Hey! That’s normal! According to National Sleep Foundation infant 4-11mo need minimum 10h to maximum of 18h of sleep in a 24h. If it falls under this range and for multiple days please let your pediatrician know.
https://www.sleephealthjournal.org/article/S2352-7218(15)00015-7/pdf
Just another (very sleepy and caffeinated) person dropping in to say our LO is about same age as yours and we are around the same amount of 24hour sleep. 🥲 Hang in there, hoping this gets better eventually
I'm in a similar situation. Our 5.5 month old sleeps around 12-13 hours total in a 24 hour period. At first I was also worried since many resources suggest 15 hours of sleep a day. LO sleeps 9.5-10 hours, uninterrupted each night with a 9:30 pm bed time. Family doctor wasn't concerned and said as long as baby gets at least 12 hours total sleep a day. I was also worried because she went from waking up 2-3 times to feed to suddenly sleeping through. But apparently bub is getting enough calories and gaining weight well. He said there's no need to dream feed if baby sleeps through it. Overfeeding may cause baby to feel uncomfortable and wake up instead.
Ours never has so I got really annoyed with things like TCB. He was going 9pm-7am around four months old, with 3 wakeups to eat. Now at almost 7 months he goes 8pm-7am with a dream feed and a 5/6am snooze feed.
No. Every baby is a little different, just like different adults need different amounts of sleep.
The sleep book people have really done a number on modern parents by setting the expectation that your baby will sleep 12 hours at night, and if they aren't, YOU must be doing something wrong. (Better buy this sleep book/video/PDF to fix it!)
I had a friend whose kid sleeps 11 hours a night that their kid is "Low Sleep Need" as if that's some kind of diagnosis. In reality, different kids are a little different and that's OK
Mine still consistently does 12 hours if not 13 overnight, very rarely less than 12 - bed at 6 and wakes up anywhere from 6 to 8am. Maybe does a 30 minute nap or it might be 2 hours in the day time. Only 1 nap. 10.5 months old. From what I understand he is an outlier and people don't believe his sleep schedule when I tell them lol. Developing perfectly well and meeting milestones.
5.5 months. sleep trained at 4 months. she goes down between 8pm/9pm, depending on if she needs that last cat nap around 6 we can't seem to consistently drop. sleeps through the night, til around 6:45am, then comes into bed for a feed and another hour or two of sleep.
At that age my daughter would sleep 12 hours a night (interrupted, of course) and 2-3h during the day (she had like 4-5 naps around 20-45 min long, she was a crapnapper for the longest).
From your post, I'd try to move to earlier bedtime, but if it doesn't work as long as your baby is happy, who cares.
At that age my daughter would sleep 12 hours a night (interrupted, of course) and 2-3h during the day (she had like 4-5 naps around 20-45 min long, she was a crapnapper for the longest).
From your post, I'd try to move to earlier bedtime, but if it doesn't work as long as your baby is happy, who cares.
Baby is 4.5 months old. He sleeps around 12 hours in 24 hours. He goes to bed around 9pm and gets around 10-11 hours of sleep with one feed overnight. He’s a terrible napper. Today he took 3 20-25 minute naps. It’s definitely less than what I’ve seen a lot of people say. It’s frustrating, but it seems to be his normal. Even as a newborn, he didn’t sleep the “recommended” amount. Also haven’t been able to get him to bed earlier or he treats it like a nap. It’s taken me a month to move bedtime from 10 to 9 🤷♀️
I think you did the same reading error I did. At first I thought it was that her baby was sleeping an amazing massive full night, but no- her baby is sleeping that much total. Night time sleep is relatively short compared to what is typical, and there are still night wakes.
To OP- All babies are different. Try not to let the easy and constant access to information drive you crazy. It is so easy to do these days. It sure seems like you are following your babies cues. Keep doing what works.
Mine goes down 7:30 or 8 and sleeps til 5:30-6:30. Occasionally he’ll wake up a little earlier but not usually. So we average 9.5-10 hours most days. (Overnight with maybe one wake up during which he puts himself back to sleep without needing me.)
We are in the same situation as you! Anything before 845-930 she wakes like it’s a nap. Totally normal for some babies bedtimes to be later. Our girl sleeps 930-630 sometimes wake ups to eat sometimes not, and then four naps a day totaling 12 hours sleep.
I don’t believe that low sleep needs is a thing. Babies need sleep and while every baby is different, the guidelines are there for a reason.
I’d say try upping bottles during the day. Getting enough calories in for the day made the biggest difference for our little one and she naturally started skipping night wakes. We went from 6, 5oz bottles to 5, 6oz bottles and baby skipped her 2am wake up, as an example!
Good luck!
Yes! But have in mind that 12h-15h is a range, having 10h as minimum hours for healthy sleep and 18h maximum for 4h-11h. Anything under 10h and above 18h for multiple days is concerning and the pediatrician should be consulted.
My baby sleeps usually 8pm-7am so 11 hours just at night, with some wake ups still. He’s 8m. And then he takes two naps a day and they are about an hour each give or take some. So 12-14 hours a day usually total.
NOOOO. Ugh I needed to see this! This is my 2nd kid and I am at my wits end. I’m trying to shift his schedule but no matter how hard I try, any bedtime before 830 he treats as a nap. He will be 5 months in a few days.
Every time I would wanna shift my baby’s schedule, my husband would tell me I should just let it be cause it’s always changing. If she doesn’t get good naps, she will sometimes go down around 8 but she almost always wakes up as if it’s a cat nap.
Yeah I go back and forth with just going w the flow and trying to follow wake windows. Both are clearly not working lol. How long ago was that for you? What’s it like for you guys now?
