How much sleep does a young baby need?
At birth, sleep is spread out over the 24 hour period
with your baby showing zero preference for day and night.
An average newborn will sleep about 16 hours out of
the 14-20 hours range, in a 24-hour day. This translates
to four 'day naps' and one 8-hour sleep in the night,
ideally. It is important to start teaching your baby
the difference between day and night earlier on, as
well as establishing a nighttime ritual. A baby may
take up to 3 months to get there. At one stretch newborns
can sleep for not more than 3-4 hours and do not stay
awake for more than 2 hours at a time.
Between 3-6 months, babies will require about 14
hours of sleep with 9-10 hours being nighttime sleep.
Day time naps reduces from four to two. At this age,
when they wake up during the nights, which can be
anywhere between 2-6 times, they can be trained to
go back to sleep by themselves. It is important for
babies to establish predictable nap-times and bedtimes.
At 10-12 months, babies will still require about
14 hours of sleep with the bulk of it fortunately
during the night (close to 11 hours). Naps are further
reduced to just one time during the day, the long
one after lunch. Some babies drop off the mid-morning
nap but still stick to the longer nap after lunch.
It is quite common for babies to put up resistance
when it comes to napping and sleeping though.
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