Five things to know about baby daytime naps

1. Some low sleep need babies need no more than 30 minutes total of daytime naps (maybe ten minutes here, five minutes there).

2. A high sleep need baby might need a few hours or more of sleep during the day.

3. Daytime sleep needs might vary in your baby from one day to the next, because sleep is adaptive.

4. The number of naps a baby takes each day

   • Varies between babies

   • Varies in the one baby from day to day

   • Decreases throughout the first year of life. (For example, one baby might take four naps daily at birth which drops to one long nap daily at 12 months of age. But another might only take one or two 10-15 minutes naps during the day into toddlerhood. Both are normal.)

5. By 12 months of age, some babies no longer need to nap during the day.

Estimates of baby's 'wake windows' are not science-based

You might have been given estimates of baby 'wake windows', with recommendations that your baby should not be awake during the day for more than one and a half hours, or two hours, or three hours, depending on your baby’s age. You might be told to catch your baby's ‘early tired signs' and get him down to sleep before he becomes 'overtired'. But this information is not scientific, and can actually create sleep problems for your family.

If you have a low sleep need baby who only needs half an hour nap during the day in total, your baby will naturally be awake for many hours at a time. Of course, this is challenging, and you can find out how to make the days enjoyable even though you have a low sleep baby here. Unfortunately, watching the clock and counting hours of wake windows can make everything worse, though.

For example, if you are watching the clock, it’s tempting (given how much we long for a break!) to think your baby is grizzling and crying because she is tired, and that now it's time to try to get her down to sleep (at last). Yet it may be that your baby needs a change of sensory environment, and that her sleep pressure needs to climb a lot higher before she drops off to sleep - if we're to prevent excessive waking at night down the track.

Selected references

Galland BC, Taylor BJ, Elder DE, Herbison P. Normal sleep patterns in infants and children: a systematic review of observational studies. Sleep Medicine Reviews. 2012;16:213-222.

Matricciani LA, Olds TS, Blunden SL, Rigney G, Williams MT. Never enough sleep: a brief history of sleep recommendations for children. Pediatrics. 2012;129:548.

Paavonen JE, Saarenpaa-Heikkila O, Morales-Munoz I, Virta M, Hakala N, Polkki P, et al. Normal sleep development in infants: findings from two large birth cohorts. Sleep Medicine. 2020;69:145-154.

Price A, Brown JE, Bittman M, Wake M, Quach J, Hiscock H. Children's sleep patterns from 0-9 years: Australian population longitudinal study. Archives of Disease in Childhood. 2014;99:119-125.

Teng A, Bartle A, Sadeh A, Mindell J. Infant and toddler sleep in Australia and New Zealand. Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health. 2011;48:268-273.

Williams JA, Zimmerman FJ, Bell JF. Norms and trends of sleep time among US children and adolescents. JAMA Pediatrics. 2013;167:55-60.