How much sleep your child needs?

Tag:baby sleep, cranky, irritable, overtired, sleep deprived

As a new parent, you will probably ask yourself, how  much does your child need to sleep?

You will probably face some challenges when it comes to putting your child to bed. He may just do anything else other than sleep.

My child has his sleeping schedule when he is at his baby sitter. But when it comes to sleep at home over the weekends when we don’t send him to his baby sitter, we have a tough time getting him to take his afternoon nap. He just refused to sleep even though he is tired.

Sleep expert Jodi Mindell, author of Sleeping through the night, says that most children need a lot of sleep. If your child refuses to go to sleep even it is late at night, don’t think that your child does not need lots of sleeps. In actual fact, your child is actually sleep deprived.  To see whether your child is actually sleep deprived, ask yourself these questions:

1. Does your child fall asleep every time he is in the car?
2. Do you have to wake up your child every morning?
3. Does your child seem cranky, irritable or overtired during the day?
4. Or on some nights, he falls asleep earlier than what he normally does?

If your answer is “Yes” to any of these questions, your child maybe getting less sleep than he needs.

Below are some general guidelines as to how many hours of sleep the average child requires at various ages. Of course, every child is different - some need up to two hours more or less sleep than others

Age	Nighttime Sleep	Daytime Sleep *	Total Sleep
1 month	8 1/2	7 (3)	15 1/2
3 months	10	5 (3)	15
6 months	11	3 1/4 (2)	14 1/4
9 months	11	3 (2)	14
12 months	11 1/4	2 1/2 (2)	13 3/4
18 months	11 1/4	2 1/4 (1)	13 1/2
2 years	11	2 (1)	13
3 years	10 1/2	1 1/2 (1)	12
* number of naps in parentheses