Straight answers about
baby sleep.
Written for somebody who slept four hours and is holding a baby with one arm. Every claim is attributed to the NHS, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the NIH or a peer-reviewed paper, with a live link on the page — and where the honest answer is “nobody knows”, that is what it says.
Who this site is allowed to cite
- NHS
- American Academy of Pediatrics
- World Health Organization
- US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- NICHD and Safe to Sleep
- US Consumer Product Safety Commission
- Peer-reviewed papers on PubMed Central
And nothing else. No blogs, no other app’s marketing, no sleep consultant selling a course.
Sleep, by age
What awake time, naps and night sleep actually look like from newborn to toddler — what changes when, what is ordinary, and how wide the normal range really is.
Wake Windows by Age
How long babies stay awake between sleeps at every age, drawn as bands — plus the part nobody else prints: where the numbers come from, and what they are not.
Read it 10 min read · 5 sourcesNewborn Wake Windows
Under an hour awake between sleeps, most of it spent feeding and changing — what the first weeks are really made of, and why nobody can hand you a timetable for them.
Read it 9 min read · 5 sourcesWake Windows for a 2 Month Old
An hour to an hour and a half awake, four or five naps, and a baby who has just become social enough to overdo it — which is most of what goes wrong after four in the afternoon.
Read it 9 min read · 5 sourcesWake Windows for a 3 Month Old
An hour and a quarter to an hour and three quarters awake, three to five naps, and the first month whose shape you can recognise from one day to the next — which is exactly why it is the month to write things down.
Read it 9 min read · 5 sourcesWake Windows for a 4 Month Old
An hour and a half to two and a quarter hours awake, three or four naps — and the month a baby's sleep grows cycles, which is why everything got harder at once.
Read it 8 min read · 5 sourcesWake Windows for a 5 Month Old
The band does not move this month, and that is the point: what changes at five months is the baby inside it, not the arithmetic around her.
Read it 8 min read · 5 sourcesWake Windows for a 6 Month Old
Two to three hours awake, two or three naps, and the month the day changes size — with the published numbers on night waking, which is more ordinary than anybody tells you.
Read it 8 min read · 5 sourcesWake Windows for a 7 or 8 Month Old
Two to three hours awake at seven months, two and a half to three and a half at eight — and the developmental reasons the night comes apart anyway.
Read it 8 min read · 5 sourcesWake Windows for a 9 to 12 Month Old
Two and a half to three and a half hours awake at nine and ten months, three to four by a year — two naps throughout, and the mistake almost everybody makes with them.
Read it 8 min read · 5 sourcesToddler Wake Windows
Three and a half to seven hours awake, depending on the age — one nap, two very long stretches either side of it, and a bedtime that has learned to argue.
Read it 10 min read · 5 sourcesSleep Regression at 4 Months
Sleep cycles arrive at about four months and they do not go away again — which is why this one is a maturation rather than a regression, and why it behaves differently from every age after it.
Read it 9 min read · 5 sourcesSleep Regression at 6 Months
Six months is where the evidence is best in this whole subject — and what it shows is that a baby who wakes in the night and settles again is doing something ordinary, not something wrong.
Read it 9 min read · 5 sources8 Month Sleep Regression
Sitting, crawling and pulling to standing all arrive in the same few weeks — and a baby who can get herself up but not back down will work on it at one in the morning.
Read it 9 min read · 5 sourcesSleep Regression at 12 Months
A first birthday changes the paperwork, not the child — what is genuinely developing at a year, and why the morning nap she is fighting is usually not one she has finished with.
Read it 9 min read · 5 sourcesSleep Regression at 18 Months
The age where the bedtime objection comes with a vocabulary — what is genuinely developing at eighteen months, and the nap that has quietly slid an hour later than it started.
Read it 9 min read · 5 sourcesSleep Regression in a 2 Year Old
At two the trouble is mental rather than motor: imagination arrives, and the first fears arrive with it — alongside the bed, the toilet and the nap she refuses but still needs.
Read it 9 min read · 5 sourcesThe 4 to 3 Nap Transition
The fourth nap is a catnap, and it goes because the day has run out of room for it — not because a birthday arrived.
