Overtime on an Unpaid Job: Hard Truths on Parenting Kids Who Hate Sleep

Please note there are content warnings for suicidality and psychosis on this article. If mention of these topics is too much for you right now, you may like to come back to this later. That said, it may also be exactly what you need to read, so I’ll leave it to you.



Overtime on an Unpaid Job: Hard Truths on Parenting Kids Who Hate Sleep

Your low sleep needs kid isn’t broken, but you’re not alone if you’re at breaking point.

Pop culture tells us babies will sleep in the corner of the room/cafe/office in their bassinet or pram by day and go down for the night with Big Dog at 7pm. It goes without saying they will sleep through, or wake once for a feed (twice at most!) before going back to sleep without fuss. This sleep will, naturally, occur in their cot in their perfectly decorated nursery. If they don’t follow the script (and in all likelihood, they won’t) there’s a multibillion dollar global baby sleep industry ready to pounce on both your tiredness as parents, and your fears you’ll screw up your kid’s brains forever if they don’t sleep “enough”.

But what is “enough”? Most new parents have no idea. Sometimes repeat parents have no idea either, because their subsequent child’s sleep needs can be vastly different to those of their older child(ren).

#Zzzzz - HealthyFit

This graph was developed in 2015. The hours shown here represent sleep requirements by age group across a 24 hour period - that is the total of naps and night sleep combined. It’s based on the work of “a multi-disciplinary panel of experts [which] was assembled to work on the two-year long study, which updated the National Sleep Foundation’s existing guidelines about how much sleep humans need at each age. In short, the report recommends wider appropriate sleep ranges for most age groups. The wider ranges have been added to acknowledge the individual variability in appropriate sleep durations.”1

As you can see, the range of what newborns, infants, toddlers and indeed all ages need is pretty wide! This makes sense if you think about it - some adults wake up spritely after 7 hours of shut eye and others need 9 or 10 hours a night to feel refreshed. That variations in sleep needs occurs in tiny people as it does for adults is something parents need to know! Without an understanding of sleep variability it’s hard to know how to best support our kids2, or to recognise why some parents may need more support and resourcing to cope with the demands of parenting than others.

Let’s run some numbers.

If you have a child like my first, who has needed 2 hours less sleep per day than the average for their age group their entire lives, you3 will have actively parented for an extra 730 hours by their first birthday. This is the equivalent of 19 full time work weeks added on to the active caring load of parents of an “average” sleep needs child in their first year of life alone. By their fourth birthday, you will have racked up an additional 2920 hours - the equivalent of 76 weeks of full time work added on to the active caring load of parents of an “average” sleep needs child.

These extra awake hours of active supervision may be in place of day naps early on. If the “guidebooks” (and I use that term very loosely) say three naps a day then they’ll likely have two; if it says two naps then they’ll likely have one etc. The upshot of this early nap dropping situation is that lower sleep needs kids tend to stop napping earlier altogether. My eldest stopped napping well before they turned two. (Two!! WTF?!) I can’t put into words how unfair it felt when they didn’t nap in the day and still went to sleep later and/or woke earlier than some of their peers.

Parents of low sleep needs children are generally caring alone during unsociable hours while wishing they were asleep themselves. We’re putting in a lot of extra hours solo: not too many families are organising 6am or 9pm play dates for their under 5s after all. Exactly no one is there to join in your midnight parties either (to those of you doing split nights with toddlers, I see and salute you).

This type and timing of parenting can feel not only tiring but also incredibly isolating. It’s easy for resentment to build towards the child in question, who is not broken and has done nothing wrong, and spill over as anger.4 It’s also common to feel jealous of other parents whose kids sleep and as a consequence simply don’t get what it’s like to be in your (worn out) shoes.

woman lying on ground
Those days when you could fall asleep literally anywhere. Photo by Oscar Keys on Unsplash

So what are low sleep needs kids like when they’re awake? Lovely, yes, but also usually pretty full on. Many kids who need sleep less than others seem to need more sensorily stimulating day-to-day activities (requiring greater adult planning/mental load) to build their “sleep pressure”. They may or may not be neurodivergenthighly sensitive, an “orchid child” or a combination of these.5 They may need a greater than average amount of adult input to navigate and interact with the world and people around them, feel safe and secure, and regulate emotionally.

