We all know how important naps are for our little ones,
but what happens when your little one is waking
after 30 minutes for every single nap?
Today, I am answering your sleep question,
why is my baby waking
after 30 minutes on the dot
from each nap?
And I'm going to talk you through
why this might be happening and a few solutions.
So stay tuned.
Hi, I'm Nicky.
I am a mother to three beautiful children,
and one of the founders of Little Ones.
At Little Ones,
we specialize in infant and toddler sleep and nutrition.
We are passionate about helping families
improve their little one's sleep and overall wellness
through establishing healthy sleep patterns.
We would love to help you and your family
through our comprehensive sleep programs,
which are housed inside our custom-built app.
Please check out our website
if you'd like some more information
about how we can help you and your family
toward better sleep,
www.littleones.co.
Our babies daytime sleep cycles
are roughly 35 to 45 minutes long.
And once your little one comes out of that very early
newborn stage,
you will start to notice that they're sleeping
in more differentiated
sleep cycles.
So they might
only be sleeping for one full sleep cycle
for each nap
and waking up fully after that sleep cycle,
or you might hear them
rousing,
wakening
between sleep cycles
and then putting themselves back to sleep to nap for longer.
However,
if your little one
is waking at the 30 minute mark for every nap,
then that indicates that they're not sleeping for a full
sleep cycle,
which tells me that there's something going on.
The two
key contributing factors to this
are over tiredness and under tiredness.
Both of these two things are polar opposite.
Under tired means your little one
has not had enough awake time
since their last nap,
before they've gone down for this nap.
So they are simply not tired enough
to sleep for very long at all.
Over tired is the complete opposite
and means your little one has been awake for far too long
since their last sleep.
And they have the hormone cortisol
coursing through their system,
which is similar to adrenaline,
which means that it inhibits them
from falling into a really deep restful sleep.
So they are waking up after 30 minutes because
their nervous system is agitated
and they
are overtired.
The way to remedy
either of these situations
is to make sure you're striving
for really age appropriate
awake times with your little ones.
So
and the tricky part is these vary
depending on how old your little one is.
In very, very early newborn days,
you're obviously aiming for a lot
lesser awake time than you'd be looking at for
four, five, six month old baby.
Once you've got the right awake time happening,
your little one is going down for their naps
in this really perfect optimum
sleep window for them.
And so it's going to make it easier,
not only for your little one to settle to sleep,
but for them to stay asleep for at least a full sleep cycle
if not longer.
And the ability to go for longer than one sleep cycle
is going to be dependent on your little one's
ability to self-settle,
which starts becoming relatively important
beyond the three to four month mark.
So if your little one is waking at
30 minutes or even less
for every single nap,
then I think it's time you look at what is happening
to their awake windows between naps,
and we can help you in full detail
through every age from birth to three years old
through our sleep programs, which are
found on our website and available through our app.
For more videos and sleep advice and information,
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give this video a thumbs up
and let us know in the comments
how your little one is napping.
Thank you very much for joining me today,
and I'll talk to you again soon.