When I took my initial deep dive into the infant sleep world, I quickly stumbled upon the term, wake windows.  Wake windows are everywhere.  Perhaps you’ve already heard of them yourself.  If you haven’t, wake windows refer to the amount of awake time your little one has in between sleep periods.  So, everything in between like diaper changes, feedings, tummy time, walks, and nap and bedtime routine counts as awake time.   But what isn’t commonly talked about is that wake windows have an expiration date.  

I welcomed my daughter in November 2021.  Leading up to her arrival, I felt pretty confident that my experience as a pediatric Nurse and Pediatric Nurse Practitioner would make for a smooth transition to parenthood, so I never really felt a need to read the “what to expect” books.  I did after all spend two years in grad school endlessly studying infants and children and was at the time practicing in Developmental Pediatrics.  Wasn’t that enough preparation?  No, unfortunately, it was not.