5 Common Myths About Baby's Sleep

It’s nearly impossible to sift through all of the information we are bombarded with on a daily basis, so I have compiled this list of 5 of the most common baby sleep myths.

Myth #1: Sleep training is stressful for the baby and can affect the parent-child attachment

Truth: When I’m talking about sleep training, I’m not talking about letting your baby cry for hours on end—I’m talking about a specific plan for you and your baby to help teach them self-soothing strategies.

This summary of sleep training in the journal of the College of Family Physicians of Canada states that sleep training improves infant sleep problems and that their study revealed there were “no adverse effects reported after 5 years”. They also go on to discuss, not surprisingly, that mother’s mood scales improved significantly. Similarly, according to this 2016 study conducted by researchers with the American Academy of Pediatrics, behavioural intervention (AKA sleep training), “provide(s) significant sleep benefits above control, yet convey(s) no adverse stress response or long-term effects on parent-child attachment or child emotions and behaviour”.

There you have it, not surprisingly, a better sleep=a happier mom and baby and your bond with them will not be broken.

Myth #2: Sleeping is a natural development and cannot be taught

Truth: The actual act of sleeping is natural, yes. However, throughout the night, as we go through our sleep cycles we all wake up and fall back asleep several times. If babies or children rely on something external to fall asleep (something they cannot control such as nursing, bottle, soother, being rocked, mom or dad laying with them, etc.) then every time they wake up through the night they believe they cannot fall back asleep without that external strategy. So, while the act of sleeping is natural, getting back to sleep independently is not. Teaching children to fall asleep independently is a must.

Myth #3: Sleeping too much during the day will keep baby awake at night

Truth: It might seem counter-intuitive, but an overtired baby has more interrupted sleep compared to a well-rested baby. If you think about it, how does your body react when you are overtired? Generally, it is hard to settle, which is the same for children, especially when they are young and don’t have the strategies to calm themselves down. Newborn babies should only be awake for about 45 minutes at a time; even babies up to about 6 months of age may be sleeping 5 hours during the day on top of the 12 hours of sleep they need at night.

“Second wind” is a real thing. When you miss your child’s sleep window, their cortisol levels increase because their bodies think there must be a reason they did not go to sleep when they were supposed to. Once the sleep window has come and gone it is very difficult to get them to settle down.

Note: only under extreme circumstances might your child be sleeping too much during the day; in this case, my guess would be that they have their days and nights confused.

Myth #4: Babies will naturally dictate their own sleep schedule

Truth: Most baby’s sleep cycles are extremely irregular if left alone. Remember above when I talked about that “second wind”? Again, if you miss a baby’s natural sleep cycle by even 30 minutes, their cortisol production can start up, giving them energy, which is when things can quickly spiral out of control. You cannot rely on children to just fall asleep when they are tired; if that was the case, we wouldn’t be having this conversation and all babies would be perfect little sleepers.

Our babies and children need our constant guidance, and sleep is no different. It’s important to respond to their cues, but you also cannot rely exclusively on them. Take food as an example. Would you let your kids dictate what they eat? Nope you wouldn’t, so don’t let them dictate when they will and won’t sleep. If I let my children dictate what they eat there would be a lot of gummies and ice cream and not a lot else. If I let my children dictate when and where they were going to sleep, I can tell you that none of us would be getting much of it. You can’t make them sleepy, but you can be mindful of their cues and help guide them.

Myth #5: Babies are not supposed to sleep through the night

Truth: Part of this is true - brand-new babies don’t sleep through the night because they need to eat so many times in a 24-hour period. However, by 6 months, there is no reason that children who are typically developing and a healthy weight cannot be sleeping through the night. A good portion of babies that are sleep-trained wean themselves off of night feeds because they have the skills to independently go back to sleep when they wake up several times a night. What happens a lot with babies is that they believe they need to be fed to sleep so when they naturally wake up throughout the night they call out and mom or dad feed them. They may only take a few sips and fall back asleep; they may not actually be hungry they just think they need it to fall back asleep. There are also cases where babies 6+ months really are hungry at night, but this is almost always because they aren’t getting enough calories during their 12 hours of awake time.   

So there you have it, some sleep myths that I have come across. I’m sure there are countless others- have you heard of any? Not sure if something you’ve heard is a myth or not? Contact me and I’ll try to help you out…who knows, maybe I’ll even have enough to make a “Common Sleep Myths - Part 2”.

Giving your children the gift of sleep is one of the best things you can do for them.

Until next time,

Kirsten