2. But night wakes aren’t always ‘normal’, either

Sometimes, you hear that children will continue to wake at night until they’re taught not to. But this not only dismisses the fact that typically developing infants consolidate their sleep over time on their own (see above). It also can overlook any underlying health conditions that can impact sleep.

Iron deficiency, which affects some 15% of toddlers in the US, for example, can cause frequent night wakes, restlessness, and difficulty falling asleep in infants. (Read more about iron deficiency – and when supplements are the answer).

Many other conditions have been linked to unsettled sleep or frequent wakes in babies and small children, including food allergies, gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) and ear infections. Then there are sleep disorders themselves: up to 6% of children are estimated to have obstructive sleep apnea, for instance, a condition that also can cause frequent wakes, with a peak between two to six years old. 

3. For most infants, 12 hours of sleep per night is quite a lot

Google “baby sleep schedule” online, and you might notice a theme: most will suggest that infants sleep about 12 hours per night. Ever since the “7-7” (19:00-07:00) schedule was popularised in Western and industrialised societies, anything less, particularly for babies and young children, has been seen as insufficient. 

While it is true that some children do need 12 hours a night, many do not – and for those children, being put down too early can lead to bedtime “battles”, frequent wakes, or an early start the next morning. One Australian study of 5,000 babies found that children from infancy up to almost five years of age slept 11 hours overnight on average, not 12. This was true even for the youngest babies studied, who were four to six months old.