and total level of sleep debt do. A short 4th nap and very short last wake window sound like a good idea. Treat EMW consistently and try not to overread into what happened the day before. EMWs are a slow problem: the week on week trend is what is important; day to day anything can happen. As long as you stay consistent and handle it appropriately, it’ll get better slowly.

[u/PomegranateMuted3603 → u/omegaxx19]

Thank you. Do you think it’s best to try to stick with a 7:30 bedtime and a 7am wake every day? That’s ideal for us but when I follow wake windows, and only 3 hours of daytime sleep, we never make that lately with 3 naps. I worry what it will do long term if we keep having to do 4th nap and short last wake window. 

[u/omegaxx19 → u/PomegranateMuted3603]

It’s up to you. I hate getting up early so we stuck w 730-8 bedtime. I was able to pretty much rescue every off nap though to keep us on schedule. If you can’t do that indeed it may be too hard.

Nothing bad will come of 4th nap and short last wake window, and chances are once you can get a later bedtime you’ll get a later wake up time more reliably and not need the 4th nap.

[u/PomegranateMuted3603 → u/omegaxx19]

Thank you. He's going to daycare in five weeks so I’m sure my stress level will be even worse then. Rescuing naps with him doesn’t usually work. I really appreciate you taking the time to write to me. My son’s sleeping is stressing me out so bad and it’s really taking a toll on me. I wish I felt like I had the tools to flex on bad naps days and I think trying this approach, where I stick with the same bedtime, and trying to get a quick 4th nap in, might just help me feel like I have a plan every day.