2–3 months
Evening cluster feeds are normal here.
- Awake
- 75 min – 2 h
- Naps
- 4–5
- In 24 h
- 14–17 h
- Wake7:00 am
- Nap 18:38 am
- Nap 211:01 am
- Nap 31:24 pm
- Nap 43:47 pm
- Bedtime6:10 pm
Sleep schedules, by age
Ten age bands, the same four numbers in each, and a worked day for the five stages that move the most.
The whole range, in one table
Awake time is the stretch a baby can usually manage between sleeps, not a target to stretch. Total sleep follows the AASM consensus statement.
| Age | Awake between sleeps | Naps | Sleep in 24 h |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0–1 month | 45 min – 60 min | 5–8 | 14–17 h |
| 1–2 months | 60 min – 90 min | 4–6 | 14–17 h |
| 2–3 months | 75 min – 2 h | 4–5 | 14–17 h |
| 3–4 months | 90 min – 2 h | 3–4 | 12–16 h |
| 5–6 months | 2 h – 2 h 30 | 3 | 12–16 h |
| 7–9 months | 2 h 30 – 3 h | 2–3 | 12–16 h |
| 9–12 months | 3 h – 4 h | 2 | 12–16 h |
| 13–18 months | 4 h – 5 h | 1–2 | 11–14 h |
| 18–24 months | 5 h – 6 h | 1 | 11–14 h |
| 2–3 years | 5 h – 6 h | 1 | 10–13 h |
Total sleep from AASM, 2016. Wake windows are drawn from the paediatric sleep literature summarised inthe 2022 overview of reviewsand are deliberately wide; they are not a clinical threshold.
What a day looks like
Each day starts at 7am by default and uses the middle of the wake-window range. Set your own morning wake time below to shift every schedule at once.
3–4 months
Sleep architecture changes; naps shorten.
- Awake
- 90 min – 2 h
- Naps
- 3–4
- In 24 h
- 12–16 h
- Wake7:00 am
- Nap 18:45 am
- Nap 211:15 am
- Nap 31:45 pm
- Nap 44:15 pm
- Bedtime6:45 pm
5–6 months
The third nap starts to get short.
- Awake
- 2 h – 2 h 30
- Naps
- 3
- In 24 h
- 12–16 h
- Wake7:00 am
- Nap 19:15 am
- Nap 212:15 pm
- Nap 33:15 pm
- Bedtime6:15 pm
9–12 months
Two naps until at least fourteen months.
- Awake
- 3 h – 4 h
- Naps
- 2
- In 24 h
- 12–16 h
- Wake7:00 am
- Nap 110:30 am
- Nap 23:15 pm
- Bedtime8:00 pm
18–24 months
Nap after lunch, bedtime by seven or eight.
- Awake
- 5 h – 6 h
- Naps
- 1
- In 24 h
- 11–14 h
- Wake7:00 am
- Nap 112:30 pm
- Bedtime7:15 pm
When to ignore the table
A schedule is a description of a week that already happened, not an instruction. There are four situations where following the numbers makes things worse.
- Illness and teething. Sleep gets lighter and shorter for a few days. Return to the routine when it passes; do not rebuild it mid-illness.
- Travel and clock changes. Move bedtime by 15 minutes a day rather than jumping an hour. The wake window follows the body, not the time zone.
- Prematurity. Use corrected age until around two years, or the expectations will sit weeks ahead of the baby.
- A baby who is simply not tired. If the last wake window is running long without fussing, the range was too short for that child. Ranges have edges.
Questions about the table
Four things parents ask before they trust a number.
My baby's schedule looks nothing like the worked day. Is something wrong?
No. The worked day is the middle of the range applied to a 7am wake-up. If your baby wakes at 6am, every time on it moves an hour earlier. If your baby takes 40-minute naps, the day finishes earlier than the template says, and that is normal in the first six months.
Should I wake my baby to stay on schedule?
In the first weeks, only for feeding if your midwife or paediatrician has asked you to. Later, a gentle wake from the last nap of the day is the one intervention that reliably protects bedtime — cap that nap rather than the first two.
How long does a schedule take to settle?
Two weeks of consistency is the usual answer, and a schedule held for three days then abandoned teaches nobody anything. Change one thing at a time: wake time first, then nap ends, then bedtime.
Do these schedules work for premature babies?
Use the corrected age — the age your baby would be if born on the due date — until around two years. A baby born eight weeks early is working to a schedule two months behind the one on the label.
Table reviewed October 28, 2026 · Mara Ellison