Sleeping through the night
Many babies first sleep a long stretch at night, like midnight to 5am, by about 3 months, but waking at night stays common and normal through the first year. In one study, about 1 in 7 babies had still never slept from midnight to 5am at 12 months.
We haven't yet found studies that measured the age when most children start. The sections below say what is known.
How sure are we?
Not sure yet. Only one small study has measured this age so far, and the answer depends a lot on what counts as "sleeping through". How we know this
What it’s a sign of
Your baby's sleep is slowly organising into longer stretches at night.
Ages depend a lot on what counts as sleeping through: 5 hours, 8 hours, or 10pm to 6am. In another study, between about a quarter and over half of babies did not sleep 6 or 8 hours in a row at 6 or 12 months, and this was not linked with how they developed.
We don't know the age by which nearly all babies sleep through most nights.
A main source for the ages
Sleeping Through the Night: The Consolidation of Self-regulated Sleep Across the First Year of Life
Jacqueline M. T. Henderson, Karyn G. France, Joseph L. Owens, Neville Morris Blampied · 2010 · PEDIATRICS
- Children
- About 75 babies
- Where
- Not given in the summary we read
- Ages
- Birth to 12 months
- How
- Parents kept sleep diaries every month
- What it found
- Half the babies had first slept from midnight to 5am by about 3 months, but about 1 in 7 had still never done so at 12 months.
- Limits
- We have only read the summary. "Sleeping through" was counted the first time it happened, not every night.
A study that questioned earlier findings
Uninterrupted Infant Sleep, Development, and Maternal Mood
Marie‐Hélène Pennestri, Christine Laganière, Andrée–Anne Bouvette–Turcot, Irina Pokhvisneva, Meir S Steiner, Michael Joseph Meaney, Hélène Gaudreau · 2018 · PEDIATRICS
- Children
- About 390 babies
- Where
- Not given in the summary we read
- Ages
- 6 and 12 months
- How
- Mothers' reports
- What it found
- Between about a quarter and over half of babies did not sleep 6 or 8 hours in a row at 6 or 12 months. Not sleeping through was not linked with how babies developed.
- Limits
- We have only read the summary, which doesn't say which figure goes with which age.
A main source for the ages
Normal sleep patterns in infants and children: A systematic review of observational studies
Barbara C. Galland, Barry J. Taylor, Dawn E. Elder, Peter Herbison · 2011 · Sleep Medicine Reviews
- Children
- Children from 34 studies
- Where
- Several countries
- Ages
- Birth to 12 years
- How
- A study that pulled together lots of studies
- What it found
- Waking in the night was common in healthy babies and toddlers: from none to about 3 wakings a night in the first months, and up to about 2½ a night at 1 to 2 years.
- Limits
- We have only read the summary.
If you’re worried about your child, talk to your child and family health nurse or GP.
Last checked 2 November 2026