After spending nine months in a dark (and sometimes noisy) womb, your newborn has established her own sleep cycles, which feel natural to her even if they seem strange to you. Just as she lets you know she’s hungry at any time of the day or night, your baby’s sleep patterns may seem random at first, sometimes changing from one day to the next.
Babies aren’t born knowing how to put themselves to sleep when they’re tired or how to wake up when they’re well-rested. This is all learned behavior. If your newborn sleeps like a vampire all day and is up all night long, or if she’s exhibiting other common infant sleep patterns like frequent night wakings, restless sleeping or early waking, it’s all completely normal. Her sleep patterns will evolve as she grows.
In the meantime, your baby's erratic sleep patterns may mean that no one in the family is snoozing very soundly. Right now, there’s probably only a sliver of light at the end of the tunnel, but it will grow brighter!
Here’s what parents should know about newborn and baby sleep patterns.
Baby sleep patterns by age
Newborn to 3 months
First, the good news for exhausted parents: Newborns sleep a lot, 14 to 17 hours a day, or about 70 percent of the time. But those snoozes come in random bursts of slumber. Your baby is not on any kind of schedule, at least not yet.
That doesn’t mean you can’t help your little night owl get some rest. Here are parents’ most common newborn sleep complaints and tips for solving them:
- Trouble falling asleep. Your baby might be battling bedtime because she doesn’t love her crib (rocking in your embrace is so much nicer), or isn't comfortable being placed safely on her back. If that’s the case, try putting her down drowsy but awake in a snug swaddle with a pacifier, which can help her feel safer.
- Frequent night waking. Breastfed babies will need to nurse every two to three hours in the beginning, and bottle-fed babies every three to four hours, so don't expect more than a few hours of sleep at a time. Hopefully your newborn is sleeping in your room, in her own bed, so you don’t have to go far to feed her. If you’re just too exhausted to keep getting up to nurse or give her a bottle, ask your partner or another caregiver to take over feeding duties sometimes so you can catch up on your rest. If your baby is older, keep in mind that gurgling and cooing at night doesn’t always mean she needs to eat, so leave her for a little while and see if she falls back to sleep on her own before rushing in. And make sure your little one is awake before picking her up for the next feeding session.
- Fussiness while sleeping. If your newborn doesn’t seem to get the deep sleep she needs, she might not be completely comfortable — even if her crib is perfectly appointed. Think about it: The womb was dark all the time, so she may be confused if there's light or activity around her. The solution is to make her environment as womb-like as possible for now, with blackout shades and a white noise machine to encourage dozing off. Check the room temperature too. The ideal room temp for babies is between 68 and 72 degrees Fahrenheit, no matter the season. A chilly room can wake your baby up, whereas a too-warm room can be a risk factor for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).
- Refusing to sleep. Just because your newborn doesn't want to fall asleep doesn’t mean she's not tired. She is. Very. But being overtired can rev her up and make it that much harder to get to bed. The best way to get ahead of an overtired baby situation is to learn your child’s sleepy cues. Some infants rub their eyes with their fists, yawn or get extra fussy. Yours might do something else as a sign that it’s time to rest. If the trouble continues, check to make sure she’s also getting enough daytime sleep during her naps. A lot of that all-important dozing needs to happen during the day to prevent a sleep deficit.
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4 to 11 months
By 4 months, some babies will sleep for about five to six hours at a stretch. But that doesn’t mean yours has settled into a predictable cycle. If your baby is still fighting sleep, waking early or confusing night and day, it’s time to review her sleep habits.
You can start sleep training your baby when she's 4 to 6 months old. Before that happens, try organizing your days around her sleep and wake patterns, which can help her put in longer stretches of quality sleep. Here are the top sleep problems for babies in this age range and tips for how to solve them:
- Trouble falling asleep. If your baby is cranky at night, chances are something's bothering her. Try a quick comfort check before putting her down: Is her belly full, is her diaper changed and is she wearing a super-soft, tag-free sleeper? Review her sleep environment as well. Make sure the TV is off, limit interactions and be as quiet as you can around the crib. If you do need to feed or change her, keep it low-key. Speak in a quiet, calming voice and avoid doing anything that might stimulate her.
- Frequent night waking. Your baby still needs plenty of sleep, but less than she did as a newborn with longer stretches at night. If she’s up in the middle of the night and doesn’t seem cranky, she simply might not be tired. If this is the case, try cutting the length of her daytime naps. While naps throughout the day are an important part of your baby’s development, shortening super long snooze stretches during the day can help her sleep for longer at night. Note that just because your baby wakes at night doesn't mean she’s ready to start the day. She might just be crying to burn off some steam before she goes back to sleep.
