The sleep habits of young babies is influenced by a number of factors including:

• temperament,
• age, and
• health.

How Temperament Influences Your Baby’s Sleep Habits

Your child’s temperament, his personality, plays a huge role in his sleep habits. No two infants will experience the same level of comfort or discomfort during their “babyhood.” If you were to compare two otherwise healthy infants, you may find that one baby is easy-going and quiet, while the other is an infant tyrant. The difference? Temperament.

Some children are naturally easier to get along with, they like to cuddle and be rocked, they enjoy the occasional lullaby, and they find joy in going for walks in a stroller. Overall, they appear to be happy and calm most of the time. These children are the “angels” of the world. They sleep longer hours at an earlier age, they fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer. Consequently, they get plenty of rest, which helps them to be happier when they are awake.

Other children may, in varying degrees, be harder to handle, they may dislike being cuddled and sung to, they may not enjoy walks in a stroller or rides in the car. In fact, they will find a reason to complain about everything in their world. My third child, John, when he was old enough to talk, told me he hated the lullaby I always sang to him when he was an infant (I was always singing it because he was always crying). Such babies will be unhappy most of the time, no matter what you try to do for them. Thus, their sleep habits will be harder to figure out and work with. But it will get better, I promise.

Ages and Stages Affecting Sleep Habits in Infants

Just as a child’s personality plays a role in their sleep habits, so does their age. Children develop at a phenomenal rate during their first year. Such rapid development affects their sleep habits at every age; and the younger they are, the quicker their sleep habits change. Translation: You will experience an unreliable—maybe even unpredictable—sleep schedule. In fact, your baby’s sleep habits will likely change every month for his first year, and maybe longer.

It is important for you to believe—and I mean, REALLY believe—that this is normal for your infant. The sleep-deprivation you are experiencing today is transient, fleeting, temporary. As your baby grows, he will start sleeping better and longer, and this difficult phase will come to an end. Sleep habits will normalize for both parent and child. …More about infant sleep stages.

The Important Role of Health In Your Infant’s Sleep Habits

I’ve often wondered how the Roseola virus (a/k/a baby measles) found its way into my house. Like a heat-seeking missile, that germ can easily locate little infants to infect no matter how careful you are!

Your baby’s health will definitely affect her sleep habits. But, remember, she may not sleep well even if she’s not sick (see the sections above on temperament and age).

For purposes of this section, baby’s “health” includes teething, in addition to the usual colds, viruses, bacterial infections, and other more serious health issues. I’ve added teething as a health-related issue because teething affects infants in the same way that illness does. For example, babies develop fevers and runny noses, and their tiny developing immune systems become weakened and more susceptible to other illnesses.

When your baby has an illness, she is not going to sleep very well. If her nose is stuffy she can’t breathe comfortably; if her throat hurts from breathing through her mouth she will awaken more frequently; she may have a low-grade fever that makes her ache all over; her tummy may be upset; if she’s teething, she will have the added misery of tender gums. Consequently, she might not want to eat, which only makes it harder for her to sleep. She complains more because she is miserable. All you can do is try to make her more comfortable and wait it out with her. (My son, John, began teething before he was four months old—and he teethed continuously for the next six months!).

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