![]() An easy way to do this is through offering your child an extremely early bedtime for a few days in a row to catch up on sleep. If your child is chronically sleep deprived, then your first priority should be catching him or her up on sleep in order to break the negative pattern that arises from chronic sleep deprivation. It can also sometimes lead to a “split night” where there is one really long stretch of awake time in the middle of the night ( read more about split nights). This can lead to frequent waking at the beginning of the night. The consequence of this is that if your child doesn’t get the right distribution of naps during the day, you can end up with a situation where she’s obviously tired, but unable to sleep when you try to put her down early. When your child has a regular schedule, the strongest drive to be awake happens right before your child’s biological bedtime and another drive to be awake happens in the morning at your child’s wake time. The circadian rhythm synchronizes biological function based on your exposure to light and darkness (this is why we’re so emphatic about telling you to keep your child’s room dark!). Let us say that again: the circadian rhythm controls the time you sleep and the time you are awake. The circadian rhythm also controls the drive to be awake. It is your central biological clock and it plays a role in a LOT more than sleep (production of many hormones, urine output, etc.), but it is the dominant force behind the consolidation of nighttime sleep. Unlike sleep pressure, the circadian rhythm is not at all intuitive. This means that he or she will be beyond her comfortable limit of sleep pressure, and thus likely harder to settle when you do put her down for a nap or bedtime. When your baby goes beyond these limits of wakefulness, he or she will experience acute sleep deprivation. ![]() If your baby is 18 months old, then he or she can probably stay awake for 5-6 hours at a time during the day. ![]() If your baby is 6 months old, then he or she may be able to tolerate 2-4 hours awake at a time, depending on the time of day. If your baby is a newborn, then he or she can probably only stay awake for 1-2 hours at a time. Whatever age your child is, there is a limit to the number of continuous hours he or she can be awake (see our nap 101 series for more information on this). In young children, sleep pressure is the dominant force behind naps. The neuromodulator adenosine builds up in your brain every minute that you stay awake (caffeine blocks adenosine, which is why you feel awake when you drink it). The build up of sleep pressure is intuitive: the longer you stay awake, the sleepier you become.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |