Overtired. If you’re a parent, it’s no doubt a word you’ve come to fear! An overtired baby is one who is too tired to sleep, and who will fuss and cry. And then, when sleep finally does come, an overtired baby will likely wake too soon and have a hard time falling back to sleep.
Sounds like a nightmare, doesn’t it?
That’s why it’s so important to understand what overtiredness is, to recognize the signs of it, and to be proactive about preventing your baby from becoming overtired.
What Is Overtiredness, and Why Does Your Baby Get Overtired?
When your baby is overtired, it simply means that her body is past the point of being ready to sleep. When your baby is overtired, she is so physically fatigued that her body’s stress-response system is activated. Once your baby is overtired, stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline flood your baby’s bloodstream, making it even harder for your baby to relax and calm down. And this tends to be a cyclical pattern; the more overtired your baby becomes, the harder it is for your baby to relax and fall asleep, which makes overtiredness even worse, etc. etc.
Your baby gets overtired when she stays up longer than she should between naps, or before bedtime. Older children can obviously handle long periods of wakefulness, but newborns can’t handle much awake time at all; many newborns cannot go more than 45 minutes without needing another nap. (This is one reason why it’s easy to let your newborn or young infant become overtired!)
Signs of An Overtired Baby
Generally, babies who are overtired show some of the following signs.
- Your baby will rub her eyes or face.
- Baby will move his face away from stimulation.
- Baby will yawn, hiccup, or sneeze often.
- She will fuss and whimper. Eventually, the fussing may spiral into full-blown inconsolable crying.
- Baby will become clingy with mom or dad, or with a caregiver, making it impossible to put her down for sleep.
- Baby will grow increasingly physically active and “wound up” as the awake period wears on.
Your baby’s overtired signals will be as unique as he is, so it’s best just to watch your baby closely and “learn” his overtiredness signs.
How To Get Your Overtired Baby To Sleep
The main thing to remember is that, when your baby or toddler is overtired, you want to calm her down first. Once your child is calm, you can begin to work on drowsiness, which will (hopefully!) lead to sleep.
Use these strategies to calm your baby or toddler and help induce drowsiness:
- Swaddle your baby.
- Hold your baby.
- Feed your baby until she is calm and drowsy.
- Rock your baby.
- Play white noise while you soothe your baby.
- Make your baby’s room dark.
- Sing a lullaby while rocking your baby.
- For older babies and toddlers: read a few bedtime story books in your child’s dim room.
- For toddlers and preschoolers: offer a quiet time during which your child can read books and play with toys in his sleeping area.
How To Prevent Your Baby From Becoming Overtired
Even better than dealing with overtiredness when it crops up is preventing your baby from becoming overtired in the first place. Simply put, you prevent overtiredness by laying your baby down for sleep slightly before her window of awake time closes. Use the following as guidelines:
- A newborn can handle no more than 45 minutes to an hour of awake time.
- A 6 month old can handle about 2 hours of awake time.
- A toddler can handle 4-5 hours of awake time.
Basically, you ward off overtiredness when you watch your baby’s sleep and feeding schedule carefully, and make sure that naps and feedings are happening at the right times so as to ensure your baby or toddler doesn’t stay awake too long. Use these scheduling resources to help:
Baby Nap Chart (includes awake time recommendations by age)
Baby Bedtime Chart (includes recommended bedtimes by age)
Sample Schedules By Age
Mastering Naps and Schedules e-book (VIP Members have unlimited access to this e-book and many others)
How To Put Your Baby or Toddler On A Schedule tele-seminar (VIP Members-only access)
Need Help With Your Overtired Baby? Look No Further!
Overtiredness can be tough to beat, and sometimes, preventing overtiredness can feel like an impossible task. If you are struggling with a fussy, overtired baby or toddler, we can help! Connect with one of our expert consultants today; she’ll craft a Personalized Sleep Plan™ just for your baby, walk you through every step of sleep coaching and schedule-making, and provide detailed answers to your most pressing sleep training questions.
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How have you coped with overtiredness?
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Korienna Willis says
My two week old baby go from awake to overtired, he is normally asleep at about 7 or 8 pm but for the past few days he is awake until 1 or 2 am. Both me and my boyfriend have tried feeding him, changing him, holding him, we go quite, turn off all the lights after we put him in his bed but nothing has worked. He is breastfeed. Is there anything more we can be doing to get him to sleep because he cried if we put him down to sleep.
Neosha says
@Korienna – Thank you for reading and for sharing with us. Newborns can go from awake to overtired almost in a blink of an eye. Many of them can’t stay awake longer than 30-45 minutes at a time. Keeping your eye on the clock and on his sleepy cues can go a long way to helping catch your little guy just as he’s starting to get tired so you can put him down to sleep and actually get him to sleep. If you miss that window, it’s definitely harder to get him to sleep as he’ll be a bit overtired and wired. I hope this helps, Korienna!
May says
Hello,
I am currently sleep training my 4.5 month old baby. I am on week 2 but she is extremely overtired. Her bedtime is a 5:30 pm. and she is waking up at 4:30am. My question is how can I break out of the over-tiredness cycle.
Janelle Reid says
Hi @May, thanks for writing to us. I’m sorry to hear your little one is overtired. Since I don’t know for sure where the overtiredness it coming from, it is difficult for me to give you a super clear answer, but I’ll happily send over some resources that may help. Here is a link to a sample schedule for a 4 month old’s sleep, so one thing to look for is how long her wake times are, as well as making sure she gets all the sleep she needs during the day in her naps: https://www.babysleepsite.com/schedules/4-month-old-schedule/
If you need more specific help and advise, please email us a little more information about your situation and we’ll happily help more from there! You can reach us anytime at [email protected]
Hang in there!