Baby Sleep Schedule by Age: Nap and Sleep Chart for Every Stage

Why baby sleep doesn't follow a schedule at first

If you're hoping for a tidy schedule in the newborn weeks, here's the honest answer: it isn't coming yet, and that's normal. Newborns haven't developed a circadian rhythm, the internal body clock that eventually tells us to feel sleepy at night and alert during the day. That clock starts forming around 6 to 8 weeks and becomes more reliable by 3 to 4 months.

Until then, the most useful tool isn't a clock, it's the wake window, the stretch of time a baby can comfortably stay awake before needing to sleep again. Watch the wake window instead of the wall clock, and the "schedule" tends to fall into place on its own as your baby grows.

This matters most at two moments: when you're in the thick of the newborn blur wondering if anything will ever feel predictable, and later, when a schedule that used to work suddenly stops working. Both are normal parts of the same process, a nervous system that's gradually maturing on its own timeline, not a problem you caused or need to fix overnight.

The sleep chart: birth to 5 years

Every range below is just that, a range. Some babies sleep at the low end and thrive; some need the high end. Use this as a starting point, not a verdict on how you're doing. The bands below match the same age groupings used throughout this guide and in our wake windows by age chart, so the two stay consistent with each other no matter which page you land on first.

From here, each age band gets its own short table and a closer look, since the jump from "irregular newborn sleep" to "one consolidated toddler nap" hides a lot of texture worth unpacking on the way.

0 to 3 months

Newborns sleep a lot in total, but in short, scattered bursts of 1 to 3 hours around the clock, day and night blurred together. Wake windows are tiny, often just 45 to 60 minutes at first, which is why naps can feel like they're happening every time you turn around. There's no real bedtime yet either; "night sleep" simply means the longest stretch tends to land sometime after dark, once it starts forming.

0 to 6 weeks

In these earliest weeks, sleep is driven almost entirely by hunger and digestion rather than time of day. A baby this age has no functioning circadian rhythm yet, the melatonin that would otherwise signal "nighttime" is still arriving secondhand through breast milk or simply isn't being produced in any day-aligned pattern. Expect 4 to 5 separate sleep periods that can land at any hour, each one ending with a feed rather than a wake window timer. Total sleep is high, often toward the upper end of the 14 to 17 hour range, but it's distributed unevenly and unpredictably, which is exactly why this stretch feels so disorienting for new parents.

6 to 12 weeks

Somewhere in this window, things start to shift, gradually and unevenly, but noticeably. The first hints of a circadian rhythm appear: a slightly longer overnight stretch, naps that start clustering into something closer to a recognizable pattern, and wake windows stretching toward 60 to 90 minutes. This also lines up with when a baby's own melatonin production typically begins, usually around 9 to 12 weeks, which is the first real biological nudge toward telling day apart from night. None of this means a true schedule has arrived. It means the raw materials for one are finally coming online.

3 to 6 months

This is when things start to look more like a schedule. Most babies settle into 3 to 4 naps a day, wake windows extend to roughly 1.5 to 2.5 hours, and an earlier bedtime, often between 6:30 and 7:30pm, tends to produce better nights than a later one. It's also the age where the 4-month sleep regression tends to show up, a permanent shift in sleep architecture rather than a phase that simply passes. For a full sample day built around this stage, see our 4-month-old sleep schedule or, for the month just before it, our 3-month-old sleep schedule.

3 to 4 months

Right at the start of this band, sleep cycles are still mostly newborn-style, short and prone to full wake-ups between them. By the tail end of month four, cycles mature into longer, multi-stage sleep roughly 45 minutes long, the same underlying shift that drives the 4-month regression. Naps are typically 4 to 5 a day at the younger end of this range, consolidating toward 3 to 4 as the band progresses.

4 to 6 months

By 5 to 6 months, most babies have settled into a more dependable rhythm: 3 to 4 naps, wake windows in the 2 to 2.5 hour range by the end of this band, and a longer overnight stretch that often runs 6 hours or more before the first wake. This is also a common age for introducing more structured sleep habits, since the circadian rhythm is mature enough by now to actually respond to consistency.

6 to 12 months

Naps consolidate further during this stretch, typically dropping from 3 to 2 by around 7 to 9 months. Wake windows now run 2 to 3.5 hours depending on time of day (mornings are usually shorter than afternoons). This is also a common window for the 8 to 10 month sleep regression, driven by new motor skills like crawling and standing rather than anything going wrong with sleep itself.

6 to 8 months

Most babies are still on 2 to 3 naps here, with the third (often a short late-afternoon catnap) on its way out. Night sleep is typically the most consolidated it's been so far, frequently 10 to 12 hours with at most one feed, though plenty of healthy babies this age still wake more than that.

