BY HEJIRA CONVERY, KINDICARE

MAY 16, 2025

When you’re heavily pregnant, every second person will tell you to “Catch up on sleep now!” but nothing can really prepare you for those long and restless nights once your bubba arrives. 

It’s totally natural for a newborn to wake regularly, and as the months roll on, your baby won’t necessarily get into a solid sleep pattern.  

Sometimes it’s hard to tell what’s normal and what’s not, especially when your eyes are a blur and your brain’s a fog, so a bit of expert advice is definitely welcome.  

And on this note, we’re very happy to introduce you to Dr Fallon Cook! 

Dr Cook is a Paediatric Sleep Clinician and Director at Infant Sleep Australia, and she knows what makes babies tick when it comes to sleep.  

Dr Cook has years of experience in the field, and her sleep clinic gets rave reviews from families, so you’ll be interested to see her answers to five questions commonly posed by parents.  

Check out her advice below, and make sure you read this KindiCare article to the end, because there’s more help available if you need it.  

PARENT QUESTION 1:

Although every baby is different, what kind of sleep can I expect in my little one’s first 12 months? 

DR COOK’S ANSWER:

It’s true that the first few months with a baby involve a lot of broken sleep. 

Young babies have little tummies and need to feed multiple times overnight, so your baby may only sleep in short stretches at first.  

By around 12 weeks of age, though, it’s likely that your baby will be starting to have some longer stretches of sleep overnight. 

And across their first 12 months, your baby’s night-time sleep should be starting to settle into longer stretches, with less frequent night waking. 

However, it's important to keep in mind that even the best sleepers will have rough patches of tricky sleep every now and then, and there is no such thing as perfect baby sleep!  

PARENT QUESTION 2:

What can I do to help my baby sleep well? 

DR COOK’S ANSWER:  

Instead of sticking to rigid age-based schedules or ‘wake windows’, I recommend that you focus on the unique baby in front of you, and aim to identify your baby’s individual sleep needs.  

If your baby is happy during playtime, then it’s likely they’re getting enough sleep.  

If you feel your baby’s sleep is highly variable and unpredictable, and would like to establish a more predictable pattern day-to-day, then track your baby’s sleep for a week and work out how much sleep they have each day, on average.  

Once you’ve done this, start to build out a flexible daily rhythm, based on that amount of sleep, starting with a regular bedtime and wake up time. 

So, for example, if your baby averages 14 hours of sleep per 24 hours, and they usually have 11 hours of sleep overnight, then you might expect their daytime naps to add up to around three hours per day.  

By understanding what’s normal for your baby, it’s easier to set a daily routine that works for your little one. 

And keep in mind that the amount of sleep your baby needs will vary dramatically as they grow.   

For example, as a newborn they might need anywhere from 11 to 19 hours of sleep per 24 hours, and at four to 12 months of age, your baby can need anywhere from 10 to 18 hours of sleep per 24 hours – which is an eight hour difference!  

PARENT QUESTION 3:

Should I be concerned about a sleep regression when my baby hits a certain age? 

DR COOK’S ANSWER:  

No, although many parents worry about this, it’s always a relief to find out that sleep regressions haven’t been proven to exist in the scientific data.  

Despite hundreds of studies tracking the sleep of thousands of babies, there are no consistent ages when sleep reliably worsens.  

Instead, sleep naturally varies across the first year, in ways that are unique to each baby.  

This means you don’t need to dread regressions in your baby’s sleep, because they simply might not happen. 

PARENT QUESTION 4:

My older baby is waking a lot at night. What’s happening, and what should I do? 

DR COOK’S ANSWER:  

This could have a lot to do with how your baby is settled.  

From around four months of age, babies start to develop sleep associations, or strong preferences, for how and where they fall asleep. 

And from this age, all humans do a quick ‘systems check’ in between sleep cycles to detect whether the environment around us is the same as when we fell asleep, and also to detect if we’re hungry, thirsty, in pain, and so on.  

This means that if your baby falls asleep in your arms, but then during a systems check finds they’re in their cot, they might feel confused and upset, wake right up, and cry out for you to hold them back to sleep again.  

This will happen far less often if your baby falls asleep in their cot, because the systems check detects that they’re still in the same place, no alert is issued to the brain, and they drift back off to sleep again.  

If you’re worried that your baby is waking excessively, because of how they are being settled for sleep, then there’s the option of adding some new sleep associations that can transfer over to the cot.  

For example, you might pat and shush your baby when they’re falling asleep in your arms, until patting and shushing has become a new sleep association for your baby.  

Then, when you feel ready, you can start to put them in their cot awake and pat and shush them all the way to sleep in their cot.  

Over time you can phase out the patting and shushing until they no longer need your help to fall asleep in their cot. 

Once they’re comfortable settling in their cot, you’ll find that night waking reduces.  

Your baby will still rouse, but when they see they’re in their cot, exactly where they fell asleep, they’ll drift back off to sleep. 

PARENT QUESTION 5:

My baby is about to start daycare. What’s the best way for the early childhood educators to support my little one’s sleep? 

DR COOK’S ANSWER:  

It will be really helpful for the early childhood educators to work towards the daily rhythm that’s set by you.   

This can mean aiming for the same number of naps your baby’s been having at home, and keeping these naps around the same length as your little one is used to.  

This is especially important if your baby needs less sleep than other babies in their group, so have a chat with the educators before your baby starts at daycare and explain your baby’s usual routine, and also your wishes when it comes to sleep.  

For example, if your baby doesn’t need a long daytime nap, you can explain that the educators may need to wake them if they’re sleeping too long, to protect the quality of your bubba's nighttime sleep – and yours!  

We hope all this advice is valuable, and there’s definitely more help at hand if you need it.  

If you’re feeling frazzled and wonder if your baby (or toddler) will ever sleep again, then Infant Sleep Australia’s online sleep clinic program is a great go-to, and there’s also the option of booking a sleep clinic appointment, tailored especially to your child. 

Good luck and sweet dreams!