Night Waking in Babies: Causes and Expectations by Age
If your baby keeps waking in the night, you're not alone. Frequent night waking is one of the most common sleep challenges in the first year, and it often leaves parents wondering what's normal and when their baby will finally start sleeping longer stretches.
The idea of "sleeping through the night" can feel like a major milestone, and it's completely normal to worry if your baby isn't there yet. The reality is that night waking is a normal part of infant sleep, and it can vary widely depending on your baby's age, development and daily routine.
In this guide, we'll walk through what's normal at each stage, the most common causes of night waking, and what you can do to support longer stretches of sleep.
In this Article:
- Why babies wake at night
- Night waking between 0-3 months
- Night waking between 4-6 months
- Night waking between 6-8 months
- Night waking between 8-12 months
- Other common causes of night waking
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How to reduce night waking
Struggling with overnight wakes? If you’re in the trenches with a baby or toddler who is waking all night, getting their daytime sleep balance right is the cure. But, the last thing you want to be worrying about is wake windows and nap times and bedtime and sleep pressure and how it all torks together. Our sleep app does it all for you, every single day, with customised schedules for your unique baby/toddler that adapt according to their age, sleep science and their real-time tracked data.
Why babies wake at night
Night waking is a normal part of infant sleep and the reasons often change as babies grow. Newborns usually wake because they need frequent feeds, while older babies may wake between sleep cycles, during nap transitions, or when they are learning new developmental skills. Understanding why your baby is waking overnight can help you respond in a way that supports their sleep while still meeting their needs.
Some babies wake even more frequently, sometimes every sleep cycle or two throughout the night. If this sounds familiar, you can read more about the causes in our guide to Baby Waking Every Hour at Night or our article on Why Baby Wakes Every 2 hours.
Typical Night Waking by Age
Age |
Typical Night Waking |
| 0-3 months | Waking every 2 to 4 hours |
| 4-6 months | 1-2 wakes common |
| 6-8 months | 0-1 wakes typical |
| 8-12 months | Most babies are capable of sleeping through |
Night waking in newborns (0-3 months)
The newborn weeks are all about learning each other’s cues - sleep will come in tiny pockets and that’s okay. Our approach is responsive, helping you create soothing rhythms that support feeding, bonding and rest for everyone. Our smart sleep app guides you with flexibility so you can build calm sleep foundations without pressure.
Feeding
This is a huge period of development in your baby’s life - the biggest, actually, they’ll ever have! The amount of physical and mental growth that happens in these few months is massive, so they do need lots of fuel for all this growing.
At this point your baby will be entirely milk-fed (formula or breast) and milk is digested much quicker than solid food, so your baby will be feeding every few hours in the day and you can certainly still expect night feeds too.
Settling & Sleep Environment
At this age babies aren’t really capable of developing “bad” sleep habits, so don’t stress too much about how you’re getting them to sleep or that they’re feeding in the night. It’s really only when you reach the 4 month sleep regression that you will want to start thinking about your baby's sleep associations.
For any night wakes under 3 months, assume hunger and feed your baby. Make sure these feeds are done in the dark, change their nappy only if absolutely necessary and avoid stimulating your baby or they will be very hard to settle back to sleep!
We recommend playing white noise all night long and definitely keep it going during these night feeds. Feed your baby in the room they're sleeping in so there is no sudden temperature change. We also recommend that babies this age are swaddled to suppress their startle reflex. Keeping your baby tightly wrapped for their night feeds will also help them stay in the sleep “zone” and they’ll be easier to settle again.
If you have a windy baby make sure you burp them really well after their feeds or they might wake again shortly afterwards and can be more difficult to settle.
Naps
If your baby is waking a LOT in the night or staying awake for long periods it is often attributed to what is happening in their day and with their naps. They might be having too much or too little day sleep, meaning that they are under or over tired. See Why Daytime Sleep Matters for more information about how your baby's naps can impact their night sleep.
Newborn babies can also sometimes have their days and nights around the wrong way, where they happily sleep all day, then stay awake all night! It's not difficult to reverse this day/night confusion simply by having a bit more control over their naps during the day.
Naps can feel like the most fragile part of the day - one short catnap and suddenly the whole rhythm feels off. In our sleep app we look at naps as part of the whole day - wake windows, feeding, environment and settling - so your baby’s sleep rhythm can develop naturally with the right structure around it.
Night waking between 4-6 months
Feeding
Between 4-6 months your baby may start waking more in the night for milk, genuinely hungry, even if they can self-settle and had previously been sleeping through the night. This is often a sign they are getting ready to start solids, as their calorie intake from milk alone isn’t quite getting them through the night anymore.
Milk is still the most important food for a baby until 8 months of age, however, milk is digested very quickly and doesn't sustain your baby for long periods. So if your baby is breastfed or bottle-fed and you don't want to start solids until 6 months, you will need to assume your baby's overnight wake is due to hunger and feed them straight away.
If you have started solids and your baby is still waking, you may need to increase their solids intake. We would advise you to refer to health guidelines or talk to your GP about starting/increasing solids if you think your baby is ready.
If your baby uses a pacifier and overnight you are resettling them with a pacifier instead of feeding, be careful. A pacifier can mask the fact that your baby is actually waking because they are hungry. When a baby sucks a pacifier, their brain thinks they are getting food so they may go back to sleep, but then wake hungry again shortly afterwards.