9 to 12 months

By now nearly every baby has landed on 2 naps, typically a longer morning nap and a slightly shorter afternoon one. Wake windows stretch toward 3 to 3.5 hours by the end of this band. This is also the age range where the 2-nap rhythm tends to feel most stable, right before the next transition starts to loom.

1 to 2 years

Somewhere between 13 and 18 months, most toddlers make the 2-to-1 nap transition, dropping the morning nap and shifting to one longer midday nap. Total daytime sleep drops, but a single nap often runs 1.5 to 2.5 hours once it stabilizes. Bedtime usually stays in a similar window to the months before, though overtiredness can creep in faster if the single nap runs short.

13 to 18 months

This is the transition zone itself. Some toddlers are ready for one nap right at 13 months; others hold onto two naps comfortably until 17 or 18 months. Both are normal. The clearest signal isn't age, it's how the second (afternoon) nap is going: if it's consistently late, short, or fought, the single-nap schedule is usually overdue.

19 to 24 months

By now the single nap is usually well established, typically falling in early-to-mid afternoon and running 1.5 to 2.5 hours. Wake windows have stretched enough that most toddlers can comfortably handle roughly 5 to 6 hours between waking and the nap, and a similar stretch between the nap and bedtime.

2 to 5 years

The nap itself starts to become optional somewhere in this stretch, with most children dropping it entirely between 3 and 5 years. There's no single "right" age to lose the nap; it depends far more on how your child handles the hours before bedtime without one than on their birthday. A child who skips a nap and is calm and pleasant by dinner has probably outgrown it. A child who skips a nap and unravels by 4pm probably hasn't yet, regardless of age.

2 to 3 years

Most 2-year-olds still nap, though the nap itself can become a battleground as independence and opinions grow. Total sleep needs drop slightly from the toddler years, and many families start seeing the nap shrink on its own before it disappears entirely.

3 to 5 years

By this band, naps are genuinely optional for most children, and many preschools reflect that with quiet rest time rather than mandatory sleep. A child who's dropped the nap typically needs a slightly earlier bedtime to compensate and hit the lower end of the total sleep range comfortably.

How to know your baby is ready for the next stage

Charts tell you what's typical. Your baby tells you what's true for them. A few real signs it's time to adjust naps, wake windows, or bedtime:

• Naps are shrinking on their own. If a nap that used to run 90 minutes is now consistently 30, the wake window before it may be too short.
• Bedtime is becoming a fight. A sudden change in how easily your baby falls asleep at night often means the schedule underneath it has quietly shifted.
• Early morning wake-ups appear out of nowhere. This is frequently a wake-window or nap-length issue, not a new "personality trait." More in our early morning wake-ups guide.
• One nap is consistently fighting to happen. A nap that's hard to start or short-lived for a week or more, not just one off day, is the clearest sign a transition (like 2-to-1 naps) may be due.

Beyond those four signals, it helps to think in terms of trend rather than a single bad day. Any baby can have one rough nap, one early wake-up, one fussy bedtime, those happen for a hundred reasons unrelated to the schedule, from teething to a noisy garbage truck outside. What actually means something is a pattern that holds for five to seven days in a row. If you're tracking sleep already, look back at the last week before changing anything; a true transition almost always shows up as a trend, not a single data point.

It's also worth separating "ready for a transition" from "going through a rough patch." Growth spurts, developmental leaps like rolling or crawling, and travel can all temporarily mimic the signs above without actually meaning a nap or wake window needs to change permanently. Give any new pattern a week or two to prove itself before assuming it's the new normal.

Key takeaways

Baby sleep needs change constantly in the first five years, but the underlying logic stays the same throughout: total sleep need slowly decreases, the number of naps steadily drops, and wake windows steadily lengthen, all driven by a circadian rhythm and melatonin system that matures gradually rather than on a fixed birthday. Newborns sleep the most in total but in the most scattered way, with no real day-night distinction until roughly 6 to 8 weeks and no true schedule until 3 to 4 months. From there, naps consolidate in stages: roughly 4 to 5 down to 3 to 4 around 4 to 6 months, down to 2 around 7 to 9 months, down to 1 around 13 to 18 months, and down to 0 somewhere between 3 and 5 years. Every range in this guide is a starting point built from typical patterns, not a target your baby has to hit exactly, and short-term disruptions from growth spurts, illness, or travel are expected rather than alarming. The single most useful habit at any age isn't memorizing a chart, it's watching your own baby's wake windows and adjusting in small steps when naps shrink, bedtime turns into a fight, or early wake-ups appear out of nowhere.

Sources

1. American Academy of Pediatrics — safe sleep and infant sleep duration guidance: healthychildren.org
2. Sleep Foundation — sleep duration recommendations by age: sleepfoundation.org
3. American Academy of Sleep Medicine — pediatric sleep consensus statements: aasm.org
4. Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development — Safe to Sleep campaign: safetosleep.nichd.nih.gov