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How Many Naps For 6 Month Old? Interesting Info On Their Sleep Routine

how many naps for 6 month old

Many parents seem to spend much of their child’s infancy watching a baby sleep. It’s amazing how often and where an infant can fall asleep and take their second nap, third nap, and so on.

After a while, you’ll develop a sleep schedule that your child seems to build naturally. 

Daytime sleep, night sleep, and all those little naps in between will align, and you’ll get used to it and be able to plan your life around it until it changes.

In this article, we will discuss baby sleep, specifically the nap schedule of most babies at six months. 

We’ll talk about your baby’s sleep schedule and how many naps for 6 month old are needed to achieve the developmental milestones crucial to your child’s proper growth and learning.

How many hours do babies sleep?

Regarding awake time vs. sleep time, your child starts falling asleep often and taking short naps throughout the day. 

Nighttime sleep isn’t unbroken at first, but as your infant becomes a toddler, sleep regulates a bit more, and eventually, if all goes well, you’ll have a baby who can fall asleep independently and stay asleep all night.

While all baby sleep patterns are a bit different, and the same is true of the nap schedule of each little one, most babies follow trends according to what their bodies need.

The following are the sleep periods that infants of different ages seem to follow. 

Don’t be too concerned if your little one’s sleep habits don’t perfectly line up with what follows. These are trends, not requirements. No two infants are the same.

how many naps for 6 month old

1. Newborns

Brand new babies don’t have a set schedule. Many babies just fall asleep whenever they feel tired at this age. 

Up until the age of six to eight weeks, there is often no way to guess when your child will have awake time and they will absolutely love daytime sleep.

Longer naps are normal for newborns, anywhere from two to four hours at a time, and most babies in this age bracket sleep for three to four hours during the night time. 

As your baby gets older, shorter naps take over, and longer periods of awake time follow suit.

The National Sleep Foundation recommends 14 to 17 hours of sleep a day from birth until the age of three months, but other institutions say that you should simply let your baby sleep as much as they want to at this stage.

2. 3-month-old sleep schedule

At three to four months old baby starts to develop sleep patterns that an observant parent can begin to put into a sleep schedule. 

While you should start to work on a nap schedule at this time, you should also allow your child’s natural sleep cycles to remain in charge.

If your child seems tired thirty minutes after their first nap of the day, don’t force awake time. Likely, your infant didn’t complete their sleep cycle during that first nap, and they need two naps close together.

3. 4-month sleep regression

At around the age of four months, many babies hit a stage of sleep regression. This means that everything you got used to with your adorable three-month-old as far as a sleep schedule is concerned has been unceremoniously tossed out the window.

You may experience more night waking, short naps, crankiness, a baby who is tired at odd times, and sleep cycles that don’t align with anything you’ve been working towards.

Hang in there, and keep up with the routine that you have built. Resist the urge to co-sleep or change your bedtime habits with your baby. 

Put baby to sleep in their own room, or if you share a room, in their own bed. 

This trouble sleeping will soon make your baby’s sleep more predictable.

What causes sleep regression?

Sleep challenges like regressions occur because your child is hitting a developmental milestone

Sleep needs change as babies mature, and sometime between three and six months of age, a regression hits that will permanently change how a baby’s nap and overnight sleep works.

Newborns have two sleep cycles, and adults have four. 

When regression hits at this stage, restorative sleep can become disturbed because there is more opportunity to wake up at night or during long naps. This can make a very fussy baby as young babies get used to the change.

4. 6-month-old naps

The sleep schedule should be a bit more predictable at six months old. 

Your little one will most likely be sleeping for most of the night during night sleep, if not straight through till morning, and having two naps or even three naps per day.

Nap times for a 6-month-old vary, but most have a morning nap, followed by an afternoon nap, and sometimes an evening nap.

6 month old sleep schedule

A baby’s circadian rhythm is a system of its own. 

While you can tweak it a little, 6-month-old sleep needs are defined by your baby, not you.