Read it 9 min read · 5 sourcesThe 3 to 2 Nap Transition
The third nap is the late-afternoon one, and it is being squeezed by a baby who can now stay awake for nearly three hours — but at this age the nights are worth ruling out first.
Read it 10 min read · 5 sourcesThe 2 to 1 Nap Transition
The day loses a whole sleep at an age when the child has opinions about it — which is why this one takes weeks, and why an early bedtime carries the whole thing.
Read it 9 min read · 4 sourcesWhen Do Toddlers Stop Napping?
Anywhere from about two and a half to past four — and the nap does not disappear so much as convert into an earlier bedtime.
Read it 10 min read · 5 sourcesSafe Sleep for Babies
The floor under every other page on this site: where a baby sleeps, how, and what goes in with her — each rule printed with the body that publishes it, and none of them softened.
Read it 9 min read · 4 sourcesHow Much Sleep Does a Baby Need by Age
The one place in this subject where real numbers exist — printed at their published width, with the ages the sleep panel refused to cover left honestly blank.
Read it 9 min read · 5 sourcesDay and Night Confusion in a Newborn
She sleeps beautifully — between two and six in the afternoon. What is behind a newborn with her days and nights the wrong way round, and the small number of things that genuinely move it.
Read it 9 min read · 4 sourcesBaby Split Nights
She wakes at half past one, plays for two hours, and goes back to sleep at half past three. Nobody publishes a word about this — here is the arithmetic that explains most of it.
Read it 9 min read · 5 sourcesEarly Morning Waking in a Baby
Five o'clock, wide awake, for the fourth week running. The six things behind it, in the order worth testing — and the change that everybody tries first and that almost always backfires.
Read it 8 min read · 4 sourcesThe Dream Feed
A feed given to a baby who is barely awake, late in the evening, in the hope of buying a longer stretch. Widely done, never studied — so here is what is honest to say about it.
Read itSleep training, honestly
The methods, described rather than sold. What the studies measured, what they did not, and what nobody can promise you either way.
Sleep Training Methods Compared
Six methods, described rather than sold: what each one asks of you, what the evidence behind it actually measured, and the honest gaps — including the two methods nobody has tested at all.
Read it 9 min read · 5 sourcesWhen to Start Sleep Training
Every trial in this subject enrolled babies of six months or older. What that does and does not tell you about your four-month-old, and the honest answer for the months underneath.
Read it 9 min read · 4 sourcesThe Baby Bedtime Routine
Four steps in the same order every night, taking twenty minutes. It sounds too small to matter, and it is the one thing here that was tested on its own and worked.
Read it 9 min read · 4 sourcesBedtime Fading
Put her to bed at the time she actually falls asleep — then move that time earlier, fifteen minutes at a stretch. It is the least dramatic method in this subject and it has a randomised trial behind it.
Read it 9 min read · 4 sourcesThe Chair Method
Stay in the room, and leave it by inches. A fortnight of chairs, for the household that cannot do a closed door — with an honest account of how well studied it is.
Read it 8 min read · 4 sourcesThe Pick Up Put Down Method
Lift when she cries, put her down when she settles, and repeat until it takes. The most physically demanding option here, and the one with no trial behind it at all.
Read it 10 min read · 4 sourcesThe Ferber Method, Explained
Graduated extinction, under the name everybody uses. What the trials found, what the interval chart actually is, and the questions the method pages skip.
Read it 10 min read · 5 sourcesCry It Out: What the Evidence Says
The most argued-about method in parenting, and the two claims either side makes are both stronger than the evidence supports. Here is what was actually measured.
Read itFeeding
Milk, bottles, solids and the output that tells you they are going in — with the figures paediatric bodies publish and the honest gaps between them.
How Much Milk a Baby Needs by Weight
One published sum, two units, and a ceiling. What the number is genuinely for, where the arithmetic goes wrong, and the half of the question no calculator can answer.
Read it 10 min read · 4 sourcesFormula Feeding Amounts by Age
Three published stages, four unpublished months in the middle, and a bottle she does not finish. What the by-age numbers are, and what they are the average of.
