At what age should a child sleep through the night?

Pressure from the surrounding environment can be huge when it comes to children’s sleep. Ideally, they should sleep through the night in their own crib, in their own room, and fall asleep anywhere and anytime during the day, according to what we need. But that is not natural, and children simply need their parents’ closeness and help falling asleep. In addition, many stimuli enter their sleep and falling asleep, which is why even bedtime porridge is not a solution, because hunger is only one of the reasons for waking. It can also happen that a baby sleeps with minimal waking until 3 or even 6 months and then suddenly starts waking a lot. So what are the reasons for waking, and when will they finally sleep through the night?

Why children wake up at night

There are many reasons for waking, and sometimes it is not easy to figure them out. However, it is good to know that there are other reasons for waking besides hunger, as our grandmothers like to suggest. Realizing that waking is natural for children can be very liberating for many mothers. Here are the most common reasons children wake up:

• hunger, thirst, the need to pee,
• teething,
• illness, runny nose, cough,
• separation anxiety - around 8 months of age, but it can also appear later, around 1.5 years, and can last until age 2,
• psychomotor development - the child starts rolling onto their tummy, bouncing on their knees, crawling, standing up, walking (children practice even at night, and body movement wakes them),
• speech development and daytime stimuli - children perceive more and are constantly learning new things,
• they are not yet able to connect all sleep cycles and need help falling asleep,
• cold - toward morning, children may wake because their body temperature drops and they start to feel cold, especially if they have kicked off the covers (in this case, a sleeping bag or footed sleep sack can help),
• watching television before bed,
• after the birth of a sibling, the child starts waking again, even though they were already sleeping through the night.

When will a child start sleeping through the night

It is very individual and also depends on the child’s temperament. Some children are sleepers from birth, others are awake all the time and call for their parents’ help. Routine is also important, meaning the sequence of activities that come before sleep (e.g. dinner, brushing teeth, bathing, putting on pajamas, massage, reading a story, falling asleep). However, there are also children who do not care about routine at all, and every day with them is full of surprises.

Breastfed children most often start sleeping through the night after weaning from breastfeeding, but that is not a guarantee. In most cases, children sleep through the night only when they are around 2-3 years old.

Only when the child is ready for it

There are lots of guides on the internet about how to teach a child to sleep through the night. However, these methods do not respect the child’s needs and try to force them into what we need.

It is ideal to let it flow naturally, and once the child is ready for it, they will start sleeping through the night. In fact, even we adults do not sleep through the whole night; after each sleep cycle we wake up, may roll over to the other side, go to the toilet, drink something, but in the morning we do not remember it. Unlike children, we are able to fall asleep again without help.

Simply accepting that children wake up and that there is nothing strange about your child being the only one around who is still waking at night can be very relieving.

Keep your head up: just as all children learn to walk and talk, they will also learn to sleep through the night. Don’t rush it, leave it to them. When they are ready, it will happen.