How Many Hours a Day Should Baby Sleep?
Sleep! It's the one of the biggest things new parents miss when they bring home that bundle of (up-all-night-screaming) joy. Most newborns sleep a LOT, waking up briefly to eat or poop—or eat and poop— every few hours around the clock. For the first few months your kid may have her days and nights confused. She may sleep all day and stay up all night—kinda the same schedule she'll keep when she's a teenager. But by three months old, just about the time when their parents are ready to send them back, most babies sort out day and night and start to sleep "through the night", i.e. 5-6 hours (who came up with that definition?).
All kids are different, but here's how much a baby should sleep on average:
- 3 months: 10 hours at night (not in a row!), 5 napping hours per day (in 3 naps) = total 15 hours
- 6 months: 11 hours at night (again, not in a row), 3.25 napping hours per day (in 2-3 naps) = total 14.25 hours
- 9 months: 11 hours at night (perhaps with 1 wake up), 3 napping hours per day (in 2 naps) = total 14 hours
- 12 months: 11.25 hours at night, 2.5 napping hours per day (in 2 naps) = total 13.75 hours
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