How much sleep is enough for your child?

In case you only have 10 seconds to read, I'll cut right to the answer on this one: children between 6 months and 6 years need 11-12 hours of sleep a night, straight. Every night. 

Young children need 11-12 hours of straight sleep each night for optimal health and development.

Now, the long answer:

If your child is still of napping age (younger than 3), this could be less - 10-11 hours at night - as long as they're taking a good, long nap(s) of 2-4 hours during the day. The American Pediatric Association says 11-12 hours of total sleep in a 24-hour period is the minimum.

But in my experience, babies and young children who have good, healthy sleep habits and learn their own strategy for falling asleep (i.e. they don't need to be rocked or fed, or have a soother or a parent lying beside them), will sleep much more than this, simply because they have the ability to sleep as much as their bodies need.

So maybe you’re thinking: “That’s for other people’s kids,” or “My child has never slept well,” or maybe, “He hates being in his crib.”

I’ve heard it all (and used to think all those things too!), and I’ve seen these babies and toddlers completely turn around.  If your child is healthy, well and neurologically normal, then I can say with 99.9 per cent certainty that your child has it in her to sleep through the night. 

But it’s not enough to just add up a child’s bits and pieces of sleep in between bouts of calling out, downing bottles of milk or coming into your room twice a night and call it 11 hours. It’s the straight part in “11-12 hours straight” that matters.

What we all need to feel refreshed, productive and emotionally stable (which is a relative thing for a baby or toddler) is consolidated sleep.

In the beginning, this is impossible; newborn babies need to feed every three to four hours. We can usually manage this in the short term.  But then life goes on, and we have to function.  And we all had a better idea of what kind of parent we wanted to be.

Now it's also possible that you think you're functioning just fine on 7 hours of sleep with a little one waking you up once or twice (or five times?!). That's no mistake either: research on adults has shown that one of the hallmarks of sleep deprivation is that the sleep-deprived person underestimates their impairments and overestimates their abilities. In other words, they do poorly on memory and reaction-time tests, but think they're doing just fine.

And if our children never learn to sleep through the night and have the deep, restorative sleep their brains and bodies need, how must they feel?

Research has shown that children who don't sleep enough have:

• higher risk of obesity
• lower IQ than children who sleep well
• decreased memory or skill retention
• tendency to exhibit hyperactivity (boys in particular)
• lower scores on several areas of school testing including math and literacy.

Some kids weather the blips in regular sleep better than others; there’s a lot that depends on your child’s overall temperament. But there’s just no question that adequate sleep is critical to every child's health and well-being.

Even with a long, consolidated stretch of sleep, my own preschooler is noticeably calmer and more co-operative (and generally nicer to be around) on 12 hours of sleep than on 10-and-a-half.  And on broken or jet-lagged sleep? Forget about it. Let’s face it: parenting is hard enough.

As a sleep coach, my absolute favourite part of the job is hearing parents who have finished a two-to-three-week sleep program talk about the difference a full night’s sleep makes for their child.

Here's one example:

Braeden, a two-and-a-half year old, had been taking an hour or more to fall asleep, waking several times a night (sometimes for a long stretch) and eventually ending up in his parents’ bed.  Every night.  His parents were exhausted and exasperated.

Within a week or two on the plan I created for them that addressed sleep habits, timing, behaviour, and the boundaries around what happens at night versus what happens during the day, Braeden was putting together 12 straight hours every night and napping every afternoon. It was a life changer for his parents.

But one of the most telling pieces of this story was the change they saw in their son: he had been seeing a speech therapist for delayed speech.  Within a few weeks of finally getting adequate sleep, his speech was exploding.  He was counting, singing the alphabet and getting much less frustrated as he could finally start to express his needs. The speech therapist told the parents she had no further need to see their son.

Children need consolidated sleep, just like we do. If they don't get it, it will show up in subtle ways or possibly a big way, like for Braeden. The biggest effects may not even show up until years later, when your child has chronic sleep issues.

The good news is, your child can learn. In fact, they're learning machines; we just have to give them the chance. And when everyone is getting the sleep they need, many other behavioural challenges and parenting problems just melt away.

So, if your child is already falling asleep independently, but continues to wake in the night, how you respond to this waking will make all the difference. If you know they've been well fed and aren't in any discomfort, your first step is to wait. Ten minutes is the magic number for giving your baby or toddler the chance to put themselves back to sleep without your intervention; that will go a long way to seeing those sporadic wakings stop altogether. 

If your little one is still struggling after the 10 minutes, then go in and soothe them in some way that doesn't develop an association - one they will learn to associate with getting back to sleep (like an 18-month old learning to need a bottle in the middle of the night). Keep it quick and keep it simple. Having a 20-minute playtime with their favourite person might be enough to entice them to keep the midnight-waking habit going.

If your child is old enough to get out of bed and pop into your room for a nightly visit (or two or three), again, your response will dictate whether this goes on for years (yes, years) or stops now.  I always recommend as a first-line defence to gently, quietly lead them back to bed, tuck them in and leave again. You may have to do this a lot on night one, but keep your poker face and persevere for a few nights; the fun should be over for your little one soon. 

There is plenty of time for fun during daylight hours, and you will have a lot more energy for it.

3 Steps to a Better Sex Life

This was my family doctor's idea for a marketing slogan when I told him about my sleep-coaching business. He's a funny dude (and thankfully a top-notch doctor).

