Dealing With an Overtired Child

Despite our best efforts, most of us are familiar with ‘the overtired child’. You know how it is. They’ve gone past the point of being able to fall asleep easily or seemingly fall asleep at all, and they’re grumpy, really grumpy. You may find that they cry at the drop of a hat, appear much clingier than usual and/or run around the house as if they’ve been supercharged. Perhaps you can spot the tell-tale signs by now but if not, bear in mind that every child reacts differently when they’ve been stretched beyond that golden window of opportunity. If sleep isn’t on the horizon, their body responds by releasing a cocktail of hormones to sustain them, often causing an overly emotional reaction. These hormones can linger in the body, and even when they eventually give in, it can significantly affect their ability to sleep well.

How can I avoid the overtired stage?

It’s not always possible to stop your child from becoming overtired, and often, by the time you realize it’s too late. However, by sticking to a predictable naptime routine that works for you and your baby and keeping an eye on any sleep cues, you should be able to avoid the overtired stage — most of the time!

Common sleep cues you might expect to see from your little one include:

• tugging at their ears,
• seeming particularly fussy,
• rubbing their eyes,
• yawning,
• a slower or weaker sucking reflex,
• staring into the distance,
• less social and appears disinterested,
• slight redness around the eyes,
• eyelids drooping,
• frowning,
• jerky movements,
• Becoming quite chatty.

Don’t delay if you see any of these and think it might be time for a nap! You might find it helpful to consider a rough guide of the amount of sleep you might expect a baby or child of their age to sleep for across a period of 24 hours.

OK, I think my child is overtired. What now?

If you’re on the home stretch towards bedtime and your baby is overtired, I’d advise you to start the bedtime routine a little earlier than usual (no more than 45 minutes early, we don’t want them treating it as a nap.) or if this isn’t possible, trim it down a little. For an overtired child, try and spend no more than 30 minutes getting them ready for sleep.

The best thing you can do is focus on making your baby’s sleep environment as conducive to sleep as you can. Keep things dim with a blackout blind and turn on their white noise machine or nighttime projector. For younger babies, consider swaddling (only until they can roll over) or use your usual soothing techniques such as rocking, feeding etc. Though, you may find that they need more help than they usually do. For older children, avoid screentime and gently help them wind down with soft music or reading quietly.