If your baby or young child truly does not sleep, not just waking a couple of times, not just has an off night here and there, but genuinely struggles to get restorative sleep, you are probably overwhelmed with advice and still desperately exhausted.
You have likely been told that sleep training is the answer, or on the flip side that it is just a phase and you should soak it in because it will pass so quickly. Both of those messages completely miss the reality many families are living in.
Because what people do not talk about is what you actually do when your baby really is not sleeping.
Not when sleep is hard in a normal way, but when your baby wakes constantly, cannot sleep flat, struggles during teething or illness, or seems unable to settle for more than minutes at a time. In those situations, generic advice is not only unhelpful, it can feel isolating and dismissive.
Before anything else, it is important to say this clearly: Some babies are not sleeping because something deeper is going on.
Underlying health or medical issues like reflux, airway challenges, oral ties, iron deficiency, allergies, neurological differences, or chronic pain can significantly impact sleep. Periods of teething and illness can also completely derail rest for weeks at a time. If your baby is waking constantly, screaming in pain, unable to sleep flat, or never seeming rested, those are red flags worth paying attention to. I will link my red flags blog post here so you can read through the signs and see if they line up with what you are seeing in your own child.
And even if you are actively working on health concerns, there is still a very real question that no one prepares parents for.
What do you do in the meantime? When your baby is really not sleeping, and so neither are you?
Because you still have to function, be able to care for your children, and get through the day.
This is where the conversation needs to shift, because chronic sleep deprivation is not just hard, it is an emergency. It impacts mental health, emotional regulation, physical healing, and your ability to parent safely and effectively.
So instead of asking how to fix sleep right now, a more important question becomes this:
How do I protect my sleep while we are in this phase?
For me, the answer was realizing that I needed a system, not more advice.
Two of my three babies did not sleep flat or next to me in bed for the first three to six months of their lives. They were also extremely sensitive to teething and illness, which meant sleep disruptions were intense and often prolonged. There were nights when my babies slept for only five to ten minutes at a time, all night long. There were stretches where I simply did not sleep at all.
Without a system, everything else fell apart, my mental health suffered, and I could not cope.
A system does not mean perfection, and it does not mean that sleep suddenly becomes easy. A system means protection. The goal is not eight uninterrupted hours, it is survival.
The question I learned to ask was very simple.
How can I get at least four uninterrupted hours of sleep?
That four hour stretch can make a massive difference in mental health and basic functioning, and once that became the priority, everything else became secondary.
When my babies were younger, this meant having very direct and honest conversations with my husband about what was actually happening at night. Not that I was tired, but that I was not sleeping. We planned together instead of hoping things would improve on their own.
Our system looked like this. We all went to bed early, usually around 7:30. He got an uninterrupted stretch of sleep at the beginning of the night. Then he woke up at 3:30 and took over completely so I could get a block of rest. That was often my only chance to sleep. The system was in place until I felt we had exited out of the hardest phases of sleep.
Was it ideal? No.
Was it necessary? Yes!
As our children grew, the system changed. We recently had to implement a plan again with our toddler after several nights of extreme restlessness. On the hardest night, she would not sleep longer than five to ten minutes at a time, and I did not sleep at all until 3:30, when I woke my husband to take over.
This time, we flipped the system. I went to bed around 7:00, and my husband stayed with our toddler. I planned to wake up around 2 or 3 in the morning to take over the second shift. Same goal, four uninterrupted hours, just a different structure. Thankfully, this time around was short lived, and we only needed to implement that system for a couple of days (versus several months during the newborn phase).
Your system does not have to look like mine.
Maybe your partner takes the first half of the night and you take the second. Maybe your partner supports you during the day so you can nap. Maybe this is a season where a family member comes to stay with you, or where you cut into your budget to hire nighttime help because you do not have a partner available.
This might also be a season where you say “no” to evening plans, “no” to social time, and “no” to together time after bedtime. When sleep is scarce, you have to protect it. That means going to bed early, turning off your phone in the evening, practicing good sleep hygiene, eating well, and creating as much calm as possible at night.
It will not be perfect, and it is not meant to be.
What matters is recognizing that severe sleep deprivation is not something to push through indefinitely. If your baby or child is not sleeping, you need support, and you need to figure out how to get an uninterrupted stretch of sleep. You need a plan and system that prioritizes your ability to function.
Because when you are rested enough to think clearly, you can advocate for your child, address underlying issues, and actually survive the season you are in.
If you’ve ruled out infant sleep red flags, and you are wanting support shift sleep patterns that no longer work for your family, grab one of my comprehensive eCourses, such as The Infant Sleep Foundations eCourse or the Toddler Sleep Foundations eCourse. If you’d prefer 1:1 support, you can book a call or support package.
