The Truth About Sleep Associations
The sun has set, and it’s time to put your soft, squishy newborn down for bed. You lovingly rock and snuggle her to sleep before gently placing her in her bassinet and taking slow, careful steps away.
She wakes up once or twice throughout the night. No big deal: She’s only a handful of weeks old. You nurse, rock, and snuggle her back to dreamland. Someday, she won’t need to eat or be snuggled in the middle of the night, and you’ll have your life back…right?
Fast-forward a few months. Instead of weaning off sleep support, you’re now up 4+ times during the night — each wakeup occuring what feels like minutes after the last one. Worse, nursing is the only thing that ever works to calm her down, meaning mom is an on-demand milk maid all night.
The next time she wakes up, you think there’s no way she could be hungry this soon after eating.
Dad goes in, and despite his best efforts, nothing soothes the way mom does. So Dad feels worthless, mom’s sore and exhausted, and oh yea, the baby is still screaming her head off.
This cycle repeats five times a night, and she demands longer feedings over the next few weeks. And now, she doesn’t even fall asleep after eating.
You go through your Rolodex of possible sleep disrupters: cold mattress, too much noise/light, tummy bubbles, etc., but you strike out. In pure desperation, you turn to cosleeping. Even though it makes you nervous, at least the baby is happy, and the mom doesn’t have to get out of bed when the little princess demands her rations.
And on and on it goes.
Raise your hand if you can relate to this situation (or something similar).
I want to make one thing clear: The parents I wrote about in this little drama aren’t bad parents, and their sweet little daughter isn’t an unruly brat.
What’s happened is baby girl has developed a strong sleep association with some combination of mom’s presence, nursing, and cuddling. As a result:
She can’t fall asleep independently.
When she wakes up (totally normal), she can’t fall back asleep without her sleep associations.
Because Mom and Dad don’t recognize the real problem (they just think they’re failing and are praying for the day baby girl “grows out of it”), they’re adapting to the problem instead of taking steps to resolve it.
No one is getting the sleep they need, and the sleep struggles are affecting Mom and Dad’s relationship.
This sad story is, unfortunately, a common one. And it’s not just a problem for nursing moms. Your baby might be reliant on bouncing, rocking, pacifiers, bummy patting, you name it. It’s also not unique to nighttime sleep — naps can also take the hit.
If you take anything away from my example family, it should be that sleep disruption will happen, and your baby must be able to fall asleep on their own.
But how can you get your baby to fall asleep independently without any sleep associations?
The answer is you can’t. What you can do is control which sleep associations your baby has (and you can take steps to wean them off the “bad” ones”).
In this blog, we take a closer look at sleep associations, how they develop, and how you can use them to your and your baby’s benefit.
There are good and bad sleep associations
I have sleep associations, you have sleep associations, your spouse has sleep associations. Everyone has sleep associations. They’re what helps us fall asleep (or at least fall asleep better). For instance, I can’t even think about sleep until I have Gilmore Girls playing on my iPad. Fortunately, as an adult, I (and you, for that matter) can drift seamlessly through my sleep cycles overnight, and I don’t need to roll over and hit play multiple times a night.
So we really can’t expect our brand new babies NOT to have sleep associations, but we also have to remember that babies don’t sleep like adults. You don’t win points if you can zip your baby up in their footsie pajamas, set them down in their crib, and walk away for the night (in fact, we’re all pretty ticked at you if that describes your kid). What’s really important is which sleep associations you allow your baby to become attached to. Your baby will develop a sleep association with any object or activity that occurs during bedtime.
Examples of positive sleep associations include:
Swaddles (until they can roll over)
Nightlights
Lovies or stuffed animals
Blankets
Being in the crib
Having their own room
Their schedule and routine
Notice a theme? These positive sleep associations are all sustainable. They won’t change throughout the night and leave your child to their own devices when a new sleep cycle begins.
Which brings us to negative sleep associations, such as:
Pacifiers that fall out of their mouth
Nursing or eating to sleep
Cuddling to sleep
Bouncing or rocking to sleep
Music or white noise that stops playing
The theme here is that these sleep associations aren’t reliable for hours on end. Your baby falls asleep in your arms, but you can’t stay that way forever, so you set them down. And when they stir at the end of their sleep cycle, they expect to be there, not alone in their crib. Indigdinat and more than a little ticked off, your bundle of joy lets out a screech to tell you they’re unhappy with the change of scenery.
