Babies who go to bed too early in the evening might end up with excessive night waking a few weeks later

Does your baby have one of the following sleep patterns? Your little one

• Wakes every hour or more from some time after midnight, with wakes becoming more and more frequent

• Groans and grunts and writhes or stretches, even with eyes closed from the small hours of the morning, so that no-one really sleeps

• Breastfeeds for very long periods during the night, without really going back into deep sleep

• Wakes well before dawn, unable to go back to sleep. Your baby wakes so early that you decide you need to get up (perhaps in despair!) to start the day well before the sun does.

These disrupted sleep patterns, which I refer to as excessive night waking, often arise if your baby is going down too early in the evening.

Baby sleep needs are highly variable, and babies often need a lot less sleep than we might think. Also, around the world, babies tend to go to bed much closer to parent bedtime than in Western societies.

If you have a low sleep need baby, you might be putting your baby down mid-evening, at what seems a sensible time, but your little one’s body clock is still ready to start the day from well before dawn. Often a low sleep need baby gives you the best possible sleep if you put him down quite late, closer to your own bedtime. You’re best experimenting to see what works for you and your baby over time.

Sometimes when a baby is squirming and making noises and not settling into deep sleep from the wee hours of the morning, parents think the baby must surely be in pain. But actually, your little one’s body clock settings have become disrupted. Her sleep pressure is not particularly high and her body clock is not in sync with yours.

Because she no longer has much pressure to sleep, her sympathetic nervous system starts dialling up, as if preparing to start the day – with groaning and grunting and squirming. This activates the gut! You can find out more about this exhausting night-time gut phenomenon here. It's usually find it a great relief to learn that your baby isn't waking or having trouble settling during the night or in the hours before dawn because of gut pain.

But a reset of your baby's body clock is required!