Does my little one need 12 hours of night sleep?
Are you wondering why you aren’t hitting that 7-7 schedule everyone talks about?
Or curious if your little one actually needs 12 hours of night sleep?
We’ve popped our sleep needs table below and we’ll explain how it works a little bit more. The beauty about this table is that it allows you to work out how much sleep your little one needs at night and during the day by looking at their TOTAL 24 HOUR SLEEP NEEDS.
If your little one isn’t getting 12 hours of night sleep or sleeping until 7am it’s not necessarily a problem.
Let’s talk through some points using the example of 9 month old Lucy.
At 9 months Lucy has an awake window of 2.5 – 3 hours max between sleeps
Lucy wakes for the day on average at 6am.
She takes her first nap from 9:00am – 10:15am
Her second nap is from 1:15pm – 3:15pm
She goes to bed at 6:15pm and falls asleep by around 6:30pm
Lucy naps for around 3 hours total during the day
Lucy sleeps a total of around 11.5 hours overnight
Her total sleep across 24 hours is 3 hours (day sleep) + 11.5 hours (night sleep) = 14.5 hours total sleep
Summary of Lucy’s schedule:
Lucy is achieving her day sleep needs for her age
She is achieving her night sleep needs
She is achieving her 24 hour sleep needs
For Lucy to achieve a 7am start would mean she would need to sleep an hour more than she needs for her age every day.
Sleeping 12 hours overnight isn’t necessary for Lucy because she’s reaching her 24 hour sleep needs before the 12 hour mark.
A 7pm bedtime wouldn’t be possible for her at this stage because this would mean she would exceed her age appropriate awake window before bed (based on the time that she woke from her last nap).
She isn’t doing a 7-7 schedule and she’s not getting 12 hours overnight but she’s getting all the sleep she needs so it doesn’t really matter.
So if you are stressed about trying to achieve 12 hours overnight or a 7am start just do a little calculating 👆🏻 on your little ones sleep. Because if they are already getting enough sleep across the day and night you might not be able to get any more sleep out of them.
At S&S we believe any wake up to begin the day between 6-7:30am is all good and bedtime should always be based on the time a little one is due to go to bed, falling anywhere between 6-7:30pm (sometimes a touch earlier).
Still worried that your little one isn’t getting enough sleep and need more support? Check out our wonderful range of guides and programs that have our tried and tested methods.
Hayley & Katie xx
* Please remember that this is a guide only - there is no exact amount of sleep each child needs - some need slightly more and others are okay with slightly less. If your little one is sleeping vastly less to what the table suggests then they may not be getting enough sleep.