How Low Sleep Needs Impact Parenting Burnout: "We're Living Very Different Lives"
Inside the broad range of infant sleep and what it's like for parents of "low sleep needs" kids in a world of the 7pm-7am sleep schedule.
Recently I shared a video where I discussed how I have time to read, watch TV etc. at night, despite running a business and having three small kids. Because I’m honest to a fault even if it’s not the best “marketing” I admitted that a big reason is simply luck. It’s not a magic sleep hack (thought we do have a rock solid bedtime routine, bless) or a secret strategy. We simply got lucky with kids that need a good amount of sleep, allowing us to essentially clock off by 7:30, 8pm at the latest. The response was pretty much what I expected, but it opened the door to another conversation as well. Yes, the “low sleep needs” parents entered the chat. And they made it clear that they lived in a very different reality.
When I first became a mom, one of the first things I was told was to get on a sleep schedule, quick and in a hurry. It was crucial to his brain development. It was the only way I’d keep my sanity. I need to still have a life. We needed to stay connected as a couple. It would make planning our days easier. He’d never transition into daycare otherwise. The reasons went on and on. Eventually I did try it, mostly because I was sold on this reason: scheduled naps, and preventing “overtiredness” and “full” spaced out feedings during the day would give us longer stretches overnight. “Hallelujah”, I thought. Say less!
I consulted a few different resources, which were pretty sparse at the time (this is back in 2017) and decided on a schedule I found in a book that promised us 12 solid hours of sleep per night. That’s in addition to naps during the day. I remember thinking to myself, “Holy shit this is a lot of sleep. Will this kid ever actually be awake?” I pushed the doubts out of my mind because surely the authors of these books must be right, right?!
Wrong! For one, me and my son were both completely miserable. For one thing, spacing out the feedings to 4 hours as the schedule recommended was physically painful, for both of us. Now I had not just a tired baby but a hungry, fussy one plus rock hard boobs. Not super fun! The other thing was that letting him sleep so much during the day and putting him to bed by 7:00pm sharp meant he was up for the day and ready to go by 5am. Not ideal. When I purchased an actual sleep training course and spoke to a real-life consultant, they convinced me that those early morning wakings were due to overtiredness. I’m sure you can guess where this goes (it wasn’t good!).
I wish I’d known back then that sleep needs in children are a bit of a genetic lottery. We can’t force babies or kids to be a high sleep needs kids when they’re low sleep needs, and vice versa. It’s kind of a goldilocks situation, and a lot of it, unfortunately, is simply trial and error. There’s no wake windows chart, nap schedule, or app on earth that will be accurate across the board. Humans just don’t work like that.
As it turned out, and what I learned from the aforementioned “trial and error” was that my son actually wasn’t high sleep needs but he wasn’t low either. He was pretty average! Once I ditched the sleep training stuff and learned more about using sleep pressure and learning his normal (aka following his cues and recognizing his patterns vs. outsourcing to a chart or bot that doesn’t know him) he was an awesome sleeper, and continues to be to this day.
Sleep needs is a real thing, and parents of low vs. high sleep needs kids are living in very different realities. If you do have a high sleep needs baby (who also happens to have a chill temperament) you may be one of those first time parents who smugly insists sleep isn’t that hard if you simply have a bedtime routine. You may get 12 child-free hours (or more!) per night to hang out with your partner, get some alone time, catch up on work and chores, or see friends.
On the other side we have low sleep needs parents, who may have kids that drop their nap by 2 years old and can’t fall asleep until 9 or 10pm, ready to wake up and conquer the day by 6am. These parents have zero time to themselves and may find it very hard to recharge, catch up on household duties, or spend quality time with a partner or other kids. They’re also likely to feel like they’re doing something wrong, unless they know about the genetic component variability of kids sleep needs. So, how much do genes play a role?
