Temperament and Sleep: What You Need to Know

By now, you probably know that I place a lot of emphasis on temperament and your child’s sleep personality when it comes to sleep. I truly believe that your child’s personality plays a huge role in their sleeping habits. This week I want to touch briefly on that and explain exactly what I mean and how you can determine your child’s temperament. This is what you need to know.

Your child is born with their own unique temperament

You cannot change a personality easily, and why would you want to? You certainly cannot change a child’s temperament- the temperament is the aspect of personality that is innate rather than learned, making it the one thing about your child that you cannot change at all.

The first thing you need to accept is that your child is a unique individual who has a personality just like you do. Even at one day old, your baby will display signs of their character if you watch carefully. It’s an amazing thing and something we as parents should cherish! Nurture your child’s temperament, and use your knowledge of it to inform your next steps when it comes to sleep a little later down the line.

Your role as a parent is to understand your child’s specific needs.

Now that we’ve determined your child has their own unique personality, it stands to reason that your role as a parent now is to get to understand your child’s own specific needs. When I meet with families, I always try to get as much information as possible from them to tailor a plan suited to their needs. What works for one child almost certainly won’t work for another, and since we know that every child has a unique personality, this makes a lot of sense. So I will never advise a family to follow the same steps as another family because that worked for them. Each child deserves a tailored plan to suit their sleep personality and their family’s needs.

Temperament types

We all have certain personality types, but we don’t all slot perfectly into each type. So your child may have a mix of two or even more personality types. When it comes to temperament (and, as already mentioned, this part of the personality is innate rather than learned), there are three main types:

Laid-back. This child is as you would expect. They are easy-going, relaxed, mainly calm. They quickly pick up regular feeding and eating patterns, seeming to slot into family life without too much fuss. Any new changes are adapted to fairly easily and without issues; the laid-back child will often display a good mood, often smiling and responding well to others. Inconsistency can make a laid-back child feel a little out of sorts and not as relaxed.

Shy. This child isn’t as straightforward as the laid-back or intense child. The shy child is slow to warm up and struggles with change. The more consistent and sighter slower-paced life they have, the easier. Trying to rush a shy child can end up with them feeling overwhelmed and restless.

Intense. Again, as you would expect, the intense child has a rather different temperament to the laid-back child. Feeding and sleeping patterns can be irregular; they may display negative responses to new situations- they know what they like and don’t and aren’t afraid to let you know exactly how they are feeling.

Determining your child’s temperament

Only you can tell which type your child fits into best, and sometimes it may feel as though they display all three! Generally speaking, your child’s temperament should be fairly obvious- and remember that every child is different and has a different personality, which can make some aspects of the descriptions seem a little off.

Sleep and your child’s sleep personality

Now that you know a little more about temperament, you can see how it affects sleep! The intense child will have a tougher time with sleep, whereas the laid-back child will slot smoothly into a new routine with less of an issue. The shy child can be more tricky- they can find it hard to adjust at first, but with consistency, they will soon slot into a new routine.

What works for a laid-back child may not work for a shy or intense child. No matter how many times you try something, it just may not work. You’ve not done anything wrong, and there is certainly nothing wrong with your child. There is no one size fits all when it comes to your child and their sleep.

When you work with your child’s unique sleep personality, you adapt things to work for them. That could be working at a much slower pace or adding extra steps to their wind-down. You’re giving your child the support they need to get the best possible sleep.