How much sleep does your baby need?
How much sleep does your baby need?
As a new parent, this is probably one of your biggest questions. Here are some guidelines about your child’s sleeping patterns at various ages. Please note that every child is different and sleeping may vary up to two hours.
Age: 1 week
Day Sleep: 8 hours
Night Sleep: 8 1/2 hours
Total: 16 1/2 hours
Age: 1 month
Day Sleep: 7 hours
Night Sleep: 8 1/2 hours
Total: 15 1/2 hours
Age: 3 months
Day Sleep: 5 hours
Night Sleep: 10 hours
Total: 15 hours
Age: 6 months
Day Sleep: 3 1/4 hours
Night Sleep: 11 hours
Total: 14 1/4 hours
Age: 9 months
Day Sleep: 3 hours
Night Sleep: 11 hours
Total: 14 hours
Age: 12 months
Day Sleep: 2 1/4 hours
Night Sleep: 11 1/2 hours
Total: 13 3/4 hours
Age: 2 years
Day Sleep: 2 hours
Night Sleep: 11 hours
Total: 13 hours
Most children need lots of sleep. But it is amazing just how different babies can be. Some will sleep for hours on end. Others hardly seem to sleep at all. There’s no such thing as normal when it comes to sleeping babies.
All guides to babies’ sleep patterns are just that – a guide. You know your baby best. If he is awake and happy, he has had enough sleep. If he is awake and unhappy, he may need more sleep.
Bedtime Routine
Babies love routine and it won’t take long for him to understand what is expected. A typical bedtime routine might look like this:
1. dinner
2. bath time
3. short playtime
4. last feed of the day (breast or formula)
5. nappy change
6. quiet time with you in his bedroom (reading a book or telling a story)
7. into the cot while singing a lullaby such as Rock-a-Bye Baby
8. say goodnight
9. lights out or night-light on (whatever he is used to)
A few Baby Sleep tips
- You can help your baby to associate darkness with sleep by minimising activity, noise and light when you are feeding or changing her nappy during the night.
- A milk bottle in bed is not a good sleep aid as it can cause illness if milk goes down the wrong tube. As babies get older and develop teeth, it can also cause severe tooth decay if milk pools in her mouth while she sleeps.
- Stay flexible. No single approach will work with all babies all the time or even all the time with the same baby. Don’t persist with a failing experiment. If the sleep routine isn’t working for your family, drop it and develop a nighttime parenting style that works for you.
- Learn Tired Signs. None of us like being kept awake when we are craving sleep, so rather than waiting until your baby is ‘past it’, put her to bed as soon as she shows sleepy signs such as becoming quiet, losing interest in people and toys, and fussing. If you miss this opportunity, your baby is likely to become grumpy and find it difficult to settle.
- A Magic Touch. Silent nights could be at your fingertips: Research has shown that infants and toddlers who were massaged daily for one month, for 15 minutes prior to bedtime, fell asleep more easily by the end of the study.
- The calming, repetitive sounds of traditional lullabies recall the ‘womb music’ your baby heard before birth (your heartbeat, etc). Baby music that incorporates elements such as the rhythm of the maternal heartbeat or ‘white noise’ has remarkable soothing effects, especially if played continuously through the night.
