Is there anything worse than dealing with a sick baby and sleep? They’re uncomfortable. You feel bad because you want to help but don’t always know how. And don’t even get me started on sleep. It can feel like a giant crap-shoot. My guess is, if you're reading this blog- you are probably going through this now.

I find parents usually fall into one of two categories:

Either they are so worried about introducing “bad” habits during sickness and they feel extremely anxious about how to navigate sickness and sleep….

Or they throw all their sleep habits and knowledge out the window and then expect their little one to magically sleep like normal once being healthy again. These parents are often stuck in a loop of good sleep, then hit by sickness, then digging themselves out of the hole they dug while their baby was sick, and repeat. 

In this blog post I'll be teaching you my do's and don'ts for navigating your way through the baby sleep while sick so that you can be there for your little one without going all the way back to square one each time they are sick.

Do offer assistance if needed

This one should be a no-brainer but sometimes it just needs to be said. You can ALWAYS comfort your sick child. And if they just need a bit more help to fall asleep, go for it. This isn’t weakness or a “bad” habit. This is about meeting your little one where they are and offering more support when necessary.

 

Don't overhelp and rush to lots of assistance

While we can absolutely offer more support, we do want to be mindful of what that looks like. If your child is usually an independent sleeper, then you don’t want to rush straight to feeding them to sleep and pulling them into your bed. That’s why I recommend visualizing a ladder when deciding to offer more support. When you are climbing a ladder, you don’t jump all the way up to the top rung. You take the ladder one step at a time. And that’s how I recommend you approach assisting your child to sleep:

 

+ At the top of the ladder are the most hands-on and invasive ways to assist to sleep like: pulling them into your bed, nursing to sleep, contact sleeping

+ In the middle of the ladder would be assistance like: patting to drowsy/asleep, holding until drowsy but placing down before fully asleep

+ At the bottom of the ladder are the least hands-on and interfering ways to offer support like: soothing words, checking in but not staying as they fall asleep, picking up to fully soothe before placing down still awake

 

Do let them sleep a little more than usual

It’s normal during sickness for your child to want to sleep more during the day. This may manifest itself as longer naps than usual or it may look like lots of short, frequent naps with shorter wake windows than usual. This is generally not a problem. You can let them lead with this and don’t stress if their schedule gets thrown off while they are sick. Hydration is another important factor throughout the day so you don’t want their daytime sleeping to impede their ability to get the fluids they need throughout the day. In general though, allowing them the opportunity to sleep more during the day is a great way for their body to fight off the illness and recover.

 

Don't let them go overboard with naps if it messes with night sleep

However, when it comes to increasing their daytime sleep, just make sure that it’s not negatively impacting their night sleep. If it reaches a point where you find they are unable to sleep well at night or they wake up overnight for long periods of time, that is a sign that you need to pull back on daytime napping. Daytime napping is beneficial but night sleep is the most restorative and therefore we want to prioritize night sleep over excessive daytime napping when sick.

 

Do let them sleep at night without interruption

Continuing with the idea above about how important night sleep is, it’s important not to be disruptive to your baby’s night sleep. I know it can be tempting to go in and touch them and check on them and maybe even take their temperature multiple times but sometimes it’s overkill. Their sleep is already likely to be interrupted because of the sickness, they don’t need you to be disturbing them too. 

 

Don't interrupt them unless absolutely necessary

Unless your pediatrician has said you need to do these things and you need to be checking on them frequently overnight (and potentially waking them), then don’t do it. Leave them be- I know it’s hard! Any checking you do should not disrupt your baby or pose the potential to wake them up.

Of course, for more serious illnesses, you may be required to check their breathing overnight or check their temperature but overall, the most common sicknesses you’ll deal with will not require that level of intervention overnight. Be in communication with your pediatrician and don’t be afraid to ask questions!

 

Do stay close if you prefer

It is totally okay to stay closer to your child in the night while they sleep (as long as you aren’t disrupting them- no snorers aloud ). Feel free to camp out in their room on the floor or in a rocking chair if that will help you feel better and if you feel that’s necessary given the severity of their symptoms. 

 

Don't bring them into your room

But we don’t want to move them into your room, or any other room that’s not their usual sleep environment, during sickness. Your baby is going to sleep the best in their own sleep space and in the same conditions they are used to every other night. Disrupting their sleep environment can cause them to wake more often and that’s the opposite of what we want during illness. If you feel the need to remain close throughout the night, grab an air mattress and set up camp in their room instead of pulling them into your bed.

 

Do be prepared to get your previous sleep habits back after they are healthy

Once you’ve gotten through the thick of things and your child is feeling better again, don’t expect that they will go right back to their usual sleep habits without fuss. There is a small percentage of babies who are more easy going and will do this but a majority of babies will need your help to reset sleep expectations and sleep schedules. This is something you can start as soon as they are feeling better and seem like themselves again.

 

Don't expect them to magically go back to sleeping independently after being sick

You may need to wake them in the morning at their usual wake up time, cap naps, stretch wake windows back to what they were, and just keep a stricter eye on their sleep schedule for a couple days. If your child got used to your support to fall asleep at bedtime, naptime, and night wakings, then you’ll want to start laying them down fully awake again once they are healthy. You’ll probably need to pull your sleep coaching method out of your back pocket and apply it at put downs for a few days. 

