Are they sleeping through yet?
Have you been asked if your baby sleeps through? Seen the TikToks of parents telling everyone how their baby has slept through every night since a week old (or something like that)?
Sleep is one of the first aspects of children’s development that tests our determination not to compare. If your baby wakes multiple times a night, you might be desperate for the secret to uninterrupted sleep!
What IS the secret?
So, here’s the secret – there is no secret! Babies all have different sleep needs and develop in different ways. The parent on TikTok is probably either being economical with the truth or has a baby who likes to rest. Sleep is developmental – and sleeping through is not as common as it might seem. Read on to find out more.
Do they sleep through?
This might be a familiar question, but one research study suggests a more accurate question might be, “Have they ever slept through?”
Sleep might be something you think about a lot. Even if you aren’t too concerned about it, it is often a topic of conversation when you have a baby.
It probably won’t surprise you to learn that, while there are guidelines about the amount of sleep babies, children and adults need, a lot of the answers link to our individual sleep needs and patterns.
Sleep patterns vary from night to night
Researchers agree that there is considerable variability between individual babies’ sleep patterns. However, one group of researchers wanted to investigate the variation in babies’ sleep from night to night. They were interested in exploring whether an individual baby would have the same sleep pattern on consecutive nights.
The results of their research were published in 2020. They looked at how much six-month-old babies slept. The study involved 44 babies and looked at their sleep each night over 13 nights.
The results of the research probably won’t surprise you. The researchers found that the sleep patterns of six-month-old babies varied between individual babies and for each baby from night to night as well.
Very few babies (three out of 44) slept through the night every night, which in this study was defined as sleeping for between six and eight hours without waking.
Sleep is developmental – the expectation that babies sleep through at six months old is unrealistic
This research shows that sleep is a developmental process and ‘sleeping through’ is not achieved in one step, but, like lots of development, takes time to consolidate. The researchers also suggest that it might be helpful for parents to know that the expectation babies will ‘sleep through’ at six months old is often unrealistic.
References:
Pennestri, M-H., Burdayron, R., Kenny, S. Beliveau, M-J., Dubois-Comtois, K. (2020). ‘Sleeping through the night or through the nights?’ Sleep Medicine, 76, 98-103.
For more information about babies’ sleep you can visit Basis online BASIS – Baby Sleep Information Source (basisonline.org.uk).
