How To Survive the “False Start” Bedtime
Why are we making it harder for ourselves?
We have all been there, that sigh of relief when you finally put your baby/toddler down for the night and you can finally have some time to yourself when you aren’t lending every cell of your being to another and then some short time period later you are very much needed again. “False starts” (or, baby waking shortly after bedtime), happen at the worst time of the day when your resources are spent, and your body and mind need restoration time. False starts are emotionally hard, especially if they go on for months and months. Often the wake isn’t for long, and a feed, rock, nurse, or song will get them back to sleep in a relatively short space of time but it is a frustrating situation.
There is a lot of noise in the baby sleep world about finding the WHY. Why are they waking? Are they hungry? Are they overtired/under-tired? Is their tummy upset? Were they too stimulated before bedtime? Was the bedroom to noisy or not completely blackout (use code heysleepybaby for 10% off)? Etc. And while finding the “why” might be helpful, for some it’s a wild goose chase that only ends in frustration.
This can leave you fraught with worry, facing feelings of inadequacy, and on a constant quest for the perfect bedtime with anything less leaving you feeling like a failure. So, what are we missing here? Motherhood is hard, baby sleep is hard to navigate so my WHY is: WHY are we making it more complicated for ourselves? False starts like many other parts of baby sleep are just developmental. They don’t need to be examined, they don’t need complex unpicking, they are just part of the journey of motherhood. The best advice I ever received as a first-time mum was that most of my problems could be solved by an expectation reframe, some acceptance, and an inner softening. This piece of advice does well in all aspects of life but is key to letting go with baby sleep.
Both my own and my best friend’s babies false started for at least six months and together we were spiraling with anxiety desperately trying to solve the problem. We were exposed to this language of ‘problem’ everyday via Instagram and baby sleep books and had internalized the false start as our fault. After reading about habit pairing I decided to use this time to practice this skill. I started small and set myself the task of listening to my favorite podcast. It felt like a luxurious thing to call a task but to change my mentality about this time I needed it to be something I looked forward to. My baby typically woke after one sleep cycle (45 minutes) and needed my assistance to fall back asleep. I would often feel so tense waiting for the wake that I would just sit on the sofa mindlessly scrolling Instagram, frustrated that my partner couldn’t respond to the wake, feeling exhausted and spiraling into a messy headspace. After two weeks of religiously keeping to this strategy, I looked forward to this time before the false start. I would choose my podcast during the day and look forward to this designated period where I could listen to it. As the habit became more ingrained, I began to pair it with a decluttering task and I genuinely found the time rewarding. I noticed how small little jobs were getting done around the house and I enjoyed the stimulation podcasts were giving me. Once I could hear that my baby needed me I would go and resettle her and when I came down after that wake I would know that my evening had begun. I had dropped the shame, dropped the feeling of failure, and instead filled it with something rewarding. I was so much calmer going upstairs to respond to the false start wake, I enjoyed the extra snuggles and my baby could sense this feeling and would often only need me for a few minutes.
So the key to surviving the frustrating false start is to nourish yourself in the period before the false start occurs, drop the worry, drop the shame and lean into this season of life in the most joyful way you can.
If you DO want some guidance for why the false starts are happening (remember there’s not always a clear reason!), check out this Free Guide to Decoding False Starts.
