When Do Babies Sleep Through the Night?

Most babies are capable of a longer overnight stretch somewhere around 6 months, but “sleeping through the night” is a slipperier milestone than it sounds. In research it can mean anything from 5 straight hours to a clean stretch from midnight to 5am to a full 8 hours, and the definition you pick changes the answer completely.³⁶

Here is the number that reframes the whole question. In one study of nearly 400 infants, depending on whether you required 6 or 8 uninterrupted hours, somewhere between 27.9 and 57.0 percent of 6 and 12 month olds were still not sleeping through the night.¹ Waking is not a bug. For a large share of babies it is the normal state well into the second year.

This guide lays out what to actually expect by age, why night waking is so normal, when babies can drop night feeds, and what genuinely helps, without pretending there is a deadline your baby is late for.

What “Sleeping Through the Night” Even Means

The phrase sounds precise and is not. The convention of measuring a clean stretch from midnight to 5am dates back to a 1957 study, and it was chosen partly for the researchers’ convenience, not because 5am is when a night ends.³ Modern studies variously use 5 consecutive hours, 6 hours, or 8 hours. Cleveland Clinic tells parents it commonly just means 5 to 6 hours at a stretch without feeding.⁶

That is not pedantry. It is the reason two mothers can compare notes and reach opposite conclusions about whether their babies “sleep through.” They are measuring different things.

What to Expect by Age

With the caveat that the range of normal is enormous, here is the rough trajectory. Treat it as a map, not a timetable.²⁶

Two research findings are worth holding onto. First, night waking follows two broad tracks: most infants settle into infrequent waking, but about a third are “transitional sleepers” who wake often at 6 months and taper only gradually across the next year and a half. Second, that persistent-waking group is normal, and it is more common in breastfed babies and boys, not a sign anyone did anything wrong.²

Why Babies Wake So Much

Newborns wake because they have to. Their circadian rhythm, the internal day-night clock, is barely developed at birth and only matures over roughly the first 2 to 4 months as it entrains to light and feeding.⁹ Before that, there is no biological “night” to sleep through.

Sleep is also built from cycles, and babies briefly surface between them, just as adults do. The difference is that a baby who has not yet learned to resettle calls out. Add genuine hunger in the early months, developmental leaps, teething, and the arrival of separation anxiety around 6 to 9 months, and frequent waking is exactly what you would predict.²

Total sleep need is large and spread across day and night: the American Academy of Sleep Medicine consensus is 12 to 16 hours a day (including naps) for 4 to 12 month olds, and 11 to 14 hours for 1 to 2 year olds, with a wide normal range.⁸ A baby hitting their total over several stretches is not sleeping “badly,” just differently from an adult.

Where Night Waking Actually Peaks

If you want to know how normal your baby’s waking is, our own numbers help. In the State of Baby Sleep 2026 report, a survey of 74,379 parents across 112 countries, night waking does not vanish at 6 months. It peaks after it.

Night waking peaks at 7 to 9 months, when 66.7 percent of babies wake three or more times a night. It is still 59.7 percent at 10 to 12 months and 52.4 percent into the second year. A baby who is not sleeping through at 9 months is squarely in the majority, not behind.

When Can Babies Drop Night Feeds?

In the early months, night waking is often real hunger, and healthy babies usually should not be pushed to go long stretches without feeding. The AAP notes that growing babies do not generally need to be woken to feed, but the flip side is that many still need those feeds.⁵

Many babies are developmentally capable of longer feed-free stretches around 6 months, particularly once daytime intake is solid, but this is individual, and breastfed babies commonly feed at night longer than formula-fed ones.⁶² If you are ready to work on it, our guide to night weaning covers how to reduce feeds gradually and safely, and the dream feed is one tool some families use to shift the longest stretch.

Before nudging a baby off night feeds, confirm growth is on track. Do not night wean a baby who is not gaining well, and check with your pediatrician first if you are unsure.⁵

What Helps, and What the Evidence Says About Pushing It

The gentle, universally recommended steps are worth doing regardless of sleep goals: a consistent, calming bedtime routine, a dark and quiet sleep space, plenty of daytime light and activity, and putting your baby down drowsy but awake so they practice settling.⁷¹⁰

If waking is entrenched past around 6 months and it is a problem for your family, structured approaches have real evidence. Our pillar on the Ferber method, and the guides to cry it out and the chair method, walk through the options and their evidence honestly, including where that evidence is thinner than the internet implies.

Here is the finding that should lower the pressure. In the study of nearly 400 infants, sleeping through the night at 6 or 12 months was not associated with better mental or motor development, or with better maternal mood, at follow-up.¹ The authors concluded that expectations for early sleep consolidation could be moderated. A baby who wakes is not behind. They are on a normal, if exhausting, developmental path.

Frequently Asked Questions