One of the links in the chain that encourages healthy sleep habits is knowing how much sleep your baby needs at a given age. Remember that these amounts are averages and are different for each of us, but they should not vary by more than an hour.

Month 1 or 0-4 weeks - Newborns sleep 16-18 hours out of 24. Half of that time is slept over 4 naps during the day and half at night.
With regards to feeding your baby - discuss this with you pediatrician and/or lactation consultant.
"According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, once the mother’s milk comes in, newborns may feed as often as every 1½
hours, and they shouldn't go more than three hours without eating,
for a total of eight to 12 feedings in 24 hours. Formula-fed babies will
eat less frequently, two to three ounces every three or four hours, for
a total of six to eight feedings a day." by Kim West LCSW-C, The Sleep Lady® from Good Night Sleep Tight.
 
Month 2 or 5-8 weeks - 15.5-17 hours out of 24. This will be spread over 3-4 naps during the day for a total of 6-7 hours. The remainder will be overnight. Most babies will need to wake up a couple of times to feed, but some will only wake up once for a feeding.

Month 3  or 9-12 weeks - 15 hours. During the day these babies will sleep about 5 hours over 3-4 naps and about 10 hours at night. Some babies begin to sleep through the night (6-8 hours only) without feeding by the end of the month, if this happens, enjoy! otherwise try to stay patient.

Months 4 and 5  - 14-15 hours. Some babies still require 4 naps, but most have dropped to 3 and will spend a total of 4-5 hours napping. The rest is night time sleep, you may see your 4 month old sleeping up to 8 hours at night, and your 5 month old up to 10 hours without needing to feed. If your baby still needs to be fed at night discuss this with your physician. Some babies are just hungry!

Month 6-8 - 10-12 hours sleeping through the night, and 2-3 naps for a total of 3.5 hours of napping. I will say again, that your child may still need to feed in the middle of the night, discuss this with your medical provider if you have concerns.

Months 9-12 -  Children at this age should receive about 11 hours of sleep at night and have 2 naps that last a total of 3 hours. Some of these children do need a short third nap in the mid-late afternoon. They should be awake by 4-430pm.


Months 12-18 - By 12 months children sleep about 11.25 hours through the night and will nap between 2.25 and 2.5 hours. Most 12 month old children will still be taking 2 naps and by 18 months most children will only need one nap.The morning nap will fall away and they will start their afternoon nap between 12:30 pm and 1:30 pm. Something to remember is that by this time the toddlers may need a longer transition to bedtime so consider adding some other gentle, calming activities to your bedtime routine.

Older children - 2 year olds will sleep about 11.25 hours at night and have a 2 hour nap in the early afternoon. Try not to let them sleep past 3:30pm.
                     - 3 year olds will sleep about 10.5 hours at night and will need to take a 1.5 hour nap, by the time they are 4.
                    - At 4 years old, naps are starting to disappear from the horizon. Continue to encourage quiet time in the late afternoon. This will help to eliminate early evening melt downs. This is when we need to move bed time earlier so that your preschooler is now getting 11.5 hours at night.
                     - 5 year olds will need about 11.25 hours of sleep at night and I highly recommend continuing that quiet time.

These times are ALL averages and should not be stressed over. Take a deep breath and listen to your child and yourself, sleep is important in our lives and once you have a routine in place you can be flexible . A well rested child will handle the occasional late night or early morning and even a missed nap.

Sleep well!

Many parents ask “Are you a cry-it-out proponent or family bed advocate? Do I have to stop breastfeeding to sleep coach my child, do I have to choose between two camps: cosleeping/no crying or crib/cry-it-out?”


You do not have to pick a camp; this isn’t about right or wrong. It’s about what is working for you and your family.

It is true that the CIO method and the starker extinction methods can work well and a bit faster than gentler methods IF you as the parent can follow through consistently and for long enough.

The Gentle Sleep Coach philosophy was developed by Kim West LCSW-C, The Sleep Lady® because she found so many parents had difficulty following through with a sleep coaching program that they feared will damage their child emotionally or filled them with so much guilt they couldn’t follow through.

The GSC approach is a gentler alternative for families who emotionally or philosophically resist letting their babies cry it out: for families who tried “Ferber” (controlled crying) and it didn’t work, and for families who let their baby cry-it-out earlier but now find it doesn’t help. It is also for families who believe in co-sleeping but find that their children aren’t really sleeping all that well, even nestled snugly with their parents. Or for families who did co-sleep for a few months to a few years and now want the family bed to revert back to the marital one.

