Newborn Sleepy Cues

If you’ve been on any of our blogs before, or if you’ve watched our video series, you know that we feel very passionately about parents understanding their babies. If you understand your baby then you can better attend to their needs which means more sleep and less stress for everyone, yay! That means understanding their hungry baby cues and their newborn sleepy cues.

What to look out for?

First, look at the clock! How long has your baby been awake. Make sure that you are following appropriate the wake windows and nap schedule for your baby’s age.

What are early newborn sleepy cues?

A baby that is beginning to get tired, and needs to have a nap soon:

• Will start to slow down
• Slow blinks
• Glazed stare
• Avoid eye contact
• Maybe yawning or rubbing their face

What are some later signs of tiredness?

A Baby that is starting to get a bit more tired and is definitely ready for a nap:

• Multiple yawns
• Fussing
• Acting agitate

What are signs of overtiredness? Too Late Sleepy Cues!

A baby that has been awake for too long and is going to have a hard time going to sleep:

• Extremely fussy and worked up, hard to settle OR
• Wide eyes and overly alert. When a baby is overtired their body releases cortisol [the stress hormone] which makes them wide awake, but not comfortably so.

Understanding Sleepy Cues

Once you understand your baby you can give them what they are asking you for! Whether that is food, comfort or sleep. Babies are telling us what they need, we just need to learn how to listen! Want to learn how to better understand and attend to your baby? Watch our video series that teaches just that.