You're tired, you've just brushed your teeth,
and you're looking forward to
jumping into bed for the night,
when suddenly your little one is awake.
Today I am answering your sleep question,
why would my six month old wake at 10:00 pm every night
and be unable to self settle back to sleep?
And in this video,
I'm going to talk you through why that might be happening
and what you can do about it.
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.
So please check out our website
to see if we would be a good fit for your family,
www.littleones.co.
So at six months old,
if your little one is able to self settle
for their naps and at bedtime,
that's really awesome,
but that wake at 10:00 pm
and being unable to go back to sleep is less than ideal.
There is pretty much one key reason
why that might be happening
and that has to do with your little one's
naps during the day.
At six months what we would be really expecting to see
in terms of nap patterns is your little one
having a shorter morning nap,
a nice long sleep across the middle of the day,
and then depending on if those naps go well,
potentially no sleep in the late afternoon.
Somewhere between six and eight months your
little one drops their late afternoon nap
which has ideally dwindled down
to be quite a short sleep anyway.
And so what can happen is if your little one
is napping really well during the day,
but then they're still having that late afternoon sleep,
especially if that nap is quite long and,
or quite close to bedtime,
that can definitely cause a wake at around 10:00 pm.
And that is because your little one
is just not tired enough to go back to sleep.
They just need some more awake time during their day.
So the easiest way to remedy this
is to make sure you're having a little bit
more control over your little one's
nap hours during the day.
That would mean capping the morning nap,
making sure they're getting a nice, long lunchtime sleep,
and then potenitally doing away with
the late afternoon sleep,
in which case you could always bring bedtime
slightly earlier so that your little one is not
getting over tired before they head to bed for the night.
If your little one still needs that late afternoon sleep,
I would be wanting to ensure that it is short,
definitely less than half an hour long,
and that you allow two hours from when
they wake up from that nap
to when they go to bed for the night.
This just helps control the amount of sleep
they're having in the late afternoon
and gives them a decent amount of awake time
so that they're going to bed for the night tired
and ready for sleep
and it reduces the chances of them waking a few hours later
and wanting to stay awake for quite a long time.
So I think in this situation,
your best bet is to start looking at
your little one's daytime sleeps
and make some tweaks and adjustments where necessary.
And then of course, as we always say,
when you make these kinds of adjustments
to their nap routine,
give it a good week to see how those adjustments
have improved their overall sleep.
That's not going to change overnight.
If you'd like some further help with your little ones naps
or settling or night sleep at any age,
make sure you visit us
and see how we can help you further
through our comprehensive sleep programs.
We hope this video has helped answer your question.
Don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel,
like this video and let us know in the comments
how your little ones are sleeping.
Thank you very much for watching
and I'll talk to you next week.