One of the stock pieces of advice for parents hoping to get their kids to sleep longer and with less waking through the night is to restrict daytime sleeping. This logical-sounding advice fails to take into account the research-based advice given by sleep experts.
The Problem With More, Longer Sleep
Humans need a portion of the day to be restful and a portion of the day to be activite. Somehow in the last 100 years or so, we've become convinced that the most natural and healthy way to do that is to sleep continuously at night and be active continuously when it's light. When the activity of the day has a natural pace, with meal breaks, changes in activity types and periods when very little is happening, it's a fine routine. When daytime life is stressful from beginning to end brains get over-stimulated and adrenaline systems start behaving as if there were life-threatening situations happening all the time.
Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz explain the problem in The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy not Time is the Key to Full Engagement and Optimal Performance [Free Press, 2003]: human brains and bodies are not designed as perpetual motion machines that crash nightly. A much healthier way to manage the stress of the day is to rest periodically throughout the day, before the whole system is overloaded.
Overload is Overtired
While adults may be accustomed to being overtired, young children are not. Some adults even think of their sleep problems as "just the way I am" or "I've always been this way." Insomnia and other sleep problems are almost entirely lifestyle-driven. The chemicals and hormones produced from the day's stress continue to circulate through the brain and body, which means that overtired people have a harder time unwinding enough to fall asleep as well as a harder time staying asleep.
Even children.
Dutch children, described in one study published in the October 1997 issue of Natural History sleep an average of 15 hours a day, at 6 months, largely because they are expected to sleep periodically throughout the day, with mothers much more concerned about keeping their environments quiet and stable, rather than providing infants with 'enough stimulation.'
Rest, Relax, Rejuvenate
The solution, then, is to rest throughout the day. A rested, relaxed body that only had to release the stress of the last third or quarter of the day will have less trouble falling asleep, and will sleep more soundly through the night.
Some of this is just fundamental stress management.
- Eat before becoming famished.
- Drink before getting dehydrated.
- Change tasks before becoming frustrated.
- Move around before getting fatigued.
- Stretch before cramping up
- Rest before becoming exhausted.
For babies and toddlers (and their exhausted parents) this may mean a lifestyle that looks more like Little House on the Prairie than The Real Housewives of Orange County. Quieter, slower-paced days, with few outings, few visitors and regular routines of meals and rest periods are healthier for everyone. This will deliver parents not only better sleep at night, but less stressful days as well.
Reference:
Natural History; Oct. 97, Vol. 106. Issue 8, p 42.
Check out Linda Clement's other articles: Babies Sleep So Parents can Sleep and Getting Babies to Sleep for more on babies and sleeping.
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