What Age Do Night Wakings Stop?
If you’re Googling this right now…I feel for ya. But you’re in the right place!
Hi, I’m Lauren, founder of Sleep & the City, and I want to help you find the sleep solutions you need using methods and approaches that actually work in real life— let’s start with what age you can expect night wakings to stop with your baby!
So what age do night wakings stop?
Most doctors will agree that babies over 6 months are able to connect their own sleep cycles, and even drop the majority (if not all!) of their night feeds. However, many babies continue to wake up frequently during the night without any intervention of sleep training. Stanford Children’s says this: “Most babies don't start sleeping through the night (6 to 8 hours) without waking until they are about 3 months old, or until they weigh 12 to 13 pounds. About two-thirds of babies are able to sleep through the night on a regular basis by age 6 months.”
Aren’t night wakings normal?
One thing to understand is that humans by nature, no matter what age, wake briefly several times throughout the night. Here is an example of a sleep cycle:
The issue isn’t the actual waking, but rather with a baby that is unable to put themselves (or self-soothe) back to sleep. Babies that aren’t able to do this will alert their parents by crying out, needing something from their parent in order to fall back asleep. In short: These babes likely have developed sleep crutch(es) over the past few weeks/months, thus aren’t able to self-soothe.
What’s a sleep crutch?
Most common examples are feeding to sleep, rocking to sleep, or lying next to/on a parent in order to fall asleep, and stay asleep. Also can be referred to as a sleep association, or sleep prop.
There is plenty you can do to help your baby with night wakings:
Begin Eat-Play-Sleep routines, and have a schedule (get one for FREE here!)
Establish a consistent bedtime routine
Put your baby down still awake, in his/her own area
Talk w/your doctor about how many feeds baby does or doesn’t need at night after 6 months and adjust
Choose a gradual method to sleep training (the Wink-a-Sleep method does this!)
Be sure to watch for our “How to Sleep Train Your Baby” series here on Instagram reels later this week for more tips on this topic!
Have questions? You can email us or check out our most asked questions, here.