- Fussiness while sleeping. Once night falls, help your baby associate darkness with restful slumber by turning off lights where she sleeps and in the hallway outside. Also, check the room temperature. You feel restless at night when it's too cold or too warm in the room, and so will your baby, so make sure the room is between 68 and 72 degrees. Finally, don’t let sudden noises keep her up. A white noise machine can help block out intrusive sounds.
- Refusing to sleep. If your baby doesn’t want to go down, she's tired — but maybe not relaxed enough to give in to sleep. The solution is to ease into bedtime with a soothing routine that offers plenty of time to unwind. Give her a feed and a warm bath, then put her into her jammies. Close the shades, sing and read a book to her, then ease your little one off to dreamland. If that doesn’t do the trick, consider making her days a little more active when she’s awake. Give her plenty of tummy time and room to practice moving her arms and legs. Whatever activity your baby likes is great for burning energy and prepping her for a solid night of snoozing later. Finally, don’t ditch naps. Napping enough during the day helps her sleep better and longer at night.
Baby sleep compared to adult sleep
You know that expression "sleeps like a baby"? You really wouldn’t want to. Your baby’s sleep may seem anything but sound in the beginning. Here’s how infant and baby sleep is different from grown-up sleep:
Duration
You need about seven to nine hours of sleep a night and probably don’t have much time to nap. Your baby, on the other hand, sleeps about 14 to 17 hours in a 24-hour period as a newborn, and when she's older, around 10 to 12 hours at night plus naps.
Quality
Though infants spend much of the day sleeping, it’s not the deep sleep that you might imagine. Active sleep decreases and deep sleep increases with age. Infants sleep restlessly because they spend half of it in REM sleep, a cycle in which dreaming occurs.
In the womb, at 28 weeks, your baby probably spent almost all her time in fussy REM sleep, which explains all that dancing around! Until your baby is 6 months old, she’ll also spend about half her time in non-REM sleep, a deeper, quiet sleep that doesn’t include as much twitching and movement. In comparison, adults spend only about a quarter of their snoozing time in REM sleep and about three-quarters in non-REM sleep.
Night waking
While adults can sleep straight through the night and usually don't notice when they wake up, a baby’s sleep cycle is shorter by design. Her frequent cycling between REM and non-REM sleep and her physical need for overnight feedings mean she’s likely to wake fully or partially several times a night.
The good news is that the older she gets, the more likely she is to soothe herself back to sleep. So while night wakings still happen, you might not even know it.
Sweating while sleeping
When adults sweat during sleep, they assume something’s wrong. When babies sweat during sleep, it's often a sign that they’re sleeping deeply.
While sweating is usually nothing to be alarmed about, make sure when you put your baby down to sleep that she’s not overdressed and that the room temperature is between 68 and 72 degrees. If your baby is warm to the touch and seems like she might have a fever, check her temperature.
How long should you let your newborn sleep without eating?
Newborns should eat as often and as long as they want, so it may be necessary to wake your newborn if she's sleeping too much to meet her calorie and nutrient needs. Frequent feeding is crucial for your newborn’s growth and development. Right after birth, babies lose up to 10 percent of their body weight and need to regain it quickly.
Keep in mind that while infants feed frequently, they usually consume tiny amounts, as little an ounce or two at a time. Portions and sleep times will both increase as your baby gets older. Here’s a typical schedule for guidance:
- Newborns: feed every two to four hours
- 2 months: feed every three to four hours
By 4 to 6 months, babies have generally doubled their weight. Many little ones this age can sleep six to eight hours (or more) at night before needing to eat, and then they'll eat every four to five hours during the day.
How to change a newborn’s sleep patterns
Your newborn’s sleeping patterns are difficult to change, but there's a lot you can do to make her environment more conducive to sleep, including making sure she’s fed with a clean, dry diaper, checking that her room is the right temperature and she's not overdressed for sleep, and avoiding any distracting lights or sounds that could keep or wake her up.
By the time they're 5 months old, about half of babies will be more or less sleeping on their parents' schedule, while the other half will still be up too early, fighting sleep or waking more often in the middle of the night, according to the AAP. In other words, topsy-turvy sleep patterns might be your norm for a while.
In the meantime, you might need to (temporarily) adjust your own sleep schedule to get the rest you need. When your baby is around 3 months old, you can try getting her on a sleep schedule, and when she's between 4 and 6 months old, you can try sleep training if you want to.
Parenting is full of surprises, and your baby’s sleep schedule is no exception. Your little one likely won’t start to establish a regular sleep routine until around 8 to 12 weeks of age, and even then her sleep schedule will probably change, thanks to developmental milestones, travel and other common disruptions.
However, as your baby gets older, she’ll begin to sleep for longer stretches until eventually her sleep schedule will be in line with yours. Hang in there: You will sleep through the night again, and perhaps sooner than you think.
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