How much sleep do babies and young children need?
Well it's something that's changing all the time from when they're born
right through toddlerhood and beyond. It's evolving all the time
but knowing how much they need at each stage and phase is going to
really equip you with helping them continually maintain enough sleep overall.
So the first thing I recommend doing is downloading our 'Sleep Needs' chart
so that that's something you can keep an eye on and gauge.
The thing with the amount of sleep a little one needs is they
are all different and it does change with age and stages, but we often
think that we have a child that just doesn't need as much sleep as the others.
The thing is they usually do. and sometimes even more so yes children are
all different but most of them at least 95 percent will fit into the averages
we've mapped out in our chart so it's very rare that a child will be okay on
significantly less sleep than we put in there we haven't put precision amount
we've put a range and so some children might fall on the higher side of that
range and me the the larger amount other children might sit on the lower side of
that range and be okay on a lesser amount but they're probably going to fit
somewhere in that range or pretty close to it if they are drastically outside of
that range especially if they are getting significantly less sleep then
we've mapped count for you for that age range they probably are under slept and
not getting enough and you're probably seeing effects like difficulty settling
a bedtime disturbed night times early wake up's all those kinds of things so
do keep an eye on that chart as you loose one gross to ensure they are
getting enough sleep because they do really really need it the other thing to
take note of is the time the times between sleeps as well how much time can
your little one manage to be a weight between sleeps it's a common
misconception that babies will just telephone that
that they will just yawn and rub their eyes and give us all the signals or
mugga oh it's sleepy time now don't wait for
your little one to tell you they need to sleep they will at some point probably
show those signs and for many they won't even show those cues to sleep until it's
too late or virtually too late and they're becoming overtired so I tried to
tell people that yes have one eye on your baby and look for those signals and
cues but also have one eye on the time and know the wait for window if you know
your little ones been awake for three hours and you think well this is about
the maximum they can do but they don't seem tired yeah doesn't matter
it's time for asleep if you wait too much longer and then you wait for those
deep you signs you might miss the window and then you'll have a much harder time
believe it or not in getting your little one to settle to sleep so have I I
described as having one eye on the time and one eye on the tiles so you can find
the optimal window for the best quality of sleep you get them the rest that they
really really need another thing that can confuse us sometimes is that little
ones might not necessarily show us how much sleep they need and we can be
caught out by letting them drop a nap or stop having so much before they're truly
ready this is very common with toddlers when life is just so exciting to be
taking a sleep in the day so they'll give you the impression that they're
fine they'll want to keep going and they'll resist napping just because they
don't want to take a nap doesn't mean they don't need to take that nap and if
they don't take it you'll get repercussions later on probably early
rising and disturb night times so you can't always take what you see from your
little one as the absolute certainty around how much sleep they need you need
to know to at the end of the day you're their guide you're their leader you're
the one that shows them the way and helps them as best you can so having
this knowledge really is power and it really will benefit your little one when
they are getting the amount of healthy a restorative nourishing sleep that they
do truly truly need
you