Babies need a lot of sleep. At this point in their lives, their brains and bodies are doing a huge amount of learning and growing, which uses a lot of energy and requires a lot of rest.
Exactly how much sleep a baby needs depends on their age and the individual baby. It’s essential not to compare your child’s sleeping patterns with another’s, or panic that they’re not sleeping exactly as guidance suggests is normal for their age. Each baby develops at their own pace and will eventually settle into a regular sleeping pattern.
Newborns can sleep for up to 18 hours of the day, and even at 5 years old they can need up to 13 hours’ sleep over a 24-hour period.
At what age will my baby sleep through the night?
When they are born, babies usually wake up every 2 -3 hours, but sleep for longer periods of time as they get older. By the time they start school, they may be sleeping through the night or having one short nap during the day. Don’t worry if your child still naps after school as they get older, particularly if they are active or growing fast.
Establishing a good bedtime routine can help children to get more of their sleep at night and nap less during the day, but you can’t rush nature.
The natural process that tunes us to sleep at night is called a circadian rhythm. This is a cycle of physical and mental processes that repeats every 24 hours and is part of the body clock. Babies don’t begin to develop a circadian rhythm until they are several weeks old.
How can I encourage my baby to sleep?
Establish a bedtime routine
Establishing a bedtime routine can help to calm your baby, set your baby’s body clock and get them to associate this routine with it being time to sleep.
Their bedtime routine could include:
- Feeding
- Cuddles
- Having a bath
- Reading a story
- Singing a lullaby
- Turning on some white noise or a music box
- Turning on a ceiling mobile or night light
Establish a nap routine
A nap routine could be similar to a bedtime routine but a shorter version of it.
Stick to their cot
Methods like taking them for a drive can work but shouldn’t be used regularly, they need to learn to go to sleep in sleep surroundings. They should be on a firm, flat surface, not sat up or at risk of you squashing them. If you want to rock them, it’s better to have a rocking cot than use your arms.
In case of emergency
Sometimes babies will have nights when they can’t get to sleep, as anyone does. Babies tend to react to this discomfort by crying, so if they are having a particularly bad night, using soothing tricks can be harmless.
These could include:
- Rocking them in your arms
- Taking them out in the car
- Using white noise from apps or machines
- Swaddling
- Baby massage
Sleep training
Self-settling vs signalled settling
Self-settling is when babies are left to get themselves to sleep. Signal settling is when you help them to get to sleep, which in turn makes them associate your soothing actions with it being time to go to sleep.
As with every aspect of parenting, there are different schools of thought as to whether you should help babies to get to sleep, not help at all, or somewhere in between.
Some common sleep-training methods are:
Cry it out method
The cry it out method, or extinction method, is when you put your baby in their cot and leave them to go to sleep, regardless of how much they cry and without any further support from you. The idea is to get babies to sleep independently, and you put them down to sleep when they are sleepy but not asleep.
Controlled crying method
You let your baby cry for a set amount of time before going to them and gradually increase how long you leave them. They should get used to getting to sleep on their own.
Chair method
With this, you let your baby settle themselves in their cot, but sit next to them in a chair when they’re asleep. Each night, you move the chair a little further away until you are no longer in the room.
Bedtime fading
This involves gradually shortening their bedtime routine until you get to a point where you can just put your baby in their cot when they’re drowsy and they will go to sleep happily on their own.
Should I respond when they cry in the night?
When babies wake during they night, they will often sniffle and cry for a minute then go back to sleep. If you attend to them the second they start crying, this can wake them up fully so it’s often better to wait a few minutes before responding to their cries.
Often they will wake briefly, cry for a minute then go back to sleep on their own. Attending to them the second they start crying could wake them up fully.
When it comes to attending to babies who have been wailing for a few minutes and show no signs of settling on their own, again it’s really up to you and your chosen parenting style.
Attending to your child when they cry in the night can promote attachment and build their trust. They can have reasons for crying that need attending to, like needing a feed or nappy change, and can become very stressed if they cry for too long.
On the flip side, it can be detrimental for your baby to learn that crying can get your attention without fail, especially if you take them from their cot each time.
The check and console, or Ferber method, can provide a healthy balance. In this sleep-training method, you always check on and reassure your baby when they cry in the night, but never feed them (if it is not an allotted feeding time) or take them from their cot.
Finding time for you to sleep
Lack of sleep is one of the hardest things new parents face. It’s essential to look after your own health as well and ensure that you get enough sleep.
You can help yourself to get enough sleep by:
- Dream feeding, which is when you strategically feed your baby before you go to sleep, not them. As with other routines, this should be at the same time every day
- Sleeping when your baby sleeps
- Establishing shifts with a partner
- Make time for you to relax and unwind
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