IS YOUR BABY OVERTIRED? | Signs your baby is overtired and how to help get more sleep! - Certified Pediatric Sleep Consultant and Potty Training Coach

IS YOUR BABY OVERTIRED? | Signs your baby is overtired and how to help get more sleep!

Something that has been said over and over again in the baby sleep world, is that sleep promotes sleep and an overtired baby is going to struggle to sleep. When babies are overtired, they are more cranky, more clingy, and just generally more difficult. If this sounds like a situation that you’re dealing with, let’s jump right in!

IS YOUR BABY OVERTIRED? | Signs your baby is overtired and how to help get more sleep!

A common myth that a lot of parents hear is that if you keep your baby awake later, then they’ll sleep better and they’ll sleep in later in the morning and that is the furthest thing from the truth. What’s really happening in your baby’s body when you’re keeping them up past their bedtime, is that their body is producing cortisol and they’re running on adrenaline and it may seem like your baby is bouncing off the walls or they’re really hyper, and it’s because you missed the window of opportunity to get them down. So how do we fix this? I have five tips to help you get your overtired babies sleeping better.

Tip 1: Respect the wake windows. If you are observing your child’s wake windows and they’re sleepy cues, and really understanding when is that window of opportunity to get your baby to sleep, then your baby is going to sleep so much better. If you don’t know a lot about wake windows, I have a whole wake window chart in my free baby sleep guide.

Tip 2: You need to give them earlier bedtimes until they are caught up on their sleep.

Tip 3: When your baby is in this overtired state they are sleep deprived, they’re producing more cortisol, more adrenaline, and they are not able to self soothe. So before you even jump into sleep training, assist your baby to sleep as often as possible in order to get them to sleep.

Tip 4: Encourage longer naps. Now if your baby is older than six months old, I will always tell you to use crib our, if you’re not familiar with what crib our is then after this video I want you to watch this video right here so you can learn all about crib hour, https://youtu.be/LAUxVYB43Xw. But I only recommend it when your baby is six months old or older. If your baby is younger than six months old and they’re taking short naps, you have two options; either you let the short naps be until they’re a little bit older and you can sleep train for them to take longer naps, or you can try to extend their naps.

Tip 5: Routines, routines, routines! Whether your baby is one month old or 11 months old, it does not matter. You need routines in your baby’s life. Now that first month of life, I’m going to give you a little leeway there because you’re just in survival mode.

Don’t forget that I have a free baby sleep guide, so go grab that guide and then I want you to go watch this crib hour video https://youtu.be/LAUxVYB43Xw. So if you don’t know about crib hour, if your baby is over six months old or even if your baby is younger than six months old, they’re going to be six months old soon enough, watch the video!