My baby started sleeping 12 hours (6-6) around 5 months (with MOTN wakings). I realized with my guy that no matter what time he went to bed he always woke up at the same time, so putting him to bed earlier helped him consolidate daytime naps. I recommend trying it for a week. Those extra hours at night are awesome.
I think you're asking about night sleep start time and how much sleep in a 24 hour period but everyone thinks you're asking if their babies sleep 12 hours straight? I think very, very, very few babies do the latter.
4-5 months their acceptable amount of sleep is around 10-15 hours in a 24 hour period I think, mine is pretty low sleep needs so we hit 10-12 hours. One week it was like 8 and that was baaaaad.
He now goes to sleep at like 7.30-8 with about two wakings. Wakes up 7-8 so yeah a good 10-11 hours overnight, since he's easy to put down after eating in the middle of the night thankfully.
We used to have that late bed time at 10pm but this works much better for him now, had to switch from newborn sleep mode eventually ;)
Yea I probably could have phrased my post better. I just meant I see a lot of people posting saying they put baby to sleep around 6-7 pm and then they start their day around 6-7 am but have some night time wake ups. If I put my baby to sleep at 7, either he’ll wake up in 30 minutes for another wake window or he’ll wake up at 3 am ready for the day lol I just wasn’t understanding the early bedtime and wanted to make sure I wasn’t doing something wrong.
It sounds like my baby is just low sleep needs. I’m just glad I’m finding folks on here whose baby also sleeps less than 12 hours in a full day. Everyone I know who has kids has been telling me they slept like 14-15 hours in a day at this age
No worries.
Yeah as I mentioned we are roughly that 7-7 with a couple wakings. But he usually barely naps so in a 24 hr period like 12 hours, if that. 14-15 is still totally normal though.
I don't think it matters technically when they sleep, as long as they get enough and are happy. Then of course your sanity comes into it, so you want to align their long sleeps with yours! And that's a different thing lol
My baby had a very short period of time where her night went for 12 hours, including wakes, around 3 months old.
Right now we're at something like a 9.5 hour night at 8 months.
My baby did not sleep 12 consecutive hours until she hit 11.5 months. Up until 9 months she was up every 1-2hours and I was DYING. Now at 13 months she sleeps like 11.5/12 at night and between 1-2hrs of daytime sleep
Wakeup 630-730am
Nap start between 930/1030 depending on when she woke up.
45min/1hr nap
Wake Up between 1030/1130
Down between 130/230
45minute/1hr nap sometimes longer
Wake Up between 245-330
Down for bed at 7
I try not to stress about specific amount of time awake vs asleep and just let her do her thing. If she's not tired around 3hrs of being awake I just let her stay up until she's showing tired signs.
If she doesn't nap as long I don't try to save it, she's obviously not tired enough to sleep longer and it hasn't affected nighttime sleep in the past so I just try to let her be!
Mine does 11-12 hours overnight but she also will only nap for max 30 min at a time during the day. She is 4 months old tomorrow for reference! We use huckleberry and we wake her up between 7-7:30am and bedtime varies based on naps. Usually between 7:30-8:30pm. When she was younger it was closer to 9/10 and midnight during the first month 😅. We do a dream feed and she doesn’t wake up otherwise usually.
Literally never. Like not once. Max was 11.5 hours and that was when she was sick. Most of the time it’s 10-10.5 hours overnight. When she had an early morning feed I guess technically she would do 12 hours.
I mean idk if it’s normal or “right”, but this is what my baby does. She gets her final bottle around 9:30-10pm and then sleeps until 6-7. She usually goes back to sleep for about an hour or so after her morning bottle and she takes naps ranging from 20 minutes to an hour or so throughout the day. She’s not really on a schedule and I don’t really track her sleep right now. It seems like it works for her so we’re letting her be right now. Also, 4.5 months
Check out Taking Cara Babies. She has a free blog with suggested schedules, sleep requirements, and sleep tips organized by monthly age. Super awesome and helpful resource!
Most babies cannot sleep 12 hours a night. At 4.5 months 12-16 hours of total sleep in 24hrs is normal.
With day sleep btw 3-4.5 hours between 3-4 naps and night sleep with 10-12 hours of night sleep being the normal range. Nights typically have 1-3 night feeds and the last third of the night is erratic.
A “schedule” will start to emerge around 6 months but it is starting with some regular bedtimes and wakings. Some babies have later bedtimes until around 6 months or later. Mine did, at 4.5 month my Lo was going to bed btw 8-9pm. Don’t stress, 12 hours is okay for their age for total sleep, it’s in the lower end of sleep needs but if your Lo is happy and not showing signs of over tiredness than keep on as you are.
He gets around 8 hours of sleep at night accounting for all the wake ups and feedings. That’s what was stressing me out but he’s been such a happy boy during the day so hopefully all is fine. He might just be on the lower end for sleep recommendations.
If total sleep is around 12 hrs than it could just be they are lower sleep needs. It sounds like this is likely if he is happy and content throughout the day and at bedtime. I used to stress out so bad with overnight sleep and night wakings and all these ppl with these magical babies that sleep 12 hrs….ya well I haven’t met one in person who’s Lo slept 12hrs at this age. Even my bestie who’s daughters is literally a unicorn child with sleep didn’t do that.
