Why my baby is not sleeping?

Why my baby is not sleeping?

What science says about Helping Baby Sleep

I didn’t want to do it that way. I was really tired of it.

Not only sleep training. Not only “cry it out.”
But also the whole idea of “good” and “bad” habits around sleep.

Anything related to changing a behavior.

Tired of that obsession on what parents are doing good or wrong. I just wondered if we could just leave parents alone, offer them (back) the credit they truly deserve. I wanted to approach baby sleep in a family in a way more truthful approach.

These ideas of sleep training and “good” and “bad” habits —it just didn’t sit right with me.
So I started to look deeper. And what I discovered… changed everything.

Does sleep training really work?
Does it actually help babies sleep longer?
And by the way — what is “longer”?

That’s when I landed into sleep biology.

What I’ve found out shifted my entire practice. Completely!

Because… of Hall's study.

DOES SLEEP TRAINING LIKE CRY IT OUT WORKS ?

They finally did a study that actually measured the results of behavioral approaches to baby sleep — but this time with objective measures. (Hall and al., 2015)

Not just asking the parents if the baby woke up or not.
They used actigraphy — the eye of a machine that watches sleep patterns.

And what they discovered?

Even when parents recorded that their baby didn’t wake them up after being sleep trained… the actigraphy still recorded biological wake-ups.

In other words: sleep training doesn’t change the baby’s sleep pattern, but it changes how we perceive their sleep, often leading us to believe they are sleeping better when, biologically, they are not.

So, this is what we’re gonna do this week: deep dive into how sleep biology works and what we can do to let biology do her work to support your baby’s sleep.

Making sure you have sleep biology by your side.

Why my baby is not sleeping?

When your baby isn’t sleeping well, the doubts come fast:

Maybe I hold him too much.
Maybe I’m not holding him enough.
Maybe I’m too anxious and my baby feels it.
Maybe we’re just doing something wrong.

Sound familiar?

It’s so easy to go down that road — especially when you’re exhausted and just want answers.

But here’s something we don’t talk about enough:

Sometimes, baby sleep struggles aren’t about what you’re doing. They’re about something deeper — something medical.

WHEN TO BE CONCERNED ABOUT MY BABY SLEEP

It’s so commonly accepted to visit the doctor if a baby has reflux, for example, but yet when it comes to excessive crying or hourly waking.

If your baby is waking every hours and struggling to settle on a regular basis, it might be a sign of something more is going on. It could be things like:

Cow’s milk allergy
Oral ties and their physical effects
Airway challenges
Low iron (anemia)
Eczema or other skin discomfort

The problem is when we ask “How can I make my baby sleep better?” in your doctor consultation — unfortunately and way too often the conversation drifts quickly from health and comfort, to "bad habit" and parenting advice.

There’s a common belief that doctors are the go-to experts for baby sleep. But the reality is, most of them receive very little training in sleep science.

What they are trained to do — and do very well — is recognize for you medical conditions that could be behind your baby’s sleep issues.

But when it goes outside the scope of medical concern, very few will have the appropriate training and tools to adresse your baby sleep problems.

In fact, a study of U.S. medical schools found students received only 27 minutes of education on pediatric sleep. In Canada, just 1% of providers had any sleep-specific training. In Australia, most peaditricians answered less than half of pediatric sleep questions correctly.
And these countries are the most concerned about pediatric sleep and prioritize it in their education.

(BBC : The science of healthy baby sleep)

Your doctor cares deeply about both you and your baby, so they will try to help you with what they know: generic advice, trying sleep training or waiting out and being patient.

Now that we’ve covered the medical aspect, here is what to do to help your baby sleep without sleep training or waiting out.

How can we
help baby sleep without sleep training?

Before getting yourself into complex strategies or trying to change anything about your baby or the relationship you have with them, take a moment to look at their circadian rhythm.

CIRCADIAN CYCLE MAKES YOUR BABY SLEEP

The circadian rhythm is the sleep biology that dictates when your baby feels awake and when they will go to sleep.

The body has internal factors that drive the internal body clock, such as temperature, melatonin, and cortisol, for example.

When you think about it, how amazing it is. Because it is this phenomenon that actually make all the humain being in this planet (your baby included) following the exact same pattern: sleeping at night and being active during the day.

So why your baby don't?

Most childhood sleep struggles—when medical and genetic causes are excluded—are linked to environmental factors, to everything that gets in the way of sleep biology doing her job. (Touchette, E and al., 2013)

THE 4-MONTH BABY SLEEP REGRESSION

Around 4 months of age, many parents notice changes in their baby’s sleep—more trouble falling asleep, more frequent night wakings.

This is commonly known as the 4-month sleep regression.

But while some babies seem to glide through this phase, others really struggle. Why is that?

It turns out this moment in your baby’s development marks a true milestone: their internal sleep system—the circadian rhythm—is becoming mature enough to guide and make sleep happen, and become more and more predictable.

This means your baby’s sleep is becoming more biologically organized, influenced by internal factors like temperature, melatonin, and cortisol.

Sleep is becoming more of a body-led process and relies less (less, but not “not anymore”) on hunger or external comfort.

So now that sleep biology is stepping in to help, with a natural system ready to support you, the only thing remaining for you to do is ensure it has the right conditions to do its job.

Want Exercices to work on it today ?

Here are easy home works for you to do