How Much Sleep Does My Baby Need?

One of the most common questions we get is “how much does my x month old baby need to sleep at night/during the day?” We understand that parents want to know the answer to this question because they understand how important sleep is for their babies and want to do all they can to ensure their babies can thrive, but it’s not a simple answer. The amount of sleep an individual person needs is unique to that person, and with babies it’s no different. Today we’re going to take you through some of the guidelines on what to expect from your baby as well as ways to know if your baby is getting the sleep they need, so you can feel empowered as parents to meet those needs with confidence.

What does the research say?

To start us off, let’s talk about what we mean by sleep needs. When we use the phrase sleep needs, we’re referring to how many hours of sleep an individual needs in 24 hours. So if you as an adult need 8 hours of sleep a night to thrive, your sleep needs are 8 hours. Now even with adults, this tends to vary slightly day to day, for the same person, but generally speaking we know that on average people need a certain amount of sleep every day to thrive. When we surveyed our audience, we found that for adults, the amount of sleep they needed to thrive varied between 6-9+ hours, which already shows us that there’s a range of sleep needs depending on the individual. This is also consistent with the recommendations of the National Sleep Foundation that adults sleep 7-9 hours a night.

When we look at the needs of our babies, we can see that there is still a range of what is recommended, and what each baby needs to thrive. The national sleep foundation recommends that 4-11 month olds sleep between 12-15 hours of sleep, but that 10-18 hours may be appropriate for some children. That is to say that on average, babies need about 12-15 hours of sleep in 24 hours, but some babies need a bit more or a bit less than that average. The recommendations for newborns is slightly higher and the recommendations for toddlers is slightly lower, but they are all still ranges. See the full recommendations from the National Sleep Foundation here.

Determining Your Baby's Needs

We know that sleep needs are a range and that some families have children with higher sleep needs than others, so how can you determine how much sleep your unique baby needs? First, let’s start off by acknowledging that your baby most likely is falling into the recommendations. When we know that anywhere from 10-18 hours of sleep may be appropriate, it’s likely that your baby is hitting those totals already, so let’s try to take a little bit of pressure off of sleep to get us started.

Next, let’s take a look at your baby’s behaviour during their wakeful time. Generally speaking, is your baby able to play and take in things from their environment in a fairly regulated state? Now, there may be days where they’re extra fussy from teeth or development, or they may seem fussy as they approach nap or bedtime, but we just want to look at them generally, do they seem fairly content? If so, that gives us a good indication that they are probably getting the sleep they need.

We can continue to do a check in on their sleep needs by looking at their behaviours when they’re falling asleep. Does sleep come relatively easily to them? Are they able to fall asleep with support within 10-20 minutes or so? If so they’re likely sleeping at the right times. If not, they may need to sleep a bit later or earlier depending on what’s happening when you’re trying to put them to sleep.

Finally, we can look at their nighttime sleep patterns for signals too. Are they sleeping from bedtime to morning wake with reasonable ease? Babies will wake at night but should be able to return to sleep fairly quickly with a bit of support through the night. Or are they waking up for a couple hours in the middle of the night or waking for the day really early? These can both be signs that we need to reassess if they’re getting enough sleep OR if we are expecting too much sleep from them. Remember that some babies thrive with only 12 hours of sleep in 24 hours so if we’re asking our babies to sleep from 7-7 and do 3 hours of naps, they’re going to be up for a bit in the middle of the night, simply because they don’t need to sleep as much as we think they do.

A Look at Recommended Schedules

This brings us to a very important point. Most of the recommended schedules and average sleep needs you find on the internet are not based on the babies who are on the lower side of average when it comes to sleep needs. It’s actually easier as a sleep coach to schedule the needs of a higher sleep need baby than it is to schedule the needs of a lower sleep needs baby because higher sleep needs babies don’t need to stay awake quite as long, which means they’re less likely to become overtired, which can make sleep a bit trickier too. So a lot of the schedules you’ll see online will paint a beautiful picture of the “ideal” baby because they’re just easier to create a rhythm for.

As an example, you may see a schedule for a 9 month old baby that recommends the following:

7am wake

10-11:30 nap

2:30-4pm nap

7pm bed

Sounds dreamy right?

Let’s take a closer look at it. The baby in this schedule is sleeping 12 hours overnight plus 3 hours of naps. This means the baby who can do this exact schedule needs 15 hours of sleep in 24 hours, which is the upper range of the recommendations from the national sleep foundation. So if you have ever been frustrated that your baby just can’t fit the schedules you’ve found on the internet, remember that it’s the schedules that don’t work because they’re asking too much, it has nothing to do with your baby! It’s so normal to feel frustrated that your baby isn’t meeting the needs of the schedule you found online, but it becomes much easier when you can acknowledge that those schedules are just for a different sleep need baby.

Putting it All Together

If instead, you watched your baby’s cues, picked up on when they were sleepy (or wrote down their general sleepy window if they don’t show sleepy cues clearly), and adjusted your day to your unique baby or toddler, you would likely have much more success. You could watch their general mood throughout the day to give you a good idea of if they need more sleep or if they seem to be thriving with the amount of sleep they’re getting and then look at it a bit deeper with the general ease with which they fall asleep and stay asleep. We hope that you feel empowered to trust your baby to know when they need to sleep and yourself to know what’s best for your baby. You’re doing an amazing job and your baby is likely already getting the sleep they need!

Categories: Normal Infant & Toddler Sleep, Schedules, Sleep Needs, Sleep Science, Sleep Without Sleep Training