If you have a new baby, figuring out the best sleep schedules for newborns has probably crossed your mind. During the first year of life, an infant goes through a lot of growth and developmental changes with one of the most significant being sleep. Can you believe Infants spend most of their first year of life asleep?! Newborns are actually unable to stay awake for more than an hour at a time and therefore take many “cat naps” throughout the day.
Following a Flexible Schedule
As babies grow older, their awake times increase and they don’t need as much sleep during the day. You may hear people groan about putting baby on a sleep schedule or you might be against schedules. But if you really take a deep dive, you will discover that we all follow some form of schedule or rhythm throughout our daily lives. Follow the 80/20 rule of 80% of the time sticking to your schedule and 20% you go with the flow.
As an adult, you probably wake up and go to sleep around the same time every day. Or you tend to eat your meals around the same time each day. So why is it so difficult to determine and implement the best sleep schedules for newborns? It may be the act of adding a new schedule into your own personal one.
You’ll want to note that children thrive on sleep schedules and general routines. It helps them feel at ease and safe in their environment (Check out American Academy of Pediatrics Safe Sleep Guidelines). In order to provide the best sleep schedule for newborns through toddlers, let’s break up the sleep advice into age groups because as mentioned previously, sleep changes dramatically in the first year of life.
There’s one window of time that remains constant throughout the changes and that’s the bedtime routine. Bedtime should be somewhere between 6-8 pm—always.
From a Certified Child Sleep Consultant, here are some sample sleep schedules that work well with the different stages of baby’s life:
Best Sleep Schedule for Newborns 0-3 Months Old
From 0-3 months of age, the time span your baby should be awake between naps shouldn’t be more than 60-90 minutes. When taking a nap we want to be sure only to let them sleep for maximum of 2 hours, in order to build sleep pressure for the next sleep session. This means your baby will sleep for a total of 16-17 hours in a 24-hour period!
Babies in this age group WILL wake up frequently throughout the night, so the 7/8 am wake-up (listed below) is just the time to get baby up and get the day started. Naps at this age are sometimes hit or miss. Baby may nap for one hour or 20 minutes and miss having a good deep sleep. If they only sleep for 20 minutes, be sure to move up the next nap by 30 minutes to prevent them from becoming overtired and fighting the next nap.
Put your babies down to fall asleep for each sleep session in their own sleep space following safe sleep guidelines—alone, back, crib. We want to get baby used to napping on their own in a crib or bassinet with blackout blinds to allow for the best sleep to happen.
Sample Sleep Schedule:
- 7:00 am – Wake up
- 8:00-9:00 am – Nap 1
- 10:00-11:00 am – Nap 2
- 12:00-1:00 pm – Nap 3
- 2:00-3:00 pm – Nap 4
- 4:00-5:00 pm – Nap 5
- 6:00-7:00 pm – Cat nap
- 8:00 pm – Bedtime
Sleep Schedule for Babies 3-6 Months Old
From 3-6 months of age, the time span your baby should be awake between naps shouldn’t be more than 2-2.5 hours. When taking a nap we want to be sure only to let them sleep for a maximum of 2 hours, in order to build sleep pressure for the next sleep session. With a total of 14-16 hours of sleep in a 24-hour period.
Sample Sleep Schedule With 2-hour Wake Windows:
- 7:00 am – Wake up
- 9:00-10:30 am – Nap 1
- 12:30-2:30 pm – Nap 2
- 4:30-5:30 pm Cat Nap 3
- 7:30 pm – Bedtime
Nap durations begin to lengthen for this age group to up to 2 hours and babies at this age should have longer night stretches. The minimum nap length should be 1 hour, but you should really strive for 1.5 to 2 hours. If baby is still waking every 2 hours during the night, then he or she may be struggling with self-soothing. At the age of 4 months, baby sleep patterns become more adult-like, and they can learn to self-soothe with a sleep prop like a pacifier or sleep sack.
