Why won't your baby go down to sleep during the day?

What's going on when you can't put your baby down to sleep during the day?

Here are the main reasons why your little one won't go down to sleep during the day. It's not because your baby is resisting sleep, the way you might sometimes hear.

• Your baby is dialled up because he needs to feed (especially if he's younger than six months).

• Your baby’s sleep pressure isn’t high enough yet.

• Your baby is dialled up because he needs a change of sensory motor experience. (The quickest way to check this out is to step outside the front door of your house or apartment block, if you can do it, or even just out onto a patio, and see if he dials down in response.)

Here are reasons which don't explain why your little one doesn't want to be put down.

• It’s not because of reflux.

• It’s not because of gut pain.

• It's not because of allergy.

• It's not because of wind (unless your baby is breastfed and has a true lactose overload.)

If your baby wakes up shortly after you put her down, then she's already taken the edge off her rising sleep pressure, and doesn't need more sleep right now. She cries when she wakes because it's disorienting waking from a daytime nap, and she will immediately want to be in someone's arms.

Your baby has a biological need to be close to your body, which is particularly powerful in the first months of life

Babies don’t like to be put down away from the mother's or the carer’s body for long. This particularly true of young babies in the first months of life, but varies according to personality.

Your baby loves to be up close to your warmth, your heart beat, your breathing, your scent, the sound and vibration of your voice. Your baby will have a biologically-driven hunger for

• The constantly changing visual experience of being carried as you move around with him in your arms

• The sensory motor nourishment of constant postural change in relation to gravity, which he also experiences when you are holding or carrying him.

Also, babies dial up in low sensory environments. No matter how interesting the baby gym or mobile that you’ve installed above the baby’s play mat is, it doesn't tend to hold baby's interest for long. Being inside the home is a low sensory experience for our little ones.

The best way to grow your baby’s capacity to be away from your body when he is awake is to fill up his sensory tank, including with physical contact with a loving adult or older sibling’s body and cuddles, and gradually start experimenting with putting him down. When your baby dials up, pick her up (if you possibly can - I know you won't always be able to). I suggest this to avoid a conditioned dialling up which switches on automatically whenever you put the baby down on the floor or rug or cot. Of course, we can't always respond straight away to our babies, especially when we have older children in the house! We just do what we sensibly can.

Some babies (particularly as they grow older) will lie down on a rug or in the cot inside the house for a time without crying. They are the unusual ones, that's all! Since being put down away from a loving adult’s body when still awake often causes babies to cry, this is usually not a good way to put babies to sleep. When your baby is dialled up, it makes it very hard for the sleep pressure to do its job.

This doesn't mean that you are spoiling your baby, or that you are 'becoming a slave' to your baby, though you might hear these things said. There are other evidence-based ways of approaching baby sleep which make life more manageable over all, not harder. We explore these in The Possums Sleep Program.