Have you ever felt discouraged when taking care of the newborn baby? In fact, there are always a few frustrating times you have to deal with the big problem: Overtired baby won’t sleep. And you feel like that you have tried everything, but it won’t work. So how to spot when the overtiredness comes and avoid it to get your baby to sleep?
How do I know if my baby is overtired?
Imagine after an exhausting day with your baby, you might want to relax reading a book, but that didn’t happen. Your daughter suddenly woke up and started to cry constantly. When such a case takes places frequently, you realize that she was fatigue! Since the baby could not talk to you, she will react in her own way. But how to understand such cues or the signs of an overtired baby?
Here are the most common symptoms or cues of the overtiredness:
- Facial expressions: In case your kid’s expression transforms all of a sudden from happiness to grumpiness, she must be getting exhausted little by little
- Eye, hair, and ear rubbing: They’re the most popular cues showing that your baby is tired and usually mistaken for her teething pain
- Crying and grunting: Overtired baby won’t sleep because they always make fussy sounds like growling. And it’s hard to keep them quiet in this case
- Ignore eye contact: Dodging eye contact straightforwardly is one of the best signs telling you that the baby is getting tired. At that time, her stare might go into space
- Losing her interest: If your baby loses her interest in toys and foods, it’s probably because of the tiredness
- Throwing their toys or food: Aside from crying, the babies are witnessed to throw the toys, food, and even things that are already in hands. Some kids can smack or hit the items
- Self-soothing cues: Do not ever neglect these signals, which can be easily seen in most kids — they deliver their self-soothing signals, including the act of sucking thumbs or dummies
- Eliciting autonomic responses: After a certain period, your baby will release some autonomic responses, which occur without her consciousness. They are hiccups, sneezes, fast breathe, sweating in palms, blueness in their mouths.
If missing any of these responses, the possible result you may gain back is a grumpy and crying kid all night long. Since these signals come pretty late, so it’s difficult to recognize a tired baby. Not just that, some parents also mistake the overtiredness with the baby’s reflux. Try to seek more advice from a doctor in this case.
What to do with an overtired baby?
Whenever finding your baby tired, it’s surely the hardest experience for both her and you as a parent. Just picture how you have to deal with such a cranky little angel at home — it’ll be very frustrating! Here are the few best things to deal with an overtired baby:
- Dodge any stimulation bothering your child: For example, the light in the room can be too bright, or the sounds surrounding your baby are a bit loud, and so on. Such stimulation could make it a challenge for both you and the kid to sleep peacefully.
Above all, the child’s nervous system tend to be more sensitive to them, so ensure avoid your baby from being overstimulated like that! - Stop interrupting your baby sleep: Your infant will be interrupted, not just by her surrounding
environment but you as a parent.
If it’s a newborn, like any parent, you just want to spend more time with her by checking them or holding them. But such things can go out of control, which tends to interrupt your kid’s deep sleep. - Understand the common signs of their overtiredness: It’ll take you a period to be fully aware of what those cues are. When a kid feels sleepy, it does not mean they will fall asleep on their own.
This sign shows us how tired they feel, instead. So you must learn those signs to know when the kid is tired so that you could place them in the crib for sleep.
How to soothe an overtired baby?
An overtired baby won’t sleep since she has trouble settling; therefore, soothing her is the important task to do in this situation. It will take some efforts, but supporting the baby to go to sleep well just makes everyone feel much better! Here are how to do it:
- Wrap the kid tightly in a swaddle to make her feel safe, and don’t forget to spread a light blanket all over any sturdy surface. Next, fold it down at one of the corners. Put your kid diagonally on it with the head lying above the folded corner. Have the left corner folded over her and then around the kid.
- Give the baby one pacifier if you want to soothe her. This sucking action will make a grumpy baby relax perfectly. When she does not like the pacifier, it’s fine and do not oblige her to have it.
- Hold the baby in her swaddle to soothe her and while holding, you can sit in a rocker – a type of chair with two arched bands and legs per side connecting to each other. If not, go around the house and jiggle the kid gently. Give her some music by singing to her.
Besides, some kids get calmed easily just by hearing the noises from dishwasher or a washing machine. Do anything you feel the most convenient to help the child to sleep! - Massage your child as she’s still in a fret. The massaging solution can make the baby feel more relaxed and find it easier to sleep. At that moment, put her on a firm surface and use a little bit of the baby lotion
to start massaging the kid.
Try to move from her head to the neck and then the rest of her body, such as chest, belly, legs, feets. Maintain things as light as possible when you massage her. - Put the overtired kid in a crib or a bassinet for some minutes when your attempts can’t work well, and she keeps making a lot of fuss. At times, these soothing solutions are said to enhance the stimulation in a child instead of calming her down.
Thus, ensure to watch over her within 10 minutes to see whether she can settle by herself or not and sleep. If she can’t, pick your kid up once more and resume every action (holding or gently jiggling) to get her to sleep.
Conclusion
What to do when the overtired baby won’t sleep? It’s highly essential not to get impatient early as a parent. As we know, each baby is just different, so it means you need to take another strategy to help the child to avoid the overtiredness and get to sleep once it occurs.
Out of the methods we’ve shared, you’re suggested to experiment to learn what solution might work best for your kid in the first place.
