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©iStockphoto.com/barisonal
by Elizabeth Pantley
October 11, 2010
The actual number of hours that your child sleeps is an incredibly important factor for his health and wellbeing. A sleep study completed by Dr. Avi Sadeh at Tel Aviv University demonstrates that even a one-hour shortage in appropriate sleep time will compromise a child’s alertness and brain functioning and increase fatigue in the early evening. That’s an amazing finding–and it calls for us to look very closely at the total number of hours our child is sleeping.
The length of time that your child is awake from one sleep period to the next will also have a powerful impact on his temperament, mood, and behavior, so it is one more important consideration, and earns a prominent place on the chart. You’ll see that the span of awake time is very, very short for a newborn baby and this gradually increases over time.
The following chart is an important guide to your child’s sleep hours. All children are different, and a few truly do need less (or more) sleep than shown here, but the vast majority of children have sleep needs that fall within the range shown on this chart.
| Age | Number of naps | Total length of naptime hours | Sample awake time between sleep periods | Nighttime sleep hours* | Total nighttime and naptime sleep** |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Newborn*** |
1 – 2 hours |
||||
| 1 month |
3 – 4 |
6 – 7 |
1 – 3 hours |
8.5 – 10 |
15 – 16 |
| 3 months |
3 – 4 |
5 – 6 |
2 – 3 hours |
10 – 11 |
15 |
| 6 months |
2 – 3 |
3 – 4 |
2 – 3 hours |
10 – 11 |
14 – 15 |
| 9 months |
2 |
2.5 – 4 |
2 – 4 hours |
11 – 12 |
14 |
| 12 months |
1 – 2 |
2 – 3 |
3 – 4 hours |
11.5 – 12 |
13.5 – 14 |
| 18 months |
1 – 2 |
2 – 3 |
4 – 6 hours |
11.25 – 12 |
13 – 14 |
| 2 years |
1 |
1.5 – 3 |
5 – 6.5 hours |
11 – 12 |
13 – 13.5 |
| 2 ½ years |
1 |
1.5 – 2 |
6 – 7 hours |
11 – 11.5 |
13 – 13.5 |
| 3 years |
1 |
1 – 2 |
6 – 8 hours |
11 – 11.5 |
12 – 13 |
| 4 years |
0 – 1 |
0 – 2 |
6 – 12 hours |
11 – 11.5 |
11.5 – 12.5 |
*These are averages that do not necessarily represent unbroken stretches of sleep, since a brief awakening between sleep cycles is normal.
**The hours shown don’t always add up because, when children take longer naps, they may sleep less at night and vice versa.
***Newborn babies sleep 16–18 hours per day, distributed evenly over six to seven sleep periods.
By Elizabeth Pantley; text excerpted with permission by McGraw-Hill Publishing from The No-Cry Nap Solution (McGraw-Hill, 2009).
Copyright ©2012 baby gooroo, inc.