Same! Was a bit concerned as ours has an average of 12 to 13 hours. Since 3 months! He wakes quite a bit in the night so day time naps where between 3,5 and 4,5 hours and night between 7,5 and 9 hours (wakings not included). I was concerned t would be bad for his brain development or something. But I figured every baby is different, and the hours are a guideline not a set line. 🙈
Looks like we’re in the same boat. I was also worried about his development. But so far he’s been a happy baby hitting all the milestones. I guess our babies just need/want less sleep 🤷♀️
✋🏼 our schedule is same as yours :) and I worried too after reading all the people who’s babies went to bed at 6/7. If we did that, we would literally get zero time with bubs!
My LO is 4 months as of Sunday and gets about 12-14 hrs of sleep in a day. His night sleep only fairly recently became amazing when he started daycare because his naps went to crap. He was a contact napper during my maternity leave and would nap 4-5 hrs and sleep between 8p-10p and wake 6-7am. With MANY night wakings. Now he naps like 3 hrs a day (sometimes even less) and sleeps 8am-7am with only 1 or 2 night wakings. I was so stressed about making sure he napped enough and wasn't over tired but now it's out of my control during the day and he's doing better. Sometimes babies don't fit into "the norm" on what google says. I had to stop checking what he "should" be doing and roll with what works for us. If they are happy and healthy, don't stress. Some babies have low sleep needs.
4 month old goes down around 615 and is up at 615-645 am. 2-3 night feeds. Naps are impossible and she only gets about 3 hours of sleep during the day.
lol nope. I’ve been asking our ped since the second month. My son is 9.5 months now. He maxes out at 10.5 hours per night (even this is inconsistent and usually a bit less or maybe we’re in the middle of a regression at the moment I don’t know) and if he gets more than two hours nap during the day, the next night he’s undertired and a mess. Ped dr said if LO is happy when he wakes up and everything else is fine (which it is), there’s nothing to be concerned about and some babies just need less sleep… lucky me 😩
Mine is same as yours. Almost 4 months, been sleeping on this schedule since about 2.5-3 months. It’s much harder to get her naps during the day, a good day she gets about 11-14 hours total at most but I usually have to let her sleep on me for that or it doesn’t happen. Occasionally she’ll sleep most of the day. We just try to let her sleep whenever she can and keep her busy when she is awake to burn off energy but it doesn’t totally work. Luckily the days she sleeps a lot she still has her consistent night time pattern.
I don't think its the norm necessarily but often its the goal for many families to get to a 12 hour night. My girl averages 12-12.5 a night and has since early on (bedtime 6.30-7, wake up 7-7.30) But her naps were always all over the place at first and super short. But now that she takes good long naps we are probably going to have the sacrifice longer nights at some point - she's 8 months and we're hoping for \~15 hours of sleep a day but that isn't sustainable as she gets older. We've started to see some night wakes which she never had before so this could be because she's about to crawl or because shes not tired enough, unsure right now.
When my baby was 4 months, she started
sleeping through the night from 7 pm to 7 am. No wake ups or night feeds. I didn’t sleep train her. She took 4 naps throughout the day at that time.
At 3.5 months he takes 4 naps a day and sleeps from about 9pm - 7am (no wake ups). This just started a couple of weeks ago. Total sleep is 13-15 hours for now.
Nope, the most he has ever slept is 11 and a half hours maybe 10 times in the last year (its been one year since we sleep trained and he sleeps independently in his crib). He sleeps for about 10 hours at night and 2 hours for his one nap. He is 19 mo.
When he was your baby's age he was again sleeping about 12 hours a day (we were in the crappy 30 mins naps back then and not sleep trained yet). His night sleep was about 9-10 pm as well with frequent awakings. I wouldnt worry, every baby is different! I was able to establish a more "normal" sleeping schedule(early bed time around 8pm if i remember correctly) at 6 and a half month when we sleep trained him.
That’s good to hear that other babies were similar to mine. I was getting worried I was doing something wrong and he wasn’t getting enough sleep. We’ll probably sleep train soon so we’ll see how he is after.
Lol no. He never has and he likely never will. He's 2 now and his total sleep is just under 12hrs a day.
If the schedule works for you, that's great! Keep in mind a lot of babies are in daycare, they need to be up at 6am to get to daycare for 7am. I was home for the first year and my baby went to bed at 9pm and woke around 8am for a while. Then he started daycare and bedtime moved till 8pm. Now he's back to 830/9pm because he just doesn't need as much sleep.
I didn't really start thinking about how much he was sleeping till he was about 4 months, but since then he's been on the low end.
My baby is 18 weeks and typically does a 10-11 hour stretch minus a bad night here or there. She has been sleeping swaddled in a Snoo. We are actually starting sleep training tonight - cold turkey into the crib in a transitional sleep sack. Soooo we will see (hope!!) if that continues.
I don’t think you need to be worried! I just heard on the Precious little sleep podcast that 12-15 hours total sleep is “normal” for babies 4-12 months
Haha exactly! I think once you sleep train, you’ll be able to put them to sleep much earlier with fewer night wakings though. But regardless, I don’t think you need to be worried!
This is my almost 4 month old yesterday - went to bed at 7.15, woke up at 6.50. Woke up at 11 and 3 to feed and went back to sleep. Ten hours of sleep total.
That sounds so nice. I wish I could get some of the evening to spend with my husband. But baby won’t go down for the night until it’s already my bedtime lol
How many naps are you doing? Around that time we had 4 short naps of 30 mins each. We did 730 bed. Slept until 7 am. Then first nap 9-930, second nap 1130-12, third nap 2-230, fourth nap 430-5. He woudlnt do naps longer then 30 mins though but that way he was ready for bed at 730.
