A child sleeps for half an hour and wakes up: what does this mean?

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Ekaterina Rakitina Doctor Dietrich Bonhoeffer Klinikum, Germany

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Article last updated: 03/27/2019

Quite often you can hear a question from tired mothers about the duration of their child’s sleep. The child sleeps for 30 minutes, when will this end? Why does he only sleep for half an hour? What to do in this case?

You need to start by finding out the question: does the baby really sleep little or does the mother simply not have time to do household chores during the period of time when her child finally begins to suck sweetly?

First you need to answer the questions:

1. How many months is the baby?
2. How long does he sleep at night?
3. Is he healthy, cheerful, active?
4. And there are a lot of little things worth figuring out before “doing something.”

How long does a baby sleep from 0 to 1 year?

Baby's sleep norms by month

Healthy newborns typically sleep 6 to 8 hours at a time at night (7 to 10 hours is the total amount of sleep at night). During the day, children eat every three hours. The total sleep duration is from 16 to 20 hours. During the day, the baby sleeps 5-6 times a day for 1 hour.

• A child aged from 1.5 to 3 months sleeps from 8 to 11 hours at night, during the day the baby sleeps from 40 to 150 minutes (4-5 times a day).
• A 3-4.5 month old baby sleeps from 40 to 120 minutes during the day (3-4 times a day), and 10-11 hours at night.
• In the range from 4.5 to 6 months, the baby sleeps for 1.5-2 hours during the day (three times a day), and sleeps at night for a total of 10-12 hours.

• At the age of 6-8 months, the baby's daytime sleep ranges from 2 to 4 hours (2-3 sets), and 10-12 hours are allocated for nighttime sleep.
• From 9 months to a year, the baby sleeps for 2-3 hours during the day (the number of dreams is reduced to 1-2 times), and at night for 10-12 hours. Depending on the excitability of the nervous system, these data, even for healthy children, may differ somewhat.

How to go to bed without crying

If your child often wakes up at night and generally sleeps restlessly, these tips will tell you what to do in such a situation:

1. Soothe your child until he is almost asleep. If the baby wakes up and cries, then give him what you usually do: a bottle, breast or pacifier. You need to wait until he falls asleep. Wait a moment and remove the pacifier, bottle or breast. If the child gets worried and starts looking for them with his mouth, then lightly support his chin. At the same time, repeat “sleep” and “shhh” . At this moment you can shake it. You can remove the breast or pacifier when the sucking movements stop. If you do this every time, the child will get used to this process of falling asleep. And even if he wakes up during the day, you can calm him down with a simple “shhh” sound from a distance .
2. Then, if everything works out, try to calm the little one down just to a sleepy state. Also give the breast or bottle, but this time do not wait for the baby to fall asleep. Put him in his crib and pet him. At the same time, be calm and persistent. It may not work out the first time.
3. Try to calm him down without picking him up. If the child wakes up, then immediately go to him, but do not pick him up, but stroke him, touch the baby or put your hands on him. Whisper soothing words. This must be done confidently and persistently until the baby falls asleep.

Then you can soothe with a light touch. Then you should try to calm down simply with words and from a distance. These stages must be carried out gradually. Try to understand if your baby is ready for the next step. Calm music and dim lights will help set your baby up for a good night's sleep. It is better to keep one toy next to the crib, but your favorite one.

Also remember that during the day you need to go to bed as soon as signs of fatigue appear. This manifests itself in yawning, fussiness and some irritability. Daytime sleep is very important. After all, a rested baby will sleep better at night.

I hope that my tips will help you put your baby to bed without any problems. The main thing is to remain calm and express confidence. Your feelings are easily transmitted to the baby. Share the information you like with your friends and subscribe to my blog updates. Goodbye, dear friends!

Half-hour nap for baby

What should ideally be

Between the ages of 2 and 6 months, there is nothing tragic about your baby taking 20 to 30 minute naps at least 4 times.

