When should my baby sleep through the night?

You asked and you shall now receive (day #2). It’s only fair for us to share all of this stored up knowledge about a baby and what happens once the baby is born until they are no longer called a baby but a toddler! We now will answer, in a very public forum, all of those burning questions about babies and those first 12 months. Each Tuesday, we will tackle a commonly-asked-question from the point of view of a new parent. Chiming in to give her feedback will be three women who have been there and done that: an expert (you know someone who does this for a living), a mom from our community (for the “best” friend advice you need) and a babybites’ team member (someone who will promise to give you the REAL deal and no fluff). Earmark, share and add your own input to today’s question; it’s good karma.

When should my baby sleep through the night?

Expert: Dr. Gina Lamb – Amato

When babies can sleep through the night and when they actually do are two very different things. Some infants as young as 3 months sleep 6 to 8 hours at night while others don’t sleep that long until they are 1 year old or older. Most babies sleep through the night by the time they are 6 to 9 months. Sleeping through the night means sleeping from midnight to 5 am (not 8 hours of sleep at night unfortunately!). Baby’s ability to sleep through the night is related to age not size, which is called sleep maturity. Babies may still wake up after reaching sleep maturity because of teething or illness. Then when babies are 1 to 1½ years they may wake because of nightmares, night terrors or separation anxiety.

Mom: Sara Pinto

Sleeping through the night: I’ve heard rumors that it can start as early as four weeks (and I am insanely jealous of those mums – I’m English so I say mum!) but it can also take months and months. Around three months (which seems to be the magic number for most things starting) you can begin a sleep schedule and routine and can try and drop a feeding (per your pediatricians approval). I would say you should begin the sleep process about an hour before bedtime by bathing your child to calm them down, going into a relaxed environment (which if you live in a Manhattan apartment could be a closet) and have a feeding. Burp them, rock them and put hem in their crib. Hopefully, fingers crossed, they will fall into a blissfully long sleep. In reality it may take a while for them to fall asleep and they may wake up 5 minutes later…but just hang in there, it will happen…one day!

babybites’ team: Elise Jones

Sleep? Sleep. Oh, sweet sleep. Well I now have a 5 and 2-year old and there isn’t a week that goes by where one of them isn’t up at least once during a night. So sleep is tricky for a baby. Some say when they reach 12 -16 weeks, they can go for 8 hour stretches. That’s some babies (read NOT mine). I think the trick was making sure to help them self soothe and get enough milk before they go to bed to last them a good stretch. And DO NOT jump at every whimper or sound they make and boy do they make some night noises! But my best piece of advice is EVERY BABY IS DIFFERENT; what your friend’s cousin’s neighbor’s baby did will 90% of the time NOT be what yours will do.

About our team

Dr. Gina Lamb – Amato MD

Gina is a general pediatrician and developmental pediatrician who works at Village Pediatrics and Agho Medical practices both in Manhattan, NY. She has a masters in child therapy and works with a child psychologist Rosa Vasquez PhD performing office and home consultation for newborns and parents, office and home developmental assessments, school consultations and parent child playgroups where play and art along with baby massage and other techniques are used to help parents bond and support their child’s development. Formerly, Gina was the Director of Pediatric Special Medical Needs before she went into private practice where she cared for medically fragile infants and children. She is also a Early Intervention Pediatrician for Early Intervention which assesses and treats infants from age zero to 3 years. She has extensive experience in Early Head Start programs which work with infants from prenatal to 3 years of age. She is the mother of a beautiful daughter who is 3 years old and the joy of my life. Her husband is an artist, producer and owns Synchronicity Space, a non-profit arts organization that supports emerging artist in fine art and theatre. Finally, she is also an artist who paints mainly babies and children.

Sara Pinto

Sara has one daughter who is 2 1/2 months. In her professional life, she is the Director of the Professional & Scholarly Publishing (PSP) Division at the Association of American Publishers.

Elise Jones

Elise is the social media director and blog editor for babybites. She is responsible for engaging and investigating a variety of parenting topics found on babybites’ social media channels: parenting videos (webbybites), blog, Facebook, Twitter, and BlogTalkRadio show. The babybites’ blog is an outlet for moms who are in search of information to support them in their role as a parent. Prior to working with babybites, Elise was a teacher and worked in corporate PR. She is a wife and loving mom of two lovely girls and currently resides in New Jersey. In her spare time (HA!) she performs in the theater and is an active member of her local public arts council as well as blogs at Here in This House.