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Top parenting stories this week
Learn to Read your Baby's Sleep Signals
How to tell when your child is tired and tips for getting her to sleep on time
by: Elizabeth Pantley
In This Article
Sleep Signals
- Chronic sleep deprivation interferes with your baby’s development.
- Babies can only handle small amounts of awake time before they need to sleep.
- It will be more difficult to get your baby to sleep if she’s overtired.
- The key is to learn your baby’s sleep signals and respond to them promptly.
baby who stays awake when her body craves sleep is often an unhappy, fussy baby. Over time, the pattern develops into sleep deprivation, which further complicates and interferes with her developing sleep maturity.
Encourage good sleep patterns by learning your baby’s sleepy signals. Then, put her down to sleep as soon as she seems tired.
Sleep By Numbers
Most newborns can only handle one or two hours of wakefulness at a time. A three-month-old gets tired after two to three hours of awake time, while a one-year-old can be cheerful for about three to four hours and a two-year-old can last for roughly five or six hours.
Once your child has passed her happy wakefulness stage, she’ll quickly become overtired. She’ll then be easily over-stimulated and find it more difficult to fall – and stay – asleep.