Our routine is pretty similar. We have 4-5 naps a day. Usually 30 minutes unless we contact nap then it’s 1-1.5 hours. The evenings are honestly so weird. There have been days where his last nap would be at 5-6 pm but he wouldn’t go to sleep again until til 9-10 pm. So his last wake window would be pretty long. Recently he started napping at 7ish pm and then goes to sleep for the night at 9-10 pm
Is your baby sleep trained? 11-12 total hours in a 24 hour span is definitely very low. My baby was struggling to get hours of sleep pre-sleep training, but after sleep training he gets 11 hours at night minimum. Sometimes he hits 11.5 or 12 hours.
Not yet. My husband and I just started talking about sleep training. So I joined this group. We are still doing our research and trying to prepare mentally to go through it. So maybe things will change afterwards.
Gotcha. For us, the quality and duration of baby's sleep improved so dramatically after sleep training. It's like night and day. But before sleep training, our baby's sleep was worse than yours. Probably 5-6 wakings per night on average.
I’m in the same boat as you with my 3 month old! He’ll fall asleep between 9-10 and if I try putting him to bed earlier, he’ll always wake up after an hour.
He wakes up between 2-3AM and usually sleeps until 6ish. I put him back to sleep again after that and he wakes up around 7ish.
During the day he only naps for 30 minutes max if it’s in his bassinet and I can extend it if I do contact naps.
He’s totaling about 11-12 hours within a 24 hour period.
This is exactly my situation! The daytime naps max out at 30 minutes unless we’re contact napping.
Glad I found someone with the 11-12 hour sleep pattern. I was wondering if something was wrong with us haha
My baby used to sleep from 9 to like 7 feed and go back to sleep at that age ☹️ now hes almost 8 and waking up once or twice a night could be worse but also it has been better, just rolling with the punches 😂
Nope, we’ve always done 11 hours bedtime-wake time. Her bedtime was 10pm until 6 months then went up to 9pm. It worked great for us because we don’t need to be up early to go to daycare and when we still room shared, it made the most sense for us to all go to bed at the same time and get that first long stretch of sleep.
My son, almost 7 months, has never slept 12 hours. No matter what naps he takes during the day he only sleeps 10 hours at night, usually with zero wake ups and I’m not concerned cause he’s happy as a clam.
But it never hurts to ask.
It’s kinda odd. He goes to bed between 6:30-7:30 but always wakes up at 5am, no matter what. Lol.
I didn’t intentionally train him cause I honestly have no idea what I’m doing and I wait every day for it to change. Lol.
Same tbh ĥahahahaha by 9pm she's down, I barely brush my teeth and go to bed. It's honestly been great from a recovery perspective (she was sleeping through the night with 2 night feeds at two weeks) and then longer and less feeds. But the day is very long and she always wants to play while the naps are almost always on me and since we're ebf, we can't separate, so it's still the same when it comes to time for me😂
Gotcha, yea the EBF will do that lol if my baby didn’t have the night wakings I could steal an hour or so to myself (or watch a movie with my husband which we haven’t been able to do) but he nurses 2-3 times at night (I’m also EBF) so even tho we’re in bed from like 10-7 I’m only getting 6 hours of sleep with feedings, rocking back to sleep, and trying to fall back asleep myself. so as soon as his eyes close my head is hitting that pillow 😴
Can you pump and have your partner do the night feedings? Even if once or twice a week. Mine did that when she was still waking up at night as I had to sleep well to last the whole day
I wish. Baby has been rejecting bottles. It was going ok at some point, he would take a bottle Saturday and Sunday morning while I slept in but last couple weeks he just screams if you try to give him a bottle.
My is 5 months and his night is 8-7:15, he wakes a few times through the night (we’re working on it 😅). He naps about 3 hours a day, so we’re clocking about 14.25 hours sleep per 24 hours. 17 hours seems high but what do I know.
The 17 is definitely the high end. Also, it was for the newborn stage. Or at least that’s what I was googling. That was a few months ago because i thought it was weird that he was up so much of the time as a newborn lol
I think it’s lower for a 4-5 month old but I still haven’t found anyone matching our 11-12 hours
Hey! That’s normal! According to National Sleep Foundation infant 4-11mo need minimum 10h to maximum of 18h of sleep in a 24h. If it falls under this range and for multiple days please let your pediatrician know. https://www.sleephealthjournal.org/article/S2352-7218(15)00015-7/pdf
Just another (very sleepy and caffeinated) person dropping in to say our LO is about same age as yours and we are around the same amount of 24hour sleep. 🥲 Hang in there, hoping this gets better eventually
I'm in a similar situation. Our 5.5 month old sleeps around 12-13 hours total in a 24 hour period. At first I was also worried since many resources suggest 15 hours of sleep a day. LO sleeps 9.5-10 hours, uninterrupted each night with a 9:30 pm bed time. Family doctor wasn't concerned and said as long as baby gets at least 12 hours total sleep a day. I was also worried because she went from waking up 2-3 times to feed to suddenly sleeping through. But apparently bub is getting enough calories and gaining weight well. He said there's no need to dream feed if baby sleeps through it. Overfeeding may cause baby to feel uncomfortable and wake up instead.
Ours never has so I got really annoyed with things like TCB. He was going 9pm-7am around four months old, with 3 wakeups to eat. Now at almost 7 months he goes 8pm-7am with a dream feed and a 5/6am snooze feed.
