For some parents, it seems no matter what they try, they have a baby who simply resists sleep at all times. These children can easily get overtired or take hours to try to get them down. It feels like an ongoing battle for many. Unfortunately, for these parents a bedtime routine often exacerbates the problem because the cues for sleep are prominent and this leads their young ones to resist even more. The following are some suggestions to try and get parents to stop “trying” to put their little ones to sleep and in the long-run create an environment that’s more conducive to sleep and simply allowing it to happen. A warning that this can take some time for your child to adapt to so you may feel tempted to go back to putting them to sleep, but remember the key here is to help create positive associations with bedtime and if what has been going on until now is causing stress and anxiety then it’s not likely going to do that.
Calm Yourself First
The very first step is to make sure you’re calm about sleep. After so long with things being difficult, most parents enter bedtime with a pit in the bottom of their stomach. The problem is that this actually increases bedtime resistance as our children are made to pick up on our nuanced behaviours and feelings and our anxiety makes them anxious. We’re silently telling them things aren’t safe and the more attuned our children are, the more likely they are to fight us for sleep because they fear what’s coming. I recommend taking 5 minutes in the evening to do some calming breathing or mindfulness exercises and then re-engaging in these exercises whenever you feel your anxiety rise again around the bedtime period.
Create an Environment Conducive to Sleep
Although bedrooms are often set up properly for sleep, often the rest of the house where the child spends time prior to bed, isn’t. They have baths that are supposed to be calming in bathrooms with bright lights that inhibit melatonin, they play in living rooms with TVs on or lights on full, and so on. The key for sleep is ensuring that all areas the child will be in are conducive to relaxation and sleep. This does not mean everything is pitch black, but rather that earlier in the evening (likely around 6 or 7pm), lights are dimmed around the house, TV is off, perhaps some gentle music is on, but otherwise life continues. You aren’t forcing your child to wind down, you’re just allowing it to happen. Also, make sure bath is done ahead of this time period because baths are actually often arousing to children and thus they wake up more and struggle with sleep thanks to the bright lights and tactile stimulation. If you have a bathroom with a dimmer and your child relaxes in the tub, that shouldn’t affect sleep, but otherwise you may want to consider moving bathtime.
Overall, if the environment is conducive to sleep, you may find your younger ones simply asking to be held and nursing/feeding/rocking/being held to sleep away from the bedroom. This is okay! It’s actually quite good if there’s normally resistance because the bedroom may be a trigger for your child so moving away from that can avoid that particular trigger. I often recommend families sit in the living room and take some time around when you’d expect bedtime to just enjoy each other, chat, catch up, play a quiet game, have a glass of wine, and so on while baby/child plays about. This is an ideal way to let everyone remain calm and build up positive associations with sleepiness.
Some people have children that are quite sensitive to stimuli and this can be problematic for bedtime. These children struggle to turn things off and end up fighting sleep but also frustrated that they can’t sleep because they are taking in too much. For these kids, I recommend spending 10-15 minutes in a dark room with pink noise to help them calm or fall asleep. If they don’t fall asleep in that time, then come out to the dim environment and allow them to play some more.
Understand Sleepy Signs
Too often families mistake a common sleepy sign for overtiredness which results in changing bedtimes and more stress overall. It is a biological fact that we as humans have a period prior to when we’re ready for bed where we are more active and alert. For kids, this looks like very hyper behaviour of running around or being more vocal/active (in infancy). This is what happens when the circadian alerting system has to ping hard enough to override the high sleep drive that’s trying to take over. After this period, the sleep drive does take over and sleep is possible, but children have to get this energy out or they will struggle with falling asleep. (Note: kids can become overtired, but this is often marked with a lot of grumpiness not just energy.)
In line with this, people often mistake early tired signs as being indicative that the child is ready for sleep when really these are the same early signs we show as our sleep drive increases and melatonin production rises. We yawn, but that doesn’t mean we’re immediately ready for bed. And of course, if we try to get our kids to sleep too early, it’s harder and they begin to resist more and more and a cycle of hating bedtime begins. I will say that when I hear a family say they have to increase rocking/bouncing/and so on to get their child to sleep, it’s often a sign that they are trying to put their child to sleep too early. I recommend waiting an additional 15 minutes to what you would usually do and see how it goes for a few nights then continue to add 15 minutes as needed.
