"Sleeping through the night" looks different for every baby. Here's what we actually know, and why the timeline is much wider than you've been told. 

This might be the most Googled question in all of early parenthood. And if you're asking it at 3am, bleary-eyed and exhausted, I want you to know that you're in very good company. The pressure to have a baby who "sleeps through" can feel enormous, especially when it seems like everyone else's baby is doing it and yours isn't. But here's what rarely gets said: most of those babies are still waking too. Their parents just aren't talking about it.

What "sleeping through the night" actually means

When researchers talk about sleeping through the night, they typically mean a stretch of five to six hours of consolidated sleep. Not the 7pm to 7am that the sleep training industry has led us to expect. Five hours. That's it. And even then, babies are still briefly rousing between sleep cycles, just as adults do. They may just be settling back without fully waking or calling out. So if your baby is doing a four or five hour stretch and then waking, they may actually be closer to "sleeping through" than you realise.

Why babies wake at night, and why it matters

Babies wake at night for many reasons, and almost all of them are completely normal. Hunger, comfort, temperature, a wet nappy, a growth spurt, a new skill they're practising in their sleep. Night waking is also genuinely protective. Rousing between sleep cycles is a completely natural part of how babies sleep, and it's one of the reasons responsive parenting at night matters so much. When your baby wakes and calls out for you, they're not being difficult. They're doing exactly what their biology is asking them to do.

The ability to sleep for longer stretches develops gradually, alongside brain growth and the maturing of the body's internal clock. For most babies, this happens somewhere between 6 and 12 months, but the range is wide and there are plenty of babies who continue to wake well into the second year and beyond. All of this is within the range of normal.

What you can do in the meantime

Rather than waiting for a magic milestone, you can gently support your baby's sleep by focusing on the things that are within your control. Build a consistent bedtime rhythm. Pay attention to your baby's unique tired cues. Layer comforts so your baby has multiple sources of soothing. And protect your own rest wherever you can, because your wellbeing matters too.

The Peaceful Nights course covers exactly this, a complete, biology-led framework for understanding how your baby sleeps, what's biologically normal at each stage, and practical strategies for supporting longer stretches overnight, easier bedtimes, and more flexibility overall, from newborn through to 18 months. It's helped thousands of families enjoy more rest without any sleep training.

Your baby will sleep through the night. It will happen. And in the meantime, every time you show up for them in the dark, you're building something that lasts far longer than a sleep phase.