Overtired
Also called over-tired, overtiredness, overtired baby
Overtired describes a baby or young child who has gone past tired and now finds it harder, not easier, to fall asleep. It often follows a missed nap or a late bedtime, and shows as crankiness, hard crying and fighting sleep.
How it's said
He gets really overtired most evenings and then can't get to sleep for hours.
My 5mo won't nap longer than 30 to 40 minutes, so ends up overtired.
If he's not grumpy, he's not over-tired...
Who says it
Not to be confused with
- An undertired baby hasn't built up enough sleep pressure to fall asleep yet. An overtired baby has plenty, but is too wound up to drop off, so both can look like a baby fighting sleep.
Where it came from
Overtired is an old word for overly tired, already in print in an 1855 novel. Around babies it has a narrower sense: a child who missed a nap, went to bed too late or slept badly, and now resists sleep despite being very tired.
Explanations differ. Cleveland Clinic describes a rush of cortisol and adrenaline that winds a too-tired baby up. Anthropologist Helen Ball, director of the Durham Infancy and Sleep Centre, describes what we call overtiredness as an emotional state, such as distress, that blocks sleep even when the need to sleep is strong.