He was speaking from experience of course. 

There's nothing like a little person in your house waking up every few hours, or a not-so-little person insisting you lie down with them in order to fall asleep twice a night, to send your libido into the basement and totally kill your marital sex life. 

I remember feeling like I finally understood what it was like to be a man, thinking about sex every 10 seconds; in the initial post-partum months, all I ever thought about was sleep. It became an obsessive, invasive thought that would cast a glaze over my eyes whenever someone spoke to me. I would nod and say an appropriate number of "mm-hmm's", but would be really thinking, "When can I sleep? When's the next nap time? I hope she sleeps in her crib so I can nap.... I need more sleep. I'm soooooo tired. Mm-hmm."

Now, there's no avoiding this bleary-eyed sleep obsession in the earliest stage of your baby's life. Your sex life will (and probably should) take a hit; there is a pretty significant physical recovery that has to happen for Mom, not to mention your top priority is keeping a new little human alive.  But often months and even years can go by without that shift back; couples can drift apart in the absence of intimacy when their child isn't sleeping through the night.

Those precious hours between 7 and 10 p.m., when a healthy, happy baby or young child is fast asleep, give Mom and Dad time both for themselves and each other, and that time can save a marriage.

I've had more than a few moms who've called to ask for my help tell me they haven't shared a bed with their partner in months or years. One mom of three said the extent of the quality time she and her husband have is "high-fiving each other" when they meet in the hallway. Another mom told me she finally understood why so many of her friends got divorced when their kids were two and three years old (at the time, she and her husband were in marriage counselling).

Intimacy isn't a luxury. And it isn't something we can afford to sacrifice after having children. Yes, our children need us and sometimes their needs outweigh everything else, but a wise friend told me years ago (several years after her own divorce), that children need parents who love each other. I would add that they also need parents in love with each other. A healthy, happy relationship between a child's parents gives them security and a happy home environment, not to mention a shining example for their own future relationships - these little people are modelling us in every moment and will continue to throughout their lives.

Now I'm not talking about neglecting your baby's needs for your own or your spouse's. This is about keeping your whole family thriving. There's just no question that a healthy sex life is one of the cornerstones of a healthy, happy marriage. (If in doubt, ask your spouse.) When we're too tired and too busy and we let intimacy slip - the same intimacy that brought you together to create this beautiful family in the first place - everyone suffers: one or both partners aren't feeling happy or fulfilled, tension builds and dissatisfaction seeps in.

And your children will pick up on the tension; they always do.

Now, back to my doctor's idea: so what are the three steps to a better sex life?  I'm fumbling through the early parenting years with two kids myself, but let me take a stab at it:

1. Decide that your marriage / partnership is a priority and a critical part of your whole family's happiness.

2. Help everyone in the family develop healthy, independent sleep habits so you actually have the time, privacy and energy for sex.

3. Once your child is consistently, happily fast asleep at 7:30 p.m., carve out time for each other, and bring back those connections that brought you together in the first place. Then settle down for your own 8 hours of sleep. 

When Can My Baby Sleep Through the Night?

It's the question we've all asked within weeks of our beautiful bundle's birth.  Once the bliss of having a newborn starts to wane under the cloud of sleep deprivation, thoughts of sleep (more sleep, please more sleep!) begin to take over.

Some babies are natural sleepers; these little angel babies can knock off 10-12 hours a night at about three months old with little-to-no concerted effort from their parents.  You don't hear about them much because their parents know not to mention it in public.

For the most part, babies will need to have calories in the night for up to six months of age*, beginning with feeding every three hours as a newborn to just one feed per night at four-to-six months. (*Your baby may need one night feed for a little longer if he is on the small side, and definitely longer if baby isn't holding his growth curve - if that's the case, seek the advice of a pediatrician.) 

The idea of baby sleeping 12 hours straight may sound absurd to the mom of a 10-month-old who wakes 3-4 times a night for her self-declared snack time. But these wakings are not physiological. In a healthy baby, night wakings at this age are in the realm of habit and a lack of self-soothing sleep skills.

For example, babies who are breastfed to sleep or use a soother will wake fully, crying out, when they come to a normal awakening at the end of each sleep cycle. These mini-awakenings are a normal part of sleep; we all have them with little or no recollection in the morning. Babies who have already learned to self soothe wake only briefly and simply reposition themselves before starting their next sleep cycle. Babies (or toddlers) who need a "prop" - something external like a soother or breastfeeding - to fall asleep wake fully, crying out for the "prop"  they intially fell asleep with.

In the case of a baby who is dependent on a sleep prop, it will take some encouragement and habit-breaking to help her learn not to wake in the night once she's past the age of physically  needing night feeds. The good news is, there are more compassionate methods now than the old-school cry-it-out technique (which essentially means saying good night to your baby and not opening her door until 7 a.m. - apparently effective, but jeesh...). 

The method I recommend to parents is one in which you are beside your baby supporting them with voice and touch as they learn this ever-important new skill of falling asleep. And it works, virtually every time.

So if your baby is healthy, beyond the newborn stage and is still waking every 2-3 hours, or beyond four months and waking more than once or twice, or beyond 7-8 months and is waking at all, you can assume it's an issue of habit, not physiological need. Babies will always make up the calories during the day to get all the nutrition they need.

With the right advice and a proven plan, your baby could be sleeping through the night within a week.  Then you'll be the one keeping quiet at the Mommy group.