I realize there is a fine line here but the more you practice looking for this, the easier it becomes.
Limit the Time You Are Going to Sleep
If you have a child that doesn’t come cuddle, nurse or feed, then fall asleep, and you feel you have to spend time in the bedroom “trying” to help them to sleep, I recommend limiting that time to no more than 10-15 minutes or until you feel your anxiety rising. As soon as your anxiety rises, stop, come out, and just enjoy some time outside either doing something that will ease your mind when you next aim for bedtime or just relaxing. Often our stress stems from the fact that we have a list a mile long of things we hope to accomplish once our child is asleep; however, if we accept our child is awake and allow them space to play independently or be in a carrier on us and we get something done, we are alleviating our own anxiety and helping remove that negative association with bedtime.
In Practice
What does this all look like? For many, they can’t see themselves engaging in this because there’s so much anxiety around what needs to be done and when it needs to be done that the idea of letting go is impossible. We feel we have children who require us to help them fall asleep. Now, many children do require help in the form of cuddles, nursing, and so on, but the help is passive, not active. Sitting with a glass of wine and chatting with your partner while a baby nurses to sleep on you is very different than purposefully taking the time to nurse away from everything and feel that you must get your baby to sleep.
An average night of “letting go” would typically look something like this:
After dinner, bath, and so on, you get your child ready and get the environment ready. Dim the lights, turn TVs off, put some soft music on if you like that, and then allow baby to engage in some self-directed play or attach baby to you via carrier while you pick something you want to get done. As you do your own work, you may be interrupted by a child that wants some of your attention and that’s okay. Step away and give yourself to your child for a few minutes (even 10) then resume what you’re doing. Even if you’re doing something in small bursts, you’re still getting further than if you weren’t doing it at all.
When you see some of the more prominent tired signs (regular yawning – not the first few yawns, slowing of play, etc.) then take the chance to relax in one room of your choice, perhaps with your partner, and be with your child so you can be there to offer the comfort needed to sleep. You may want to dim the lights further if you feel it’s needed. Now just be there with your child and your partner and enjoy some quiet, connecting time for everyone. If your child comes to you to cuddle, nurse, or whatever to help sleep, allow it and perhaps don’t even move to the bedroom. If your child struggles with too much stimulation, move to a dark room with some pink noise and just sit/nurse/rock your child as needed to help sleep. If your child isn’t asleep in 10-15 minutes (or as soon as you feel anxious) then come back out to the main room and start on another task for 20-30 minutes then try again.
Even if your child goes to sleep 2 hours later than usual for a while as the negative associations are broken, it will be okay. It’s more important to create these positive associations with sleep for long-term sleep health than a couple nights where sleep may be a bit less and napping a bit greater. Over time, this will lessen and you can find ways to help get back to where you were in terms of a routine, but one where your child now trusts the sleep process and your presence there.
Up to what age would you say this applies? I’m really struggling with my 4 year old but I’m not sure this would help!
What part don’t you think would help? Letting go is really the main part and that applies at any age really as long as you focus on the sleep environment.
Hey Tracey,
My baby is soon to be 10months we struggle with naps and that results to an early bed time. I really want to let him take the lead but if I feel like if I don’t physically take him for a nap he can stay awake then get really cranky that also resulting to a bad night of sleep with constant wakings. How would I break this cycle? I would love for him to just nap when he is tired without me following the clock
This is a bit of a bigger question because it depends on what you are doing to know what to change. I would start by just trying to get him down quickly and if he doesn’t go, then come out and play for a while. It may be just issues of reading his cues that are being missed, but you definitely need a calmer environment to fall asleep.
Thank you for this. My almost 4 year old has looking been a sleep resistor and I am going to start implementing these suggestions. I’ll be honest, I’m feeling anxiety rise just thinking about it but would love for bedtime to be not a dreaded event.
Good luck! How is it going so far?
My 10 month old wakes Often at night sometimes every hour or 2. I’ve been advised to wean him off the boob and teach him to self soothe… my gut says that that’s wrong and that he’ll wean himself when he’s ready. However I’m concerned that his constant waking is bad for him… what do you say?
It’s not at all bad for him 🙂 Keep boobing – he sounds like a healthy, normal baby!