Sleep Schedule for Babies 6-18 Months Old
From 6-18 months of age, the time span your baby should be awake between naps shouldn’t be more than 2-5 hours. When taking a nap, we want to be sure only to let them sleep for a maximum of 2 hours, in order to build sleep pressure for the next sleep session. With a total of 14-16 hours of sleep in a 24-hour period.
Sample Sleep Schedule With 2 naps:
- 7:00 am – Wake up
- 10:00-11:00 am – Nap 1
- 2:00-4:00 pm – Nap 2
- 7:00 pm – Bedtime
Nap Transitions
Somewhere between 6 and 9 months of age, babies drop from 3 naps to 2 naps. You want to look for your baby to be fighting that third nap and bedtime for roughly two weeks before officially transitioning down to two naps. Then move their bedtime up by 30 minutes (for one week) to help with this adjustment.
At around 15 and 18 months, your baby will be ready to drop from 2 naps to only 1 nap. You will notice they will start fighting nap 1 for a couple of weeks before eliminating it. When you recognize this happening, move nap 2 up by 30 minutes to help with this transition.
Sleeping Through The Night
Around 6 months of age, your baby can officially sleep through the night, for 11-12 hours! As long as they are taking in enough food and nutrition during the day they will no longer require night feedings. After speaking with your pediatrician or a professional sleep consultant, you may encourage your baby to self-soothe so that when they wake up at night (and with your support), they will successfully be able to put themselves back to sleep.
Sleep Schedule for Toddlers 18-24 Months Old
From 18-25 months of age, the time span your toddler should be awake between naps shouldn’t be more than 5 hours. When taking a nap, we want to be sure only to let them sleep for a maximum of 2 hours, in order to build sleep pressure for the next sleep session. With a total of 12-14 hours of sleep in a 24-hour period.
- 7:00 am – Wake up
- 12:00-2:00 pm – Nap
- 7:00 pm – Bedtime
Now that baby is down to one nap per day, it will be easier to get out of the house and plan activities and/or outings. At this stage, you may be tempted to transition your child from the crib to a regular bed, but please WAIT! You will want to wait until they are closer to age 3 because they don’t have the cognitive ability before then to understand that they should stay in their room. You’ll end up with a little wanderer and you don’t want that!!
Related Articles:
- Baby Sleep Problems: Top Things That Disturb Baby’s Sleep
- Expert Sleep Advice for Holiday Travel
- BabyQuip Baby Gear Rentals: How to Get Started
How long does it take to put baby on a schedule?
It can take a couple of weeks for a newborn baby (0-3 months) to settle into a sleep schedule that’s been designed for them, so be patient! Sleep is sporadic at this early age.
If you are learning about the best sleep schedules for babies a little later in the game, it’s okay! You can still successfully implement a new routine. For babies ages 3-18 months it typically takes less time; about 3-4 days.
If you’re a parent of an 18-24 month old and haven’t had your child on a sleep schedule up to this point it should only take about 5-7 days for success! That’s not a lot of time for sleep sanity!
One single parent or caretaker can implement a sleep schedule, however, if you’re doing it as a team, make sure you are both consistent and on the same page!
What are some self-soothing techniques for babies?
Self-soothing has been mentioned a few times throughout this article. Some simple strategies that you can implement to help baby self-soothe are:
- Lay your baby down awake. In order for your baby to learn to self-soothe, they will need to fall asleep on their own without help.
- Eliminate external props. An external prop is something that your baby absolutely needs to fall asleep, i.e. rocking, being held, feeding to sleep, and needing to have mom/dad in the room. Keep in mind that during the newborn phase, these are allowed. Your baby needs to be 4 months old and at least 12lbs before implementing any kind of self-soothing support.
- Wait a few minutes when your baby wakes in the night before going over to support them back to sleep. We all wake up throughout the night, but we don’t remember because we’ve got years of experience putting ourselves back to sleep. A baby doesn’t have those skills yet and is trying to figure out what needs to happen to go back to sleep. Sometimes waiting a few minutes will allow them to figure this out all on their own.
