My name is Mica. I am a certified sleep consultant and founder of Rested Mama, Happy Baby. I help families on their journey to establish healthy sleep habits and get the whole family sleeping again! Navigating through the changes of our babies can be a lot!  From milestones in development to changes in sleep, our children go through an amazing amount of growth and sleep changes in just the first 12 months of age. Below I have included a chart so you know what to expect at every stage. 

 Baby Sleep Milestones & What to Expect:

0-8 weeks

• Sleeping is unpredictable and can seem constant
• Waking every 2-6 hours at night
• Wake times are short, and it can seem like there isn’t time to do anything else
• The number of naps can vary between 4-6 every day
• Bedtime can be anywhere from 8 - 11 pm!

8 weeks - 12 weeks

• Babies start to experience their peak of crying and fussiness!
• Babies begin to develop their sense of patterns and sequences making them ready for nap and bedtime routines
• Babies begin to thrive with an earlier bedtime 6 pm - 8 pm
• Their ability to sleep longer stretches than 2 hours becomes more prominent
• They develop 1 core night stretch
• Biological clocks and patterns start to emerge (preference on wake times, naps times, etc)
• The number of naps solidifies to 4

3-6 months

• Lots of developmental skills develop during this time (rolling, sitting, and ready to crawl)
• Lots of cognitive skills develop during this time including the first sign of separation anxiety
• Naps begin to transition from 4 to 3 again!
• There are TWO sleep regressions that can occur during this time
• The ability to sleep through the night emerges with proper weight gain
• Wake times double by this time!

7-12 months

• Even MORE developmental milestones are mastered (crawling, standing unassisted, maybe waking)
• Separation anxiety and stranger danger are at their highest
• Naps transition AGAIN from 3 naps to 2 naps
• Wake times increase by almost an hour
• There are another TWO sleep regressions that occur at this time
• The ability to sleep through the night of 12 hours more continuously occurs
• Babies develop the ability to consolidate sleep for solid naps with independent skills.

1 - 4 years

• There are still many development milestones during this time and up to 3-4 regressions that can occur but are farther apart
• Waketimes DOUBLE during this time
• Naps drop to 1 for a while and sleep needs in the day start to fade to 1.5-2 hours only

   What can you take away from this?  Our babies are ALWAYS changing.  Sleep training and setting healthy sleep foundations is mostly a tool to help them get through the regressions faster so they get the sleep they need in order to continue to grow and master their skills during these times. 

Did you know a side effect of sleep training sometimes is a regression?  No, it’s not because it’s detrimental, it’s because many times the additional restorative sleep that the child gets accelerates them into a new skill!  How exciting is that?!

    Setting healthy sleep foundations is the core to helping your child grow.  Our Rested Mama Library can help you navigate with our self-guided tools to help you manage through these exciting changes! 

   Let me know in the comment section below what milestones your baby is going through right now and how I can help! 

  Learn more about how we work with families to help their babies sleep 10+ hours at night without Cry-it-out or Ferber.  Join our free webinar!

Sleep is around the corner,

Rested Mama, Happy Baby Founder