Tracy, I’m having a similar occurrence with my 16 month old. He has very frequent night waking (every hour to 2hrs; his longest stretch so far has been 3 hours but that’s very rare) everyone advise to either nurse less at night or week all together to get him to link up his sleep cycle so he gets more rest and is less cranky during the day. I’m against sleep training but it’s really taking a toll on me. My husband took over for 3 days now where my little one is crying during the separation but it’s able to fall asleep with cuddling his father. I just don’t know if it’s the right thing. He still cries for me everyone he wakes which is still every hour to 2 hours. TIA and sorry for the lengthy remark.
Hi Belina,
I would need more information. Have you completed the BITSS to see what it says? You can find it here: https://gku.flm.mybluehost.me/evolutionaryparenting.com/test/bitss/
Cheers,
Tracy
Hi! Love these suggestions but I am not sure how to do this with two kids (3 yrs old and 20 months). Any tips on how to get them to do this together? Or should we separate them for the quiet time. Usually when they are together all they want to do is play. Thanks!
Hi Tracy, my lo is almost 8 months old and she’s never slept in her crib. Once she’s asleep and I transfer her to her crib she cries hysterically until I pick her back up. Do you think I should let her cry for a bit?
No!!! If she’s hysterical, she’s not feeling safe in the crib. Some babies really don’t do cribs well at all (or separation from a caregiver). Depending on your situation, there are other things you can look into but you may need to kiss the crib goodbye 🙂
I’ve done a better job letting go for the last 48 hrs about, and it’s been great! My little guy is 5mo and he likes to get real wild at about 10pm. I’ve tried to let go in the past, but usually end up losing faith that he’ll fall asleep. But guess what? He does.
Still going wonderfully!
My LO just turned 2 months and we are struggling with naps. I feel like he used to fall asleep so easily as long we were holding him or rocking him, now it’s increased to we have to hold him a certain way and bounce for 15 minutes with white noise while shushing, and even then he cries and thrashes about a bit. Going back to playing will not work he would cry if we set him down. It’s getting frustrating I feel like why am I trying so hard to comfort him if he’s not comfortable. I don’t know what to do, I can’t just let him cry it out but it’s so maddening to put so much work into naps which are every 3 hours and feel like I’m not even helping. He won’t nurse to sleep because I still have an oversupply (never have pumped just has not regulated), so if I offer the boob he gets even more mad and screams. Any advice?
The first thing is wondering if you have the right nap time and if right environment. It sounds like you’re overcoming the lack of sleep pressure. What happens if you extend his awake time?
I could have written this! 3 years later… did it improve? I am currently going through this with my 4.5 month old and it has been happening since 8 weeks old.
Hi, I have a 4 month old that usually screams her head off every time I rock her to sleep. If I don’t put her down she’ll just get overexcited until she burst into tears. I really don’t want her to have this feeling to sleep but I don’t know how to help her to sleep without crying. (She is breastfed but doesn’t associate feeding with sleep).
I would need much more information here and would requires some one-on-one work to go through what may be wrong. There may be sensory issues already at play or physical health disruptions, etc. Unfortunately I can’t say much else, though the fact she won’t go to sleep on her own in the right environment would be a huge red flag for something else going on.
[…] parental effort to help them relax and stop fighting sleep. After all, sleep is for wimps. Here’s an article I found about children that fight bedtime, which is well worth a read if yours won’t go to […]
Thank you, thank you, thank you for this article!! I have a 2 year old that has been resisting sleep forever. Everybody kept telling me I needed to have a strong bedtime routine but that was just making things worse! Now we go with the flow and it is so much better. If I may add also focusing on connection and laugh through even rough and tumble play before bed is a huge help in our case.