If your baby is waking frequently to have the pacifier replaced, try feeding them at their first wake to see if they are actually waking hungry. If they continue to wake frequently, the pacifier could actually be causing more problems than it solves. You can read more about The Pacifier & Baby Sleep: When They Help and When to Wean
Settling
At this age sleep gets a bit trickier as babies experience a maturation in their sleep patterns which is often called the 4 Month Sleep Regression and can start waking fully between sleep cycles (every 45 minutes in the day and every 60 to 90 minutes overnight). Now, your baby can come to rely heavily on the method used to settle them to sleep (rocking, feeding pacifier etc.), and they will need that same method to go back to sleep between cycles.
This means night waking can definitely be caused by a settling issue rather than hunger. However, this can be hard to work out if your baby is not yet able to go to sleep independently for their naps and at bedtime. Once your baby is able to self-settle to sleep, it's much easier to distinguish between your baby waking out of genuine hunger, versus a need to be fed back to sleep.
Teaching self-settling isn’t about leaving your baby to cry or forcing independence before they’re ready. It’s about helping your little one learn to drift back to sleep when they naturally stir between cycles.
Night waking between 6-8 months
Feeding
Some babies will still need a milk feed in the night at this age. Babies who started solids after 6 months or who are doing baby-led weaning are generally not getting enough calories from solids (or protein at the lunch meal) yet to help them get through the night.
Naps
Between 6-8 months babies will transition from 3 naps, down to 2 naps a day. Babies who are still having that third late afternoon nap can begin to wake overnight because they are under tired and ready to drop that nap now. Read about Dropping from 3 naps to 2 to find out more about navigating this nap transition.
Short or tricky naps, especially during transitions, don’t mean you’re doing it wrong - they mean your baby's sleep balance is simply off. Our sleep app protects naps with age-appropriate timing, calm environments and responsive settling - to ensure the right sleep balance as your baby grows and changes.
Habit wake
Beyond 6 months of age, babies can begin to form habit wakes - these typically happen at the exact same time every night. If you are feeding your baby multiple times a night, yet you think they surely don’t need the milk, they may be waking out of habit rather than hunger.
In some cases, what can end up happening is that a baby takes most of their milk calories during the night and consequently, feeds less during the day. This turns into what we call reverse cycling - when they have their feeding times/quantities the wrong way around! Read about Reverse Cycling to find out how to switch things back around.
Night waking between 8-12 months
Feeding/Habit wake
Babies this age are far less likely to wake out of genuine hunger if they are well established on solids. By now, your baby should be also drinking small amounts of water during the day to keep them hydrated. From 8 months of age, solids can be offered before milk feeds but you’d still aim to have 3 good milk feeds a day. Waking overnight at this age is more often due to a settling issue or habit wake, rather than actual hunger.
Naps
As your baby approaches 12 months of age, they will get ready to transition down to one nap a day. This nap transition typically occurs between 12-15 months of age. If your baby is still having quite a long morning nap, this can have a knock-on effect with their second nap of the day and their overnight sleep. Our sleep app guides you through nap transitions so your baby’s routine evolves naturally as they grow.
Beyond 12 months, if your toddler is still having 2 naps a day, or is napping for longer than 2 hours across the day, it can definitely start causing more night waking because they're simply not tired enough to sleep through the night.
Other common causes of night waking
If you can rule out hunger, here are some other common causes of night waking in babies of all ages:
- They are too hot or cold
- They don’t have white noise playing all night and are being woken by environmental or household noises
- They are sick
- They can’t self-settle (beyond 4 months old)
- They aren’t swaddled (for babies younger than 5 months, who aren't rolling yet)
- Their sleep environment is too stimulating - ie there is a nightlight or a musical toy
- They have a medical condition such as tongue tie, reflux or allergies
- They have had too much or too little day sleep
- Separation anxiety in babies going through big changes or developmental leaps
- During particular periods in their development babies do wake simply to "practise" their new skills (crawling etc). This is common at 8 months and 12 months.
How to reduce night waking?
While some night waking is completely normal, there are gentle ways to help your baby sleep for longer stretches as they grow. Supporting balanced daytime naps, ensuring your baby is well fed during the day, maintaining a consistent sleep environment and encouraging age-appropriate self-settling can all help reduce frequent night wakes.
Our sleep app does the thinking for you, with age-appropriate patterns, adaptive schedules customised to your unique baby and easy ways to adjust when things shift, so that daytime sleep supports the circadian rhythm and peaceful nights.
FAQs about Babies Waking at Night
Why does my baby keep waking at night?
Most babies wake during the night in the first year because their sleep cycles are shorter than adults and they often wake briefly between cycles. Hunger, sleep associations, overtiredness, nap transitions and developmental milestones can all contribute to babies waking overnight.
When do babies stop waking at night?
Many babies begin sleeping longer stretches and may start sleeping through the night between 6 and 12 months. However, night waking can still happen due to hunger, development or sleep habits. By the end of the first year most babies are capable of sleeping through the night, although every baby develops at their own pace.
"By day 2 of using the app my baby was putting herself to sleep within 3 minutes. It’s been a few weeks now and she’s sleeping through the night 10-12 hours at 6 months. Since I’ve been using the app and seen such success, my other mom friends have also purchased and are seeing great results too. It’s such a good app, and you can alter it to suit your baby and lifestyle. The information provided is invaluable. And it’s the best money I have ever spent. THANK YOU LITTLE ONES" - Anna
Bibliography
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Dewar, G. (2018, January 2). Baby sleep patterns: An evidence-based guide. PARENTING SCIENCE.
Dewar, G. (2020, July 17). Baby sleep deprivation: How to tell if your baby isn’t sleeping enough. PARENTING SCIENCE.
Iwata, S., Fujita, F., Kinoshita, M., Unno, M., Horinouchi, T., Morokuma, S., & Iwata, O. (2017). Dependence of nighttime sleep duration in one-month-old infants on alterations in natural and artificial photoperiod. Scientific Reports, 7(1).
