There are a few reasons your baby fights sleep. Read here to learn why your baby is likely fighting sleep, plus solutions. We’ll dive in to what fighting sleep actually means. Whether your baby is overtried, trying to settle down by releasing stress, resisting the bassinet, or something else. Let’s dive in.
On her Facebook page she wrote, “I was up for two hours last night because of an animal outside… I am so exhausted and annoyed!”Â
She was heavily pregnant with her first baby and due very soon.
The comments were all full of, “You better get tougher than that since the baby is coming” and “You’ll get used to it, pretty soon, you won’t sleep for years!”
It was funny because the contrast between pre-motherhood and motherhood is laughable in retrospect. But, I also wanted to add something important to those comments. To encourage other mothers in her spot who are pregnant and worried about having their baby.
Something valuable.
Something helpful.
But I didn’t share my tip.
I didn’t add that you can have babies who sleep well from the very beginning. Who go down to nap for anyone and who are well-rested and content.
I wanted to say this, but I didn’t.
Why?
Because for some reason, hearing that makes people mad. I mean, there’s no easier way to tick people off than to tell them babies are made to sleep. That if you create the right conditions, not always, but most of the time, baby will simply go to bed.
Fast, simple, and free strategies to implement if baby can’t get to sleep, won’t *stay* asleep, or is unsettled in general.
There’s a reason your baby fights sleep
The reason so many babies are perpetually exhausted yet fight sleep isn’t because their parents don’t care, aren’t trying, or have no clue what to do. No no no!
The surprising reason many babies fight sleep is this.
There, I said it.
“Mom guilt causes moms to make decisions we don’t really like in the moment at the expense of long-term healthy habits.”
Fast, simple, and free strategies to implement if baby can’t get to sleep, won’t *stay* asleep, or is unsettled in general.
How Guilt Stops You From Helping Your Baby Sleep
Babies come into this world falling asleep all day long. In fact, with all 5 of my babies, they barely stayed awake long enough to feed if I didn’t have a wet wipe out to keep them focused. True, I was a sleep consultant and knew the tricks, but my babie weren’t unique.
They all had different personalities. And still do today.
That said, it’s definitely true that some babies fight sleep more than others. Some babies are slow adapters and it takes more effort for them to get to sleep and stay asleep. But one thing is true: all babies need a lot of sleep.
Unless we have a baby who is struggling with reflux or another medical issue, it’s only by certain habits and practices we train our babies not to sleep a lot.
Am I talking in circles?… just hold tight.
Create sustainable sleep habits for your little lamb so the whole family can sleep peacefully without the stress, drama, and tears.
Learn MoreGuilt makes you delay the inevitable in sleep training
The truth is, babies don’t wake up all night because they want to be bounced, driven in the car, sat on the washing machine for vibration, swung in their swingy chair, or sang to all night for security reasons.
No, they wake up to feed (a necessity) or because they need you to help them get back to sleep.
They may be fighting sleep, but not because they don’t want to sleep.
Guilt tells you that eventually they’ll learn to sleep so in the meantime you can jump through circus hoops, go into adrenal fatigue and overwhelm, and spend the next 3 years like a Zombie pulling out every stop to get your child to cooperate and sleep.
But you don’t have to.
Fast, simple, and free strategies to implement if baby can’t get to sleep, won’t *stay* asleep, or is unsettled in general.
Guilt mistakes sleep props with attachment
Often, your baby fights sleep because you are worried that sleep training means you aren’t attached or responsive to your baby’s needs.
Of course, we need to meet all our baby’s needs.
Of course, we need to cuddle them all the time (it’s good for their brains).
And, obviously, we need to respond to their cues and create a loving and safe environment.
We are to be affectionate, warm, and responsive.
But encouraging all-day snacking, skipping routine nap times, and enabling sleep props all night long… you’re not giving them security.
You’re perpetuating their exhaustion.Â
They may feel loved and secure, but they are still worn slam out from fighting sleep.
You’ll make them feel secure by meeting their needs for love, nourishment, hygiene, and sleep before they’re must act out (a.k.a. cry) to get them.
Guilt says martyring your sanity is necessary
Many moms who write me want their baby to sleep better, but they’re wracked with guilt that intervening in their baby’s sleep is somehow selfish.
Teaching your baby good sleep habits is not selfish.
What might be considered selfish, however, is not taking the time and energy to teach your child habits that will allow them to be well-rested children, adolescents, teenagers, and then adults.
“Teaching your baby good sleep habits is not selfish. It’s a gift for everyone.”
One of my best friends needed to be rocked or patted to sleep until she was 8 years old.
She’s now 40+ and suffers from insomnia.