Can you guarantee “no crying” you might ask? No, no one really can. For example, if you as the parent have taught your child that the way to fall asleep is to be held to sleep for all naps, bedtime and wakings and you decide that you want to change this; your child will naturally protest or resist this change. After all, they don’t know why you have changed your approach. If your child is pre-verbal then they will cry. My goal is to have as little crying as possible. We encourage parents to be loving and responsive but to allow the child the room to learn this vital life skill of putting themselves to sleep. The parent responds and stays with their child and offers physical and verbal reassurance without putting the child to sleep. This supports the development of a secure attachment between parent and child.

We will work with you to create an individualized, step-by-step sleep plan that will factor in your parenting philosophy, your child’s age, health and temperament, mother’s well-being and the related family dynamics. And most importantly We will support and coach you through the process from beginning to end- for night sleep and naps!

If you have any questions about the Gentle Sleep philosophy, please don’t hesitate to ask.We can be reached by email at Belinda@softlysleeping.com, Helen@Softlysleeping.com - or by telephone; Helen can be reached in South Africa at: +27 83 607 6935  and Belinda can be reached in the USA at: (607) 218-2185 

Belinda and Helen

Answers to a few other commonly asked questions:

-Breastfeeding is best and it is never necessary to end breastfeeding in order to successfully sleep coach your child

-You can continue to room share while sleep coaching.

-I work with parents of children ages 6 months to 6 years old. Babies under 6months I will consult with parents on how to set up healthy sleep habits from the start and if appropriate how to gently shape their sleep.

The art of putting yourself to sleep is a priceless gift you can give to your child and your entire family.

The importance of good sleep hygiene and sleep environment were brought home to me this week. We are out of our apartment and have moved into our fabulous new home. Boxes and chaos surround us, but we have managed to create one oasis of calm and tranquility in our daughter's bedroom. There was just one problem - she was back to taking over an hour to fall asleep.

Whenever we travel the first thing I do is try to organize her sleeping space hoping that this will encourage peaceful sleep for her and thus, in the end, for us.  I try to work on the following principles:

• Darkened  Room Most children need a dark room to sleep in (melatonin starts being produced as it gets dark). Consider a dim night light to ensure that it is not completely black if your child is afraid of the dark.
  
• Relaxing Sleep Environment. The crib or bed should be calming and soothing, avoid mobiles and large colorful stuffed toys as these can be very stimulating.
  
• If there is too much noise in the area consider using a white noise machine, fan or nature sounds.
  
• The temperature should be comfortable - neither too hot nor too cold. (The American Academy of Pediatrics used to provide specific temperature guidelines, but now just warns parents of infants to avoid allowing their children to get too warm as this is a risk for SIDS, see this article). Can you sleep when it is too hot?
  
• Lovey. Once your child has reached 6 months old you can introduce a lovey/blankey to her.

We moved to the country so there is not much extraneous noise and no siblings running around. We have heating and cooling for moderating the temperature, our problem, is light. Bella's room here is large and full of light, we all love it - except at bed time. It is the middle of summer here and the sun shines directly into her bedroom until about 9pm. The current shades are lovely but not effective at blocking light. Who wants to fall asleep with all that light? Not me and certainly not Baby Bel!

As soon as we realized there was a problem: "Mommy it's too bright, I can't sleep." on day 3 of being in the house., the realization hit that we needed something temporary; in a hurry.  We had used Redi Shade black out shades for up to a year in one of our apartments (they do have other options but these are the most cost effective, temporary AND available from one of those national hardware chains).  I ran out and got them and we now have success! 1 week of falling asleep within 20 minutes. Long may this continue!

I can not believe that we have not updated our blog since February! So much has happened in the last 4 months. To summarize: My husband and I with our 2 year old daughter have moved across America from Washington State to New York State. We have stayed in 3 different hotels for a grand total of 3 weeks, moved into an apartment while waiting to close on our house and - in one week - we are planning on moving into that house. 

Whew, busy, busy, busy. I have also been working hard on smoothing out our daughter's difficulties with sleep. With all of the commotion from the past few months she had difficulties staying in bed or her crib to fall asleep. We tried technique after technique all of which seemed to fail.  With two sleep coaches in the family there were many suggestions.  We finally found that timed visits did the trick; this was my last hope, I sincerely thought that if I checked in on Baby Bel after saying goodnight she would be too disturbed to settle down and sleep. Boy was I wrong, she settled down like a dream! It still takes her a while to  fall asleep, but I have a feeling that she is anticipating our anxiety and is not looking forward to the next (and hopefully final) move. 

We will see what the next month brings and how she reacts to the move. 

The moral of this story is that like everything else in life there is always more than one way to solve a problem. If your choice does not work after a reasonable attempt, decide what isn't working and try again. Listen to your instincts, to the people you have chosen to guide you and be persistent and consistent.