Sleeping Issues

Sleeping Issues

Did you know that sleep consultants regularly refer to naturopaths?

It’s common for babies and toddlers to have trouble settling to sleep by themselves. The most common causes of poor sleep are temporary things like coughs and colds, ear infections, sore tummies, teething, or developmental milestones. This seems simple enough, but when bub is sick more often than not, then all of a sudden they’re teething again, you find that these ‘normal’ causes of frequent wakings have become too frequent to continue.

Dealing with broken sleep is one of the challenges we face as parents. You don’t realise how debilitating long nights of broken sleep can be until you’re trying to live with it. While frequent waking can be expected in the early days, persistent sleep problems can impact children’s development and parental health. Your wellbeing matters amongst all of this as well! It’s important for everyone to get the right amount of rest, so if the frequent wakings seem excessive and your little one struggles to resettle it’s important to reach out for help.

Difficulty falling to sleep, inability to maintain sleep, frequent waking, difficulty falling back to sleep and early morning awakening are all presentations of sleep disturbances and can be early signs of childhood insomnia. Significant distress or impairment in daytime functioning can indicate that a lack of sleep is starting to impact a child’s health and wellbeing. Daytime fatigue, low energy, cognitive impairments, mood disturbances, and behavioural problems are all symptoms of inadequate sleep quality and quantity.

Sometimes, sleep issues could be a sign of a bigger issue. In these situations, we often need to dig a little deeper to identify the problem so we can resolve it once and for all.

We know that disturbed sleep in children of all ages interferes with overall health and functioning in many ways – energy, learning, and behavioural. Identifying any underlying factors can be the missing piece of the puzzle.

Nutritional deficiencies can make sleep difficult for children. Nutrients such as iron and magnesium are needed by so many different tissues and organs as children grow, it’s no wonder that deficiencies are so common. I usually find that if mum was iron deficient during pregnancy, it leads to iron deficiency in bubs. Insufficient levels of vitamin D, magnesium and iron are associated with poor sleep in childhood. Both iron and magnesium deficiency leads to restless leg syndrome, so if you have a picky eater or your child has recently undergone a growth spurt, their nutritional status may need to be reviewed.

Circadian rhythm disruption can result from long-term sleep issues. Light exposure after sunset from TV screens, iPads or phones can negatively affect sleep. These devices emit blue light, which interferes with the production of melatonin in the evening, while also exciting the brain at a time when we want to calm it down. Nutraceutical therapy with specific chemical forms of magnesium, lutein and zeaxanthin can help to restore circadian rhythm and reduce the effect of blue light exposure, while also supporting muscle relaxation and improving sleep quality and sleep duration.

Frequent wakings are a painful memory for me, I’m not the kind of mum that can survive on minimal sleep. I’m a naturopath, I had big parenting plans involving cosleeping, attachment parenting and breastfeeding. This all went out the window within weeks of having my first baby. I was exhausted. Breastfeeding was hard and it just didn’t work out for us. Unfortunately, it took a long time to process the mum guilt and gain the confidence to trust my instincts. Once we settled into sleep training, formula feeding and addressing the particularly fun combination of colic and reflux, life got easier.