Low sleep needs kids may get on the move (and into danger) earlier thanks to extra awake time building their muscles and practicing movements. They may want your undivided attention as babies, and be unrelentingly talkative as toddlers thanks to all that extra time spent listening to words and engaging in back and forth interactions. When bedtime does finally edge closer, many low sleep needs children need more running, wrestling and other noisy, energetic activities before they’re ready to for more standard “winding down” type activities like reading stories.

When these Very Sparkly Individuals do eventually go TF sleep, the work is not done. Low sleep needs kids often need more support during naps and through the night as well. This may present in ways such as waking more easily to noises, being generally “unputdownable” or needing physical contact to link sleep cycles. Babies and toddlers may need more milk feeds through the night because they’ve been too distractable to feed much through the day, or have been too busy exploring to eat much solid food. Older toddlers and beyond may be more likely to experience restlessness and night terrors as well (I theorise this may be due to having so much information for their brains and bodies to try and process from all that extra awake time).

Does this sound familiar to you? It does to me, and it’s a lot. Like, A LOT A LOT.

Low total sleep needs, disrupted nights and intense days make for a brutal combination for parents. This made harder if there are other children or inflexible employment schedules to contend with. Parenting on the back of things like birth trauma, personal health concerns, simultaneous elder care or parenting multiples doesn’t help the situation either.

Meanwhile, Susie with her kid who sleeps 3-4 hours a day more than yours (in a cot, no less!), seems to be having no trouble working from home/keeping the house clean/exercising daily/showering regularly. She suggests you simply need to “get them into a good routine” so they can “fit in with your life, not the other way around”. Parents of older children offer throwaway lines like “you think now is tough, wait until they’re [insert any age and stage they didn’t like]”.6 And then, just when you think your eyes will literally fall out of your head, someone at the supermarket tells you to “enjoy every minute”. These are the best days of your life, after all.

I wish I’d kept track of how many clients I’ve had who’ve said things like “I booked to speak with you because I knew your kid didn’t sleep either” or “my counsellor / psych / coach / mother doesn’t get what I’m going through, but I knew you would”. They’re right - I do get it in ways you simply can’t if you haven’t lived it.

I 100% understand why parents of anti-sleepers who want a larger family might decide they need a bigger age gap between their children than initially planned. I get why some pull up stumps on the babymaking altogether, unable to “risk” having another baby after a non-sleeper. One father explicitly told me, in all seriousness and with no exaggeration, that he and his wife had stopped at one child because “either our relationship or one of us would not survive another baby like that. The best case scenario would’ve been divorce”. It is that big a deal.

Low sleep needs kids aren’t always born first, mind you. A mother whose anti-sleeper came along further down the birth order told me of being shocked by the differences in temperament and sleep between her babies. Another expressed regret7 at “going again” as her life felt “completely unmanageable” with the degree of sleep deprivation experienced with a low sleep needs baby and two older children.

I take my hat off to these parents who are willing to speak, whether to me or anyone else, about this. It takes courage to open up about the challenges, distress and emotions you’re experiencing in a world that tells you it’s your own fault for not whipping your kids into line (aka a sleep routine that is wholly irrelevant for your child - more on that soon).

An accurate portrayal of my husband and I before our first baby was born (top) and two years postbirth (bottom)

I’m not saying any of this to garner sympathy. I write with awareness there are people who yearn for an otherwise pretty healthy baby who prevents them from sleeping. Still, temperament and the impact of it on caregivers doesn’t get spoken about enough. Aside from breaking the silence, the purpose of this article is to both warn and explain:

A. If you are having a baby in the future, you need to know they could be a low sleep needs kid and plan your postpartum and ongoing support accordingly! (Postpartum planning is a service I provide for this very reason - let’s talk.)

B. If you have one or more low sleep needs children and sometimes get frustrated that your kid(s) just will not go to sleep so you can watch TV/have a life/perform basic hygiene tasks, you’re not alone.

Because crux of the matter is this: low sleep needs kids generally get the amount of sleep they need, it’s their parent(s) who don’t.8 Cumulative sleep deprivation can lead to big problems in terms of physical and mental health for parents, including psychosis.9 Maternal and parental exhaustion is no laughing matter, and we need more than jokes about IV coffee to get through.

So what can we do?

