Popular beliefs about when babies should be ‘sleeping through the night’ are based on studies conducted in the 1950s and 1960s on groups of formula-fed babies. Sleeping Through the Night: The Consolidation of Self-regulated Sleep Across the First Year of Life. 13% of babies had not regularly slept through for 5 hours or more by the age of 1 year. One study investigating infant sleep duration found that 27% of babies had not regularly slept from 10pm to 6am by the age of 1 year. Generally, though, babies do not sleep all night-every night until they are close to a year old. By the time they are 5 months old, half of them may have started to sleep for an eight-hour stretch on some nights. As babies grow, they are able to last slightly longer between feeds, however, human milk (and today’s infant formula containing chemically-modified cows’ milk proteins) is quickly digested, and babies commonly need to feed frequently throughout the day and night-time.īy the time babies are 3 months old, some (but not all) begin to start settling (sleeping through a night-time feed for a stretch of up to 5 hours). New-born babies have very small stomachs, and need to feed often, so they wake at least every 2-3 hours in order to do so, sometimes more often. Night-waking is normal during early infancy and healthy babies experience several awakenings per night at the end of sleep cycles. It is clear that younger babies sleep longer overall, but there is also a lot of variation among individual babies, and within studies, for this group. The dotted line shows the amount of variation around that average. Data from each study & age range are represented by a dot which shows the average total sleep experienced. The chart below shows part of this data for babies aged up to one year. Normal sleep patterns in infants and children: A systematic review of observational studies.) drew together data from 34 studies relating to normal infant sleep duration. Recommended amount of sleep for a healthy adult: a joint consensus statement of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and Sleep Research Society. Recommended amount of sleep for pediatric populations: a consensus statement of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.
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