If you’ve heard people talking about their babies’ wake windows recently and felt out of the loop, you’re not alone. The concept has gained popularity in the past few years, but it wasn’t commonly used until fairly recently. So your parents or paediatrician may have never mentioned wake windows, while sleep consultants nowadays swear it’s crucial to grasp the concept of having a nap and sleep schedule. The contradicting information can be confusing. Fortunately, it’s a fairly simple concept, and one you can adapt to fit your needs and parenting style.
Here are the ins and outs of wake windows by age and how they work.
What are wake windows?
A wake window is a term for the amount of time a baby or child is awake between sleep periods. So, if a baby wakes at 6 a.m. and then takes a nap at 8 a.m., their first wake window was two hours long.
In the most basic sense, noting wake windows is simply a way of observing a newborn’s sleep schedule. For instance, you might notice that they tend to be awake for about an hour in the morning before falling asleep again.
However, some take the idea a step further, arguing that caregivers should use wake windows to intentionally shape newborn sleep habits so that they are optimally rested throughout the day. The idea is that there are appropriate wake windows for different ages of children, and allowing them to stay up for longer than those periods can lead them to be overtired and cranky; therefore, parents and caregivers should encourage babies to nap or go to bed before they’ve been awake for too long.
What is the science behind wake windows?
While understanding the basic idea of wake windows can be helpful for some families, the experts say it’s important to note that it is not based on evidence or scientific research. In other words, you can observe a baby’s wake and sleep times and try to follow their natural cues, but if you see a chart specifying that a 3-month-old should have a wake window of exactly 120 minutes, those guidelines are not based on scientific study, and they aren’t necessarily going to work for all kids.
That said, there is ample research showing that people of all ages need sufficient sleep to be healthy and thrive, and that babies under a year old need 12–16 hours of sleep, including naps. There is also evidence that babies under 6 months of age have highly variable sleep, but that their sleep patterns tend to stabilise as they grow older.
So, while wake windows aren’t studied, we do know that babies need a lot of sleep relative to adults and that much of it occurs during naps. We also know that paying close attention to a baby’s cues and offering regular naps can help the day go more smoothly.
How do you follow wake windows?
Even among those who fully believe in adhering to wake windows, knowing how to follow them can feel like an uncrackable code.
Sleep consultants often use the phrase “offer naps” to refer to creating conditions for a baby to sleep, such as laying them down in their bassinet in a dimly lit room. When following wake windows, the idea is to observe the amount of time a baby can comfortably stay awake, and then offer a nap before the end of the wake window to avoid them becoming cranky or overtired.
The baby may or may not take you up on the offer to nap, but some find that by routinely offering naps at consistent times, they can encourage a baby to start adhering to that schedule.
The amount of time that a baby can comfortably stay awake will usually be shortest between the time they wake up for the day and their first nap, with their ability to stay awake building throughout the day. For a child who’s having two naps per day, their morning wake window might only be two hours, while their evening wake window (right before bed) might be three-and-a-half hours.
A step-by-step guide to using wake windows
Steps you can take when offering naps and trying to implement wake windows include the following:
- Observe your baby’s sleep and wake times over a few days to look for patterns. Some find it helpful to jot down the length of naps and wake windows, or use an app, such as SleepWellBaby, to do so.
- Pay attention to sleep cues. These include rubbing eyes, staring into space, droopy eyes and yawning.
- Determine how long your baby can be awake before they get sleepy. That is their wake window (note: these will vary in length throughout the day. The first wake window might be much shorter than the last).
- Set up a safe, dark sleep space and offer a nap. You might use blackout curtains or a noise machine to help ease your baby to sleep.
Depending on how closely you want to follow a schedule, you may want to gently rouse your baby if they’re napping longer than they usually do. This is entirely a personal preference, though — there’s nothing wrong with letting them snooze.
