The 411 on Your Child’s Sleep Needs
Understanding Your Child’s Sleep Needs
Ensuring your child gets the right amount of sleep is incredibly important for their physical, emotional and cognitive development! For infants and toddlers, sleep needs are met through a combination of daytime sleep during naps and overnight sleep. It’s simple math: daytime sleep + overnight sleep = total sleep needs.
How much sleep does your child need?
Your child’s sleep needs will change as they grow – especially in the first year! Download our Sleep Needs by Age Guide, which outlines all of this information by age in an easy-to-digest chart format.
This chart is one of our most used resources and an important part of every A Restful Night sleep plan. Managing your child’s day-to-day is one of the most important elements to achieving predictable, quality overnight sleep. We encourage you to review this chart regularly to assess whether your child is on track in meeting their sleep needs. Keep in mind that the information reflects average metrics – it’s completely normal if your child deviates or their sleep needs skew a bit higher or lower.
Let’s break these down a Bit!
O-10 Weeks: The fourth trimester is all about sleep
Those early days are a lot of the same — eat, poop, sleep, repeat. It is completely normal to feel like your newborn is sleeping all the time because they should be! Newborns need about 16-20 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period. Try to focus on a rhythm during the day and aim for your baby to take a nap every 45-75 minutes. It’s normal for naps to be inconsistent at this age, just be sure to wake your baby to feed if it’s been 3 hours since their last bottle or breastfeeding session. Our newborn rhythm document is a great resource for helping you to establish some structure to your day!
3-4 Months: Sleep patterns are changing
This is a time where sleep needs are starting to change and it’s important to monitor how much daytime sleep your baby is getting! On average, we want to see 4-4.5 hours of daytime sleep and 11-12 hours of sleep overnight (with feeds as needed). Your baby should be on a 4 nap schedule managing wake times of 90-120 minutes between sleep sessions. It’s normal for there to be variability to your day since many infants at this age still have short naps and need some sleep training to establish their sleep skill. Get the full 4 month schedule for easy reference!
5 to 7 Months: Time to get onto a schedule
Your infant should be on 3 naps and may be showing you they can stay awake longer between sleep sessions — upwards of 3 hours by the time they are 7 months old! 6 months is a great time to establish a set schedule, meaning naps are occurring at the same times each day (within reason). Sleep needs change a couple of times during this time frame, so it’s important to adjust your baby’s schedule each month! For example, at 5 months your baby should be getting 3 naps totaling 4 hours of sleep, and at 7 months 3 naps totaling 3.25 hours of daytime sleep. The 4-7 month schedule bundle breaks down the daily schedule for each of these months.
8-9 Months: Say hello to the two nap schedule
This is a big milestone! Moving to two naps is a relief for everyone and opens up some time in your day to really enjoy being with your baby! Total daytime sleep should be capped at 3 hours to ensure you preserve 11 hours of sleep overnight. Try your best to “anchor your naps” and avoid moving them too much day to day. You may find that when your baby moves from 3 to 2 naps bedtime gets a little earlier — this is normal! Get the full 8-9 month schedule download to ensure you kick off this transition on solid footing.
10 to 14 Months: Small tweaks can make the difference
By 10 months old, you’ve made it through a lot of sleep needs changes and schedule tweaks. Sleep needs tend to level off quite a bit at this age and the hope is that you are on a predictable schedule with consistent naps and overnights. At this age, we want to cap daytime sleep at 2.5 hours and ensure we are giving ample awake time of about 4 hours at the end of the day to build sleep pressure for the night ahead! Our advanced two nap schedule breaks down three schedule options for naps. The two-to-one nap transition is right around the corner!
18 Months to 2.5 Years Old: Down to one nap
By this time, your child is on one nap, which should be centered in the middle of their day (usually starting around 12:30-1:00pm). At this point the nap is still important to ensure your child stays rested during the day but it is important it not be too long where it compromises overnight sleep! If you are struggling with early wake ups, the first place to analyze is the nap to make sure the timing and placement in the day is correct! The one nap schedule guide is a great sketch of what your day should look like.
3 Years Old and Beyond: Prioritize overnight sleep
By 3 years old, your child needs about 11-12 hours of sleep in a 24-hour period. This entire amount can technically be achieved overnight, so it’s not uncommon for toddlers to start dropping their naps. Paying attention to the schedule is important at this age because you don’t want an undertired or overtired child going into bedtime (read: stalling or meltdowns).
Sleep needs and sleep schedules are a little bit art, a little bit scientific but if you focus on the total amount your child needs and always prioritize 11 hours of sleep overnight you’ll be in great shape!
Need more than a guide? Let us help.
If your child is experiencing sleep challenges and you could use more guidance, please reach out for a consultation call. We are here to support your family’s journey to a more restful night.
Meg O’Leary is an Infant and Child Sleep Expert and the Founder of A Restful Night. She and her team offer sleep training support to families worldwide.
