Top 5 Myths About Baby Sleep
1. Sleeping too much during the day will keep your baby up at night
This is unlikely, except in extreme cases. Unless your child is literally sleeping all day and up all night, you probably don’t need to be concerned with the lengths if their naps. Newborns especially require a ton of sleep! In fact, up until about 6 months of age, I don’t suggest that your child stays awake for more than 2-2.5 hours at a time. For newborns, that is more like 45 min – 1 hour.
Overtiredness is actually what keeps babies up at night more than anything else. You may think an exhausted baby would happily pass out all night instead of a baby who slept well all day, but it’s the opposite. We call it being “overtired” because baby has missed the “tired” phase of their body’s natural sleep/wake cycle so their body kicks back into high gear, keeping them from falling and staying asleep. Babies who get a decent amount of sleep during their day is less likely to miss that perfect sleep window.
There are significant variations dependent on your child’s age and length of naps, but from birth to about 6 months, it’s really not uncommon for a baby to be napping around 5 hours per day.
2. Sleeping Is a natural development and can’t be taught
Sleeping is 100% natural and absolutely essential. Everyone wakes up and goes back to sleep multiple times during the night no matter how young or old they are. So while you can’t teach a child to be sleepy, you can teach the ability to fall back to sleep independently!
The classic “bad sleeper” doesn’t need less sleep and isn’t more prone to waking up. They just haven’t learned how to do this natural process by themselves yet and rely on outside assistance to get back to sleep. Once your little one figures out how to get back to sleep on their own, they will effortlessly string their sleep cycles together and begin sleeping through the night.
3. Babies naturally dictate their own sleep schedule
I truly wish infant physiology was naturally programmed like this! Unlike some other species, our babies are born needing extensive care and help in their development. Sleep cycles easily become erratic if left unregulated by caregivers! If your baby misses their natural sleep cycle by as little as half an hour, cortisol production can increase causing a surge of energy that makes it nearly impossible to get them asleep. As much as I wish babies would just fall asleep when they become tired, it simply doesn’t work that way. It’s important to pay attention to their cues and the clock.
4. Sleep training is stressful for the baby and can affect the parent-child attachment.
Nope. And this isn’t just based on my personal experience. The American Academy of Pediatrics conducted a study in 2016 where 8 of their top researchers examined behavioral intervention (AKA sleep training). They found that sleep training “provide(s) significant sleep benefits above control, yet convey(s) no adverse stress responses or long-term effects on parent-child attachment or child emotions and behavior.” Not much left to interpretation there!
5. Babies are not “designed” to sleep through the night
Trusting your child’s physiology to completely dictate their sleep schedule, eating habits, behaviors, or just about any other aspect of their upbringing is a recipe for disaster.
Is your toddler designed to eat 3 pounds of gummi bears? Surely not. But will they if you don’t intervene? I’m sure they’ll give it their best shot!
Our little ones rely on our expertise and authority to help them through their early years and will even rely on us for decades to come! This is especially true for their sleep. Some babies are naturally better sleepers than others, but don’t lean into the advice that babies dictate their own schedules. You are in charge because you know best (even when you may not feel like sometimes).
While there are many more myths and misconceptions out there, these are some of the most important to make sure you have the facts straight. There are endless posts and articles that seem factual, but many are not accurately based on scientific evidence.
If you want to search yourself and feel confident about your baby’s health, Google Scholar is a great place to find peer-reviewed, scientific studies from trusted sources like the American Academy of Pediatrics, the National Institute of Health, Britain’s National Health Service, Canada’s Hospital for Sick Children, the World Health Organization, and many others.
Or, if you want to any more information about the benefits of sleep, I’ll happily talk your ear off :) Sleep well!
