Key things to know about babies' sleep

This page is part of a collection of short articles called Brief & simple, which together make up a quick summary of The Possums Sleep Program in plain language. For comprehensive information and support, please go to The essentials section of The Possums Sleep Program, and begin to work your way through the program's online text and videos.

Here's a quick overview of useful things to know about babies and sleep! Some of this might be quite surprising to hear. After that, we'll take a closer look at the facts.

• Some babies need a lot of sleep. But many babies don't need much sleep at all! Only 9 hours sleep total in 24 hours is normal for some babies, even as newborns.

• It's normal for babies to wake every couple of hours at night to feed and be cuddled, right through the first year of life. But patterns of waking every hour or more is excessive and help is needed.

• Most babies around the world go to sleep quite close to parent's bedtime in the evenings.

• Going to sleep with a feed and a cuddle is a normal way for human babies to go to sleep in the first year of life.

• Babies have a powerful need for rich and changing sensory nourishment. Babies fuss or 'dial up' when there is not much happening around them - that is, when they are bored because they are in a 'low sensory' environment (such as inside the family home). You might think your baby is dialling up because they are tired, but it could be because your baby needs richer, more interesting experiences.

This news report that came out on 9News Australia after Dr Pamela Douglas and Associate Professor Peter Hill published a research paper showing that sleep training approaches don't decrease the frequency of baby night waking.

Acknowledgements

I'm grateful to Professor Sophie Havighurst, Ros June, and Caroline Ma at Mindful, The University of Melbourne, for their feedback on the articles in the Brief & simple section of The Possums Sleep Program. They helped to keep the language plain and the concepts as accessible as possible. For comprehensive information and support, please go to The essentials section of The Possums Sleep Program, and begin to work your way through the program's online text and videos.

Recommended resources

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It's normal for babies to wake every couple of hours during the night

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What is sensory motor nourishment and why does it help with baby sleep?