Of course, ideally, at least one nap during the day should range from 40 minutes to 1.5 hours. But the ideal is not always achievable. Why does the baby sleep so little? The immaturity of the nervous system, along with an abundance of impressions, causes short daytime sleep. In this case, it is important to monitor the general condition of the baby. If the child is healthy, alert, active, eats well and gets plenty of rest at night, a 30-minute nap during the day at this age is normal.

Reasons for reducing sleep time

A reduction in one nap session is typical during the transition period from 4 to 3 naps per day, as well as from 3 to 2. Short periods of nap time may occur during periods of active teething. Look into the baby's mouth, if his gums are slightly swollen, you observe active salivation, you can be congratulated on the beginning of the long process of teeth growth.

If teething or the structure of the baby’s nervous system cannot be influenced, then there is one reason that explains short episodes of daytime sleep, which directly depends on the parents. This is the lack of a daily routine and systematicity in the education process. Short naps are simply a child’s habit or a consequence of a lack of daily routine and accumulation of fatigue. If you try to put your baby to bed early, not tired, or late, overtired, the result will be the same - he has difficulty getting to bed and sleeps little.

Why does a 4-8 month old baby have trouble falling asleep: a leap in development

14.08.2018

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At 4 months, one of the most important events for the formation of good sleep occurs - your baby’s brain matures sufficiently to now sleep according to an “adult” scenario. You can find out a little more about the physiology of children's sleep here.

This means that your baby now sleeps with the same sleep cycles and phases as you, and the duration and sequence of these phases is also closer to yours.

And now the baby can sleep longer and better if he does not have negative associations and is not overtired.

True, sometimes it happens that for some time the baby begins to sleep even worse than before. This is temporary and is associated with a reconfiguration of the neurological processes of sleep.

Briefly:

• Predictable periods of daytime sleep are formed: 2-3 by 6 months;
• You can start working on extending daytime sleep to an hour (about 5-6 months);
• A stable evening bedtime and a clear ritual appear;
• Up to 6 months, 3 feedings per night is the norm; by 8 months you can try to wean him off.

Daytime nap

At 4 months, we continue to focus on gently establishing a predictable routine with fairly regular times for each nap. If your baby was born prematurely or went through colic, he may not be ready for touch.

Most likely, closer to 5 months, you will see 3 naps during the day around 8,30, 12 and 3 hours (when waking up at 7 am).

Make an effort to ensure that the child does not become overtired and then falling asleep during the daytime nap will not become a problem, and the sleep itself will gradually lengthen to 60-90 minutes. Try to put him to bed for the first nap after 1.5 hours from waking up in the morning, and during the day offer another nap no later than 2 hours from the moment you wake up (by the end of this time your ritual should already be completed and the baby should be in the crib). Continue using the ritual and practice falling asleep on your own most of the time.

Now you can seriously work on lengthening your daytime sleep to 60 minutes. In cases where the child wakes up after 20-30 minutes, try to keep him in the crib for up to an hour. If he is not very upset, do not go in to see him. If he protests strongly or you are not ready to listen to him cry, go in and pat him on the back, hiss at him for the rest of the time. Try not to talk or “prank” him, all your efforts are to fall asleep again! After some time, he will grasp the idea that sleep should be longer and will learn to fall asleep again if he woke up earlier.

By 6 months, some babies can sleep twice a day, but for longer periods of about 1.5 hours. Others will keep 3 naps for up to 8-9 months with a total duration of up to 3.5 hours. Make sure that the third nap does not end too late and does not prevent falling asleep relatively earlier in the evening. Again, for some, sleeping after 4 will be considered late, for others it will be possible to sleep until 5.

By 8.5 months, 95% of children will move to 2 naps per day. The duration of morning and afternoon sleep will increase, and evening sleep will disappear. At the same time, their start time will also shift slightly (for example, 9 and 13 hours), and the waking time will increase to 3-4 hours without serious consequences. However, remember that for premature and post-colic babies (despite the fact that the colic has long passed), this routine may not begin for another month or two.

