Sleep Transitions

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Children normally have partial awakenings between sleep cycles. It is during this transition from one stage of sleep to the next where some of the main sleep problems occur because a child is not able to put himself back to sleep on his own. Why? This is often because a child has learned to associate something with falling to
sleep (see sleep props/associations) and needs to have this reestablished to fall back to sleep again. Often this begins when well meaning parents rush to their child when he starts to arouse during light sleep assuming he needs something instead of leaving him alone to fall back asleep which he would most likely do if he wasn't in need of food.

• A child is also going to have a harder time making it through a sleep transition if he is overtired so if you are having problems with sleep transitions be very observant of sleep cues and waketimes.

• Gina Ford believes that the day time sleep problems (e.g. short naps) that many babies start to experience around 2-3 months are due in part to the newly developing sleep cycle which often leads babies to wake up after sleep transitions. She believes this is especially true if baby is used to sleeping in a day time atmosphere or needs outside help to get to sleep (see sleep prop/associations).

At NIGHT a child usually remains in deep sleep for 1-2 hours before having a partial awakening, so this is why you may hear your child suddenly cry out after being asleep for this long. A child then may or may not have a period of REM sleep followed by another period of deep non-REM sleep lasting 30 minutes to 2 hours and then ending with another partial awakening. What this all means in regards to night time sleep is that your child is going to be in his deepest sleep of the night for the first 3-4 hours, after which time brief awakenings are going to be more common (and frustrating if he is unable to put himself back to sleep without your assistance) because he is in lighter sleep for around the next 4 hours. This is why your child may have been sleeping perfectly until you end up going to sleep yourself. Perfect timing huh?! The last 1-2 hours of sleep in the morning are usually very deep once again in children so your child is less likely to have partial awakenings. It is uncommon for an adult to experience this deep sleep stage again since he doesn't usually sleep long enough for it to happen. I also often hear that children that are sleeping around 10-12 hours a night go into a light sleep again in the morning. I know this is the case with my son but I haven't officially found it in a research book yet so don't take my word on this one!

At NAP time your child over 3 months will probably go through a sleep transition some time between 35-50 minutes after he falls asleep (if he can't make it through these he'll end up with short naps). He will then usually go from non-REM to REM (light sleep) sleep for 5-10 minutes then have another period of non-REM sleep (see sleep stages for more information on REM and non-REM sleep).

After a while you'll probably be able to determine your baby's sleep transition times like clock work (although they do change a bit with age). This can be very useful if you have a baby that is sensitive to sound and you need to keep quiet at this time or if you are working on methods to extend a nap.