Giving more space and time for them to fall asleep on their own is crucial to getting sleep habits back on track. It’s not that they “unlearned” how to fall asleep on their own, it’s that their habits were tweaked while sick and they need to reestablish their independent sleep habits now that they are better again.

 

Feeling overwhelmed?

If you need help getting sleep back on track after sickness but you’re feeling overwhelmed about where you can even begin... Here is a link to my scheduler so we can talk through your situation and see if we'd make a good fit to work together. If you are a past client or student, schedule your troubleshooting call here instead!

 

Baby sleep and sickness... nothing can mess up a good sleep routine like a sick child! And boy do kids get sick a lot. I remember, before I had kids, how I would brag about never getting sick. Now my kids (and myself) wind up sick multiple times each winter! Getting sick is also a common set back for sleep so I want to help you so you know the best way to handle a sick child and the best way to get on track afterwards, if needed.

First order of business, when you suspect that your child might be sick, is to discern what level of sickness you are dealing with

Are you dealing with some sniffles and a cough? Fever? Ear infection? Stomach bug? I want you to discern the severity of the symptoms so that you can treat and comfort with the same intensity. The truth is, if your child simply has a cold and sniffles but is fine otherwise, you probably don’t want to do much intervening.

I don’t know about your kids, but mine seem to have stuffy noses for most of the winter months and if I introduced unhelpful habits each time that happened, we’d never make any headway with sleep!

I’m also trusting you to use your parental judgment. Please keep in mind that this is simply a blog post written to a general audience. YOU are the parent and YOU know when something doesn’t seem right. Always trust that judgement and act accordingly when dealing with sick littles.

 

Once you’ve decided how severe your child’s sickness is, obviously we want to treat it and help them feel better

 

See your doctor and/or administer your pediatrician’s dosage of medicine when applicable. Keep the fluids coming. Get your child plenty of rest to recover.

 

Next, decide if your help to fall asleep is needed and necessary

If your child has been sleep trained for a while, it is very possible that they just won’t nap or sleep well within your arms. And that’s okay. My two were always like that. Since we had set up healthy sleep habits from the beginning, they’ve almost always slept alone and fallen asleep alone, even when sick. I knew they would get better rest that way and it just wasn’t an issue. If that’s you, go with it!

If you’re on the other end of the spectrum and your child is sick and struggling to fall asleep without your help or presence, that’s okay too.  Go ahead and offer support and comfort to them when they need it. Remember, sleep is really important for their bodies as they recover.

But I do encourage you to be curious about how much help they actually need from you. Can they fall asleep with your hand just resting on their tummy? Do they need the whole rock/bounce/shushing charade just to fall asleep? Always be curious.

Also be mindful. If nursing was a previous sleep crutch for them and you’d really rather not go back down that road, then don’t offer nursing as a way to put them to sleep. Comfort them? Yes, of course. Pick them up? Sure, if it helps! But maybe you decide that offering nursing to sleep is just going to add more heartache on the other side of this sickness.

Or maybe that pacifier used to be a culprit of short naps and night wakings but you ditched it a while back and have never been happier! Avoid adding that back in now. Find a different way to comfort if you can.

Another good example of being mindful is to avoid bringing your child into your bed during times of sickness. Maybe you’d like to remain close to your child while they are sick? That’s okay. Instead of pulling them out of their sleep space and into yours, take a mattress or sleeping bag and join them in their room. That way they can continue using their usual sleep space and that’s one less thing you have to backtrack on later!

One final suggestion during times of sickness

Like I mentioned above, sleep is vital for recovery during times of sickness. And it’s likely that your baby will sleep more than normal when they are sick. It’s okay to let them sleep a bit longer than they normally would.

Typically I suggest cutting naps off at the 2 hour mark for good sleep hygiene, but in the case of sickness, I say it’s okay to let them go past that mark. I would consider waking them if they get closer to 3 hours of napping. 

Remember, fluids and nutrition are important too and we don’t want them to miss out on that during the day. It’s also important to remember that while naps are essential for babies and young children, night sleep is king. It’s the most restorative sleep they can get.

So if they’ve napped all day long and then stay up extra late at night, we’ve replaced their restorative night sleep with less restorative day sleep and that’s not an ideal trade off. 

 

 

Let’s jump ahead now and talk about once your child is feeling better

Maybe you fell into some unhelpful habits while they were sick. First, I want you to repeat after me: “It’s okay to comfort and help my child when they are sick. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Ok, now that we are on the same page, you will probably need to do some retraining to get back on track with sleep. The good news is that it will go a lot quicker than it did the first time you sleep trained. Here are some of my guidelines for retraining:

1. Make sure your child is back to their usual self. They are no longer sick. They are no longer uncomfortable.

2. Grab a sleep coaching method. This may be the one you previously used or you may decide to try a different method instead.

3. Be mindful that your child is older and more capable than they were the last time you sleep trained. This means they may do better with less intervention or a more hands-off approach. Remember, you aren’t re-teaching them how to sleep, rather you are re-setting the expectations around sleep.

4. You’re probably looking at 2-4 nights of consistency on your end before they are back to their usual self!

 

Hope this was helpful and don’t forget, for children who are independent sleepers already, I offer troubleshooting calls so that you don’t have to go through this alone!