However, there are sample schedules that you can find online and through your pediatrician or healthcare provider. These schedules can help you develop routines to help your family get the sleep they need while allowing your little one to rest.

Here are some factors at play in your baby’s sleep schedule.

1. Separation anxiety

6-month-old sleep may be disturbed a bit by separation anxiety, which generally starts to settle in for some babies at this age. This is where the baby begins staying awake intentionally even though tired, and the baby’s temperament may change at bedtime.

Cuddling baby before bedtime, using a night light, white noise machine, or quiet classical music or lullabies at bedtime may help with this. Your 6-month-old will eventually learn that just because they can’t see you, you have not disappeared.

2. Early bedtimes

A 6-month-old will start to stay awake for more extended periods and only need about three and a half hours of naps throughout the day. The rest of the time, before beginning your bedtime routine, is wake time.

To consolidate naps to just two per day, make the last nap earlier in the day. If possible, knock out the third nap, and make bedtime earlier.

Two or three naps are OK for a 6-month-old. However, you will have more success if your baby sleeps through the night if you can bump the last nap up so that it’s earlier in the day and make an earlier bedtime instead.

6 month old sleep schedule explained

Does a 6-month-old sleep through the night?

Unless your baby has medical concerns that require intervention, observation, or require that you wake them at night, it’s perfectly fine to allow a 6-month-old baby to sleep all night. 

Ensure that you follow Safe Sleep Guidelines, so your baby is safe in their crib for a long time.

Don’t put loose bedding, toys, pillows, or any loose articles in the bed with your infant. Your baby does not need a blanket. Warm pajamas will suffice. 

Make sure your baby sleeps on a firm mattress that fits the crib, and start your baby out on its back at bedtime.

If your child is rolling over independently and sitting up on their own, you don’t have to change the position of a 6-month-old baby so that they stay on their back for naps or longer sleep.

3. Fed before bed

A 6-month-old baby should still get most nutritional needs met with breast milk or formula. 

Some parents opt to start their babies on solid foods at around the 6-month mark, but the bulk of meal times should still be liquid food.

You will likely find that a 6-month-old baby still wants or needs a bottle or the breast before naps and bedtime. 

While you should always keep your little one fed, be careful that you don’t turn the baby bottle or breast into a sleep cue.

A sleep cue is when your baby starts to associate something with taking a nap or going to bed.

Naps are something that you want to go smoothly and with as little fight from your baby as possible, so it can be tempting to give a bottle before every nap. Only do this if it aligns with your child’s eating schedule.

When a baby starts to associate the bottle or breast as a sleep cue, they may begin to refuse naps without it. This could make for a miserable time if they ate while wide awake and didn’t need another bottle at nap time.

It can also make for some missed naps if you are not at home or have a bottle available when your child needs sleep.

Struggling with naps or 6 month old sleep schedule

If naps are a battle you just can’t seem to win, or if your little one refuses to get on the same page when you try to put them on a sleep schedule, no matter how many samples you look up or how hard you try, don’t give up.

Talk to your doctor and see if you can get a referral, or find an infant sleep specialist on your own and utilize their help.

These highly qualified professionals can offer one-on-one help to parents catered specifically to your baby so that you can get on the right track and get a little bit of peace while you’re at it.

It truly does take a village sometimes, and if you have a baby who doesn’t sleep well, never feel ashamed to reach out for some help.

How many naps for 6 month old?

It bears repeating that no two babies are alike especially when it comes to sleep schedules. 

This means that even though you may have a friend or family member who has an infant the same age as yours, they may be on an entirely different schedule and have altogether different habits and needs from your infant. 

And that’s OK. Little ones aren’t supposed to fit any specific mold.

That being said, at the age of six months, most infants take two naps, or sometimes three, per day and can sleep through the night, sometimes with a couple of periods of wakefulness to eat. 

If your baby isn’t overtired and healthy, don’t compare yourself or your little one to anyone else.

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