Baby sleep: 45-minute cycles are not natural

I know, I know – prevailing advice to parents suggests that 45-minute sleep cycles are “normal” for newborns. But this notion is relatively recent, and knowing what I know, it warrants closer examination. Because, in my three decades of working in this field, I have observed a significant shift in illogical but best-intentioned teaching of infant care practices that has me confidently going out on a limb to tell you that, 45 minute sleep cycles are not normal, and your baby can, and needs to, sleep longer.

So, I’d like to briefly take you through the shifts that have historically happened to embed this into our society as a norm over the next few paragraphs. But if you are reading this article because you’d like to know how much sleep your baby would ideally be having at different ages, and how to create this, then scroll down to the title: So, what does this all mean for your baby?

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Historical evolution of infant sleep recommendations

1993...
I was twenty-one years of age, a qualified nanny working in the USA, and the majority of western maternal professionals were teaching what I had been trained in – to provide a relatively flexible feeding pattern of 3.5 to four hours, followed by some awake and burping time for an hour or more (depending on the age of the child) and then settling baby to sleep until the next feed. If baby consistently woke early during sleep cycles, then we knew that there was something that needed adjusted, or perhaps baby was feeling unwell with something. These adjustments might include things like their latch, or a tongue or lip tie, formula choice, or mums diet. Alternatively, they may have been teething, have a virus, or slowing of stools. Either way, this approach was based on the understanding that this flexible daily pattern flowed well with a newborns requirement for nutrition, comfort and developmental sleep needs.

1999...
Upon moving to London and specialising as a Maternity Nurse with multiple births, there was a baby parenting book that took the world by storm.¹ It created a highly significant shift, projecting very strict care practices that had parents and professionals saying babies should not be “clock-led” if we were to truly respect their needs. This very quickly led to the projection that baby’s should not be “scheduled fed” and because the strict schedules in the book used four hourly feeding, the natural flow that had come before, understandably, was amalgamated within what become a western world revolt – one that said, our babies should receive “demand care” and needed to therefore be “demand fed.”

Of course, this is something that I deeply agree with and teach to this day. But as it was back then, and still largely is, this shift to “demand care and feeding” did not examine or consider how the infant’s digestive system functions and evolves – simply because most parents and midwives, lactation consultants didn’t (and still largely don't) receive the research around this. If they did, they would have known that an infant requires three-and-a-half to four hours between appropriate feeding volumes to adequately digest the nutrients from their milk or food, and to allow the motor complex to “reset” the best stomach environment for the next feed.²

Another aspect that was missing was my discovery, of the Six-Wind-Cues which, when understood, naturally call for us to respond in another way. Namely burping our babies, rather than feeding, if we are to truly offer “demand/responsive care.” When these two aspects of our early innate biology are integrated into an infant’s care, they retain their natural need for longer sleep cycles.

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From 2000 onward…
This western society revolt meant that, quite suddenly, our baby’s started to be fed anywhere from one to four hourly, sometimes remaining on the breast for long periods of time or receiving larger volumes of milk via the bottle. This resulted in digestive discomfort that didn’t allow them to sleep deeply. Instead, their uncomfortable digestive system had them waking, potentially crying and refluxing, and the parents were taught that they were simply hungry again and this was “normal” - it meant parents were simply providing “demand care” well.

However, because the baby was exhausted from their short sleep cycles, they would fall asleep directly after feeds, and so another adaption of care happened where parents were taught to put their baby back to bed relatively soon after a feed as the teaching morphed into, “babies don’t need burping after a feed, or need a lot of burping.”

But all of these changes created a great influx of newborns experiencing the symptoms of aerophagia, overfeeding or adversely snack feeding from being too tired, which of course resulted in them having unhealthy sleep cycles of around 45 minutes as they consistently woke up from the digestive discomfort formed by the trapped air, high volumes of milk and potentially hunger from not being awake enough to demand their natural, required amounts at the feeds.

This shift, I believe, also increased the number of newborns experiencing the symptoms of colic, reflux, silent reflux, the witching hour and intolerances - or what I call Digestive Overload, the real, naturally healable cause of these symptoms, with short sleep cycles being one of these, caused through quick intermittent feeding.

So, what became common happenings, despite illogical projections, were embedded into parent care as them providing the best-intentioned “demand care” for their baby. However, as we know, just because something is common, doesn’t mean it is normal, or in this case, natural.

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So, what does this all mean for your baby?

Well, from someone who didn’t attune to this messaging because:

• it didn’t make logical sense that a baby needed to feed that often
• I was witnessing calmer, happier infants that continued to feed 3.5 to 4 hourly
• the implementation of my ten-step-burping method, called Natures Wind Sequence, which was formed from my discovery of our early Six-Wind-Cues, was proving to be highly beneficial in reducing Digestive Overload symptoms thus continuing healthy longer sleep cycles
• the ongoing research around our early digestive system was telling me that the 45-minute sleep cycle happened because newborns were/are receiving imbalanced care practices...

...it meant that, over time, I eventually found a way for us to evolve “demand care” so it continued to align with an infant’s early digestive biology and cues. I call this practice Bio-logical Care (life-logical care). Within this harmonious offering, newborns sleep a lot longer, which of course fosters the optimum environment for their development.
 
 

How long should a baby sleep?

When a baby is being Bio-logically Cared for, thus their digestive system is as comfortable as possible throughout the day because you have adopted balanced burping and balanced feeding (this encompasses many different factors like a healthy diet, whether breast, formula or solids, correct biological volumes if bottle feeding and more) then a baby will naturally sleep for the times below after each feed with them naturally requiring some settling through this time, and perhaps some quick necessary burping to induce sleep again. 

The natural sleep of an infant after each feed is:

• 2.5 to 3 hours from newborn to around four weeks
• 2.5 to 2 hours from around four weeks to around 6 weeks
• 2 hours from around 6 weeks to 6 months
• 2 to 1.5 hours from 6 months to one year.

Now you will note that I have used the word "around". This is of course because each child will guide their parents as to when they are ready to change to shorter naps, which is clearer to define when you are providing Bio-logical Daily Patterns, which you can find in my Prevent and Remedy book (0–6-month-olds) or my Bio-logical Solids Weaning Book (6-24 months).

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Solutions to enable longer sleep cycles

To summarise, if a baby is to achieve their much-needed rest and rejuvenation to obtain holistic balance we need to:

• understand and adhere to care that considers their whole biological homeostasis
• feed your baby in accordance too their digestive capabilities and capacities, which is every 3.5 to four hourly
• burp them well and allow them to be awake after each feed to do this as it increases comfort and development
• learn to soothe them without feeding.

Snooze well.

Much love, Pip.