Read it 10 min read · 4 sourcesHow Often to Breastfeed a Newborn
Eight to twelve is a floor, not a target, and the first week runs on teaspoonfuls. What is published about frequency, and what to watch when there is nothing to measure.
Read it 11 min read · 5 sourcesCluster Feeding and Growth Spurts
Hours of feeds bunched into an evening, and a calendar of spurts that nobody measured. What is published, what is folklore, and the two things that genuinely tell you enough is going in.
Read it 10 min read · 4 sourcesPaced Bottle Feeding
The behaviours are published and worth doing. The name, the angles and the twenty-minute rule are somebody's technique. This page separates them before it describes either.
Read it 9 min read · 3 sourcesPumping Schedule and Milk Storage
Nobody publishes a timetable for this, and the pages that print one invented it. What is published precisely is where the milk keeps and for how long.
Read it 9 min read · 4 sourcesSigns Your Baby Is Ready for Solids
Three signs, and one of them on its own is not an answer. Plus the three that fool everybody, and why a refused spoonful proves nothing either way.
Read it 9 min read · 4 sourcesBaby Solids by Age
Three stages, in the order they arrive. The list of what stays out matters more than the list of what goes in, and it is here in full.
Read it 11 min read · 5 sourcesIntroducing Allergens to a Baby
Early rather than late, one at a time, kept in the diet afterwards — and a conversation with a clinician first if allergy or eczema runs in your family.
Read it 9 min read · 5 sourcesFeeding Schedule for 6 to 12 Months
Milk is still most of the nutrition this year and solids are a skill being learned alongside it. Three loose stages, drawn as windows rather than as a clock.
Read it 8 min read · 5 sourcesHow Many Wet Diapers a Day
The counts three different bodies publish, why they do not agree, and the signs that turn a number into a phone call. Written to be read quickly, at the hour people read it.
Read it 7 min read · 3 sourcesDiaper Sizes by Weight, Explained
A size is a range she passes through, not a size she is. Where the bands come from, why two of them fit at once, and what the leaks are actually telling you.
Read itThe nursery
Sound, temperature, swaddling and the room itself — and the weeks the room cannot fix: illness, travel, and the clocks changing. Product-neutral, safety first, and never a brand recommendation.
White Noise for Babies
It works for a lot of babies, and the only thing anybody has actually measured about these machines is how loud they get. Both halves, on one page.
Read it 9 min read · 4 sourcesBaby Room Temperature for Sleep
Sixteen to twenty degrees, a sleeping bag chosen for the room you actually have, and a check that takes two seconds — plus the reason cool hands tell you nothing at all.
Read it 9 min read · 4 sourcesWhen to Stop Swaddling
Not a month — a signal. The AAP's line is the first sign of trying to roll, and some babies start at eight weeks. Here is how to see it coming and how to do the week after.
Read it 8 min read · 4 sourcesDaylight Saving and Baby Sleep
An hour, twice a year, applied to somebody who cannot read a clock. The published advice is smaller and duller than the internet's, and it works.
Read it 9 min read · 5 sourcesBaby Sleep When She Is Sick
Sleep goes out of the window for a week and then comes back. What is ordinary about that, the thresholds that mean a phone call, and the one rule that gets stricter rather than looser.
Read it 9 min read · 4 sourcesTravel and Jet Lag With a Baby
A baby cannot be told what time it is, but she can be shown. What actually moves a body clock on holiday, and how to make a strange room safe before the first night in it.
Read it 7 min read · 4 sourcesNewborn Essentials Checklist
What each thing is for, roughly how many, and what usually gets bought twice. Then the part the other lists leave out: what to keep out of the cot, and what to borrow.
Read it 8 min read · 4 sourcesNursery Checklist
Most nursery lists are furniture lists. This one starts with the empty space, because that is the part every product on the market is sold to fill.
Read it 7 min read · 4 sourcesHospital Bag Checklist
A published list rather than somebody's favourites, with the reasons attached. Packed early, split in two, and built for a night that is mostly feeding.
Read itChoosing a tracker
What baby trackers do with what you tell them, what a household actually needs from one, and how to judge any of them before you trust it with a year of your life.
