Here’s a simple sleep fact that may help you to rest easy. When sleep experts apply the term “sleeping through the night” to young babies, they are talking about any five-hour-long stretch of sleep that occurs at night. So if your baby hits the hay at 9:00 pm, sleeps until 2:00 am, feeds, and then goes back to bed for another couple of hours, he’d be considered an all-star sleeper. (Well, at least for a young baby.)
Last year, the U.S.-based National Sleep Foundation did an exhaustive study of children’s sleep habits. They discovered that 20% to 30% of babies were still getting up in the night at age nine months. So chances are there’s at least one other mom in your group who’s up in the night with her baby.
Here’s something else to mull over in the wee hours of the morning: some babies who slept through the night when they were younger start waking in the night during the second six months of life. (Anything from ear infections to separation anxiety to developmental breakthroughs can throw their sleep schedules out of whack.)
The moral of the story? Never get too smug when it comes to your baby’s sleep!
