By around six months, your night-time duties are likely to decrease, as baby starts waking less during the night. But baby sleep habits depend a fair bit on both temperament and sleep routines.
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Baby sleep: how much babies need
Between two and 12 months, babies generally sleep 9-12 hours at night. Most babies aged 7-12 months go to bed between 6 pm and 10 pm.
During the day
At this age, most babies sleep from 2-4½ hours during the day, divided between morning and afternoon naps. Daytime sleeps decrease as babies get older and the awake time between sleeps increases. Your baby could have 1-4 naps, lasting between 30 minutes and two hours.
By the time your baby is six months old, baby might be sleeping for six or more hours at a time. Your baby might still be waking you during the night, but this should be happening less often.
How babies sleep
The make-up – or biological basis – of baby sleep changes between two and 12 months.
In the early months of life, baby sleep tends to be 50% active sleep and 50% quiet sleep. Babies often wake after phases of active sleep.
At around three months, the amount of active sleep decreases. Babies also begin to enter quiet sleep at the beginning of their sleep cycles. At this age, the sleep cycle for babies consists of alternating active and quiet sleep periods of 20–50 minutes each (compared with 90-minute sleep cycles for adults).
By six months, a baby’s sleep patterns are closer to those of a grown-up – which means less waking at night.
By eight months, 60-70% of babies are able to settle themselves back to sleep without a parent’s help. Others will continue to wake if they need help to settle back to sleep, or if their parents are still feeding them through the night.
Your baby’s development and sleep
At around six months, your baby will develop lots of new abilities that can affect sleep. Babies gain the ability to keep themselves awake. At the same time, they’re learning many exciting new skills. The combination of being able to do exciting things and stay awake means your baby might wake more often during the night and be more reluctant to go back to sleep.
You might notice temporary disruptions to baby sleep habits as your baby becomes more physically mobile. Settling difficulties can happen at the same time as crawling.
At around six months, your baby will also figure out object permanence, which means that your baby can remember that things exist, even when they’re out of sight.
This important cognitive development can affect sleep. Your baby used to think that you didn’t exist whenever you left the bedroom. Now your baby knows you’re still there … somewhere. This means that if babies wake during the night, they might call or cry out because they know that mum or dad are there to come to them.
From 6-12 months, it’s also common for babies to begin to experience separation anxiety. This might increase resistance to going to sleep and lead to a temporary increase in night waking.
Once babies are six months old, they don’t need to be fed during the night.
From this time on, you can phase out night feeds and start teaching your baby to go back to sleep without a feed if you want.
Video Typical feed/sleep schedule
This short video has information about typical feeding and sleep patterns for babies aged 0-1 years. It includes the number of feeds babies need over a 24-hour period, re-settling techniques, and support and resources for sleep difficulties.
A rollover feed is a late feed somewhere between 10 pm and midnight. Some parents find that rollover feeds help babies sleep longer towards morning. If this works for your baby, there’s nothing wrong with continuing a rollover.
How baby sleep patterns affect grown-ups
Most parents of babies under six months of age are still on night duty to some degree. Many will keep getting up to their baby at night long into the future. They find that this is OK as long as they have adequate support and other opportunities for sleep.
For other parents, persistent night-time disturbance can have a serious impact on them and their family life.
Like all aspects of child development, the strength of your relationship with your baby, and the quality of your interactions during the day, can affect both the quality and quantity of your baby’s sleep.
And evidence is mounting that the reverse is also true – the quality of your sleep can affect your health and your mood. Being exhausted can make it hard to give your baby positive attention during the day.
If you’re concerned about your baby’s sleep, you might find some useful strategies in our Guide to solving sleep problems. If you’ve tried these kinds of strategies, and there has been no improvement, or the difficulties are starting to cause you distress, seek professional help. There are effective methods to make sure that everyone gets the sleep they need.
Video Baby sleep
In this short video, parents talk about encouraging baby sleep. It includes tips on identifying sleep cues, finding out what helps babies to sleep, and being consistent with sleep and settling techniques. Every baby is different. You might need to experiment to find out what works for your baby.
Baby sleep problems can affect the health of mums and dads. Australian research has found a strong link between sleep problems in babies and symptoms of depression in mothers and fathers
. But the link isn’t there if parents of babies with sleep problems are getting enough sleep themselves.
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