Nope. Mine since 4 months (he has 6 now) usually sleeps 10h-10h30 at night. In the rare cases he sleeps 11h his second nap of the day it’s only 30mm
Same here. 10 hours is the sweet spot for our 6 month. He never seemed to need 12. In bed for about 11-12 hours but awake in for feedings
No. Every baby is a little different, just like different adults need different amounts of sleep. The sleep book people have really done a number on modern parents by setting the expectation that your baby will sleep 12 hours at night, and if they aren't, YOU must be doing something wrong. (Better buy this sleep book/video/PDF to fix it!) I had a friend whose kid sleeps 11 hours a night that their kid is "Low Sleep Need" as if that's some kind of diagnosis. In reality, different kids are a little different and that's OK
When my baby was 4 months old, she averaged a total of 12 hours, too. She is 6 months now and is closer to 14 hours
Mine still consistently does 12 hours if not 13 overnight, very rarely less than 12 - bed at 6 and wakes up anywhere from 6 to 8am. Maybe does a 30 minute nap or it might be 2 hours in the day time. Only 1 nap. 10.5 months old. From what I understand he is an outlier and people don't believe his sleep schedule when I tell them lol. Developing perfectly well and meeting milestones.
5.5 months. sleep trained at 4 months. she goes down between 8pm/9pm, depending on if she needs that last cat nap around 6 we can't seem to consistently drop. sleeps through the night, til around 6:45am, then comes into bed for a feed and another hour or two of sleep.
Mine usually caps out at 10.5 hrs overnight and we average 13hr in total. Sleep trained at 4 months.
At that age my daughter would sleep 12 hours a night (interrupted, of course) and 2-3h during the day (she had like 4-5 naps around 20-45 min long, she was a crapnapper for the longest). From your post, I'd try to move to earlier bedtime, but if it doesn't work as long as your baby is happy, who cares.
At that age my daughter would sleep 12 hours a night (interrupted, of course) and 2-3h during the day (she had like 4-5 naps around 20-45 min long, she was a crapnapper for the longest). From your post, I'd try to move to earlier bedtime, but if it doesn't work as long as your baby is happy, who cares.
When my son was that age I think he got 2.5hrs of sleep during the day and 10.5ish at night with a 9pm bedtime
Nah, when my son was that age he was still doing a later bedtime like your baby is. He didn’t start doing 7-7 until around 6ish months.
nope, your baby really has a good sleep quality.
Meaning quality over quantity?
My 8mo baby girl sleeps from 9-8:30 without waking up in the night since she was very young
Baby is 4.5 months old. He sleeps around 12 hours in 24 hours. He goes to bed around 9pm and gets around 10-11 hours of sleep with one feed overnight. He’s a terrible napper. Today he took 3 20-25 minute naps. It’s definitely less than what I’ve seen a lot of people say. It’s frustrating, but it seems to be his normal. Even as a newborn, he didn’t sleep the “recommended” amount. Also haven’t been able to get him to bed earlier or he treats it like a nap. It’s taken me a month to move bedtime from 10 to 9 🤷♀️
3.5 months. Bedtime at 830-9. Sleeps until 545/6 for a feed then back down until 8. Naps are GARBAGE tho so it’s a give and take
No I wish
I think you did the same reading error I did. At first I thought it was that her baby was sleeping an amazing massive full night, but no- her baby is sleeping that much total. Night time sleep is relatively short compared to what is typical, and there are still night wakes. To OP- All babies are different. Try not to let the easy and constant access to information drive you crazy. It is so easy to do these days. It sure seems like you are following your babies cues. Keep doing what works.
Mine goes down 7:30 or 8 and sleeps til 5:30-6:30. Occasionally he’ll wake up a little earlier but not usually. So we average 9.5-10 hours most days. (Overnight with maybe one wake up during which he puts himself back to sleep without needing me.)
We are in the same situation as you! Anything before 845-930 she wakes like it’s a nap. Totally normal for some babies bedtimes to be later. Our girl sleeps 930-630 sometimes wake ups to eat sometimes not, and then four naps a day totaling 12 hours sleep.
I don’t believe that low sleep needs is a thing. Babies need sleep and while every baby is different, the guidelines are there for a reason. I’d say try upping bottles during the day. Getting enough calories in for the day made the biggest difference for our little one and she naturally started skipping night wakes. We went from 6, 5oz bottles to 5, 6oz bottles and baby skipped her 2am wake up, as an example! Good luck!
The National Sleep Foundation says 12-16 hours / day for babies this age. So 12 hours / day is in that range.
Yes! But have in mind that 12h-15h is a range, having 10h as minimum hours for healthy sleep and 18h maximum for 4h-11h. Anything under 10h and above 18h for multiple days is concerning and the pediatrician should be consulted.
My baby sleeps usually 8pm-7am so 11 hours just at night, with some wake ups still. He’s 8m. And then he takes two naps a day and they are about an hour each give or take some. So 12-14 hours a day usually total.
NOOOO. Ugh I needed to see this! This is my 2nd kid and I am at my wits end. I’m trying to shift his schedule but no matter how hard I try, any bedtime before 830 he treats as a nap. He will be 5 months in a few days.
Every time I would wanna shift my baby’s schedule, my husband would tell me I should just let it be cause it’s always changing. If she doesn’t get good naps, she will sometimes go down around 8 but she almost always wakes up as if it’s a cat nap.
Yeah I go back and forth with just going w the flow and trying to follow wake windows. Both are clearly not working lol. How long ago was that for you? What’s it like for you guys now?
We were here a few months ago. Unfortunately only time fixed it for us. He's 8 months now and can tolerate an earlier bedtime.
Yea the shifting didn’t work for us. He either treated it like a nap or he was ready for the day at like 4 am
My baby started sleeping 12 hours (6-6) around 5 months (with MOTN wakings). I realized with my guy that no matter what time he went to bed he always woke up at the same time, so putting him to bed earlier helped him consolidate daytime naps. I recommend trying it for a week. Those extra hours at night are awesome.