This is an extreme case, I’ll give you that. But today she has a 1-year-old who, from Day One, she’s gently taught to sleep. She’s never looked back.
Guilt assumes teaching healthy sleep habits is worse than it is
Many fear that teaching their baby to sleep will require hours, days, weeks, and months of crying and screaming.
This is absolutely not so.
My babies all learned to sleep well from the get go and they rarely cried doing it. If your baby is well fed, changed, and put down to sleep before they’re overtired and Past the Point, they will likely go to sleep on their own without any crying or fussing.
“Sleep training” does not have to involve endless hours of crying. If there is crying involved, it’s usually because the baby is older and is having to break bad sleeping habits.
Or because baby is having witching hours.
And, even then, the process is never to shove your baby in a dark room and leave them. You can be there, the whole time, holding them and communicating your presence and love.
In fact, sleep training usually only takes a few days (up to a few weeks) then everyone reaps benefits from years.
Related Reads:Â
Guilt worries sleeping training breaks trust
Do you know what breaks trust between a mother and a baby?
Not being there.
Not meeting the baby’s needs.
And not giving your sweet angel love and affection.
Many worry teaching their baby healthy sleep habits will mean they have to “detach” from their baby, but this is so far from the case. If your baby fights sleep, don’t worry that means they are not thriving. They are simply in the process of learning to sleep well.
In fact, many mothers find it hard to bond with their babies because they are so exhausted from lack of sleep they can barely function.
If you meet your baby’s needs and are present not absent, you are not breaking trust with your baby.
“Teaching healthy sleep habits isn’t about ignoring your baby’s calls, but teaching them to sleep without calling for you.”
Strategies For Babies Who Fight Sleep
- If you have a newborn, start swaddling now to encourage longer sleeping times.
- Follow a good routine or schedule. Look here for 25+ sample routines, schedules, and rhythms.
- Create easy to follow wind down routines for baby and lock in your baby bedtime routine.
- Cluster feed during the late afternoon hours and give baby a dream feed right before you go to bed.
- Make sure baby is taking full feeds and, if 5 months or older, start focusing on feeding habits as a possible reason baby isn’t sleeping well.
- Acknowledge your guilt! Of COURSE you want to do it all right and make sure you are there for baby in every way. Realize that teaching baby to sleep well is doing just that.
Fast, simple, and free strategies to implement if baby can’t get to sleep, won’t *stay* asleep, or is unsettled in general.
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Great article!! Thanks for the insights and I plan to share with my new- mom friends.
Thank you, Liz!
Have just come across your blog, and finding so much good information. My first child, who is now 2, is an awesome sleeper, we sleep trained him at 6mo.
I have a 6w old daughter who only sleeps on the breast and in my arms… Is it too early to sleep train? How do newborns soothe themselves? Especially if they are swaddled? So confused and exhausted… Please point me in the right direction :)
Thank you!
Nadya, I sort of start sleep training from the beginning so I don’t think it’s too early to teach her to sleep on her own. Check out these two pages and see if they help…
https://amotherfarfromhome.com/ultimate-newborn-sleep-schedule-week-by-week/
https://amotherfarfromhome.com/things-to-try-when-your-newborn-wont-sleep/
I absolutely agree with all you say in the post. The headline grabbed me immediately, I have a 4 year old that fought sleep from birth. Hes my oldest and it wasnt until he had his tonsils removed this summer that he started to accept sleep.
His younger brother was what I’d like to call normal in this sense and he was a dream child since birth, I mean I had learned all these tricks and read eth under the sun about child sleep by the time I had him.
My older went to many doctors that found nth wrong. It was me that pressed for the surgery, having had huge tonsils myself. Now I understand that my boy fought sleep because sleeping was hard for him, almost not being able to breathe because of huge tonsils blocking his airway.
This has brought me peace and acceptance, I know now that the problem wasnt me or the way we had been sleep training (tried everything!). Now I can let go off my mom guilt and move on!
YESSSSSS!! So glad he got those tonsils out. Now he can hear, taste, sleep, and breathe
This article is very interesting to me and I am willing to try anything. I have a daughter who is 10 months old. She sleeps with us, it’s not really a problem for us but we are wanting her to sleep on her own so we can leave her with people. She has to be nursed to sleep. My husband can sometimes rock her at night if she is full and it’s dark. I have been putting her in her crib for nap and I get in the crib nurse her and leave but she only naps for 20-30 mins and I have been doing this for a week now. I am use to her sleeping for a hour or more if she sleeps in our bed. I don’t know if I should put her back in my bed for naps or what I should do. Maybe I should try again a hour later after she wakes? The goal is for her to eventually sleep at night on her own. Rocking standing up during the day is hard and I tend not have any patience to do it. She fights being rocked in a rocking chair. She doesn’t stay asleep even at night normally I have to turn over nurse her for a second then she out. If I try not to nurse her and pat her back she resist. Any suggestions
I think letting her sleep for a nap in your own bed seems fine, right? Will she sleep in another’s bed with a sitter? I’d try feeding her until drowsy but not fully asleep then putting her down. Think that’ll help? And I wouldn’t try to wae her at night, just let her half nurse then go back to sleep. that’s how she’ll eventualy wean. Now, if she’s waking 5 times, then try to get her to take one or two full feeds and she’ll likely drop the other two. Does she take a paci?
