The Baby Sleep Guide

6–12 weeks – A nap every 2 hours.

3–6 months – A nap every 2–3 hours.

6–9 months – Three naps. In the morning, one sleep cycle (approximately 45–60 minutes). Lunch time, two sleep cycles (approximately 90 minutes). Afternoon, one sleep cycle or catnap, depending on age, waking no later than 4–4.30p.m. (dependent on bedtime). Babies are often difficult to settle for this afternoon nap, so this could be a nap triggered by you taking them for a stroll in the pushchair.

9–12 months – Two naps. You can now drop the late afternoon nap. Morning, one sleep cycle. Post lunch, two sleep cycles, waking no later than 3.30 p.m.

12 months plus – You can now work towards one nap a day.

The second technique is to increase the interval between feeds. For example, if your baby is feeding every 3 hours, increase the time between feeds to 3.5 hours for two nights and then 4 hourly for two nights and so on.

There are two techniques to reduce night feeding. The first is to decrease the amount of milk you are giving your baby at each feed. For a bottle fed baby, gradually reduce the volume of milk given over a period of nights. For example, you can reduce the volume by half to 1 fl oz (15–30 ml), each night until you reach 2 fl oz and then stop altogether and use a settling technique (see section 15) to help your baby get back to sleep. For a breastfed baby, gradually reduce the amount of minutes offered at the breast over a period of nights and once you are down to a couple of minutes, stop altogether and use a settling technique.

Pick up and put down