What is False Start when Sleep Training?
This is one of those sleep terms that you see and you’re like “what?” until you see it explained! Then most can identify when or if this has happened for their little ones.
False starts sleep: what it means
False starts bedtime
Why false starts happens
What to do when false starts are happening
False starts sleep: what it means
A false start is a fake-out. Meaning, you think your child is good and asleep then BOOM. They’re awake and crying and you are trying to figure out WHY!!
This is where they wake soon after going to bed, like within the first sleep cycle. If they’ve slept a few hours, I wouldn’t call the waking a false start.
False Starts Bedtime
When you see this at bedtime, it’ll look like they fell asleep and then they awake, often within 30-45 minutes. They’re having trouble bridging into that next sleep cycle. Oftentimes they’re upset and crying, maybe even difficult to settle again.
Why false starts happen
The most common reason for false starts after bedtime is overtiredness. This is because they have extra cortisol which can make it harder to fall asleep AND stay asleep after they’ve gone to bed.
Another common reason for false starts is unable to connect sleep cycles independently. If your child is currently falling asleep with assistance and unable to bridge into the next sleep cycle, they’ll wake at that 45ish minute mark and need you to put them back to sleep.
What to do when false starts are happening
One of the best experiments is to make the last awake time before bed about 15 minutes shorter. That’s almost always enough to do the trick to help them not wake up right after falling asleep.
If that doesn’t help, you may need to look at the entire day’s amount of total wake time to see if that needs to be adjusted to alleviate OVERALL overtiredness and not just at bedtime.
You can also experiment with more/less day time sleep (sometimes they can relate to undertiredness as well where they don’t have enough sleep pressure to fall back asleep when they wake after one sleep cycle).
Finally, you can visit sleep training if you’d like to and have already ruled it out as a timing issue! If you’ve already sleep trained, you’d just utilize your same response as when you originally sleep trained.
If you’re really struggling with all aspects around false starts, check out the Raising Happy Sleepers membership for more support.