Any advice when there is more than one child. My two year old is the one resisting sleep, but the 4 year old sister is happy to go to bed as long as she gets her bedtime story from ipad. I’m afraid that if she sees that the little one doesn’t have to go to bed, she will start resisting bedtime as well
I would say that you probably want to see what happens first. She may not care or you may just have to explain that the little one needs a bit more support right now. But you won’t know how she reacts until you try 🙂
Hi Tracy! Thanks for this article. It’s helped us tremendously. I have a question though – my baby is resisting sleep a LOT. She’s been doing it for as long as I can remember though she’s only six months. Still, we are having lots of problems were her sleep every day. Nap times and bed time is horrendous. But she tends to go to sleep at around 6 or 7. Usually, she wakes up at around 8 or 9 and we just can’t get her back down to sleep even if I breastfeed, rock, dummy, etc. When I feed her, she’s 99% asleep but just can’t get all the way. We try for almost 2-4 hours at times and it ends up being around 11-midnight she finally goes to sleep. She seems really tired the whole time and fussing. She’ll put her head down on our shoulder and then spring up wide awake. Do we keep trying to get her to sleep or do we just play with her as much as we can to get her even more tired? Always so confused about what to do. I don’t want to teach her that she can just stay up as long as she wants if she’s tired too but also trying to read her cues and not push something she is clearly not wanting and becoming more agitated.
It’s very hard to tell from just this bit of information, but it does sound like something is not right. I would think it has to do with the bedtime being too early, but again, difficult. Have you tried the BITSS (the sleep screen) to see if anything is flagged?
Great article! Thanks for the tips. Would a baby (7 months) be considered a sleep resistor if they needed bouncing to go to sleep? It usually takes less than 10 minutes, but requires a long transition of her being on my chest before I can lay her down on the mattress, like an hour. She used to nurse to sleep sidelying but doesnt fall asleep with just that anymore 🙁
That wouldn’t be sleep resisting, and at that age can be very normal. However, it can also be a sign that bedtime is off and you may be trying to put her down too early.
I am at a loss. Bedtime is horrible. My 2.5 year old won’t go to sleep. It doesn’t matter if we do naps or not. He screams for hours. My 4.5 yr old is tired and gets up before 7 every day so she can’t go to bed late but does most night because of the younger ones screams. If i start bedtime and 6 it still goes till 10. I can’t get anything done not to mention i am burnt out by the end of it and dread bedtime every night
It definitely sounds like something is amiss. It may be resistance or just the wrong timing for your 2.5 year old’s rhythm.
Thank you for this article; it gave me a lot of reassurance that our evening routine isn’t the issue. My 10 month old will nurse to sleep but wakes so much during the night, it’s usually every hour. Often I’ll nurse back to sleep and I put her in her crib, she’s awake 5-10 mins later. Any advice for the night wake ups?
There are so many things it could be, it’s hard to offer anything right now. It sounds like she doesn’t want to be in the crib though and that may be something worth exploring 🙂
This is really helpful. I’m wondering how I might apply it to day naps though? Our night times are generally very calm and my 9mo falls asleep OK. Ive tried replicating it for day naps but she fights the nap all the time. She will nap in the morning in her buggy but not in the afternoon at all. She ends up so tired she just cries in my arms and eventually gives up trying to sleep.
I would think you may have the wrong timing for nap with that. In many cultures, kids just fall asleep on the go when they’re tired and that young and it seems to work quite well 🙂
Hi Tracy, I’m debating whether to try this with my little girl- Shes 2yr 9 months and has always resisted sleep and gone to bed late (9-9.30pm) but now things are worsening and it’s anywhere between 10pm to 10.45pm. She doesn’t nap and gets up 8-8.30am. We do dinner, bath, stories and I pad in bed then cuddles and singing lullabies to try and get her to sleep. However increasingly she sees the bedroom as a playroom, especially if her Dad is there helping me to get her dressed etc as we have a 10 week old baby, so I increasingly need help to dress my little girl as the baby either wants feeding or holding by me- she doesn’t settle for Dad. My little girl jumps all over the bed, jumps on her Dad, wants to be tickled, thrashes and kicks her legs and keeps talking or singing instead of relaxing. She also gets out of our bed and tries to leave the room. We do bedtime in mummy and daddy’s bedroom, get her to sleep there and then transfer to cot. This has been successful since she turner 2. It used to take around 15-20 minutes from lights out to get her to sleep but now we can be trying to get her to sleep for 45-60 minutes and it’s the same if Dad and I are both there or if one does it alone.
Whilst I do not want to leave her to cry using various other techniques, I worry that what you suggest here would lead to an even later bedtime. When she goes to nursery she wakes at 7am and often becomes overtired and difficult to manage there – very tearful etc and I worry this is due to lack of sleep overnight as the staff comment on how tired she seems. They often get her to have an hour long nap but she never naps with me or on other childcare days. Every now and then she seems to get a sleep debt where she is so so tired and is tearful all day and short fused.