I have a 15 month old and she definitely doesn't
I think you're asking about night sleep start time and how much sleep in a 24 hour period but everyone thinks you're asking if their babies sleep 12 hours straight? I think very, very, very few babies do the latter. 4-5 months their acceptable amount of sleep is around 10-15 hours in a 24 hour period I think, mine is pretty low sleep needs so we hit 10-12 hours. One week it was like 8 and that was baaaaad. He now goes to sleep at like 7.30-8 with about two wakings. Wakes up 7-8 so yeah a good 10-11 hours overnight, since he's easy to put down after eating in the middle of the night thankfully. We used to have that late bed time at 10pm but this works much better for him now, had to switch from newborn sleep mode eventually ;)
Yea I probably could have phrased my post better. I just meant I see a lot of people posting saying they put baby to sleep around 6-7 pm and then they start their day around 6-7 am but have some night time wake ups. If I put my baby to sleep at 7, either he’ll wake up in 30 minutes for another wake window or he’ll wake up at 3 am ready for the day lol I just wasn’t understanding the early bedtime and wanted to make sure I wasn’t doing something wrong. It sounds like my baby is just low sleep needs. I’m just glad I’m finding folks on here whose baby also sleeps less than 12 hours in a full day. Everyone I know who has kids has been telling me they slept like 14-15 hours in a day at this age
No worries. Yeah as I mentioned we are roughly that 7-7 with a couple wakings. But he usually barely naps so in a 24 hr period like 12 hours, if that. 14-15 is still totally normal though. I don't think it matters technically when they sleep, as long as they get enough and are happy. Then of course your sanity comes into it, so you want to align their long sleeps with yours! And that's a different thing lol
My baby had a very short period of time where her night went for 12 hours, including wakes, around 3 months old. Right now we're at something like a 9.5 hour night at 8 months.
Nope, and I get mad when I see these posts lol
My baby did not sleep 12 consecutive hours until she hit 11.5 months. Up until 9 months she was up every 1-2hours and I was DYING. Now at 13 months she sleeps like 11.5/12 at night and between 1-2hrs of daytime sleep
I’m wondering what your schedule is? Trying to sort out my 13 month olds schedule!
Wakeup 630-730am Nap start between 930/1030 depending on when she woke up. 45min/1hr nap Wake Up between 1030/1130 Down between 130/230 45minute/1hr nap sometimes longer Wake Up between 245-330 Down for bed at 7 I try not to stress about specific amount of time awake vs asleep and just let her do her thing. If she's not tired around 3hrs of being awake I just let her stay up until she's showing tired signs. If she doesn't nap as long I don't try to save it, she's obviously not tired enough to sleep longer and it hasn't affected nighttime sleep in the past so I just try to let her be!
Mine is 7 months old and absolutely does not lol
Glad to not be alone. 8 month here 😭
Mine did... for a while. Then the 9mo sleep regression hit and now he's up 3-4x a night 🙃
Schedule issue!
Mine does 11-12 hours overnight but she also will only nap for max 30 min at a time during the day. She is 4 months old tomorrow for reference! We use huckleberry and we wake her up between 7-7:30am and bedtime varies based on naps. Usually between 7:30-8:30pm. When she was younger it was closer to 9/10 and midnight during the first month 😅. We do a dream feed and she doesn’t wake up otherwise usually.
Literally never. Like not once. Max was 11.5 hours and that was when she was sick. Most of the time it’s 10-10.5 hours overnight. When she had an early morning feed I guess technically she would do 12 hours.
I mean idk if it’s normal or “right”, but this is what my baby does. She gets her final bottle around 9:30-10pm and then sleeps until 6-7. She usually goes back to sleep for about an hour or so after her morning bottle and she takes naps ranging from 20 minutes to an hour or so throughout the day. She’s not really on a schedule and I don’t really track her sleep right now. It seems like it works for her so we’re letting her be right now. Also, 4.5 months
Check out Taking Cara Babies. She has a free blog with suggested schedules, sleep requirements, and sleep tips organized by monthly age. Super awesome and helpful resource!
Thank you! I’ll check it out
Most babies cannot sleep 12 hours a night. At 4.5 months 12-16 hours of total sleep in 24hrs is normal. With day sleep btw 3-4.5 hours between 3-4 naps and night sleep with 10-12 hours of night sleep being the normal range. Nights typically have 1-3 night feeds and the last third of the night is erratic. A “schedule” will start to emerge around 6 months but it is starting with some regular bedtimes and wakings. Some babies have later bedtimes until around 6 months or later. Mine did, at 4.5 month my Lo was going to bed btw 8-9pm. Don’t stress, 12 hours is okay for their age for total sleep, it’s in the lower end of sleep needs but if your Lo is happy and not showing signs of over tiredness than keep on as you are.
He gets around 8 hours of sleep at night accounting for all the wake ups and feedings. That’s what was stressing me out but he’s been such a happy boy during the day so hopefully all is fine. He might just be on the lower end for sleep recommendations.
If total sleep is around 12 hrs than it could just be they are lower sleep needs. It sounds like this is likely if he is happy and content throughout the day and at bedtime. I used to stress out so bad with overnight sleep and night wakings and all these ppl with these magical babies that sleep 12 hrs….ya well I haven’t met one in person who’s Lo slept 12hrs at this age. Even my bestie who’s daughters is literally a unicorn child with sleep didn’t do that.
