What is ‘sleeping through the night’ anyway? (The Sleep Expert facts)

Please pardon the pun and let’s put this debate to bed once and for all. Nobody sleeps through the night. Nobody.

Even with a belly full of mojitos (and believe me, I have tried this) a full night of uninterrupted sleep is just not possible. We all wake, albeit sometimes only briefly, and this is completely normal. I often find myself checking the time overnight, counting the hours of blissful sleep I might have left.

So if we as adults don’t get through the night without a bit of shifting around the bed and mooching into our comfortable spots, why should we expect that the smallest humans do it? Yes, it would be nice to have a peaceful twelve hours, but it’s not normal to actually get it.

Sleeping through the night has different meanings and relevance for each family but there is a definition from the medical world that describes it as “sleeping for five hours without waking” – probably not what we want to hear I am sure.

Without getting too scientific about it, overnight sleep is broken down into phases (REM Sleep – active Sleep) and Non-REM sleep. Each phase lasts for around 45-60 minutes in babies and young children, and they swing from one phase to another at regular intervals throughout the night.

Usually at the beginning of the night, infants and young children will go into quite a heavy deep sleep phase, and you might find that nothing would rouse them. You could even go in and dance around the room, and they wouldn’t notice. Then, around four to five hours after falling asleep, each of the cycles become more defined and while they go through these sleep cycles they may rouse a little before going into the next one. This can give rise to those little ones who wake hourly from midnight.

THIS IS NORMAL – it is how we react to these wakings that can create the sleep “problems”.

It’s not about getting a full 11-12 hours sleep in one go for little ones. In fact typically, a good stretch of about six-to-eight hours for a six-month-old would be pretty good. If they get to morning without having needed your help or assistance, it’s a bonus.

For some, it will happen sooner and for others, later.

So, what sort of “stretch” would be normal for little ones, bearing in mind they are all different and that the baby might be breastfed, I’d expect a number of feeds overnight so I’d assume they will wake.

Newborn – 3 hours or so

2-3 months – 4-5 hours or so

4-6 months – 6-8 hours or so

6-12 months – 8 hours +

And how much overall sleep should our children be getting in a 24 hour period? Remember, this is just a guide as there are really no exact rules…

Lots of babies learn to sleep well at night all by themselves but many struggle with it and for them, a little sleep coaching may help. Sometimes even making adjustments to day-time naps (I wrote about this already here) will help too as things like over-tiredness, strong feeding and sleeping associations can contribute to babies who rouse a lot overnight.

So, if your baby of eight months, rouses once for a soother, and goes back to sleep quickly – I think we can call it sleeping through the night.

It’s the little ones that have us up in the middle of the night for hours at a time that might need a little bit of extra help…

Niamh O’Reilly is a sleep coach. She’s also a baby and childcare guru, a ‘parent nanny’ and the answer to many a weary parent’s woes. When it comes to baby and child issues, Niamh is your woman. Always on hand to offer a no-nonsense solution, in an approachable way. A regular in the Irish media, (most recently as TV3’s Late Lunch Show’s ‘parent nanny’) over the next while at HerFamily.ie, Niamh will share some of her experiences, helping you attain that ‘holy grail’ – nights of uninterrupted sleep for all of the family.