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Night sleep

If you have created a daily routine, then going to bed at night will fall at 6-7 pm, depending on how your nap went. On average, your baby needs 10-11 hours of sleep per night and about three during the day. Therefore, if suddenly the daytime sleep was not entirely complete, then it is very important to put it to bed earlier at night so that the total sleep time does not suffer. Don’t worry, even if you put your child to bed at 6-6.30 earlier than usual, he most likely will not get up. It is the absence of overwork that will help the baby sleep longer during the day and not wake up unreasonably often at night.

You will most likely feed 2-3 times per night. Decide for yourself how much your baby really needs these feedings. At 4-5 months, 3 feedings per night should not cause you doubts, but closer to 7-8 months you can already think about whether the baby is really hungry. When a child falls asleep poorly at 7 months and also wakes up frequently, the reason often lies not in hunger, but in formed negative associations, feeding habits, and inability to fall asleep independently between sleep cycles. Observe - does he really eat with appetite during such awakenings, or after a few sips does he quietly sniffle in your arms? If you have the second case, then it’s time to wean off night feedings. And if you need an action plan for this work, join the participants in the new online course: we will give you a set of knowledge, applying which you can solve, among other things, the problem of frequent awakenings at night.

Another reason for frequent night awakenings may be going to bed too late.

Try moving your bedtime 30-40 minutes earlier during the week; it is quite possible that night awakenings will disappear.

Temporary night awakenings may reappear as new skills are learned. Pull-ups, crawling, and switching from three naps to two will almost always bring a little chaos to your already established sleep habits. In this case, just be patient, try to adhere to the old routine as much as possible, and everything will definitely return to normal in about 7-14 days.

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Baby's half-hour sleep at night

We identify the causes of short sleep

At any age, a baby should not sleep in such fits and starts at night. There must be some reasons for this. If this phenomenon was observed one or more times (but not often), the child may have been overtired. Or slept well during the day. That is, by 24.00 he had slept enough and switched to daytime mode. The deepest sleep occurs between 19 and 24 hours. If the baby spends this time on games and entertainment, his nervous system is overloaded and then proper rest is no longer possible.

In this case, any factor can trigger waking up:

1. night light;
2. TV sound or other noises (conversation behind the wall)
3. separation anxiety due to the absence of the mother, which should subside after 7 months;
4. fright while sleeping, this is possible after 10 months, etc.

How to make your baby's naps last longer

Ways to prolong your baby's sleep

What should you do to make your child sleep longer during the day?

• If your baby wakes up every half hour, help him during the transition from one phase of sleep to another. If you rock him in your arms, rock him for about 30 minutes and then transfer him to the crib. If your baby is under 3 months old and has a pronounced Moro reflex, you can swaddle him.
• If the child is older, you can simply hold his hands and whisper a little in his ear; lullabies with a lot of sibilants help a lot. Put the baby to sleep in a prepared room (clean, ventilated, not overheated). Babies sleep wonderfully next to their mother; if you have time, you can just lie down next to the baby. If the weather is hot outside and the baby wakes up often, you can give him a little drink (juice or baby tea). Follow your daily routine. Put your tomboy to bed before 9 p.m.
• If your growing teeth are causing too much trouble, consult your pediatrician about how to lubricate your swollen gums. Do not allow the baby to become overtired; if the child is tired and wants to sleep, there is no need to fight for strict adherence to the regime; you can put the baby to bed a little earlier (20-30 minutes). Starting from 3 months of age, a growing little person is so interested in learning about the world that he will fight sleep until he becomes extremely tired.
• If parents think that the establishment of daytime and night sleep can be neglected, their child will work up, get tired and fall asleep, there is no point in putting him to bed, then the problem with sleep for half an hour is guaranteed. When a person, including a small one, gets tired, but for some reason does not go on vacation, the body tries to adapt and produces a special hormone (cortisol), which activates all systems, including the central nervous system. In such a state, it is difficult for the baby to fall asleep; of course, sooner or later the baby will pass out, no one has yet learned to cope without sleep. But he will no longer be able to fully rest.