Does Your Child Have Low Sleep Needs? One Mom Says She Feels Your Pain

My daughter has low sleep needs. What does that mean exactly? Well, she can sleep for less than the American Academy of Pediatrics-recommended amount of time for her age and still have more energy than I do after eight full hours.

She can go, go, go on such a low amount of sleep with no slowing. She very rarely gets cranky from lack of sleep too, which is great, but my husband and I have about three years of sleep debt that we may never get back because of our five-year-old’s low sleep needs. We’re dead to the world, and it’s hard to keep up!

One mom feels this pain deeply, and trust her, she’s tried everything to get her low sleep need kid to hit the hay.

“If you have a kid with low sleep needs, you’ll get this. If you don’t, you’re God’s favorite,” Amanda Talijan jokes in her viral TikTok. “Congratulations, you won.”

“My child, no matter what I do, his need for sleep will always be low. Like, he can run off of like seven and a half, eight hours, kill it, tear shit up, take the world, and conquer it. He can also not nap, like at all, during the whole day, and he will be fine until 6:45 p.m. Like, fine. Not the happiest, but he’s fine.”

After several attempts to get her child to sleep longer, Talijan seems to have accepted her fate, and she does not want your advice on how to help.

“I am choosing to see it now because I’ve done everything I could do. I read everything. I listened to everything. I’ve tried everything. I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to know. There’s nothing to know. I even went as far as trying to give him a banana before bed because it has potassium, magnesium, and all that shit, okay? I’ve done the stuff,” she assured before choosing to look on the bright side of her kid’s low sleep needs.

She’s also focusing on the bright side — with a side of humor.

“At this point, I’m like, ‘Wow. If this carries on throughout his life, think about how unstoppable he’s gonna be. F*cking legend. Wow, incredible. He could literally run like six companies if he can sleep like five, six hours a night. I don’t know. I’m looking at the bright side, but I don’t know if I’ll be here to see it because sleep is a basic human need and I just don’t foresee myself getting any for the next, I don’t know, at least 15 years.”

Talijan shared her struggle because she wants other parents to know they are not alone if they have a kid who doesn’t need a lot of sleep.

“…if you’re on the same wave, boat, whatever, we’re in this together and we’ll get it when we can and these children will be extremely successful because think about how successfully you could be staying up for that many hours,” she concluded.

Talijan’s comment section was filled with parents affirming her strife, noting they, too, are on “Team Low Sleep Needs.”

“So refreshing to be on this side of TT where your baby doesn’t sleep. So tired of hearing “my baby sleeps 12 hours all night”. Not my baby. Up all night hates naps. I feel you!!” one user wrote.

Another said, “I just daydream about when my boys are teenagers. They will either sleep in or they will be old enough to walk around the house unaccompanied by me”

“THIS 🙌🙌🙌… all about perspective right?!?! We are in the same boat as you guys with our 15 month old little boy as well 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫,” another shared.

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) recommends the following sleep amounts by age:

• Ages 4-12 months: 12-16 hours (including naps)
• Ages 1-2 years: 11-14 hours (including naps)
• Ages 3-5 years: 10-13 hours (including naps)
• Age 6-12 years: 9-12 hours
• Age 13-18 years: 8-10 hours