Best Baby Tracker Apps
No ranking, because nobody has published one this site may cite. What is here instead: the four questions that separate these apps, and a drill that answers them in an evening.
Read it 8 min read · 3 sourcesBaby Tracker Without a Subscription
Free versus paid is the wrong argument. The line that matters is simpler: your own record should never be the thing you are charged for.
Read it 8 min read · 3 sourcesBaby Tracker Without an Account
The safest record is the one nobody else holds. What that costs you is the second phone — and this site says plainly where its own app lands.
Read it 8 min read · 4 sourcesBaby Tracker for Both Parents
Two people, one baby, and nobody awake enough to remember which side. What genuine two-caregiver tracking looks like, and the handover no app writes for you.
Read itHow this writing is done. Sources are limited to the NHS, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the WHO, the CDC, the NICHD and peer-reviewed papers on PubMed Central. Every URL is opened and read before it is cited, and the citation carries the publisher, the year and the bare link so you can check it in one click. No blogs, no other app’s marketing, no sleep consultant selling a course.
What is not here, on purpose. Nothing weighted for a sleeping baby, no month by which a baby is supposed to be sleeping through, no method sold as the one that works for every baby, and no page that implies you have done something wrong. Where an accurate sentence and a popular search phrase pull in different directions, the accurate sentence wins and the page finds another way to answer the question.
Safe sleep is the floor. Babies sleep on their back, on a firm flat surface, in a cot clear of blankets, pillows, bumpers and soft toys, in your room for at least the first six months. Nothing here will ever say otherwise.
None of it is medical advice, and none of it replaces somebody who knows your baby.
The Nightstand
Baby sleep tools that run in this browser: the things within arm’s reach at 3am, when the question is a number rather than a chapter.
Wake Window Calculator
Your baby's age in months, and the awake time to expect before the next sleep — drawn as a band, with the whole by-age table underneath it.
Open itBaby Sleep Schedule Generator
Your baby's age and this morning's wake-up, drawn as a day: naps and bedtime as windows, widening through the afternoon the way real days do.
Open itNap Transition Checker
Age plus the signs you are actually seeing, and an honest read on which nap transition is near — including the answer that it is not one yet.
Open itSleep Regression Timeline
The famous ages, one at a time: what is genuinely developing then, what tends to happen to the nights, and what nobody can actually tell you.
Open itMilk Intake Calculator
Weight in and a daily formula range out, worked two published ways at once — and an honest refusal to do breast-milk arithmetic, with what to watch instead.
Open itDiaper Size Calculator
Weight in, and every size band your baby is currently inside — drawn stacked so you can see the overlap, with the fit signs that beat any chart.
Open itBaby Log Printable
One day on one page — sleep, feeds, nappies and notes, laid out by the clock or as blank lines, with the night hours shaded because that is when it gets filled in.
Open itBaby Feeding Chart Printable
A feed log for breast, bottle or both, with a strip along the bottom saying what is ordinary at your baby's age — every figure on it quoted and attributed.
Open itNewborn Schedule Printable
The feed-awake-sleep cycle as a sheet: the order printed, the times blank, and a worked example beside it so nobody has to guess what the shape means.
Open itBabysitter Information Sheet
Everything the person holding your baby needs on one page — emergency block first, then routines, feeds, allergies and the tricks that actually settle her.
Open itFerber Method Chart
The progressive check-in table, editable rather than fixed, with a night log beside it — and a straight answer about where those numbers come from.
Open itWhite Noise Player
White, pink and brown noise made in your browser with a fade-out timer — and the measurement study that decides where the machine should sit and how loud it should be.
Open itSnuggle does this with your baby’s own pattern.
This page works from an age band, because an age band is all a web page knows about you. Snuggle starts from the same bands and then blends them with what your baby actually did today — how long she lasted, when she went down, how the last nap ran — and shows on the face of the ring how sure it is. Early estimates say they are early.
It logs sleep, feeds, nappies and growth in one tap on a dim red screen, and every caregiver in the household is on the same timeline in their own account. The arithmetic runs on the phone, on your baby’s own history. There are no AI features in it.
In development for iPhone and Android. Not released yet — when it is, it will be on this site.
What Snuggle is