Eventually, the sleep association becomes so strong they won’t be able to get back to sleep without that sleep association, no matter how hard you try.
And now we interrupt your regularly scheduled programming for some science mumbo jumbo that’s actually super important to your child’s sleep and development.
Sidebar on object permanence
Object permanence is one of the skills your child picks up in early development. It simply means that they can remember an object exists even if they can’t immediately see or touch it. That’s why peek-a-boo is such a big deal at this age. Object permanence is also a driving force behind separation anxiety and stranger danger.
The jury’s still out on when exactly object permanence develops, but you can ballpark it around six months.
But you can see how this ties in with sleep association.
When your child falls asleep in your arms but wakes up alone, they can remember that you were there at some point, and now you’re missing. This goes for any change in their environment, including location changes, devices that shut off, and things that can fall out (think pacifiers).
Newborns and young babies who don’t have object permanence will still wake up, but it won’t be because their white noise machine turned off. It’s because they need a lot of extra help linking their sleep cycles and will continue to need help until their circadian rhythms mature.
In the worst cases, a baby will start to fight even their favorite sleep associations because they know it’s apt to abandon them in a matter of moments.
So what are you to do?
If you can’t beat sleep associations, join ’em (prudently). Find a combination of age-appropriate sleep tools that work for your baby. Here are some rough guidelines:
White noise
Appropriate for all babies during their first year
Swaddling
Appropriate for all babies for the first 2-4 months. Once they start rolling over, they should not be swaddled anymore.
Pacifiers
Appropriate for all babies. I recommend weaning them off the pacifier by six months, but many babies use the pacifier well into toddler-hood.
Schedule management
Appropriate for every baby, toddler, and child forever and ever.
These are the most powerful tools in your independent sleep tool belt. They won’t work the same for every child (even children in the same family), but virtually ever child finds comfort through at least one of these options. When it’s time to wean them off a certain sleep association, I can help.
The greatest sleep myth
Some of the worst bits of infant and child sleep advice I hear sounds like this:
“You’re baby will sleep when they’re ready”
“They’re not developmentally ready to sleep yet.”
I dislike this sleep advice because it now assumes that you are a crazy person imposing your selfish will upon your unsuspecting child. But I cry foul.
Yes, newborns and young babies are underdeveloped and need lots of help. However, a six-month-old who’s up all night isn’t fighting sleep because they aren’t “developmentally ready.” They’re not sleeping because they haven’t been taught how, and I’m sorry, but waiting it out won’t do anyone any good.
So, welcome. You’re one of my favorite kinds of parents — the type who can recognize an issue in their child’s behaviors and be proactive.
Independent sleep makes everyone happy
To wrap up, independent sleep makes everyone happy and sets the stage for your child’s long-term sleep health. But it is a skill they need to learn.
In the beginning (by that, I mean the first 2-3 months), newborns need a lot of help falling and staying asleep, so you might find yourself rocking, nursing, and bouncing them all the way to sleep. These methods form the foundation of how your baby learns to fall asleep, and they work great in the early days, but as your baby grows and matures, they won’t work so well anymore (see my opening scene of this blog).
Take away even one of their sleep associations (rocking, bouncing, nursing), and you’ll hear from their lawyer and see the effects on their sleeping habits. For instance, they might exhibit one or more of the following:
Consistently short naps (20-45 minutes) throughout the day
Needing to be assisted all the way to sleep before being put down or cue the Veruca Salt tantrum from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
Routinely waking up an hour after bedtime and struggling to resettle even with your best efforts
Staying asleep for a solid chunk right after bedtime, then waking up frequently as the night goes on and morning draws near (not linking sleep cycles and sleep drive and melatonin levels drop)
Super, duper, really annoying early rising (like, 4am)
Lots and lots of tears accompanying night wakings and only resettling if you supply them with exactly what you did at bedtime
These are just some of the signs of a kid who can’t fall asleep independently and has latched on to an unsustainable sleep association.
But have no fear. It’s not too late, and you can fix this — and I can help.
Let’s teach your kid the incredibly valuable skill of falling asleep independently. Check out my sleep packages or schedule a discovery call with me today!
