When will my baby sleep through the night?
Fact Checked
15th May 2024
This article, written by Cate Hope, from Peaceful Nights, our exclusive sleep consultant in Maidstone, is all about when we can expect our babies to sleep through the night. In this blog, Cate discusses what sleeping through the night is, how to get our babies to sleep through the night, what age you can expect them to sleep through the night, and more.
What is sleeping through the night?
Sleeping through the night is something that parents long for, and I think what people describe as ‘sleeping through’ can vary from family to family.
Most of us would expect to put a baby to bed at around 7-7.30 pm and most healthy babies over the age of 6 months are capable of sleeping around 11-12 hours a night.
So if you put your baby to bed at 7 pm and they wake at 6 am that would be considered to be a full and normal night’s sleep.
How to get Baby to sleep through the night?
To get your baby sleeping through the night, start with a good bedtime routine. This could include bathing your baby or giving them a wash, making sure their nappy is clean and brushing teeth.
You could use this time to apply any lotions or cream.
Then when your baby is getting sleepy, put them down awake so that they learn to self-settle to sleep.
This is the key to good night time sleep, for your baby to be able to fall back to sleep by themselves, or self soothe, when they stir in the night.
What age can you expect your baby to sleep through the night?
For the first few months of our baby’s life, we expect them to wake in the night, they need to be fed regularly as their immature digestive systems can only cope with small amounts of food.
But as they grow our little ones gain weight, and are able to sustain themselves for longer periods at night.
How much sleep a baby needs varies, but from as early as 3 months, some babies start sleeping for stretches of 4-6 hours. From 5-6 months many babies can sleep for 7-8 hours and many babies over 6 months old can sleep for between 11-12 hours a night.
What might prevent my baby from sleeping through the night?
There are a few things that can stop your baby from sleeping through the night, but it’s often a sleep association that will cause this. Sleep associations are things like rocking, cuddling, or feeding your baby to sleep and this can cause nighttime wakings.
As most people know when we sleep we go through various sleep cycles and in between we come into a light sleep. During this time, although we are often unaware of it, we wake up.
When we do we tend to need to recreate the same conditions that were there when we fell asleep at bedtime so that we can fall back to sleep again.
Let’s take rocking a baby to sleep as an example. For us as adults, we fall asleep at bedtime with very little in the way of props, no one is rocking us to sleep!
But if that’s what your baby is used to at bedtime then it’s likely that rocking will be their method of falling asleep, and most little ones will need that same rocking method put in place in the night so that they can fall back to sleep again.
This means that any sleep association your little one has are likely to cause wake-ups during the night.
What age should I encourage a bedtime routine?
For the first 3 months, you will probably find that bedtime varies depending on your baby’s feeding schedule, so it’s harder to keep bedtime to a regular time.
Around 3-4 months old is a good time to start implementing a bedtime routine, we know that babies who have a good routine at bedtime tend to fall asleep more easily, and sleep better at night.
There are two things that are important to create a good routine, firstly try to make sure that the time you put your baby to bed is consistent every night, this allows your baby’s body to be ready for nighttime sleep and helps them fall asleep easily.
Secondly, make the last part of your bedtime routine the same each evening, babies feel safe and secure when they know what’s going to happen next.
This is more important than what you actually do, some babies enjoy a massage for example but others find it’s too much at bedtime.
Try to find things your little one finds calming at bedtime, stories are always good and our little ones are usually taking it in even if it looks like they’re not listening!
Will a sleep regression affect my baby sleeping through the night?
The short answer is yes!
The four month sleep regression is usually the tricky one, when our baby’s sleep cycles move from newborn sleep to adult sleep-most parents feel this one.
After that sleep regressions can be caused by nap transitions and developmental milestones, although some babies sleep isn’t affected.
Although this can be frustrating when your baby was previously sleeping through it’s all a natural part of development, make sure you don’t start any bad habits during this time and your baby will usually start sleeping again once the regression is over.
During the first few weeks of your baby’s life, and during a sleep regression, it is recommended to sleep when your baby sleeps, so you get enough rest.
Contact Cate Hope – Peaceful Nights
If you found this article valuable and would like to work with Cate to ensure your little one enjoys a restful night’s sleep, please don’t hesitate to reach out to her through the contact methods provided below:
Website: https://www.peacefulnights.net/
Email: catehope@icloud.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/catehopepeacefulnights
Instagram: Cate Hope Sleep Consultant (@catehopesleepconsultant) • Instagram photos and videos
Cate Hope is an OCN qualified sleep consultant with over 30 years experience in childcare offering sleep solutions for bedtime, night time and day naps. She believes in tailoring her sleep solutions for each individual child and has successfully sleep trained hundreds of babies and toddlers. She is passionate about helping parents and their little ones achieve a good nights sleep.