For newborns (0-1 month old), wake windows are largely irrelevant because they can only stay awake for very short periods of time and often fall asleep on their own, even in a bright or loud setting. As they grow older, their wake windows gradually get longer, and you can start to offer naps to try to prevent their wake windows from being too long.
Wake windows by age
While using charts isn’t necessarily the best strategy for all parents and caregivers, some people find it useful to have basic guidelines around typical sleep patterns. If you are in that camp, you can use the below recommendations as a starting point, then experiment to see what works for your situation.
| Age | Wake window |
| 2 months or younger | 45-90 minutes (4-6 naps per day) |
| 4 months | 1-2 hours (3-4 naps per day) |
| 6 months | 2 1/2 hours (3 naps per day) |
| 9 months | 3-3 1/2 hours (2-3 naps per day) |
| 12-18 months | 3-4 hours (2 long naps per day) |
| 2 years | 5-6 hours (transition to 1 nap per day) |
Newborn wake windows
Newborns (younger than 3 months old) have very short wake windows. Often, all they can manage to do is feed and have their nappy changed before nodding off yet again. They typically need around 16 hours of sleep in a 24-hour-period, with roughly half of that occurring during the day. It’s not uncommon for them to be awake for less than an hour between naps.
Wake windows for 3-month-old babies
As babies grow older, their amount of daytime sleep gradually decreases. By 3 months old, many are sleeping four to five hours during the day, and are awake for roughly one to two hours between naps. However, at this age, sleep is still highly variable, and it is not uncommon for one day to be totally different from the next.
6-month-old wake windows and beyond
After 6 months, many (but not all) babies fall into more predictable patterns, often napping two or three times per day with two-to-four-hour wake windows. If, by this age, you’re not seeing improvement in their nap schedule and their ability to fall asleep and stay asleep for naps, you might want to look into a sleep training method.
Do you need to follow wake windows?
It’s certainly important that a baby gets enough sleep overall, but as long as they’re falling within a typical range and their paediatrician isn’t concerned, whether to follow specific wake windows largely depends on your caregiving style. For some people, following wake windows feels like having a helpful guide that provides some structure, while for others, it might just bring them more stress.
Particularly when a baby is younger than 6 months, things are so variable that there isn’t much point in worrying about having a strict schedule. You can set up their environment to encourage sleep (by making it dark or using a noise machine, for instance), and you can make sure your baby is well-fed before naps. But there may still be a lot of unpredictability at that age.
You might feel like you’re doing everything in your power to encourage naps but your baby still isn’t following the “typical” or “recommended” wake windows. Rest assured that this does not necessarily mean that you’re doing anything wrong or that your child’s sleep patterns are cause for concern.
Are there ways to change wake windows?
If your baby is falling asleep in a pattern that’s totally inconvenient for you, you can try to shift their schedule, says one expert. This might be particularly useful if you’re travelling to different time zones.
To do this, the expert recommends moving your baby’s sleep periods back or forward in 15-minute increments until you reach a better schedule. So, if they’re waking up at 8 a.m. and you want to shift their schedule earlier, you might wake them at 7:45 a.m. one day and 7:30 a.m. the next.
It’s generally not recommended to shift a baby more than 15 minutes at a time. Observe your child to see if they seem well-rested, happy and going about their day as an infant as they should. If they are, you’re on the right track.
The bottom line
Wake windows can be a useful tool for making sure babies get enough sleep and to help them develop a healthy sleep schedule as they grow. However, experts warn against relying too heavily on charts that recommend super-specific schedules. Since they’re technically not backed by science and because every day is a little bit different, such charts may sometimes be too rigid.
That said, the experts recognise the value of paying attention to your child’s patterns, both for their sake and for yours. Being aware of your baby’s typical wake windows can be really helpful in terms of maintaining your sanity. For example, if you know that they’re going to be awake most days from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., this means you probably won’t have any issues going out for lunch or that it might be a good time to schedule a doctor’s appointment.
Wake windows work best when caregivers base them off of their own observations and their baby’s cues, rather than trying to force a baby into a set schedule that is externally imposed.
