Why sleepy cues just aren’t a thing for livewires

Macall Gordon, M.A.
Sep 18
3 min read

Have you ever had a moment when you thought to yourself, “I have the world’s first non-sleeping baby. This child is surviving on less sleep than should even be possible. I have tried waiting them out until I thought they would drop, but nope. There is no ‘dropping’ happening. They are just go, go, go.”

Sound familiar? Well, guess what? You’re not alone. For parents of alert, sensitive, intense, perceptive livewires, figuring out naps is one of the toughest daily battles.

The truth is, livewires see “sleepy cues” as a sign of weakness. If you wait for them to yawn or rub their eyes, you’ll be waiting forever. Their bodies keep going, even when their brains are ready for a break. So, if your baby never looks sleepy, it’s not because you’re doing something wrong, it’s because their temperament makes sleep a much lower priority.

Why sleepy cues don’t work

Most parenting books tell you to look for signals from your baby: rubbing eyes, turning away, or getting fussy, as cues that they are ready for some sleep. But for highly alert children, those cues either come too late or don’t show up at all.

Here’s what happens: once a livewire passes that tiny window when they might be ready for a break, their brain gets a rush of stimulating chemicals, like a shot of espresso. Suddenly, instead of winding down, they are rushing headlong into their second wind and that nap is definitely not happening.

This is why:

…keeping them up later doesn’t help. A later bedtime or nap doesn’t make them sleepier, it makes them more wired. Tired children don’t slow down, they power up.
…overtiredness is real. Once they hit that second wind, you’re working against biology, not alongside it.

…short naps are common. If your baby’s sleep schedule isn’t aligned with their internal rhythms, naps may fizzle out after 30 minutes.

What you can do

Know their wake windows and experiment with the shorter side first

I know, I know. You’ll think I’m nuts. Try it. If it doesn’t work or it’s a lot harder, start lengthening the window from there, but parents of livewires usually haven’t tried a shorter window because they haven’t realized that their livewire is tired before they look tired. You can download my Wake Window/Sleep Target Cheatsheet here.

If you haven’t worked on bedtime skills yet, continue to get naps in any way you can. A well-rested kiddo is more important than napping in the crib. Fill up that nap bank in any way you can.
Do whatever you have to to get that nap

Your livewire may need a dark room, white noise, blackout curtains, a magic spell. Don’t worry about “habits” or whether they’ll be “dependent” on it. Who cares? Get the nap.

Contact naps are not the end of the world.If that’s how you can break the overtired cycle at first, DO IT. Work on nap skills later. Sometimes, just getting a livewire to be less overtired can be magic. It helps bedtime and nighttime wakeups.

The “don’t wait for sleepy signals” moral of this story also goes for bedtime. We have to know that their brain is tired even though they refuse to show us that their body is tired. When parents tell me that their child is “low sleep needs,” I always say, “I think they’re just acting like they are.”

With livewires, we have to at least try to get them close to their sleep targets and then accept whatever they’ll ultimately give us. . . but we have to try because their busy brains do need sleep even if they fight it with everything they’ve got.