How to Know When Your Child is Tired

It’s not always obvious when a child is getting tired… Here’s how to recognize “sleep signs” so you can get your child to bed BEFORE they become overtired!

The following question is from Trish, who wrote:

“Help! Why can’t I recognize my three-month-old’s sleep signs? No yawing, no eye rubbing. She seems to go from quite happy to very upset in a split second and then it takes awhile to settle her down and get her to sleep.”

Usually when someone refers to “sleep signs,” clear signals that the child is tired, they think of yawning and perhaps eye rubbing. Some signs you may not be aware of though are nose scrunching and ear pulling, anything that has to do with rubbing the face.

Once a client’s son kept rubbing his nose and he looked tired. She replied “Oh really? I thought he just had allergies.”

It’s easy to miss some of the signs of fatigue, but if your child is doing any type of rubbing or pulling, they’re definitely tired. Don’t wait for a yawn.

Trish’s baby seems to go from happy to upset at the drop of a dime. Her baby is probably very good at hiding her fatigue. Sometimes when they start to have feelings of being tired they’ll push through those feelings with perhaps more active play and maybe even get a little hyper. They’ll kick into “overdrive” and almost become a bit manic.

That squirmy baby, the one who doesn’t want to sit on your knee, doesn’t want to stand up, arches their back, crawls around very quickly, laughs one moment and cries the next is a tired baby and ready for sleep.

If your child is happy one second and crying the next, you might have to keep more of an eye on the clock that you do on your baby. A three-month-old like Trish’s baby can handle about an hour and a half of awake time. If she woke up at 8 a.m., then by 9:30, she’s most likely ready for a nap.

In this case, even if they’re calm and happy and not showing any “sleep signs,” I always suggest that it’s better to put them down too soon rather than too late. Sometimes the calmer the baby goes down, the faster sleep comes and it becomes an easier transition for them.

Keeping an eye on your child’s individual sleep signs, along with the clock for those who don’t show any clear signs, will definitely help your child sleep well.

Thanks for visiting!

Check out my website for my latest sleep packages at www.sleepylionconsulting.com or e-mail me with questions at nicole@sleepylionconsulting.com.

Comments

Why Won’t My Baby Sleep?

Why Won’t My Baby Sleep? This is a question I often asked my first son when he was an infant. I asked it in a sweet voice, I asked it in a pleading voice, I asked it in an angry voice, but no matter how many times I asked, he never gave me the answer. I can remember the night (some of you will know exactly what I’m talking about) when I felt like I could not take it anymore. My son just would not stay asleep and I had hit rock bottom, exhausted from waking up multiple times every night and having to soothe him back to sleep. My husband found me at 3:00 in the morning sobbing in our bathroom. When our babies don’t sleep well, we tend to look for an explanation. We think it might be teething or gas. We worry that she’s too small and she needs to eat in the night, or he’s too big and he needs to eat more or he won’t feel full. The list goes on and on. Are any of these explanations the real truth? Sometimes. But barring those times when your child has a burning fever or a new too

Help! My child is waking up too early!

I had a recent e-mail from a client that went like this: My one-year-old is waking up at 4:00 AM, and won’t go back to sleep even after I nurse him. He then, struggles to make it to his first nap of the day. He goes to bed at 7:30, and has two solid naps during the day. How can I fix this? First of all, Cara, you are not alone in this. This is the number one question that I get from parents every day, their baby’s waking up too early. I got three tips around that for you, Cara. The first would be to have a look at darkness. That’s always the first place I look. People often think that they’ve got it dark enough, but it can always be darker, because even the slightest change in light variation can stimulate a wake up in anybody. As an adult, you can look at the clock and notice that it’s not time to get up, yet. A baby can’t do that. I want it dark in there. I want it to be as dark as it would be if you walked in, in the very middle of the night. That’s tip number one. Tip n

Welcome!

Hello! My name is Nicole Janse Van Rensburg and I am a Certified Sleep Consultant. When I had my first child, I had no idea the things I was doing to soothe my baby to sleep were teaching him how to get to sleep. So, when it was time for him to sleep for longer periods, he was still depending on me to do all of those things to get him to sleep. But, suddenly those things weren't working as well and if I laid him down, he would wake right back up again and the process would start all over. I just wish I knew that small steps in the beginning could have changed everything. BUT, After struggling with sleep with my first and then giving birth to another little boy, I couldn't live like that anymore. I hit the end of my rope, and that's when I decided to do something about it. I love to research, so I hit the internet! The problem with researching infant sleep using google, is that you end up finding 500 different and conflicting views on the practice of sleep training and al

The Tired Baby

Search This Blog