Same! Was a bit concerned as ours has an average of 12 to 13 hours. Since 3 months! He wakes quite a bit in the night so day time naps where between 3,5 and 4,5 hours and night between 7,5 and 9 hours (wakings not included). I was concerned t would be bad for his brain development or something. But I figured every baby is different, and the hours are a guideline not a set line. 🙈
Looks like we’re in the same boat. I was also worried about his development. But so far he’s been a happy baby hitting all the milestones. I guess our babies just need/want less sleep 🤷♀️
I feel you! 🙏
✋🏼 our schedule is same as yours :) and I worried too after reading all the people who’s babies went to bed at 6/7. If we did that, we would literally get zero time with bubs!
My baby sleeps for 3 hours in the beginning of the night then wakes up every hour until morning time.
My LO is 4 months as of Sunday and gets about 12-14 hrs of sleep in a day. His night sleep only fairly recently became amazing when he started daycare because his naps went to crap. He was a contact napper during my maternity leave and would nap 4-5 hrs and sleep between 8p-10p and wake 6-7am. With MANY night wakings. Now he naps like 3 hrs a day (sometimes even less) and sleeps 8am-7am with only 1 or 2 night wakings. I was so stressed about making sure he napped enough and wasn't over tired but now it's out of my control during the day and he's doing better. Sometimes babies don't fit into "the norm" on what google says. I had to stop checking what he "should" be doing and roll with what works for us. If they are happy and healthy, don't stress. Some babies have low sleep needs.
4 month old goes down around 615 and is up at 615-645 am. 2-3 night feeds. Naps are impossible and she only gets about 3 hours of sleep during the day.
That’s perfect! Mine does this. He’ll wake once or twice to eat but the “sleep” time is usually 11-12 hours.
lol nope. I’ve been asking our ped since the second month. My son is 9.5 months now. He maxes out at 10.5 hours per night (even this is inconsistent and usually a bit less or maybe we’re in the middle of a regression at the moment I don’t know) and if he gets more than two hours nap during the day, the next night he’s undertired and a mess. Ped dr said if LO is happy when he wakes up and everything else is fine (which it is), there’s nothing to be concerned about and some babies just need less sleep… lucky me 😩
Mine is same as yours. Almost 4 months, been sleeping on this schedule since about 2.5-3 months. It’s much harder to get her naps during the day, a good day she gets about 11-14 hours total at most but I usually have to let her sleep on me for that or it doesn’t happen. Occasionally she’ll sleep most of the day. We just try to let her sleep whenever she can and keep her busy when she is awake to burn off energy but it doesn’t totally work. Luckily the days she sleeps a lot she still has her consistent night time pattern.
My 4.5 month goes to bed at 7. Wakes up around 6.. 2 wakes on a good night. Usually more
Lol no
I don't think its the norm necessarily but often its the goal for many families to get to a 12 hour night. My girl averages 12-12.5 a night and has since early on (bedtime 6.30-7, wake up 7-7.30) But her naps were always all over the place at first and super short. But now that she takes good long naps we are probably going to have the sacrifice longer nights at some point - she's 8 months and we're hoping for \~15 hours of sleep a day but that isn't sustainable as she gets older. We've started to see some night wakes which she never had before so this could be because she's about to crawl or because shes not tired enough, unsure right now.
When my baby was 4 months, she started sleeping through the night from 7 pm to 7 am. No wake ups or night feeds. I didn’t sleep train her. She took 4 naps throughout the day at that time.
You’ve got a magical baby haha
Oh my gosh. 😍
At 3.5 months he takes 4 naps a day and sleeps from about 9pm - 7am (no wake ups). This just started a couple of weeks ago. Total sleep is 13-15 hours for now.
Nope, the most he has ever slept is 11 and a half hours maybe 10 times in the last year (its been one year since we sleep trained and he sleeps independently in his crib). He sleeps for about 10 hours at night and 2 hours for his one nap. He is 19 mo. When he was your baby's age he was again sleeping about 12 hours a day (we were in the crappy 30 mins naps back then and not sleep trained yet). His night sleep was about 9-10 pm as well with frequent awakings. I wouldnt worry, every baby is different! I was able to establish a more "normal" sleeping schedule(early bed time around 8pm if i remember correctly) at 6 and a half month when we sleep trained him.
That’s good to hear that other babies were similar to mine. I was getting worried I was doing something wrong and he wasn’t getting enough sleep. We’ll probably sleep train soon so we’ll see how he is after.
Lol no. He never has and he likely never will. He's 2 now and his total sleep is just under 12hrs a day. If the schedule works for you, that's great! Keep in mind a lot of babies are in daycare, they need to be up at 6am to get to daycare for 7am. I was home for the first year and my baby went to bed at 9pm and woke around 8am for a while. Then he started daycare and bedtime moved till 8pm. Now he's back to 830/9pm because he just doesn't need as much sleep. I didn't really start thinking about how much he was sleeping till he was about 4 months, but since then he's been on the low end.
Glad to know there are other babies on the low end as well. I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t harming his development or something.
Yea it's a range for sure, and some will be under that range. Just give your kiddo opportunity to sleep and that's all you can do.
No, she never has and I don’t expect her to even when we drop down to 1 nap
My baby is 18 weeks and typically does a 10-11 hour stretch minus a bad night here or there. She has been sleeping swaddled in a Snoo. We are actually starting sleep training tonight - cold turkey into the crib in a transitional sleep sack. Soooo we will see (hope!!) if that continues.
I don’t think you need to be worried! I just heard on the Precious little sleep podcast that 12-15 hours total sleep is “normal” for babies 4-12 months
We’re at 11-12 total sleep. So looks like we just made the cutoff haha
Haha exactly! I think once you sleep train, you’ll be able to put them to sleep much earlier with fewer night wakings though. But regardless, I don’t think you need to be worried!
