How Much Sleep Do Babies Need?

The amount of sleep each baby needs is individual, but there are certain “boundaries” that define the desired length of sleep and the number of naps, reflecting the baby’s age. It’s common to encounter situations where babies are not sleeping as much as they should for their age. You can tell if your baby is getting enough sleep by observing their mood during the day and how well they sleep at night. For example, waking up crying is a strong sign that your baby still needs to sleep.

If your 6-month-old baby takes three 30-minute naps during the day, that is insufficient, and the belief that “they probably don’t need more sleep” or “they’ll grow out of it eventually” is incorrect.

Sleep is a fundamental biological need for humans, including babies.

Children’s sleep

Babies need a lot of sleep—quality sleep. This is because, in the first weeks, months, and years of life, a baby’s brain is developing, and this development occurs primarily during sleep. Therefore, we shouldn’t underestimate the importance of sufficient quality and uninterrupted sleep (appropriate to their age).

It’s important to realize that your baby has an overall sleep need that is distributed between day and night. We should consider daytime and nighttime sleep together since they influence each other. Frequent night waking can be caused by disruptive sleep associations, illness, overtiredness, lack of daytime sleep, an inappropriate routine, or a late bedtime. The pattern of daytime naps (their number and length) is crucial for the quality and length of nighttime sleep.

Of course, it’s impossible to perfectly categorize and label all children, but based on my experience, studies, and WHO recommendations, we can estimate how much sleep children approximately need. The following table summarizes the number of daytime naps and the duration of each daytime nap and nighttime sleep, taking the baby’s age into account.

Baby sleep chart