Baby's Sleep at Every Stage

In this article we want to give you all the information you need to know to have realistic expectations and to know exactly when your baby will be able to sleep through the night.

When babies are born, they do not produce their own melatonin (the sleep hormone) which is in charge of making us feel tired at night or when it is dark, and it is precisely for this reason that they can appear to have "the wrong time", that they sleep a lot in the day and at night have long periods awake.

Between 8 and 10 weeks of life, the production of this hormone begins and sleep begins to change, this is when they often manage to extend their night's sleep for the first time, although it is still very irregular.

Ideally, we should base our daily schedules on sleep windows, which is the maximum time a baby should stay awake between naps. The first two months this duration is between 45-60 minutes, I know it seems very little, but respecting them will allow you to have a rested baby.

Likewise, at this age they need to take milk every 3-4 hours and it is important not to skip any to help them keep their blood glucose level stable.

If they have established good sleeping habits, from 3 to 4 months you will begin to notice that the periods of sleep during the day are already a little more regular and that at night they sleep better; however, it is up to 5 months that the sleep phases change and we can begin to establish regular nap times and even achieve continuous sleep at night.

A 5-month-old baby is already capable of learning to join her sleep phases.

As you surely know, we all sleep in phases and have micro-awakenings between each phase, often almost imperceptible to adults. However, a baby who does not know how to link these phases will have awakenings every time a sleep cycle (or two or three) ends (45-60 min), so it is important to teach him to self-relax so that he can go back to sleep immediately without need for mom or dad to intervene.

From time to time they leave naps and you have to adjust their schedules so that they continue to have good periods of sleep at night, here is a schedule so you know how many naps your baby needs according to her age:

• 0-3 months > 4 to 5 naps: a total of 14-17 hours of sleep in 24 hours.

• 4-5 months > 3 to 4 naps: a total of 12-15 hours of sleep in 24 hours.

• 6-11 months > 2 to 3 naps: a total of 12-15 hours of sleep in 24 hours.

• 12-24 months > 1 to 2 naps: a total of 11-14 hours of sleep in 24 hours.

• 3-4 years > 0-1 naps: a total of 10-12 hours of sleep in 24 hours.

It is important that you know that your baby will tell you when it is time to take a nap, you should not take them off just because "baby is old enough", but detect when it is already affecting his sleep at night or it is simply already having a hard time doing it.

We hope this article has solved many of your doubts, remember that each baby is different so he/she takes this information as a guide so that you can better understand the evolution of his/her sleep and that you can be calmer with the changes that are coming.