Striking the right balance between awake and sleep is beneficial to babies. Maintaining a well-organized ‘baby awake times chart’ is the sure-shot way to bring that balance. Here’s how!
It’s a widespread myth that all babies will go to sleep when their energy runs out. In fact, every child is different and requires a different approach to get into a healthy sleep routine. Your job is to understand your baby’s needs.
You can easily teach your baby how to fall asleep more easily and sleep better at night with the help of proper sleep training.
And one crucial component of successful sleep training is to keep track of your infant’s sleep cycle. How do you do so? By following baby wake times chart!
In this article, you will discover the basics of baby awake time charts, a baby’s sleep hours, and awake time.
The basics of baby awake times chart
Babies and adults alike experience what we can call ‘Sleep Pressure’, a term coined by Dr. Dement (Founder of the National Sleep Foundation). He explains sleep pressure with an analogy.
Consider every awake hour as one brick, and as the hour passes, you put that brick in your backpack. Once, the backpack has enough bricks that you cannot carry around, it’s time you to unload the brick by drifting off to sleep.
With infants, the capacity to carry the load is less; hence, they have shorter awake cycles.
Also, you need to understand that the awake time strategy won’t work in solitude. You need to combine it with sleep time and eat time. Following this Wake, Eat, Sleep cycle is the key to ensuring your baby’s fine health and cognitive development.
The most common guidelines for a complete wake and sleep cycle
Every baby has a different sleep pattern. Your job is to understand your baby’s sleep cycle and bring it in conformity with the suggested guidelines. These sleep and wake cycles can also assist in providing sleep training to your child.
| Age | Awake Time | Sleep Time or Nap | Naps / Day |
| New Born to 6 Weeks | 45 to 60 Minutes | 30 Minutes to 3 Hours | 4 to 8 |
| Between 6 Weeks and 12 Weeks | 60 Minutes to 120 Minutes | 30 Minutes to 3 Hours | 3 to 5 |
| 12 Weeks to 24 Weeks | Less than 2 hours | 30 Minutes to 2 Hours | 3 to 4 |
| 24 weeks to 9 Months | Between 2 hours to 3 hours | Somewhere between 1 to 3 hours | 2 or 3 |
| 9 Months to 1 year | Around 3 hours | 1 hours to 2 hours | 1 or 2 |
Why should you follow an awake time chart?
Sometimes, it may seem that the baby is fully active and is ready to climb up the hill. But, it can also be a facade. You simply cannot get into their mischievous little heads and know what they want.
Not following the baby awake times chart can make your baby fussy and difficult to soothe because of bypassing the ideal nap time.
But, when you have clarity about wake time and nap time, it is easier to recognize your baby’s sleep signs and begin your sleep routine.
Off to a great baby sleep
All in all, motherhood is a blessing in disguise. Being a mother, you will feel and experience every possible human emotion there is to feel. This is a journey that will bring a lot of joy and frustration, excitement and doubts.
But at the end of it all, there is satisfaction. Babies have contagious smiles, and they have magical powers to heal everything, from sleep deprivation to frustration. So, take care of your baby, because nobody else can do it like you.
