Wake Windows - Friend or Foe?
You’ve had a baby, so you’ve heard about them I'm sure. But you remain undecided whether they are wonderful or woeful.
Perhaps because of them you are rushing home when the scheduled two hours is up to get your baby to nap on cue.
Or maybe you're not that keen on a routine but everywhere online and out of the mouths of the mothers everywhere you hear whispering about “wake windows’ and you're wondering if you are missing a trick.
What are wake windows?
Wake windows are essentially a notion that babies should or are able to stay awake for a specific length of time at a particular age. The sleep training industry poses them as a solution to easy sleep so that your baby is not overtired or undertired and hits the goldilocks zone of being just tired enough when you try to get them down for a nap or at nighttime.
My own thoughts on the matter is they can have some use as a loose guide. If you are swimming blind and not sure when your baby might need to sleep they can help you to be on the lookout for sleepy signs and communication from your babe that they are ready for a little snooze.
If you do the dreaded google search for ‘wake windows’ you’ll find a number of different ideas as to the length of time infants should stay awake and at what age that changes and likely be left with our head spinning from the lack of consensus on this. I’m here to hold your hand and stop the spin.
Since having Sonny I've been reflecting on how unhelpful even talking about wake windows can be. While I am aware he has some rhythm to his wake and sleep patterns I know he is absolutely not fitting into the recommended guidelines for his age - is he suffering because of this - hell no! He is thriving.
So many babies, perhaps including yours, do not fit the mould, and therefore so many mothers are spiralling in anxiety.
The Truth about Wake Windows
Wake windows are a relatively recent phenomenon and not a concept taught in medical school or in the academic research of infant sleep. The idea of wake windows has surfaced in parent groups and social media over the past few years. They paint a one size fits all solution to infant sleep, yet we know from scientific study that sleep is widely variable for infants throughout the first years of their lives.
Variability of Infant Sleep Totals in the First 12 months of Life.
This chart shows us how widely variable the amount of sleep infants need actually is. You can see that a newborn can take anywhere between 9 to 20 hours of sleep per day. Which begs the question - how can a set wake window and nap schedule fit both ends of that spectrum.
Not only that, if you were to take a picture of your own baby over a week or few days you will notice that their sleep needs will ebb and flow depending on what is going on for them developmentally, socially and emotionally. That ebb and flow that is the true nature of infant sleep in the first few years of life, it’s why so many mothers become stuck when trying to adhere strictly to wake windows.
Something is missing in the discussion.
The idea of wake windows relies on having a sense of predictability. Predictability is a temperament trait. We dont birth our babies the same, they arrive into this world with their own unique temperaments and personalities. Absolutely there will be some little chillers who are as predictable as clockwork. But this is the minority of infants, at the other end of the spectrum are our highly sensitive kiddos who laugh in face of predictability and therefore wake window schedules.
Temperament has a huge influence on how much sleep an infant needs, and how easily they find the transition between sleep and wakefulness. I have a whole workshop on this exact topic that will have you untangling yourself from the mass brainwashing of the sleep training industry that tells you all babies are born equal. You can find my Temperament workshop HERE.
Your Baby Will Be Ready When They Are Ready.
Babies are all different but they are also constantly changing with age and development, and this will change the amount of naps and sleep they need as they grow. Infant sleep is an ever moving target in those first years and this is why sticking rigidly to some externally imposed idea of sleep can have us spinning when our baby doesn’t get the wake window memo.
There is nothing like having multiple children to humble your ideas around infant sleep. When two siblings behave very differently and have significantly different sleep needs you suddenly realise that nothing is what it says on the sleep training tin.
Subsequent children have to heed the calls of flexibility. Sonny, my newest addition, is generally awake all morning as we rush around getting ready for school and crashes when the house is quiet and the older kids are gone. This works for him, it doesn’t fit the schedule out on the interwebs but he adapts to where our family is at right now.
Anxiety and Overtiredness
The message is pervasive that if you don’t get your child to sleep at a certain time you will be doomed with a cranky infant and an overtired baby that will then sleep like a turd all night long. Overtiredness they cry is the root of all evil and we all should be remembering that sleep breeds sleep.
