When exhausted parents reach out to me, one of the first questions I ask is about awake windows. How much awake time are they giving their child before offering a nap or bedtime? All too often, these awake windows are much too long.
An overtired baby has a harder time calming, falling asleep and staying asleep. Being overtired is the #1 culprit for early morning wake-ups too. So how do you know if your baby is tired? Here are a few sleep cues to look for:
Getting Sleepy: Baby may start being uninterested in toys or maybe even you; looking off into space and giving cues like red eyebrows. Start working on your nap/bedtime routine now to get them to sleep before they are overtired.
Time For Bed: This is when you will see more signs like yawning, red eyes, and fussing. Now is the time to get your child in bed so they can fall asleep. Allow enough time so that you don't skip your regular bedtime routine. You can adjust and make it a bit shorter if needed, but always offer a consistent routine to help signal that it is bedtime.
Overtired: Your baby may become inconsolable, show signs like red eyes or pulling at their ears. You may even see a burst of energy. This “second wind” is definitely a sign that they are overtired. When your baby is overtired, you may find that it takes longer to get your little one to settle and fall asleep.
Still struggling to understand sleep cues?
Along with the sleep cues listed above, you may also use their age-appropriate awake windows as a guide to know when to offer their next sleep. During the first 4-5 months, I suggest following a routine rather than a strict schedule. Babies and children thrive on a routine, and you may notice things feeling easier once you have a good routine in place.
Here are some age-specific guidelines that I recommend:
0-3 months: The maximum awake time during the newborn stage is 60-90 minutes. This is often just enough time to change a dirty diaper, feed your baby, snuggle and change another dirty diaper before they doze off. Naps in the early months are often short and frequent.
3-6 months: Naps should be offered after 1.5-2.5 hours of awake time. Most often this allows for three naps. Around the 5-month mark is when we start seeing naps consolidating from short snoozes to longer naps.
6-9 months: You will start seeing your baby consolidate to two naps with 2.5-3 hours of awake time in between.
9-13 months: At this age, naps should be offered after about 2.5-4 hours of awake time between each sleep. The shortest awake window should be offered in the morning while the longest awake window is between the last nap and bedtime.
13-18 months: This is the most common time to transition to 1 nap with 4.5-6 hours of awake time. Make sure to offer an early bedtime if the nap is short to avoid them becoming overtired.
18 months-3 years: Continue to offer a nap with 5-6 hours of awake time. Your child is usually ready to drop the nap altogether between 3-4 years old. It’s still important to offer a “quiet time” until they are able to go from morning wakeup to bedtime without major meltdowns. It’s also wonderful for parents and caregivers to have some downtime in the middle of the day, too.
I am available to help you and your family manage awake windows and more. See my bio below — and I encourage you to follow me on Instagram for more tips.
Heidi Lovens
Founder of Everyday Lovens
Certified Baby & Toddler Sleep Coach & Wellness Advocate
I am a business owner, toddler mama to my 2-year-old son, Lennon, and wife to my busy and often sleep-deprived FireFighter husband. Sleep is so important in our household! My husband often comes home exhausted after a busy shift at the firehouse. This is why I created Everyday Lovens in 2015 — to help educate parents and caregivers on the fundamentals and importance of sleep.
I specialize in gentile and holistic techniques to create healthy lifelong habits. Each plan and approach is customized to a family's unique needs.
www.everydaylovens.com
IG @everydaylovens
69 comments
My toddler ( 2 yrs, 2 months) naps perfectly at daycare at 12/1215 pm for like an hour and a half sometimes 2 hrs and in the evening won’t go down until 1030/11pm!!!! Even if we tire her out going to parks in the evening, come home, do dinner, shower and story. Any suggestions? I asked daycare to cap her nap to an hour, since that seems to help a tiny bit on weekends when she is with us (with us she only naps for maaax 1 hr). But they say they cannot due to child services laws. Heeeeelp 🙏🏻
My daughter has been refusing naps on and off for a couple weeks now. Both Tuesday, Wednesday and today she did not nap. She is 18 months. An example is, she woke up at 5:40 we got her out of her crib at 6, and i put her into the crib at 10:45. She didn’t fall asleep for the entire hour i left in there. She just rolled around and cried on and off.
Example two: she woke up at 6:15am, i put her down at 11:15am and it was the same exact situation. I dont know if its too early or too late?
Hi Andrea!
I think you can adjust your sons nap to start at 12pm—just slightly later to encourage a longer nap. This later time may also help the early morning wakeup because setting a nap too early can reinforce the early morning wakeup. You can even add a “wake to sleep” to his nap schedule to help lengthen the nap. I have an example/explanation of this in my Instagram Stories https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/17884166665343035/?hl=en
Hi Jessica Dillion!
Are you an early riser too? Some children have a very strong wake time no matter what you do. But there are usually still adjustments you can make. Unless your child is going to bed at 5pm, the 5am or even 4:30am wakeup is way too early. I consider anything before 6am a nighttime wake and I would wait until then to start his day out of the crib. A good goal for this age is 10-12 hours of nighttime sleep.
I would check his awake windows during the day and setting an 11:30am/12pm nap time start and avoid earlier nap because it can just reinforce early wake times.
Hi Jess- I would look at following his age appropriate awake windows during the day. This would be offering a sleep about every 1.2-2 hours following his sleepy cues. Also important during the day is so make sure he is eating around every 3 hours—following your pediatricians recommendation of course. I see that if babies are waking this much in the night they are usually overtired from not enough sleep or sleeping too much during the day and got getting enough o eat, leaving the night time for them to want to be awake and eat.