Don’t be afraid to put your infant onto a schedule.
A schedule doesn’t have to be a strict, ironclad schedule. It can very well be flexible. But, if you don’t offer your baby a good sleep schedule, then your baby will put themselves on their own schedule and it may not be conducive to their sleep needs…or yours!
Biologically, our bodies fall into a rhythm, a sleep rhythm, a circadian rhythm, feeding rhythm, so it’s only natural to assist your baby into a nice healthy rhythm too. The sample schedules above are just examples, every baby is different so your baby’s sleep schedule can vary, but this is the best starting point!
How do I keep baby in a good sleep pattern while traveling?
You don’t have to give up restful nights while traveling or on the go. There are three easy steps to help your baby or toddler sleep restfully at a hotel, Airbnb, or at a relative’s house.
Travel during nap time.
This is easier said than done, but if possible, plan your flight or car ride around baby’s sleep schedule. They will have a better chance of adapting to their normal schedule when at your final location. If this isn’t possible, just remember to get baby back on their routine as soon as you arrive at your destination.
Don’t stray from the schedule you’ve already implemented.
It may seem like a nice thing to do to let Aunt Linda keep baby awake through nap time but stay strong! Baby will be awake later for Auntie to play with her and baby needs to remain consistent. This way, when you get home the transition back into baby’s own sleep environment will be easy.
Create a home-away-from-home atmosphere.
Think about renting baby gear that is similar to what you have at home. If baby sleeps in a full-size crib at home, chances are they will sleep best in the same setup away from home.
Baby gear rental companies, like BabyQuip, offer full-size wooden cribs, pack ‘n plays, bassinets, mini cribs, toddler beds, sound machines, humidifiers, and lots of other sleep-related items. Quality Providers will deliver and set up all the gear for you!
Good luck and feel free to post questions in the comments section below. Have you followed a similar schedule with your babies? How did it go? We want to know!
Tonja Bizor is a Certified Child Sleep Consultant and Public Speaker who helps parents teach their children healthy sleep habits. She specializes in getting children aged 3 months to 3 years old to sleep 12 hour, uninterrupted nights. She’s helped over 50 families move from sleep deprived to sleep filled nights.
Tonja offers group seminars and private, one-on-one coaching with families, where she develops individualized customized sleep plans for parents to follow.
Tonja completed her Masters degree in Psychology with an emphasis in Clinical/Counseling. She studied under Dana Obleman and achieved her coaching Certification with the Sleep Sense Program.
Tonja was a guest on Talk of Alabama on ABC and she’s been featured in numerous magazines and websites such as Romper, Military Spouse Fest, Birmingham Parent Magazine and Dr. Laura.
Tonja can be reached through her website: www.tonjabsleepconsulting.com or by email at tonjabsleepconsulting@gmail.com. Follow her on Facebook and Instagram for sleep tips! @tonjabsleepconsulting
I’m gonna figure this out. For whatever reason I thought twins would sleep better than singletons. But my twins aren’t good sleeper and aren’t on the same scheule!!!! It makes me crazy.
OMG…THANK YOU for this. I’m going to try this starting next week. I have to get my 13 month old on a schedule before I go insane LOL
Woo-hoo. So happy we at least have correct bed time for our child of 7:30/8!
Our little did best when we keep her on a schedule. Even now as a two year old she still requires a nap in the afternoon. We always put her down awake even from the very beginning and I think it has made a world of difference that we don’t have issues getting her to sleep now as a toddler. Stay consistence!
Good post! Thanks!
This helped me understand what the term self-soothe for babies and toddlers means.
I definitely don’t follow a schedule and am so sleep deprived. My baby is 6 weeks old so I’m hoping I can get him on a good schedule quickly.
As a momma to a 4 month old, I haven’t been doing a good job of tracking his naps at all! I’ll have to pay more attention to see if he’s on a general schedule or if he’s still haphazardly napping.