Ok we’ve got my opinion out of the way on that one. I have seen and heard it time and time again in the women I work with, the feeling of failure and anxiety when it comes to incorporating wake windows.
The baby who genuinely likes to stay awake longer than his little mates can cause the mother such anxiety when he doesn’t go down on cue. She is often the one found rocking and shushing in a dark room feeling like a failure and not knowing what she is doing wrong. Instead of letting go and coming back later the very strong messaginging that comes across socials and the depths of searching google is to double down on your effort and try harder.
How many mothers have spent hours trying to get an infant to sleep, while fearing overtiredness? I’ll hand it over to the community to show you:
“I wish I’d never found out about wake windows as it was an instant stress for me as at that point my baby was awake for hours.”
“I spent most of the first 12 months fighting my baby to go to sleep because the wake window was up and he wasn’t tired. Didn’t need the sleep but CAN’T HAVE AN OVERTIRED BABY right??!? I feel sorry for my first time mum and can’t wait to have a do-over, it turned me into an anxious mess!”
“I remember hardly leaving the house with my first because feeding and sleeping was all too hard. I was so exhausted. My second is now 4 weeks old and I have no idea how long she sleeps during the day. Sometimes it’s most of the day, sometimes she’s awake for hours.”
“Wake windows were a big stress for me when my bubba was small. I was told ger must be awake X so if he seemed tired before that i kept him awake. And then he catnapped whether I did that or not. I became stressed and anxious if he wasn’t asleep on time. I’d rock him for ages in the carrier trying to get him to sleep and I think now he just wasn’t tired.”
“I can still remember rocking him in a dark room crying because ‘IT WAS TIME’ for him to go to sleep. My PNA was sooooo bad and it all revolved around his sleep.”
This is a tiny handful of the messages I get over here at Mama Matters. I remember clearly with my first I would note exactly what time he woke and then with not a second the spare 45 minutes later I would actively start trying to soothe him back to sleep. The messaging had gotten into my mind but on reflection he was just a low sleep needs kid and he just wasn’t tired. But I sure as hell blamed myself for not getting it right and making him overtired!! No one is immune from this B.S!
There is another way.
If you’re using wake windows as a guide and they are working for you, go forth and keep going, there is nothing wrong with it if it works for you and your baby. But if you're in the other camp where you are spinning in anxiety and your baby seems not to be getting the memo about when it's time to sleep there is another way.
The advice I give to most mums lost in the world of wake windows is to SLOW DOWN.
Instead spend some time getting to know your baby's unique rhythm and communication. When we come alongside them and attune to what they need we begin to understand their individual sleep needs.
At first there might not be any rhythm to your babies waking and sleeping at all and that is completely normal. It takes a while for our newborns to emerge from the womb to get in tune with the rise and fall of the sun and the rhythms of the family they have joined.
By getting to know your child you’ll really start to notice when they can cope with being awake and realise when they need a sleep. You'll become better at reading their cues even if they are subtle, telling you they are tired or hungry. Our babies come wired with the ability to elicit our caregiving, we’ve just become disconnected from it in the noise of the digital world.
So slow down and connect and see what difference that makes for you.
Permission to Find Joy
Why not instead of charting and trying to fit yourself into a window of awake time make the decision to go out into the world and fill your day with things you enjoy.
Imagine spending your days doing things that light you up and taking your baby along for that ride.
If you can challenge yourself to push out how long they are awake if you are enjoying yourself and don’t want to go home for a nap just yet.
Can you embrace a little bit of overtiredness in the name of breaking the chains it has on your worry.
When you do this and see that the world does not come crashing down you begin to make cracks in the messaging you have received from the wider world and sleep training industry that your life will be ruined - because you’ve done it - and hey everything is still ok - isn’t it?
Need more help??
I wrote a whole thing on infant sleep and how embracing what's normal for our child can in fact get you and your baby more sweet ZZZZZ’s and rest. I share my all thoughts on wake windows and have stuffed in every last bit of my knowledge from working with mothers and families over the years into my Sleep Guide - Sleep Matters.
So if you are in a pickle, not sure whether you're Arthur or Martha when it comes to all things infant sleep, value connection and closeness and need someone to guide you through the world of sleep with honesty let me introduce SLEEP MATTERS - the sleep guide your baby wants you to read.
