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Baby sleep patterns

help guide your baby towards good sleep

Baby sleep patterns tell us how and how much our baby sleeps, and can sleep.

Baby's natural infant sleep patterns develop rapidly in the first six months and take up to 4 years to become adult-like. It's is an amazing development from newborn sleep patterns towards childhood and adult sleep patterns.

By offering the right environment we can guide baby's sleeping patterns towards optimal sleep habits, see below.

Baby's sleep patterns are such a great help in understanding why so many babies do not sleep like parents would want them to:
sleeping simply is a skill that takes a while to develop.
Luckily we can guide our little loved ones in the right direction.

Typical Baby Sleep Patterns by Age

What kind of sleep can you expect, realistically, from your baby?

Newborn sleep patterns: a newborn has short sleep-wake cycles throughout the day, with no difference between day and night. Her sleep is mostly light (easily waking up). The newborn sleeping schedule is governed by regular feeding needs.

Her sleep develops rapidly and you can help instill the day-and-night rhythm with a clear difference between your day (active and light) and night routine (quiet and dim).

1 - 6 month old baby sleep patterns: Sleep continues to mature rapidly and your baby can move into sleeping more at night than during the day.

Feeding is still an important and necessary trigger for waking up.

6 months - 2 year old: Your baby's sleep has changed dramatically in the first six months and she can now finally find a deeper sleep.

She will be awakened less easily and therefore is able to sleep longer stretches little by little.

Notice the 'is able to': at this age, other factors besides food enter baby's life: there's awareness of needing mum/dad, separation anxiety, teething, developing important motor skills, and tons of possible sleep disturbances.

These sleep patterns give you a qualitative idea of your baby's sleep. Check How much sleep is enough? for a more specific guide about the amount of sleep by age.

The difference between baby sleep patterns and adult sleep

As we know - and experience ... - a baby is not born with matured sleep patterns adapted to the day and night cycle of our adult lives.

The key differences between baby and adult sleep are:

A baby spends more time in light sleep
A baby's sleep cycles are shorter (basically waking up every 50 minutes, if we're lucky only half-awake ...)

These difference are huge and explain so much of what we see in our babies: waking up easily (due to light sleep) and frequently (light sleep and physically waking up every 50 minutes).

Not all babies wake up every 50 minutes of course, some can continue to sleep easily without waking up completely - that is the difference between good and poor sleepers.

Only around 6 months old does a baby start sleeping deeper and it takes a couple of years for the 50-minute cycle to grow towards the adult 90-minute cycle.

Help from Baby Sleep Patterns

Rather than trying to break or interfere with your baby's sleep patterns, your best bet is to reinforce and guide in the good direction.

What baby's sleep patterns tell us:

Expectations: Sleeping well is a skill that needs time to develop. Knowing that poor baby sleep is most probably just physical immaturity, gives you realistic expectations.

The baby sleeping through the night myth

The term sleeping through the night is often overrated.

Officially, sleeping through the night means 5-6 hours. This could be from 9pm till 3am: still a mini-night in adult terms!

Most babies actually do this around the age of six months, not consistently at first and it may take another year (or two) before they make longer nights regularly.

Accepting: Knowing what you can expect reasonably, can help you accept your baby's sleeping. Yes, I know this may not be the help you are looking for: "you just need to accept it".

But it can help you relax, which will make you sleep and feel better and make you stronger when coping with your baby's sleep troubles.

Better times ahead! The best outcome when looking at sleep patterns: baby's sleeping skills may not seem impressive at first but it's a fact that they develop very rapidly!

So you can count on improvement, within weeks or months.

How to help: help reinforce the good parts of baby's sleep patterns:

Offer a balanced and clear daily routine. Being active when you are and quiet when you are, will help your baby in developing sleep-wake patterns similar to yours.

Recognise sleepy signals and arrange a recognisable but flexible baby sleep schedule around that.

Use active-quiet and light-dark cues to reinforce day and night difference, from the first days and also as your baby grows.

Breastfeed if possible: even if breastfeeding is known to fragment sleep a bit more than formula, overall it improves sleep. Perfectly adapted to baby's needs, breastfeeding is light and easily digested, resulting in sound sleep.

When bottle feeding, choose the formula that is best suited for your baby; consult your pharmacist or doctor.

Baby sleep patterns are a very interesting aspect of baby's growth. They develop rapidly from newborn sleep patterns through baby and on to adult sleep and show an interesting interaction between the natural infant sleep patterns and external influence.

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