My baby can self-settle so why do they keep waking?
Is night waking still a struggle for you?
Even though:
The room is good
The naps are good
The awake windows are right
And your little one can actually put themselves to sleep at bedtime
Are you wondering why they are still waking regularly during the night?
First of all, can we just say that you have done an amazing job to achieve that list above. And secondly. because you do already have solid foundations in place and your baby can already self-settle you are closer to sleeping blissfully during the night than you may think.
So why might your little one still be waking frequently during the night?
This scenario is actually really common and while you might be pulling your hair out wondering what else you can do to get the night sleep happening you’ve maybe missed one of the biggest causes of your little one continually waking during the night. While they might have good foundations. While you might have got the bedtime perfect. While they may have self-settled at bedtime.
The thing to review is - did they put themselves back to sleep each time that they woke during the night? Or did you replace their dummy for them, pat them back to drowsy / or asleep, rock them to drowsy / or asleep or feed them to drowsy / or asleep. Or did you maybe do a combination of these things during the night? It’s not a bad thing if you did any of this to help your baby, but this might be the reason that they are still waking regularly. Remember – if your baby relies on external support (your help in any way) to return to sleep then it’s likely they’ll need help multiple times during the night – even if they know how to self-settle at bedtime.
How can you improve things?
Reminder - The skill to self-settle is helpful in children to be able to achieve consolidated sleep and there’s a reason for this. It’s because no one actually sleeps through the night. We all wake at the end of each sleep cycle, check in with our environment to make sure everything is the same as when we fell asleep and then we return back to sleep.
If your little one wakes and their environment is different I.e. they are no longer being fed, rocked, patted or their parent or carer isn’t there anymore then they will often cry out for support needing help to return back to sleep again. If your little one can self-settle without a parent controlled association then it’s a lot easier for them to resettle themselves when they wake in the night.
If you are currently feeding to sleep, rocking to sleep or patting to sleep during the night you can use this first step to get you one step closer to a little one that can self-settle:
Whatever you are doing currently to help your baby during the night you are going to start to do a little less of this. Be sure your baby isn’t overtired on the night you start. If you currently feed your baby to sleep you could attempt to feed your baby to drowsy and then finish assisting them to sleep with another sleep association like rocking, patting and singing. If you are currently rocking your baby to sleep you could attempt to rock them to drowsy only and then finish the settle with patting and singing from in the cot. If you are patting your baby to sleep in the cot you can attempt to pat them to drowsy and then pat the mattress next to them while they drift off.
During this first step you will still be assisting your baby all the way to sleep but you are just trying to taper off from the amount of support you would usually provide. Essentially you are winding back from using a stronger association (your previous one) to one that still provides full support but isn’t as much support as your usual settling method.
Once your baby is doing well with this step (whatever this looks like for you) you can continue to wind back the support every few days or at a pace that is comfortable to you until you have your little one falling asleep independently from bedtime through until the morning (including after night feeds – if applicable). Take things slow and only when the time feels right.
Hayley and I like to use a gentler approach to self-settling which involves being in the room with your little one every step of the way. You can cuddle your little one and offer them as much support as they need while making changes. Our recommended changes are really gradual because to us it’s all about the progress and the end goal. We hope the above tips help to get you started.
If you want access to all of our tools and full settling methods you can find these in our 4-24 Month and Toddler (2-5 years) Slumber Programs.
Until next time, Katie & Hayley xx