I understand you’re here to find out how to help your baby sleep through the night. Before you navigate your mouse to the exit button, I want to reassure you that it’s perfectly normal for your baby—and for every human being, including you and me—to wake up during the night. In fact, we all experience nighttime awakenings, whether we realise it or not.
The Human Sleep Cycle
This is do the normal, natural part of the human sleep cycle. To briefly summarise the human sleep cycle, it consists of 4 stages of sleep (some say 5) throughout the night. The younger you are the shorter the sleep cycle (45 minutes), but as you grow up, it typically lasts around 60/90 minutes. It can be divided into two main types – non-rapid eye movement (NREM) and rapid eye movement.
In the NREM, there are three stages:
- Stage 1: Light sleep stage where you transition from wakefulness to sleep. The body muscles relax and heart begins to slow down.
- Stage 2: This stage counts as majority of sleep and your body goes into a deeper state of sleep in which the body temperature drops and hear rate slows further.
- Stage 3: This is the deepest form of sleep and is crucial for physical restoration and growth.
In the REM stage, there is just the one – this stage occurs towards the end of the sleep cycle and is characterised by rapid eye movement, increased brain activity and vivid dream. This stage is important for memory consolidation and emotional regulation.
The Unavoidable Brief Awakening
What this means is that humans experience these sleep stages in cycles, and once we complete a stage, we transition back to a lighter stage of sleep, which may involve a brief awakening.
It’s fascinating to consider that if you sleep from 11 PM to 7 AM, your body returns to light sleep just 90 to 110 minutes after falling asleep. The good news is that this process is quite seamless. We might wake up for a few minutes and then drift back off, or we may not fully awaken at all. Regardless of what happens during those brief awakenings, we rarely remember them. If you do the math, that could happen around six times throughout the night.
What about your little ones?
Is Sleep Like a Baby a Real Thing?
You’ve probably all heard or used the expression “I wish I could sleep like a baby,” which is amusing because a baby’s sleep is actually quite complex.
Even though babies require a lot of sleep, their sleep cycles are significantly shorter than those of adults. On average, babies transition from light sleep to deep sleep and back again in just 45 to 50 minutes. It makes one wonder if the phrase “sleep like a baby” originated from someone who happened to see an adorable baby in a deep slumber (who knows, right?).
Importance of Sleep Training
So for those of you sitting there thinking, well if my baby is going to wake up anyways and there is nothing I can do about it then why in the world would I sleep train? Good question
Sleep training doesn’t teach your child to stay asleep
Yes, read that again. Sleep training DOES NOT teach your child to stay asleep. No one on this whole planet can teach your child to sleep through the whole night. The role of a sleep trainer is to teach your child to fall asleep independently once they go to bed and when they are transitioning from one sleep cycle to the other.
The role of the sleep trainer is to teach your child a lifetime skill to go back to sleep on their own. Once a child is taught to sleep independently, when they wake up from their sleep cycle, their brain will signal them to go back to sleep.
Challenging Parents Claiming Their Kids Need Them at Wake-Up
For those opposed to sleep training due to the belief that their child needs them upon waking, understanding the science of sleep cycles reveals that it’s healthier for children to learn to transition between these cycles independently. Parents should be there for their children when they truly need support—such as during illness, teething, or discomfort—rather than always stepping in when a child simply seeks help to fall back asleep. This distinction allows parents to recognise genuine needs versus reliance on them, helping to preserve crucial sleep time essential for memory consolidation and growth.
It’s important to remember that waking up is a natural part of human development.
Nothing changes a baby’s natural sleep patterns
Whether a child is sleep-trained or not, sleep trainers do not change a baby’s inherent sleep patterns. Every individual experiences the same sleep cycles, and our bodies process, grow, develop, and rejuvenate in similar ways. Sleep is a crucial aspect of our lives. What sleep trainers offer is guidance in helping children learn how to transition from one sleep cycle to the next.
When you consider it, isn’t that what you desire? For your child to develop properly?
Argument: Babies are supposed to wake up at night!
This is a common argument made by those who oppose sleep training. It is absolutely true that babies are meant to wake up during the night, just like we do. If we didn’t wake up at night, it would indicate a potential issue that would need to be explored.
While everyone agrees on this point, there’s no reason for your baby to wake up, remain awake, and depend on sleep props to fall back asleep—whether it takes a few minutes or even hours. Sleep trainers simply help your little one remain calm when they wake up and teach them the skills needed to transition between sleep cycles and fall asleep again. Ultimately, when you think about it, your child isn’t calling for you because they want company; they’re calling because they want to go back to sleep and are frustrated that they can’t do it on their own. So, my question to you is, why not help them?
Sleep Training is Key
In summary, sleep is essential for your child’s development and overall well-being. Just as we feel like zombies without sleep, it’s even more crucial for children. Teaching them the importance of sleep is truly a blessing. It’s perfectly normal for your baby not to sleep through the night, and experiencing each stage of their sleep journey is incredibly important, as each stage influences their body, mind, emotions, and spirit in unique ways. Sleep training is about making connections and establishing healthy habits. Regardless of the method you choose to sleep train your child, you are ultimately providing them with a wonderful advantage.
