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Are you a new parent? Don’t know how many hours a day do babies sleep? Well, no problem! Here is the solution you must read.
But sometimes things aren’t working out as like they are supposed to do. Sleep of a baby often can go wrong. Your baby needs to have enough sleep everyday and you are the person who has to take care of it.
But What’s the Key to Making It Happen?
The very first thing is to have an accurate knowledge of age-based sleeping hours of the baby. Also, to know the physical and mental changes it’s going through is crucially important.
Here is this content; we have taken a step to help you out. This guide will not only answer the question of How Many Hours Does My Baby Sleep? but also provide you an insight on much more. You will get to know what should be the pattern of sleep and how to deal with it in every age of your baby.
Let’s start figuring how many hours a day do babies sleep out-
Why It’s Hard to Predict Newborn’s Sleep
If you are a new parent, you have a lot to know about the sleeping pattern of your newborn. Newborn babies usually take a sleep of 16 to 20 hours in the day. But that’s not continuously. Most babies can’t sleep for more than two or three consecutive hours. So, if your baby can’t sleep longer, nothing to worry about it.
Due to limited time REM sleeping, don’t worry because it’s perfectly natural. It doesn’t last for long but can be an eternity of your baby is sleep deprived.
Baby Sleep Essentials- What to Provide Different Ages
Newborn to 6 Months
Newborn babies use to sleep a lot and their health is quite depended on it. An infant basically needs a sleep of 16 to 20 total hours in a day. At this stage, it uses to wake up after every two or three hours.
As the baby grows up, the sleeping time decreases with it. A baby of 3 months age will sleep for ten to twelve hours in a day. He might one of two feeding in the meantime.
Lastly, babies of 6 months old, the sleeping hours can reduce to Nine to Eleven hours in a day. It can be divided into three or four naps around the entire day.
6 to 12 Months
A baby elder than 6 months are quite developed and starts exploding stuff around it. With such mental growth, the sleeping hours keeps decreasing. A baby of 6 to 12 months usually sleeps for around eight to twelve hours per day.
As the functions of both body and brain start to grow up, the baby starts to sleep for less time. The entire sleeping hours can be divided into two sessions of the nap. Usually, these naps take place after a full course breastfeeding or during the night time. But don’t worry if it starts waking up midnight because it’s too natural not to sleep for 10 consecutive hours like adults do.
1 to 3 Years
including an afternoon nap of two or three hours, most toddlers of one to three years age, sleep for nine to thirteen hours in a day. Excluding the afternoon nap, the remaining hours are usually counted from night.
The Baby Sleep Chart, According to Age
[table id=4 /]Keep in mind that this is just an average assumption of baby’s sleeping hours. Some of these predictions may naturally fall below and some can go above.
Do’s and Don’ts for Your Baby’s Sound Sleep
Do’s
- Prepare a bedtime routine for your baby. Take the age and environment in consideration.
- As the baby gets older, adjust the sleeping hours and make him/her used to with that.
- Give your baby the chance to have frequent sleeping sessions.
- Help and teach your baby to understand the difference between day and night.
- When the baby’s awake, play and interact with him in his own way.
- Keep the environment light, calm and ambient. Using high intensity of light or sound may harm his sleep.
- Put the baby to bed when it’s sleepy but still awake.
Don’ts
- Don’t always think that your baby needs more sleep and that’s the only sign of happiness.
- Don’t keep him awake if you find symptoms of tiredness in his eyes.
- Don’t spend too many hours talking or playing to him.
- Avoid noises, harsh sounds or music near to him.
- Don’t do nursing your baby to sleep.
Tips for Getting Into Good Baby Sleep Habits
Preventing Night-awaking
Babies to tend to wake up at night. Especially for babies and infants of 0-6 months, it’s a pretty common scenario. Such habits are both harmful for child’s health and irritating for parents. To prevent such occurrences, you can try keeping the baby busy for an hour or something before it goes sleeping at night. A full course of breastfeeding also helps a lot.
REM and Non-REM Sleeps
REM or rapid eye movement is a sleeping activity where eyelashes of a person will move frequently while sleeping. Being a common issue for adults, over-occurrence of REM is harmful to babies.
Although, during REM in sleep, it helps developing baby’s brain and though processes, but too much of anything is not good. So, keep an eye on your baby while sleeping.
A Bedtime Routine for Baby
Nothings helps better than a regular bedtime routine to acquire regular sleep of the baby. You are the person who can turn the habits of your baby’s sleep. Making a bedtime routine of 10-18 hours (according to age) and strictly accustoming your baby on that will definitely provide him a good health.
Difference Between Daytime and Nighttime Sleep
Some infants and toddlers are night owls. They tend to wide awake while you are trying hard to hit the hay. For toddlers, it isn’t so common as a problem, but it’s common in the case of newborns and infants.
As a solution, you don’t have too much to do in first 2 months of ages. But when the baby starts to grow up, try to help him distinguishing night from day.
Final Words of How Many Hours A Day Do Babies Sleep
Knowing how many hours is your baby sleeping, and how many he should is one of the basic baby care tasks. We hope with this guide, we could give you a hand to understand your baby’s sleep better. In addition, never hesitate to meet your baby’s physician for any crucial case.
Happy parenting!