The Complete Guide to Why Babies Fight Sleep

You know your little one is tired and ready for bedtime, but still they fight sleep. Even after a nice warm bath and doing your familiar tucking-in routine, your baby might still end up fighting the sleep that you know they're ready for.

As a parent, you’re probably asking yourself a million questions: Did they eat enough? Are they just overtired? Is this a sign of separation anxiety? 

Instead of thinking up all of the possible reasons behind your baby’s insistence to stay awake, read on to discover why most babies fight sleep and what you can do when it happens.

Is your baby arching their back, crying, fussing, kicking, squirming around and generally protesting bedtime? These are all signs of fighting sleep. If this sounds like your baby and sleep is always a battle, there are several potential reasons behind it.

In general, the following three causes are usually to blame for your baby fighting sleep.

A baby who isn’t quite ready for bedtime is certainly going to protest! As a parent, it’s critical to understand your baby’s sleep cues and understand their needs – body language, mood and level of fussiness will tell you what you need to know. For instance, if Baby seems wide awake and happy even though it’s their usual time for a nap, chances are they aren't quite ready yet. Being under tired is less common in babies and more common in toddlers, but an under-tired baby is most definitely going to fight sleep.

An overtired baby is a true disaster waiting to happen. This scenario can transpire quickly, and often you won’t recognize it until it’s too late. If you fail to read your baby’s sleep cues or miss their usual sleep window, they will become overtired and unable to fall asleep due to sheer exhaustion. As adults, this can be difficult to comprehend at first; when we are tired, we find it easier to fall asleep. But for babies, being overtired can mean that falling asleep is that much harder to do.

This usually occurs around eight or nine months of age when your baby starts to realize that they want to be close to you at all times. When this happens, sleep is simply not a priority. For first-time parents, resolving separation anxiety can be really hard work, and this behavior often resurfaces again around 18 months of age, too.

So, what can you do? Perhaps you know that your baby is overtired? Or maybe none of the above seems to fit what you’re dealing with? 

There are a lot of appraoches to guiding your baby to fall asleep. Don’t forget that your baby’s temperament can have a lot to do with how they sleep as well, and they might fight sleep simply because of their personality. But even with this in mind, there are several things that parents can try to fix the issue.

Sleep breeds sleep. If your baby sleeps well during the day, they're likely to sleep well at night, too. If they haven't had any good naps in the daytime, take this into consideration for bedtime. And if naps are consistently hard work for them, then consider how this affects their bedtime routine, too.

You need a good nap routine so that your baby is not overtired when it comes to the last part of the day. For an under-tired baby, trim down their naps a little, or even move toward ditching one of them if they normally take two per day.

If your baby is overtired at bedtime, start your nighttime routine a little earlier. Thirty minutes is usually a good length of time to spend winding down for bedtime, so if you find that your routine tends to run past this, try to cut it down a bit. If your baby is under tired, make bedtime a little later than usual. Adjusting their typical bedtime by just 15 minutes can have a huge impact on your baby’s likelihood to fight sleep.

If your baby is always overtired at the end of the day, your whole routine might need an overhaul. How much awake time do they have between naps? The issue might be that they need to be awake for shorter periods of time, which will keep them from burning out before bedtime. For under-tired babies, longer periods of awake time could be the answer.

If your baby is still fighting sleep and you feel like you’ve run out of potential solutions, it’s best to talk to your doctor. Considering the setup of your baby’s sleep environment and what they're sleeping on may also be worth your while!

That's where Naturepedic comes in. Check out these five crib mattress dos and don'ts to learn more.