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Tresillian - It's in our nature to nurture
Baby Sleep

Baby Sleep

How baby sleep works

Your baby's sleep is part of their physical development, just like learning to walk and talk.

The maturing of your baby’s sleeping and waking cycles is one of their most important developmental tasks.

Sleep is important for many parts of a baby's development. It helps with brain maturation, learning, memory, social skills, and physical health.

Circadian rhythms

One of the biggest influences on baby sleep is the circadian rhythm, the natural 24-hour day-night body clock. Light and dark, body temperature, and the hormone melatonin influence the circadian rhythm and support sleep.

In the first four weeks, many babies do not have a clear day and night pattern. They wake to feed every 2 to 4 hours around the clock. Over the next few months, your baby will be more awake during the day and begin to build longer sleep periods overnight.

Your baby’s day-night rhythm

Your baby’s biological clock functions best when you align it with natural light and natural darkness.

Daylight helps your baby stay alert during the day, but darkness does not always make a young baby sleep straight away. This is normal and is one reason why settling can feel difficult in the early months.

As the day and night cycle becomes familiar, many babies develop a pattern of waking early in the morning, and becoming fussier in the late afternoon and evening. This is developmentally normal, and is also influenced by breastmilk supply. Understanding these patterns along with observing your own baby’s communication cues, can help you plan routines that support baby sleep.

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The role of light

Light is one of the most powerful tools you have to support baby sleep. Natural daylight in the morning and early afternoon helps regulate your baby’s body clock and daytime alertness.

On the flipside bright artificial light at night can delay the development of your baby's natural circadian rhythms and extend the length of the day. Evening exposure to screens and strong indoor lighting can be especially stimulating.

Keeping the environment calm and dim at night helps create a clear difference between day and night. This supports better sleep over time.

How melatonin and body temperature work

Melatonin is a naturally produced hormone that encourages sleep and is produced at night. In typically developing children in the first weeks of life, baby’s melatonin levels are supported through feeding, with hormonal regulation being developed by around 10 to 12 weeks of age.

Body temperature is important too. As sleep gets closer, melatonin increases and body temperature goes down. This helps your baby feel sleepy and fall asleep.

You can support this process by creating a predictable night-time routine with dim lights.

External daily rhythms

Baby sleep is also shaped by daily patterns around feeding, activity, and social connection.

Daytime is for social time, active feeding, and interaction. Night-time is for quiet feeding, low stimulation, and returning to sleep.

Over time, this consistent pattern helps your baby learn the difference between day and night and supports longer sleep stretches.

Young babies sleep in short cycles (often around 40 to 50 minutes). Learning to connect sleep cycles is another learning step that occurs over time.

Feeding, socialising and activity patterns

Feeding is a great way to help your baby sleep better. It helps set a routine for day and night and contributes to the developing relationship between you and your baby.

During the day, feeding can be a social time. It helps your baby stay awake to eat well. This also builds a connection that supports brain development.

At night, use soothing touch, speak in quiet tones and keep lights dim. You may have been told not to make eye contact with your baby at night, this isn't true. Eye contact is important for love and reassurance.

A predictable flow to the day helps your baby feel safe and supported, but flexibility is important because your baby will sleep when tired and feed when hungry, not by the clock.

How Tresillian can help with baby sleep

At Tresillian, we help thousands of Aussie parents with their children's sleep challenges. From babies who can't settle themselves independently, to those that are learning to link sleep cycles and to helping parents recognise their baby’s sleep signals. 

Here you’ll find our top baby sleep advice when your baby won't sleep. We’ll show you how to recognise baby’s ‘tired’ signs or cues and advice on settling techniques for different age-groups such as newborn, 3-6 months, 7- 12 months and beyond into toddlerhood.

Need advice & support with your baby?

Tresillian is a free service for parents. Find out how we can help.

Baby Sleep FAQ's

No, Tresillian does not recommend or use controlled crying. Parents are encouraged to learn to identify their baby’s cues and state of wakefulness and recognise the intensity of the baby’s cry; this may include picking the baby up and cuddling and soothing baby, repositioning and patting baby or offering a feed or trying to settle at a later time.

At Tresillian, we call our sleep school our Residential Family Program. It's where you spend a period of time, usually 4-5 days, staying at a Tresillian residential unit where the team of child and family health nurses, psychologists, social workers, paediatricians and psychiatrists help you increase confidence, resolve concerns and provide guidance and information.

It can be helpful for issues such as:

  • Sleep and settling difficulties
  • Breastfeeding and Bottle feeding
  • Infant nutrition
  • Multiple babies
  • Toddler behaviour
  • Understanding your child’s developmental needs and cues
  • Parent Education Groups
  • Parent Mental Health and Emotional Wellbeing
  • Caring for Baby
  • Cultural Support

At 4-6 weeks of age, this is normal behaviour. Babies need to be physically close to their parents and some need help going to sleep or re-settling.

Comforting with cuddles is the best way to settle your baby when he is crying.

Wrapping can also help – use a light material such as cotton making sure that the arms are above waist level and there is room to move the legs.

Also check how you are feeding your baby and whether or not there is a link between how the baby is feeding (i.e. fast or gulping or snacking) and his unsettled behaviour.

