Determining Your Child’s Sleep Needs

Figuring out your child’s sleep needs can give you some great peace of mind and decrease your overall anxiety about sleep. It can make the division of responsibility a lot easier because you can trust that you’re offering the sleep they need and they can get the sleep they need.

(The division of responsibility with sleep simply means you’re responsible for offering sleep in a good environment at appropriate wake times and they're responsible for the sleeping part).

 So in this blog about determining your child’s sleep needs, we will cover:

• Signs of undertired or overtired

• Sleep needs considerations

• How to determine if a child is low sleep needs or high sleep needs

• How to use logging sleep to determine sleep needs

• How to experiment/change wake times 

• Other charts to reference

The entire day can be broken down into “sleep” or “wake time, even for adults. Our bodies use wake time to build sleep pressure (thanks adenosine) and the amount of time it takes to build sleep pressure enough to sleep will change as you get older. 

As your child grows, their sleep needs evolve and the need for more awake time becomes greater as they need sleep less and less.

Sleep needs evolve quickly over the course of a few years. They go from sleeping 5+ naps a day to no naps very fast (too fast it seems!)

What's difficult is that there is no perfectly uniform age for wake windows, nap transitions, or amount of sleep each child needs at each age. It is truly individual. Remember, wake times are *not* evidence based. Which is why you see small variations in the recommendations because there’s no one right answer.

So what is undertired/overtired and what are the signs of each?

Undertiredness can be defined as when a child has not had enough time to build sleep pressure to fall asleep easily, OR to get through any ideal length of sleep. They may be happy and playing or protesting because they are not tired.

Overtiredness can be defined as the stage at which a child has been awake for so long past their ideal amount of wake time, that their body has begun to produce adrenaline and cortisol in response to help them stay awake- this can create irritability, the perception that the child is "wired" and not tired at all, and difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep.

Signs of undertired: 

• happy/playing/alert during sleep routines, staring at you and taking forever to fall asleep OR will fall asleep quickly and only stay asleep for a short time.

• crying (even though you know they aren't hungry)

• resisting settling

• older babies will really protest/stall at nap/bed time

• toddlers will play or get out of bed constantly

• napping for short periods/cat napping (micro naps, like 10-20 minutes)

• waking in the night and wanting to stay awake for hours on end (Split nights)

• waking early in the morning

• Suspiciously similar behavior to overtiredness. Which is why it can be SO tricky to get the balance right.

Signs of overtired:

• crying (when you know they aren't hungry) and difficult to calm down/settle

• resisting settling, cries more

• older babies will seem hyperactive or like they have a second wind and like they’re not tired at all

• tantrums/difficulty following instruction/power struggles in toddlers

• waking 45 minutes after bedtime at night

• waking a lot in the night (usually frequent & brief and very angry)

• waking early in the morning

They both can lead to poor napping and poor night time sleep, leading to grumpy kids and cranky parents.

Sleep needs considerations

Sleep needs will vary across the spectrum, just like weight and height percentiles. If there wasn’t a range, there wouldn’t be a percentile. There’s no shame in falling in the lower percentiles or higher percentiles-- there’s no value attached to percentiles. They just ARE.

This study was done and is one of the best studies we have regarding sleep needs (and the wide range of variability).

At any given age, there’s an average, a high sleep needs, and a low sleep needs. Your child could fall anywhere on that spectrum!

What do we consider ideal though? The only evidence based source we have for optimal sleep for health considerations is from the AASM and this is what they’ve found:

• Infants four to 12 months should sleep 12 to 16 hours per 24 hours (including naps) on a regular basis to promote optimal health.

• Children one to two years of age should sleep 11 to 14 hours per 24 hours (including naps) on a regular basis to promote optimal health.

• Children three to five years of age should sleep 10 to 13 hours per 24 hours (including naps) on a regular basis to promote optimal health.

• Children six to 12 years of age should sleep nine to 12 hours per 24 hours on a regular basis to promote optimal health.

• Teenagers 13 to 18 years of age should sleep eight to 10 hours per 24 hours on a regular basis to promote optimal health

There are no recommendations for infants less than 4 months because of a newborns highly disorganized sleep. You can safely assume that younger infants need more sleep and as they get older, they need less sleep. For example, for a 4-12 month old to need 12-16 hours, you’d assume that a 4 month old would need more sleep than a 12 month old.

How to determine if a child is low sleep needs or high sleep needs

A low sleep needs kid will obviously fall on the lower end of average sleep needs. Some common personality traits include:

• Generally have more difficulty with sleep overall (we anecdotally assume this is from parents expecting them to sleep more than they physically need/can)

• More sensitive to awake time

• May be considered “sensitive” or “difficult” temperaments (high needs)

• Doesn’t show clear tired signs

• Transitions to less naps earlier

• More particular about sleep environment

A high sleep needs kid will obviously log more sleep in 24 hours than the average kid. They may also:

• Be more easy going and accepting of change

• Really hard to extend wake times

• Hold on to naps longer

• Show very clear signs of being tired

• More flexible with sleep in general

What we do know is that where your child currently falls tends to stay the same, meaning a high sleep needs kids doesn’t just suddenly become a low sleep needs kid. 

How to use logging sleep to determine sleep needs

If you’ve never logged sleep before in any way (paper or app), then you may not have any idea how much total sleep your child is getting. While I don’t recommend obsessively logging forever, it can be really beneficial in helping you understand your child’s sleep needs and ideal sleep schedules.

Here’s a free 7 day log to get you started!

You can simply start with logging their sleep to see what they average in 24 hours, or get more detailed like, how long it takes them to fall asleep, their mood, and tracking wake times to see what results in the best sleep overall.

How to experiment/change wake times 

First, wait for an actual “problem”. Something like waking for 15 minutes from 5am-5:15am isn’t a real “problem”. And make sure there’s no other explanation (teething, illness, travel, a loud noise keeps waking them, etc).

Then, start with one factor to manipulate-- if you manipulate the entire schedule, you’ll have no idea what’s working/what isn’t. Start with changing the wake time you’re having an issue with. Taking 20-30 mins to fall asleep for their second nap? That’s the wake time you manipulate first.

If one wake time is maxed out for age, don't change that one, change another. For example, if your 4 month old has awake times of 1.5/2/2/2.25. I would change the 1.5 one first instead of increasing the ones that are already at 2 hours.

Give each change about 5 consistent days before going back or trying another shift!

Here’s are some charts you can reference for suggested/average wake times and sleep needs:

And finally, here are some reminders for you:

• Babies aren’t robots. Sleep won’t look the same every single day and it may not have anything to do with the schedule!

• Don’t compare sleep to another child’s. The range can be so different.

• You can’t “designer order” your child’s sleep. Yeah, it would be great if every kid slept until 9am, but that’s not reality!

• Don’t change a schedule that’s working because of age.

• It simply is easier if your baby is average to high sleep needs. If your baby seems to be lower sleep needs, give you and them some grace!

• Your baby's sleep needs are not a reflection of you as a parent!