How to Get Baby to Sleep Through the Night
You may have thought you were prepared for the little amount of sleep that comes with having a newborn. However, after a few months of having your baby, you may have not even had four hours of uninterrupted sleep! Not everyone can handle months and months of sleep loss- just like babies, adults have different sleep needs.
If you’re having trouble dealing with the sleep loss but you’re not quite ready to make changes to your child’s sleep habits, check out this blog for sleep tips for new parents to work on your sleep first!
If you are ready to tackle your little one’s sleep, then this blog will cover:
what sleeping through the night means
when will my baby sleep through the night?
are night wakings normal?
what you can do to encourage longer stretches of sleep
What Sleeping Through the Night Means
Sleep scientists have monitored infant sleep, using electrodes, actigraphs, and continuous video and audio recordings. They’ve confirmed that babies experience multiple arousals and awakenings at night.
For example, in a study using actigraphs, researchers found that 6-month-old babies didn’t sleep continuously for more than about 72 minutes at stretch,
There is a conception (or even a standard) on social media that sleeping through the night means sleeping 7pm-7am with zero wakings or interruptions. However, this is not true, most babies NEVER sleep 12 hours straight through the night. (In fact, sleeping 12 hours is more of the exception than the norm, especially without feedings).
But what if we interpret “sleep through the night” in a different way? To mean something like “maintaining mostly continuous sleep, without parental intervention, for a period of at least 5 or 6 hours?
Another meaning of “sleeping through the night” can be a baby who wakes up in the middle of the night, needs intervention but does NOT need a feeding.
Or, it could mean a baby sleeps through 10-12 hours without needing any intervention from a parent. It’s really up to you to define what that means because that definitely affects your perception of their sleep and your goals for their sleep. Being realistic is the first step in infant sleep!
This blog covers the research about night time wakings by age.
So if we interpret “sleeping through the night” as “sleeping non-stop,” this isn’t something that healthy humans do.
Now the idea isn’t that your baby never arouses or awakens. Instead, we focus on the more realistic expectation that your baby will learn to handle night wakings on his or her own.
When Will my Baby Sleep Through the Night?
This blog covers the research about night time wakings by age.
This is an excerpt:
0-2 months: most parents report several night time wakings (this would be in the normal category because newborns eat frequently even throughout the night)
3-5 months: most parents report at least one night time waking, 50% (or more) of parents say their longest stretch of sleep is around 5 hours (this study too!)
6-12 months: most parents report at least one night time waking (though many claim their babies sleep for more than 10 hours at night) (Also, more than 15% of parents reported that their 12 month old babies hadn’t yet slept 5+ hours)
12-24 months: most parents report 5 night wakings in a week
Fun fact: one study found that babies 6-12 months woke up, on average, about 3 times during the night. Yet many parents with babies this age report only one waking per night.
This study found it’s normal for infants this age to awaken 3-4 times each night. But many babies have learned to fall back to sleep quietly on their own, so that their parents aren’t even aware that their infants had awakened.
The fact is that most babies will still wake at least once a night in the first year to signal parents for intervention.
Are Night Wakings Normal?
Yes, night wakings are a biological norm and survival mechanism. Throughout the night, we cycle through many sleep stages and have many wakings to check that our environment is safe and then we can fall back to sleep. Back in our "cave man" days, waking frequently throughout the night to check out the environment was how they literally survived-- by verifying that nothing had changed and they were safe to return to sleep.
When we are working on sleep training, our goal is not to completely eliminate night wakings but to give your baby the tools he or she needs to return to sleep independently…. When they the tools they need to successfully put themselves back to sleep when they wake in the middle of the night, that is what is considered “sleeping through the night.”
Should you expect your baby to be completely quiet through the night? NO! Your baby can be sleeping through the night but still babbling, cry out, or even say words… just like us adults do!
What you can do to encourage longer stretches of sleep
There are a few factors in your control that can encourage longer stretches of sleep at night:
optimal sleep environment (cool and dark room and white noise)
consistent bedtime routine.
sleep timing
sleep training can also positively affect when babies sleep through the night without intervention from parents
Sleep training is a huge umbrella term for a large variety of interventions that basically boil down to helping children be more independent with sleep, in order to increase sleep quality and quantity for the whole family.
There’s a misconception that frequent wakings are important to form an attachment/bond with a child. However, that’s not how secure attachment works as babies who signal during the night don’t have a more secure attachment than babies who don’t signal throughout the night.
Did you know temperament is also a factor? Easy-going babies will have an easier time with sleep, it’s just a fact!
Some other helpful blogs to read:
If you need any help with your little one’s sleep, we offer several options for that! Check them out here.