At 4-5 mths, your baby’s sleep-wake cycle is the time spent going through both deep (quiet) and light (active) stages of sleep. A sleep cycle is around 30-50 minutes and then babies can rouse. It’s very common for babies to wake up after 30-40 minutes sleep at this age. There are several ways of re-settling baby.

Hands-on settling is one option where you comfort your baby with gentle ‘ssshh’ sounds, gentle rhythmic patting, rocking or stroking until baby is calm or asleep. If your baby becomes or stays distressed pick him up for a cuddle until calm or asleep before putting baby back in the cot. Stay with your baby until he/she is asleep.

"6-7mths of age. My baby has started waking more overnight and I can't re-settle him without having to rock him to sleep. What can I do to help him sleep better overnight." A: Its very common for babies to “start" night waking more often at this age, due to them becoming more aware of when they come into their light sleep cycles. When settling your baby ensure they are wrapped or use a sleeping bag with fitted arm holes and no hood. Try lots of reassurance : 1) Talk quietly and cuddle your baby until calm 2) Put your baby on their back in the cot awake (drowsy) 3) Comfort your baby with gentle ‘ssshh’ sounds, gentle rhythmic patting, rocking or stroking until baby is calm or asleep. As your baby calms, move away from the cot or leave the room but if your baby becomes or stays distressed return and comfort your baby using the steps 1-3.

This is also very common, when babies start to move around more or standing up in their cot, this can disturb their sleep, so they wake up more often.

At this age babies understand your tone of voice, and you can guide them by gently saying things like "It’s time to lay down to go to sleep" and then showing or guiding them how to do that.

Check if your baby is content and chatting etc. or screaming and restless. If chatting, leave him. If screaming, check how he is used to settling…. is he needing some help with learning new ways to settle?

A predictable bedtime routine (sequence of activities) including a wind-down period (for example, meal, bath, cleaning teeth, story time, brief cuddle and kiss, and into bed) is important to help your child recognise and establish good sleep patterns. In preparation for sleep, a bedtime routine (depending on day or night) encourages a wind-down period and ensures that your child’s physical needs are met.

The early riser is a common concern and it can be challenging to change this. It often improves with age and as the day naps lessen. It helps to consider how your child settles to sleep and support them to learn self settling skills.

Also this is a time of the morning when the basal body temperature is at its lowest so ensure they are warm enough. It can take time for children to sleep longer in the morning so set realistic goals and be consistent with self settling methods.

This is a common concern for many new parents. Being unsettled and crying are very normal behaviours for newborn babies and part of their development during this time.

Things usually improve after baby is around three months. We suggest you offer lots of hands on support like patting, body rocking and a soothing voice. Going out for a walk in the pram or drive in a car can be helpful. This is a time to get support from partner, family and friends as these methods take up a lot of energy and can be very exhausting.

A new baby in the family can cause lots of change in the household especially for an older sibling. It can take up to 6 months for older children to adjust to a new baby.

Being mindful of the adjustments your older child needs to make to a new baby in the household and demands on your time, is helpful. If possible involve your older child with caring for the new baby and there are lots of ways you can do this (i.e. at nappy change time, bathing time etc.). Set limits and be clear about boundaries with the older child.

Newborn babies love being held close against their parents. This position promotes bonding. Developmentally babies are not capable to learn routines at this time.

Hands-on support is very appropriate at this age, especially if baby is distressed and you definitely won’t spoil baby. A feed, play and sleep routine can help to support younger babies to develop better sleeping behaviours.

Firstly, most babies have an unsettled period each day which can vary from one to three hours. Giving your baby a bottle is usually not the answer. In fact, it may even make your baby more unsettled.

Firstly, start by visiting your child and family health nurse and asking her to assess one of your feeds. The nurse will observe a breastfeed and possibly also weigh your baby. She may suggest strategies to increase your milk supply if your baby is not gaining adequate weight. These might include increasing the number of times you breastfeed, expressing a small amount of milk before the feed, resting more and drinking more water.

However the issue may be the way you are currently settling your baby to sleep. So, it would also be worthwhile explaining to the Nurse how you put baby to sleep (for example do you wrap baby, and are you consistent in the way you put baby to sleep every time.

Again, your Child and Family Health Nurse can advise you on some new strategies to try at home. The nurse may ask you to visit your doctor to check there is not a medical reason behind your baby’s crying. However, once any medical cause is ruled out, parents can be reassured that normal crying peaks at this age and will decrease naturally from about 5 months of age.

There are lots of variations in the sleep patterns of infants. No two babies are alike. For many babies waking once or twice during the night is normal. It does not mean you are a failure in anyway. Perhaps you could ask the mothers what they mean by ‘sleeping through the night’. You might find that they feed before midnight and again at around 4.00am to 5.00am.

Crying it out seems to be the new name to describe ‘controlled crying’ which was a popular teaching to sleep method used in the 1980's. But since then new research about infant mental health has shown that there are more gentler and effective ways to support good sleep behaviours. Tresillian uses an evidenced based method called responsive settling where we encourage parents to gently practice the skills for independent sleep with their baby by soothing baby if they get distressed. Many parents find this approach much easier to use and less stressful as baby does not have to cry for prolonged periods.

Proud Supporters of Tresillian

Curash

curash.com.au
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