Overtired or Under-tired? How do I know?

Julie Heginbottom August 5, 2022

Do you feel as if you are going round in circles with your baby/ child’s sleep? Maybe you think your baby isn’t tired enough and that is why they struggle to go to sleep.

Understanding the Signs of both Overtiredness and Under-tiredness is helpful in finding a pattern for your day and looking for those sleep cues.

The challenge is that for many babies by the time they show their cues that optimum time for putting them down for a Nap may have come and gone.

So how can you best prepare your little ones for Naps and Bedtime?

Here are a few Top Tips to get you started:

  1. Get to know your baby’s Wake Windows
  2. Start a wind down 5-10min before putting down
  3. For Overtired or for those fussy periods Sling wearing can be really beneficial to keep your baby close and comforted whilst freeing your hands up a bit
  4. Try not to push your baby into set times which result in meltdowns. Your baby is individual and so their sleep needs are individual too
  5. Create a Sleep Environment which is calm, positive and conducive to sleep.
  6. Be realistic with how much sleep your baby or child needs.

Signs of Overtiredness

  • Tantrums
  • Crying when you know he can’t be hungry and difficult to calm
  • Waking after one sleep cycle at night
  • Resisting being settled
  • Hyperactive or wide awake having initially seemed sleepy
  • Waking early morning and frequently in the night
  • Started yawning, rubbing eyes, Sleepy cues but then suddenly appears wide awake again
  • Unhappy regardless of support given to help soothe
  • Frantic
  • Cries hard as if in pain
  • Falling asleep suddenly after a distressed period of cries
  • Night Terrors
  • Excessive Crying
  • Unsettled Feed/fighting for feed but also resisting

Signs of Under-tiredness

  • Wide eyed and playful during bedtime routine. Relaxed and engaging until you try to put them down for their sleep
  • Trying to put to bed too soon after a Nap.
  • Waking for several hour in the night
  • Fidgety during the wind down routine
  • Short or no Nap
  • Playing for more than 30 minutes before falling asleep

For further Information on improving sleep and an initial FREE 15 minute appointment please contact me.

Julie believes in creating safe and secure sleep spaces for babies and children. This can be achieved through co-sleeping or in cots/beds.

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