Unless a medical concern is identified, understandably desperate parents are commonly told by “experts” and lay people alike to sleep train their kids. Sleep training, we are told, is the silver bullet to getting more sleep as parents. I hate to break it to you, but

A. Sleep training doesn’t work, and

B. You can’t make someone who’s not tired enough to sleep fall and stay asleep, even if the person is a baby.

This might be hard to hear if you don’t currently have support on tap, but it’s the truth. If you have a naturally low sleep needs kid, or a very wakeful one who only wants you in the night, you need practical help, and a seven-step-sleep-training-solution is not that. In other words, someone else is going to need to do some daytime caring for you while rest for you to be okay. You might need to be creative with who that is and how it gets done, including exploring formal and informal care pathways you might not have initially wanted to pursue.

Some parents try to get an extra sleep in on the weekends when a partner, relative or friend can be around. That never really worked for me, and we need to be honest that a little top up once a week can only do so much in any case. In our household, we had to come up with and progressively implement a variety of other strategies for me to get through the first 2.5 years, let alone be well.10

Fast forward to 2024, and our sleep situation is different again. My now-preschooler remains in that lower blue to aqua range, at around 9.5 hours sleep per 24 hours, taken all at night. My own sleep needs are in the average adult range, around 8 hours. I have a one year old to consider, who thankfully has pretty average sleep needs for their age but still needs care multiple times through the night as well.

There are also weeks where I’m solo parenting, which adds extra complexity to the sleep puzzle. On those weeks in particular, I know I need to be going to sleep the same time as whichever kid is awake latest (usually the older one). It’s not worth staying up trying to tidy the kitchen or send that email or whatever else, I must prioritise sleep.

Sometimes I ask a support person to come over for dinner and stay longer, so they can play with the older child while I take bubba to bed and bank that first hour of sleep. When the older one goes to preschool, I try to coordinate being home for a daytime contact nap with the little one, rather than running errands that would see her sleeping in the pram, carrier or car instead and me missing a chance to lie down. At the moment these things are enough for me, but if I had higher sleep needs or a more demanding work schedule, it might not be. Everyone’s circumstances, tolerances and pre-existing levels of exhaustion are unique.

If you have a low sleep needs kid(s) it can be really frustrating when other parents, grandparents or even health practitioners tell you if you “just did xyz differently” your child would sleep more easily, more deeply, for longer.

man in blue polo shirt carrying girl in white and pink floral dress
“And you’re going to go to sleep when mummy tells you tonight, right?” Lolololol. Photo by Isaac Quesada on Unsplash

I can assure anyone who is reading this with disdain that if my kid would just lie down and go to sleep because I said it was time to do so, I would LOVE it. Any parent who says they want to run laps of the house at 9 o’clock every night while pretending to be jungle animals, or simply adores playing extended games of elbows-only balloon volleyball at 6am, is lying. Pretty much no parent in my position has “chosen” this labour intensive approach, we have exhausted all other reasonable options. We are doing this because it is literally all that works.

If you are someone who is tempted to tell us what to do/try/buy etc., please consider it’s much easier to offer criticism and advice than it is to offer help. We need more of the latter and less of the former. We are already tired and over it, and won’t react kindly to you telling us we’re “doing it all wrong”, even if it is sugar coated with kind words or a sing-song tone. After all, if you were asked to work 76 extra full time weeks across a 4 year period, you’d be pretty jack of it some days too!

Finally, a few notes to those of you who were hoping this blog would give them tricks to make their offspring sleep more, and have instead sunk deeper into despair:

  1. Do read the various links I have provided so you have a clearer picture of what’s going on for your family. If you suspect there is something medically amiss with your child and you have been brushed off with instructions to sleep train, continue the search for answers. You know your child best, and your gut feel is rarely wrong.

  2. If you’re so tired you start seeing or hearing things or people that aren’t there, are having suicidal thoughts, fear you’ll nod off while driving, or have any other concerns about your child’s safety under your care, seek help immediately. Call a friend or crisis helpline,11 knock on your neighbour’s door so someone can physically watch you, present to emergency, see your GP - whatever you need to do to survive the next hour, please do it.

  3. Don’t torture yourself lying in a dark room for hours trying to make them nap. In my experience, if you’re trying to get a baby to sleep and they’re not close to nodding off after about 20 minutes, they’re just not tired enough yet. Do something different with them for a while and try again later.

  4. If you’re feeling furious towards a non-sleeping child, it’s okay to put them down in a safe place and leave the room for a moment to take a few deep breaths/scream into the void/phone for SOS back up.

