What causes false starts in baby sleep?
If you’re not familiar with the term “false start” when it comes to baby sleep— lucky you! If you are familiar with that term, it’s likely because you’ve experienced false starts with your little one.
A false start is most often defined as a waking right after bedtime (usually after one sleep cycle, so around 45 minutes). I think others may also use the term whenever babies are sort of “up and down” during the first sleep cycle or even during the first part of the night before they settle into their deeper sleep cycles.
Either way, both of those things have 2-3 main causes.
What causes false starts in baby sleep:
Schedule reasons (overtired or undertired)
Not being able to connect sleep cycles independently
Schedule reasons fo false starts:
The most common cause I see for false starts is overtiredness. This is typically from being awake too long before bed (ie the infamous 2/3/4 schedule). Shortening the last awake time 15-30 minutes can usually make a difference, but sometimes it’s the whole day that just has too much awake time. That means you may need to shorten more than one of your awake times.
This isn’t always the case though— there are some outliers (that I often get as clients!) that have false starts from undertiredness. These are my low sleep needs little cuties who are usually the toughest puzzles for their parents to figure out.
I usually like to assume a baby is overtired and shorten awake times rather than assume baby is undertired and add awake time!
So if you’ve tried shortening awake times and you’re not seeing any progress, then it may be safe to assume baby needs more wake time. Understanding their different cues for when they’re over or undertired can be very helpful in solving this! I suggest logging sleep to get a better read on their specific patterns and needs (rather than trying to force them into following a sample schedule you found online— those are helpful starting points but not always the end goal because they won’t work for every child). Check out my logging sleep freebie here!
Not being able to connect sleep cycles independently:
I’ve said it time and time again because it’s so true— one of the biggest factors that can predict night time wakings is how a baby falls asleep at bedtime. Research shows that babies who are assisted to sleep at the beginning of the night will often have more wakings + need more assistance to return to sleep during their many sleep/wake cycles.
I hear you, you’re probably saying, “but they usually sleep for a good stretch after I get them back down!”
(Freaky that I can read minds?)
Here’s why: their sleep cycles get a little bit deeper and longer after 9/10pm so if you can get them back down after that false start, they do usually sleep a little bit better than initially when sleep cycles are lighter/more frequent. And then you see more wakings after midnight or 2am or so again.
To fix this, sleep training for independent sleep at bedtime can be the ticket! If it isn’t bothering you though, you can keep on keeping on.
If you’re ready to work on these false starts, we’d love to help. Set up a free 15 minute discovery call here to learn more about what services can help!