Hi Rachel,
I ended up co-sleeping with my now 4 month old, from the beginning, because I had a c-section and it was the easiest way for me to be able to feed him without having to go through painfully getting out of bed multiple times a night. Now he’s 4 months and I’ve managed to get him into his bassinet for an hour or so at the beginning of the night, but he ends up in bed with us for the rest of the night after he wakes up. I’m also still feeding him 3-5 times a night. I can’t get him to sleep through the night and his day time naps also seem to have gone from 2 or 3, 1 hour naps, to 3 or 4, 15-30 minute naps. Help!
4 months is often that crucial time where they aren’t as “sleepy” as before so they stop falling asleep at every turn. Have you read my post 28 things to do if baby won’t sleep? search for it, it hink it will help.
Hi! I love all your posts! But I have a couple questions!
My baby is 3 months old and we are starting to sleep train because his naps are everywhere and doesn’t fall asleep on his own.
-So when it comes time to nap.. he will finally fall asleep but for only 30-45 min and he’s up! At this point do I still let him cry until he’s back asleep(obviously knowing he is not hungry or anything) orrr what?! lol
-Also when I lay him down and he is fussing I’ll go in and check on him every 10 min and keep giving the pacifier to calm him down and that will sometimes get him to sleep, but should I not be doing that and just let him cry?!
Kaylee, I think since you’re training him to sleep going back in to give the pacifier is okay. Remember, the first thing you want is SLEEP so if he will go down with putting the pacifier in that’s okay. I’d try to give the pacifier back in after 30 to 45 minutes when he wakes just to see if it works!
Reading this I found myself saying to you, “you must not have a child has reflux, horrible colic and wasn’t one of those sleepy babies.” That’s my baby. She came in screaming and has been screaming on and off all day, everyday. I have her on the EASY routine and do a bedtime routine. I never deviate from the times and stay consistent. She is well-fed and well-rested but without fault, once it’s nap/bedtime, it’s all out purple crying and an hour and half to get her finally to sleep. So I ask you, given my situation do you still say mom guilt is why she’s fighting sleep?
OF COURSE NOT, Tiffany! That’s a medical condition and takes it out of the norm of “normal” type sleep advice. You are doing the best you can and that’s all you can do and anyway, the goal is to keep baby comfortable and well rested and if they can’t sleep lying down because of reflux then trying a lot of “sleep tactics” won’t fix anything.
Tiffany…my granddaughter had horrible reflux and cried for hours and hours every night. After 3 formula changes, adding oatmeal to the formula and taking a prescription antacid, she became a totally different baby. All recommended by the pediatric gastric doctor. She takes 3 naps a day and sleeps 11-12 hours a night since she was 3 months old. She is now almost 8 months and has been off the medication for over 2 months and still keeping same sleep schedule.
My daughter was criticized by her mother in law for taking her to “too many doctor appointments, adding the Oatmeal and giving meds ” but thank God she followed her instinct and doctors advice. Tori is the perfect size and so happy. Mommy gets to sleep too, which always makes things a lot easier.
Good luck
Dee
( formula she is still on is Alimentum and the medication was the generic for Nexium)
Thanks for this, Dee. It is SO TRUE that an uncomfortable or sick baby cannot sleep well :(
Such a great post! I’m always thrilled to read people saying the controversial things I tend to avoid in my childbirth and/or parent-infant classes. You nailed it, Mama!
Ha! :)
I’ve recently found your website and read absolutely all that I can, you have such a great view on everything and mirror all the same steps and views I’ve taken with my first child (now 2) and am attempting with my newborn (2 weeks). I wanted to ask you, assuming I’ve done all steps (swaddle, white noise, darkness, well fed, nap at 45 mins after waking) and instead of fussing at nap time she cries A LOT, what do you suggest to get her to sleep? Like you say, I don’t want to sway rock bounce etc, but doing 1-2 mins of crying, then I check and console, 1-2 mins cry, check, repeat, isn’t working… even though with my first daughter that worked a treat to teach her to sleep. My second doesn’t seem to want to give in like my first did! Do you have any tips?
Elizabeth, this was a long time ago, how ar eyou doing now?