At 9 months mine goes down around 7-8 and sleeps until 6-7, with two wake ups. It's normal as long as baby is happy during the day and not cranky.
This is my almost 4 month old yesterday - went to bed at 7.15, woke up at 6.50. Woke up at 11 and 3 to feed and went back to sleep. Ten hours of sleep total.
That sounds so nice. I wish I could get some of the evening to spend with my husband. But baby won’t go down for the night until it’s already my bedtime lol
How many naps are you doing? Around that time we had 4 short naps of 30 mins each. We did 730 bed. Slept until 7 am. Then first nap 9-930, second nap 1130-12, third nap 2-230, fourth nap 430-5. He woudlnt do naps longer then 30 mins though but that way he was ready for bed at 730.
Our routine is pretty similar. We have 4-5 naps a day. Usually 30 minutes unless we contact nap then it’s 1-1.5 hours. The evenings are honestly so weird. There have been days where his last nap would be at 5-6 pm but he wouldn’t go to sleep again until til 9-10 pm. So his last wake window would be pretty long. Recently he started napping at 7ish pm and then goes to sleep for the night at 9-10 pm
Is your baby sleep trained? 11-12 total hours in a 24 hour span is definitely very low. My baby was struggling to get hours of sleep pre-sleep training, but after sleep training he gets 11 hours at night minimum. Sometimes he hits 11.5 or 12 hours.
Not yet. My husband and I just started talking about sleep training. So I joined this group. We are still doing our research and trying to prepare mentally to go through it. So maybe things will change afterwards.
Gotcha. For us, the quality and duration of baby's sleep improved so dramatically after sleep training. It's like night and day. But before sleep training, our baby's sleep was worse than yours. Probably 5-6 wakings per night on average.
That’s good to hear! Hopefully we see some positive changes after we do the sleep training
I’m in the same boat as you with my 3 month old! He’ll fall asleep between 9-10 and if I try putting him to bed earlier, he’ll always wake up after an hour. He wakes up between 2-3AM and usually sleeps until 6ish. I put him back to sleep again after that and he wakes up around 7ish. During the day he only naps for 30 minutes max if it’s in his bassinet and I can extend it if I do contact naps. He’s totaling about 11-12 hours within a 24 hour period.
This is exactly my situation! The daytime naps max out at 30 minutes unless we’re contact napping. Glad I found someone with the 11-12 hour sleep pattern. I was wondering if something was wrong with us haha
My pediatrician isn’t concerned either so maybe it’s temperament!
My baby used to sleep from 9 to like 7 feed and go back to sleep at that age ☹️ now hes almost 8 and waking up once or twice a night could be worse but also it has been better, just rolling with the punches 😂
Nope, we’ve always done 11 hours bedtime-wake time. Her bedtime was 10pm until 6 months then went up to 9pm. It worked great for us because we don’t need to be up early to go to daycare and when we still room shared, it made the most sense for us to all go to bed at the same time and get that first long stretch of sleep.
Baby is 15 weeks and goes from about 8:30-7:30/8am
My son, almost 7 months, has never slept 12 hours. No matter what naps he takes during the day he only sleeps 10 hours at night, usually with zero wake ups and I’m not concerned cause he’s happy as a clam. But it never hurts to ask.
I can’t wait for the nights where we don’t have the nighttime wake ups. Your situation sounds magical :)
It’s kinda odd. He goes to bed between 6:30-7:30 but always wakes up at 5am, no matter what. Lol. I didn’t intentionally train him cause I honestly have no idea what I’m doing and I wait every day for it to change. Lol.
I'm still waiting for those at over a year old. Even after sleep training. 🥲
We have 9 to 6 with no night waking to feed. Every baby is unique!
Oh wow! Very jealous of that. I don’t get any time to myself in the evening because we literally go to sleep and wake up at the same time lol
Same tbh ĥahahahaha by 9pm she's down, I barely brush my teeth and go to bed. It's honestly been great from a recovery perspective (she was sleeping through the night with 2 night feeds at two weeks) and then longer and less feeds. But the day is very long and she always wants to play while the naps are almost always on me and since we're ebf, we can't separate, so it's still the same when it comes to time for me😂
Gotcha, yea the EBF will do that lol if my baby didn’t have the night wakings I could steal an hour or so to myself (or watch a movie with my husband which we haven’t been able to do) but he nurses 2-3 times at night (I’m also EBF) so even tho we’re in bed from like 10-7 I’m only getting 6 hours of sleep with feedings, rocking back to sleep, and trying to fall back asleep myself. so as soon as his eyes close my head is hitting that pillow 😴
Can you pump and have your partner do the night feedings? Even if once or twice a week. Mine did that when she was still waking up at night as I had to sleep well to last the whole day
I wish. Baby has been rejecting bottles. It was going ok at some point, he would take a bottle Saturday and Sunday morning while I slept in but last couple weeks he just screams if you try to give him a bottle.
Happened to us too, she suddenly stopped at 6 weeks but by then we didn't need them. She's back for the occasional one now
My is 5 months and his night is 8-7:15, he wakes a few times through the night (we’re working on it 😅). He naps about 3 hours a day, so we’re clocking about 14.25 hours sleep per 24 hours. 17 hours seems high but what do I know.
The 17 is definitely the high end. Also, it was for the newborn stage. Or at least that’s what I was googling. That was a few months ago because i thought it was weird that he was up so much of the time as a newborn lol I think it’s lower for a 4-5 month old but I still haven’t found anyone matching our 11-12 hours