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It’s a good question…
It’s a frustrating question…
And everyone seems to have an opinion about when your baby should be sleeping through the night. The answer is different for every baby and every family. I’ve heard of babies sleeping through the night from 3 weeks of age. I heard about 2 and half year old toddlers still waking a few times during the night. Although, there are some general guidelines every baby is different and every family is different. You might have ideas about when you would like your baby to sleep through the night, but your little one might have other ideas. Also, some babies learn to self-settle really easily and sleeping through just happens naturally, some babies need help to learn the skills to sleep longer, and some families are happy and comfortable to wake for feeds during the night for as long as they want. Every family and every baby is different so the expectation of when your baby will sleep through the night is different.
What I don’t want to do with this article is tell you when your baby ‘should’ be sleeping through the night. I don’t want to do that because I feel it’s a really personal decision and a specific age shouldn’t be thrust upon parents. What I will do is provide you with some guidelines about readiness in different ages so that can make up your own mind and feel confident with your choice to help you baby sleep through the night when you are both ready.
0 to 3 Months
Occasionally you hear of those lucky mothers whose baby sleeps through night from the beginning. It happens, but its rare. Generally babies in this age range still need to wake during the night to feed. They are still small, their tummies are tiny and they need filling back up during the night. It is entirely normal and natural to be up a few times a night to feed on demand.
Night time Expectations
In this age range babies might wake 1 to 4 times during the night for a feed. They may sleep for stretches lasting 3 to 8 hours at this time. This is a time for feeding on demand during the night and allowing your baby to get the calories they need to grow and develop. Even though some babies may naturally sleep through the night here, many don’t.
What Helps
1. A 10pm Awake Feed
If you would like to help encourage your baby to sleep longer stretch at night you can introduce an awake feed. This is a great strategy for mom and dad to work on together. To keep up a good supply of milk moms need to get lots of rest. At 10pm awake feeds is a great way to help mum get some good hours of sleep in, and for dad to lend a helping hand. With this strategy mom, dad and baby all get a good long stretch of sleep at the same time. Here’s how it works
| 6pm- 6:30pm | After your wind down routine and a feed put your baby to bed |
| 8pm- 9pm | Mom can express a bottle and then head to bed early for a good rest. This bottle dad uses for the 10pm awake feed. It’s a really good idea to use milk expressed at night for night feeds as it contains higher levels of lovely sleep hormones. |
| 10pm | Dad unswaddles baby and gives them 10 minutes or so to wake up. Turn the lights on the low and give baby half a feed. Change you baby and put them on the mat to have a little kick and play. |
| 10:30pm | Then turn the lights down low and swaddle your baby again. Give them the rest of the feed, a nice cuddle and a little shush pat if they need it to help them fall back to sleep. |
Although everyone’s experience is different getting enough sleep is developmentally essential for both children and parents. There is nothing pleasant about feeling exhausted and sleep deprived for you or your child. If your child isn’t getting enough sleep at night and during the day, get some help. It’s amazing how you will both feel waking up in the morning and realising you’ve slept the whole night.
2. Swaddle your baby
Make sure your baby is swaddled, this helps to calm your baby and make them feel snug, safe and secure. It’’s also helps to inhibit the Moro Reflex which can wake your baby as they are just falling asleep.
3. Use White Noise
White noise is a great way to calm your baby and provide a great environment that in conducive to sleep.
4. Darkness
Make sure the room is pitch black, this helps to stimulate the sleep hormone melatonin which your baby starts to produce around 8 weeks of age.
What’s doesn’t
1. Cry it out sleep training methods
This is a time when babies need gentleness and lots of hands on settling methods. Their circadian and biological rhythms are not yet developed so babies at this age are really not capable of self-settling. They need lots of love, cuddles and hands on settling
2. Switching to formula to encourage longer night sleep
There is no evidence to support the idea that giving a bottle of formula at night will help your baby to sleep longer. In fact sometimes introducing formula to an exclusively breastfed baby can upset their tummy and cause more night wake ups. However, if you have a dwindling milk supply in the evening and are struggling to give your baby a full feed, supplementing a bottle of formula may help to make sure your baby is properly fed before bed. Also its not a good idea to add baby cereal to bottles in an attempt to fill them up before bed.
4 to 6 Months
This is a times of great development for babies. While some babies will sail right through this age without a blip and continue to sleep wonderfully, other babies can start to wake every 2 to 4 hours overnight. Again neither is wrong, bad, and your not failing as parents, this is just a time when your babies sleep cycles mature into 4 stages of sleep plus REM sleep. This maturing can very often cause babies to wake frequently during the night.
This is also a times when many babies begin to sleep through the night. When I say sleep through the night I mean from 10/10:30pm to 7am. Many still might not be ready, especially exclusively breastfed babies. Mom might not be ready to wean night feeds, but this is a time when some babies are physically ready.
Night Time Expectations
Many babies in the age rage will still have 1 to 2 feeds overnight. If you baby is feeding efficiently during the day, taking a dream feed at 10:30pm and weighs 6.5kgs or over at 12 t0 16 weeks you can encourage them to sleep through the night. This means sleeping from 10:30pm – 7am. However, regardless of weight your baby may have a dreamfeed at 10:30pm, a feed at 3am and wake at 7am and you can all be really happy.
