False Starts At Bedtime

- Laura Thompson | 8th September 2021 -

‘False starts’ is a term used to refer to when your child wakes soon after falling asleep at bedtime. Usually within 30-60 minutes of falling asleep, which is within the first sleep cycle of the night. It may be that your baby falls asleep in your arms and then wakes as soon as you put them down or it could be they sleep for a few minutes before waking and sometimes they can wake several times before finally falling asleep for their first long stretch of the night.

False starts can be incredibly disheartening especially if you have spent a long time getting your baby to sleep in the first place. You are probably looking forward to some alone time after a long day of parenting so for this to be disrupted is understandably frustrating.

Why?

Assuming your child is not unwell, false starts tend to occur due a misalignment between the circadian rhythm, your body’s internal clock which is determined by the environment and homeostatic sleep drive or sleep pressure as it’s more commonly known, meaning that the longer you are awake the more sleep pressure builds up.

Under Tired

When things are working as they should there will be enough sleep pressure for your child to fall asleep relatively easily and stay asleep for a long stretch. If however sleep pressure has not built enough it may be more difficult to fall asleep and once they have they will sleep more lightly and be easily woken early on. Sleep pressure may not be high enough if the last nap of the day fell too soon before bedtime, overall day sleep was too long for your child’s age or bedtime is too early.

Over Tired

Conversely, over tiredness can also cause false starts! This happens when your child is not getting enough overall sleep or their awake windows are too long causing a build-up of cortisol (a stress hormone) this then makes resettling between sleep cycles more difficult.

If you want to find out more about age appropriate wake windows and nap timings there is a handy chart in this blog which also explains more about why over tiredness causes issues with sleep.

Sleep Associations

Finally if your child doesn’t know how to fall asleep by themselves and relies on you to put them to sleep at bedtime it is likely that when they come out of their first sleep cycle of the night they look for you to put them back to sleep.

 The Solution

If false starts are a regular pattern in your house it is worth looking at your little one’s schedule to ensure they are getting the appropriate amount of day time sleep for their age. If you identify that some changes need to be made, it may take a few days for these changes to take effect.

Additionally if your child does not have independent sleep skills you can look at supporting them to learn these skills using an approach that suits your family.

If you are not sure if sleep training is right for you or would like to discuss how I can support you with this book a free call here!