Nocturnal awakenings in children are physiological. The problem occurs when they pull or it takes time for the child to return to Morpheus’ arms. Advice from a sleep specialist.
Subtle awareness is normal and physical. In both children and adults, it occurs at the end of each sleep cycle. Most of the time they go unnoticed. But it happens that the child cannot go back to sleep and there is a real waking phase. “My 17-month-old wakes up every night, either because he’s wetting his diaper because he’s teething or because he needs to be soothed,” Leedy, a mom of one, tells us. A little boy named Arthur. And when she tries to get him back to sleep, this young mother sometimes spends hours there. So, how to react in these cases?
When a child wakes up for long periods of time at night, it is often a sign that something is wrong. “First, we must rule out pain, illness or teething. Then, we will observe this child and his attitude: is he awake and happy, jumping? Or is he close to a scene? From an exorcist?“, explains Candice Turjman, a sleep specialist for children aged 0 to 5 years, the head of the Instagram account @lafetedusleep and the author of the book called. Therefore, if the baby cries, it means that he has an unmet need (need to be reassured , needs to be changed, fed). “If he’s happy and happy, he doesn’t call, we let him do well, he’ll eventually fall asleep on his own.” she adds.
Also, if he’s happy and seems like he’s not asking for anything, that could be a sign that it’s time to take stock of his naps during the day. Indeed, it is likely that he slept too much during the day and that affects the night, because in a way, he has reached his 24-hour sleep quota. “Maybe it’s time to disappear naps? If this awakening is prolonged and caused by crying, but a medical cause/pain has been ruled out, then we can look for other causes: sleep environment, diapers, bottle/feeding, or need for reassurance.“, advises the sleep specialist.
Moreover, prolonged wakefulness at night is often a sign of sleep regression. There are five main ones that usually occur around the key stages of acquisition (rolling, crawling, crawling, walking, talking). Your child is so excited about his new superpower that he will try to practice it everywhere, day and night, much to our delight. “In this case, you can try to embrace the moment by doing everything you can to calm him down and practice editing as much as possible during the day, so that the urge to wander around in bed at night is a little less.”