What Helps
1. Dream Feed
By 16 weeks of age we can employ the use of a dream feed to help encourage your baby to sleep through the night. The awake feed we were giving during the newborn stage becomes a dream feed now. You can still follow the same process, but this times don’t unswaddle your baby to wake them. Just give them a nice top up feed while they are sleeping, to help them be able to continue sleeping through to 7am. However, if you don’t want to give a dream feed you might find that your baby wakes naturally at 12/1am for a feed and then heads back to sleep until 7am. Either is perfectly fine, it is down to your family preferences and what works better for your baby.
2. Sleep Sac
If your baby has started rolling it’’s time to move out of the swaddle and into a sleeping sac. A swaddle is no longer safe to use if your baby rolling and by this age their moro reflex has disappeared so developmentally they no longer need their swaddle. A sleep sac is a positive and independent sleep association to introduce to your baby. It helps them to stay at a pleasant temperature the whole night through (stopping early morning wake ups from getting cold) and becomes a cue to your baby that it is time to sleep.
3. A Good Bedtime Routine
If you haven’t already now is a great time to start a solid bedtime routine that your child will carry into their toddler years and beyond. Make bedtime a calming and positive time.
4. Gentle Sleep Training Methods
If your baby is having trouble with excessive night wakings and no one is getting enough sleep then sleep training might be what you need to help your baby learn to sleep better. Gentle, hands on, in-room methods work really well at this age.
5. Starting Solids
At some point during this time your baby will be showing signs they are ready to begin solids. This is an interesting one as it can both help and hinder your babies sleep. Be sure to introduce new foods at lunch time so potential upset tummies don’t impact night sleep
What doesn’t
1. Excessive night feeding
This can happen so easily and so naturally. Your baby is going through the 4 month regressing and waking every 2 hours overnight. Naturally, to help them fall back to sleep you nurse them. This worked really well while they were newborns. In the short term it can work well here too. Feeding is calming and comforting and helps your baby fall back to sleep. However, what can happen is that your baby starts to develop a feed to sleep association. This means every time they wake during the night, they will look to be fed back to sleep. There is nothing wrong at all with this approach until it’s not working for mum or baby. Excessive night feedings can also cause tummy aches and inadvertently influence your baby to take the majority to their calories at night and not during the day. Some gentle sleep training is a great way to help your baby change their feed to sleep association for a more independent one.
2. Not enough day sleep
Another this that can happen at this age is the emergence of catnapping, or not enough naps. Not getting enough day time sleep, can make your baby overtired and overtired babies actually wake up more during the night.
6 to 12 month
At this stage it becomes even more personal and individualised. I have had clients ready to help their baby sleep through at 6 months, and others who were happy to be down to one feed night at 9 months. The best idea at this stage is to tell other people to mind their own business and go with what works for your family. If you have a happy healthy 10month waking for one feed a night, their happy and your happy, well there is no problem.
Night Time Expectations
If you baby is heavier than 7kgs, feeding adequately during the day, both milk feeds and solids they may be ready to sleep from 7pm to 7am. However, many are still not ready for a while yet. Between 6 to 9 months your baby may genuinely still need a feed at night. After 9 months you may of course still give your baby a night feed, but the night wakings are probably for a reason other than hunger.
What helps
1. An age appropriate day time routine with adequate sleep
2. Starting solids
3. A good bedtime routine
4. Using a sleep training method that fits with your family
5. A good sleep environment that is dark, cool and with white noise
6. Introducing a lovely – a small toy or blanket that is a comfort to your child while sleeping
What doesn’t
1. Not getting enough day sleep
2. Excessive night feeding
3. Too much solids and eating at the wrong time
12 Months +
Do babies still wake up at this age, of course. Is it normal, is it ok? What is normal anyway? My normal is different to yours, and yours is different to someone else as well. It just comes down to what is working or not working for you and your family. If your child wakes twice a night and your happy and they are happy, then there is no problem. If you child is waking twice a night and you are all miserable, well lets do something about that.
Night Time Expectations
At this age your child is generally both developmentally and physically able to sleep through 12 hours a night. They are able to get all their caloric needs met during the day.
What Helps
1. A good day time routine with adequate sleep
2. A diet increasing in solids and a variety of food and decreasing in milk. It should be more food than milk from 12 months.
3. A good bedtime routine
4. A sleep environment conducive to sleep
5. Role play for bed times
6. Sticker charts for good sleep behaviour
What doesn’t help
1. Children who get overtired
2. Late bedtime
3. Not enough naps
4. Too much day sleep
This is a question and a topic that can cause parents a lot of discomfort and even judgement. The question “Is your baby sleeping through the night?” Can feel likes its loaded with judgment, and that your failing because your baby doesn’t sleep through yet. The intention of this article is not to make you feel this way. The intention of this article was to help you have realistic expectations of when developmentally your child is actually ready to sleep through the night. Their readiness might develop naturally at 6 weeks, it might never develop naturally and you as the parent might seek to help them learn to sleep through, or you may not. What works for your family and is normal for you, is not normal for someone else. So instead of asking a mum “Is your baby sleeping through?” Ask “How is your beautiful baby?” “How are going momma?”
Although everyone’s experience is different getting enough sleep is developmentally essential for both children and parents. There is nothing pleasant about feeling exhausted and sleep deprived for you or your child. If your child isn’t getting enough sleep at night and during the day, get some help. It’s amazing how you will both feel waking up in the morning and realising you’ve slept the whole night.