  5. Please go easy on yourself, even if it feels like your kid doesn’t.

  6. Replace all “love every minute!” type affirmations with the mantra “this too shall pass”.

  7. Rest assured that you are not failing your child by following your child’s lead. I’m not that much further down the path than you, and I can tell you these challenging babies and toddlers grow into the most interesting and fabulous children to spend time with.

  8. There is someone out there who will be willing to help you, but it might take a lot of reaching out with honesty, vulnerability and perseverance to find them.

  9. Notice the advantages of having a lower sleep needs child when they arise. The advantages don’t necessarily make up for the difficulty, but they do exist and can soften the blow.

    -Did your family go looking at Christmas lights when others with age-matched kids couldn’t?

    -Can you stay out later at gatherings or keep partying on when other parents are packing it in at 7pm?

    -Is the transition to daycare easier because you didn’t need to worry about nap schedules?

    -Do you get to have twilight swims or sunrise adventures that others miss?

    -Are you more flexible with your days together because you don’t need to plan for naps?

    -Do you or your partner get a chance to see, interact and bond with your child before or after work that they wouldn’t if the child had higher sleep needs?

Parenting is hard work, especially when you are the default parent, and especially when it feels like your child is allergic to sleep. Parents of low sleep needs children do hours of overtime every day on top of an already intense unpaid job, and often put in greater overnight work too. It can feel suffocating, like there is no time in the day or night to be the you who is a separate person from the you who is somebody’s mum/parent.12

I’ve been there, and I get it. It’s really, really hard. And until they’re safe to be awake without you and can sleep on their own, support is the only solution.13 It is my sincere hope that you will hang on, that you find that support you need, that you will sleep again, that you will make it through. You deserve all of this and more.

 

Thank you for reading. This is a public article and is available in full for free. Please consider sharing with any parents you know who might benefit from this article.

 


FOOTNOTES
1

Summary quoted from this site.

2

This screening tool may helpful in establishing whether your child has something else going on medically, rather than being a naturally lower sleep needs person.

3

I recognise this care may be provided by multiple people, but statistically it is mothers and gestational parents providing the bulk of hands on care, particularly during “unsociable” hours. Division of household labour is discussed in greater detail in my book “Mama, You’re Not Broken: Unmasking the Unspoken Emotions of Modern Motherhood”.

4

More on anger in this article An Angry Mother Is An Underresourced Mother and my book chapter titled “Anger” from my book “Mama, You’re Not Broken: Unmasking the Unspoken Emotions of Modern Motherhood”, which is free to listen to in full on your podcast app of choice.

5

Are these all words describing the same thing? My gut feel is that they are, but that’s another article for another day.

6

The “it only gets harder” trope is disputed in this glorious and hope-giving piece entitled Does Parenting Get Easier? by Emily Writes

7

I have previously written about maternal regret in two articles: The “Done or Not?” Dilemma - Part 2 and “Regretting Motherhood”: 6 Key Learning Points for Doulas and Mothers.

8

As discussed in the “Overwhelm” chapter of my book “Mama, You’re Not Broken: Unmasking the Unspoken Emotions of Modern Motherhood”, mothers accumulate much more sleep debt than fathers. In the first year alone mothers accumulate the equivalent of an entire week’s worth of sleep debt more than fathers. The sleep quantity and quality doesn’t equalise between M/F cohabitating parents until the youngest child of the family is four years old.

9

Information on postnatal psychosis can be found here. Most articles describe onset as within the first few weeks of birth, but psychosis linked to sleep deprivation can occur at any time and mothers/parents of young children continue to be at risk beyond the early postpartum weeks.

10

I have spoken about my experience with a low sleep needs, wakeful baby and the strategies we employed during our sleep journey here on the Beyond Sleep Training podcast if you would like some ideas. The Adult and Family Sleep page on the Little Sparklers website has information on maximising family sleep without sleep training.

11

See the end of this article for a list of Australian-based helplines.

12

“Somebody’s mum” and “nobody’s mum” are terms used by writer and scholar Orna Donath to denote motherhood and non-motherhood.

13

I want to recognise those parents whose children require overnight care well beyond childhood due to medical or other reasons. We can see a light at the end of the tunnel for our low sleep needs kid, but I know this is not the case for every family. If this is you, I hope you get the support you need to sleep deeply soon.

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