It’s not something you can do for one night and expect perfect results. It’s something you have to try when all else has been looked at. It seems there’s other stuff going on based on what you’ve explained so I wouldn’t go just to this. I’d try to look into other causes.
I feel like this article describes what I instinctively knew to do. When I read bedtime routines where super important (bla bla bla), I tried, and my now 7 MO baby would start crying every time I would do this routine… so I stopped. And when I would miss read his tiredness, and he would start crying in my arms not wanting to sleep, I would just give up, let him play for 20-30 min and try again, usually with peaceful success. Baths have been moved to earlier in the day as much as possible. Now I should just need to try your advice to dim lights in the evening to see if that helps. Luckily my baby falls asleep nursing or cuddling, super relaxing for me, I almost never needing to rock or bounce to sleep. I just discovered this website and am finding the advice and content super useful. Thank you.
Thank you!!! Did the lights help too?
I just want to say thank you, from the bottom of my sleepy heart.
After months of struggle, co sleeping and breastfeeding but fighting to get my baby to sleep, I found this article.
I knew sleep training wasn’t for me… I knew there HAD to be other options… this article has put into words exactly what I knew I wanted to do. I’ve been able to share it with my partner and get him on board.
I feel like I’ve had a breath of fresh air. Bedtime isn’t dreaded anymore, it’s beautiful.
Thank you so so much.
I’m so happy to hear this – may nights continue to be beautiful 🙂
Thank you for all the ideas! I alteady try some and the night sleep is good. We have a problem with naps at home and on the go, my 6months will sleep in the stroller or car only after crying and even so not every time.
He hasnt been sleeping on the go when he was a newborn, do you think this might change? It’s always so stressful for me
Thank you!
Naps can be hard at that time – I wouldn’t necessarily worry yet, but it’s hard to say without knowing more. Some babies just cat nap though 🙂
Thank you. My baby used to reliably sleep at 8pm except during the leap to start crawling. Now they are starting cruising and again start yawning at 730 but wont sleep until 930. My partner keeps telling me Im not doing enough sleep soothing: singing, rocking, patting. He came to help and held their arm so they couldn’t roll over and crawl even though they had so much giddy energy. He said they needed help sleeping. My primal mama instincts were screaming and I let baby roll amd crawl again after a few minutes of that. He was annoyed, and I wondered if I needed to try harder to help baby sleep. Instead, I let baby crawl around the dark room while I read this article until suddenly they crawled up to me a little whimpery and nuzzled their face. I laid down and fed them and they went to sleep after a few minutes of feeding, no sadness or resistance. You helped me have the confidence to stay true to my instincts.
My son will generally go to sleep ok at bedtime but wakes up several times a night and resists being resettled, often for up to 1.5hrs (either feeding for a long time, then waking as soon as I go to put him in his cot, or fighting being rocked and crying).
He wakes at 6am, naps for about 90 mins per day, and goes to bed at 7.30pm.
Would you class this as sleep resisting and if so how would you address this?
It is definitely resistance to something. If you’re interested in help, I offer it on an individual basis as I don’t give advice without working with families outside of what is in the posts. You can book a free 15-min call to talk options if you want: https://evolutionaryparenting.com/product/free-15-minute-get-to-know-you-call/
Hi Tracey,
Really great article and I plan to be a little more laid back and follow my little man’s cues.
A while back we went on holiday for a week and whilst we were away he slept through the night… he was at a distance from us in the room (he was 5 months old) since then he has been in his own room but frequent waking and his day time naps very hit and miss… in the time since we have been away (he’s 7 months now) he’s got 2 bottom teeth, separation anxiety kicked in and he’s getting over a cold. His sleep is terrible now he will go to sleep okay for the first part of the night (8pm until 10:30ish) then ill be back and forth to his room until near midnight then every few hours if I’m lucky he’s awake… I feed him to sleep each time. I’ve taken to taking him to bed with me from midnight in the last week or so because I’m so exhausted and recovering from a broken ankle! Do you think being more relaxed about bedtime will help? He’s also resisting naps now in the day whereas before he’d do 2 hour and a half at least!
I guess I have lots of patience. I spend 1-2 hours in the dark rook with my son before he falls asleep. He can’t calm down, we sing ,talk he runs around and eventually he calls down and sleeps.