Baby / Infant sleep Guide

Congratulations on motherhood.

What a joyous and enriching journey you are embarking on …and you’ve probably done heaps of reading up but a few more facts won’t hurt when it comes to sleep patterns.

How long should baby sleep for?

A first point: Don’t forget that sleep deprivation is a form of torture for both mother and baby, so it’s important as soon as you get home to establish a sleep routine and you will find that baby will respond positively and settle in for consistent sleeps. And that means you can regulate your sleep as well so you won’t be too fatigued, and your partner should be pleased about that too!

Newborn babies sleep between 16 and 18 hours, with the number of awake times during the day 4 with about 1 hour up for each, and add some settling time, and then a longer sleep overnight of course ….with a feed!

The Huggies™ website states that babies aged 3-6 months have 2-3 sleeps per day, with the average time up between sleeps being 2-3 hours, with a settling time of 1 hour, and overnight sleep of 6-8 hours.

At 6-9 months, it’s 2 sleeps during the day with average time awake 2-3 hours between sleeps, and around 10-12 hours sleep overnight.

At 9-12 months the number of sleeps per day is 1-2, with average awake times between sleeps 4 hours, and around 1 hour to settle down to sleeps, with overnight sleep of 10 to 12 hours.

Infants have no concept of sleep

so it is important that you routine their sleeps. They love repetition. And try and avoid your child crying on. Children whose cries are responded to quickly will develop better. Allowing a child to cry for increasing longer periods is a risky practice, but of course crying is a normal stage of their development … but don’t delay the response because mother may happen to be ‘too busy’.