How Many Hours Should My Children Be Sleeping?

As a first time mom, I have googled this question about 80 times in the last year.

How many hours per day should my _____ month old be sleeping?

In the hospital the nurses had scared me by telling me the amount of hours B should sleep at night, how many hours between feedings she should sleep, how many hours of “play” she should get. I drove myself crazy trying to keep track of feedings and sleep hours in my iPhone notes.

On top of all that I never could remember how many hours they told me which led me to start googling if maybe Braylee’s nap felt a little too long.

Yep, I’m that kind of first time mom 😉

A year later I have loosened up a bit on the research, but when Braylee dropped a nap at about 11 months I still googled how other moms adjusted to this schedule. Here is what I have found on how many hours of sleep our children should be getting.

0-3 months = 14- 17 hours

4-11 months = 12- 15 hours

1-2 years = 11- 14 hours

3-5 years = 10- 13 hours

6-13 years = 9- 11 hours

14-17 years = 8- 10 hours

As I have learned, things are never concrete as a parent including the number of hours of sleep your child gets per day. But I love being able to have some sort of guide as a first time mom. I’ve made this great chart that can be printed out for reference. Feel free to print it out by clicking on the image or link below and printing straight from the window that opens 🙂

Sleep Chart by Age