GetBabyReadyBefore day one

Baby sleep schedules by age — every age we cover

14 pages · Updated 2026-08-22 · Free · No sign-up

A page for each age, with the published total-sleep range for that age and a sample day you can build from your own baby's wake time.

What is published, and what is only convention

Total sleep per 24 hours is published guidance. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine, in a consensus statement the American Academy of Pediatrics endorses, puts it at 12 to 16 hours for infants 4 to 12 months and 11 to 14 hours for children 1 to 2 years — both including naps.

Nap counts and wake windows are not. No medical body publishes them. They are conventions that circulate across pediatric sleep resources, and they are a useful starting point — but nearly every sleep-schedule page you will find states them as though they were established figures. On these pages they are labelled as convention, every time.

Below 4 months, the guidance stops entirely. The AASM issued no recommendation for babies under 4 months, judging the evidence insufficient. Our newborn, 2-month and 3-month pages say so and show the National Sleep Foundation's 14-to-17-hour figure instead, naming it as a different body using a different method.

The two bodies disagree. AASM says 12 to 16 hours for 4 to 12 months; the NSF says 12 to 15 for 4 to 11 months. We show the AASM figure from 4 months because the AAP endorses it, and tell you the other exists rather than picking one silently.

Safe sleep comes first, and is not ours to modify

Wherever your baby sleeps, the AAP's safe-sleep rules apply: alone, on their back, on a firm flat surface that meets CPSC standards, with nothing loose in the space. Room-share for at least the first six months. A schedule never overrides that.

What these pages are not

They are not a sleep-training method and take no position on any. They do not tell you when to drop a night feed. Sleep varies enormously between healthy babies, and a clock time built from a conventional wake window is not a standard your baby is failing to meet. General guidance, not medical advice — talk to your pediatrician about your own baby's sleep, especially about feeding or any change in breathing.

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