Sleep
Waking at night is what newborn sleep is, not a fault in your parenting
Night waking in the first year is normal, expected by professionals and largely unrelated to anything the parents are doing. That…
Sleep
Naps, nights, and the realistic range of what babies do.
12 articles · updated August 11, 2026
Sleep
Newborn sleep comes in short blocks, and the range between babies is enormous
Total sleep, block length and how it is spread across a day vary so widely between newborns that averages are close to useless. Knowing that is more helpful than any number.
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Sleep
Read your own country's safe-sleep guidance, not an article about it
Safe-sleep advice is issued by national health bodies, differs between countries and gets updated. Summaries written by anyone else…
Sleep
Bedsharing is a decision families make differently, and guidance differs too
Some families bedshare deliberately, many more end up doing it unintentionally, and official advice on it is not identical between…
Sleep
Sleep training is a family of approaches, not a single method
The phrase covers a wide range of approaches that differ substantially in what they ask of parents and babies. Understanding that…
Sleep
The four-month sleep change, and why regression is the wrong word for it
Sleep frequently gets harder somewhere around the middle of the first year, and it is usually described as a regression. The…
Sleep
Dividing the night between two adults so that one of you actually sleeps
Two half-rested adults function worse than one rested one and one exhausted one. The night is a rota problem, and most households…
Sleep
Short naps are not a technique failure
A baby who sleeps forty minutes and wakes is following the length of its own sleep cycle. The parent who concludes they did…
Sleep
A bedtime routine works because it is boring and identical every night
The content of a wind-down matters far less than its predictability. What a routine actually does is signal, and signals only work…
Sleep
What a dark, quiet room can and cannot do for a baby
The sleep environment is the part of infant sleep parents can actually control, which is exactly why it gets asked to do more than…
Sleep
Sleep often gets worse in the weeks a baby learns something new
Unsettled stretches frequently coincide with rolling, sitting, crawling or a burst of language. The pattern is widely reported, and…
Sleep
Sleeping through the night means something much narrower than it sounds
The phrase is used by parents, researchers and relatives to mean at least three different things. Most of the comparison anxiety in…