Learn to Spot Your Child’s Sleep Cues

Like the rest of us, your child has a sleep window of opportunity, a period of time when he is tired, but not too tired.

If that window closes before you have a chance to tuck your child into bed, his body will start releasing chemicals to fight the fatigue and it will be much more difficult for you to get him to go to sleep.So how can you tell if your baby is getting sleepy? It’s not as if your one-month-old can tell you what he needs. Here are some sleep cues that your baby is ready to start winding down for a nap or for bedtime:

· Your baby is calmer and less active – this is the most obvious cue that your baby is tired and you need to act accordingly.

· Your baby may be less tuned-in to his surroundings – his eyes may be less focused and his eyelids may be drooping.

· Your baby may be quieter – if your baby tends to babble up a storm during his more social times of the day, you may notice that the chatter dwindles off as he starts to get sleepy.

· Your baby may nurse more slowly– instead of sucking away vigorously, your baby will tend to nurse more slowly as he gets sleepy. In fact, if he’s sleepy enough, he may even fall asleep mid-meal.

· Your baby may start yawning – if your baby does this, well, that’s a not-so-subtle sign that he’s one sleepy baby.

When your baby is very young, you should start his wind-down routine within one to two hours of the time when he first woke up.

If you miss his initial sleep cues and start to notice signs of over tiredness – for instance, fussiness, irritability, and eye-rubbing, simply note how long your baby was up this time around and then plan to initiate the wind-down routine about 20 minutes earlier the next time he wakes up. (The great thing about parenting a newborn is that you get lots of opportunities to practice picking up on those sleep cues—like about six or seven times a day!)

Learning to read your baby’s own unique sleep cues is the first step to a more rested and more content baby.

Here’s something else you need to know about babies’ sleep cues, something that can toss you a major curve ball if you’re caught off guard:

Babies tend to go through an extra-fussy period when they reach the six-week mark. The amount of crying that babies do in a day tends to increase noticeably when babies are around six weeks of age.

You aren’t doing anything wrong and there isn’t anything wrong with your baby. It’s just a temporary stage that babies go through.

If your child becomes overtired, your child is likely to behave in one or more of the following ways (results may vary, depending on his age and personality):

• Your child will get a sudden burst of energy at the very time when you think she should be running on empty.

• You’ll start seeing “wired” and hyperactive behavior, even if such behavior is totally out of character for your child at other times of the day.

• Your toddler or preschooler will become uncooperative or argumentative.

• Your child will be whiny or clingy or she’ll just generally fall apart because she simply can’t cope with the lack of sleep any longer.

You will probably find that your child has his or her own unique response to being overtired. Some children start to look pale. Some young babies start rooting around for a breast and will latch on to anything within rooting distance, including your face or your arm!When nothing seems to be wrong (he’s fed and clean), but he’s just whining about everything and wants to be held all day, he’s overtired and needs help to get to sleep.

Learning to read your baby’s own unique sleep cues is the first step to a more rested and happier baby.

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