The five myths that cause unnecessary stress for parents

“Our data confirmed that one to three awakenings per night is common in early childhood. Almost all children woke up one-to-three times at night, while a minority slept through the night (16.5% at three and 22.3% at eight months),” the researchers wrote.

How frequently babies are waking, however, varies greatly. The Finnish researchers, for example, reported that at least one eight-month-old in the study woke up 21.5 times per night.

These studies were based on parental report, meaning that babies might have woken even more frequently – their parents just weren’t aware. When more objective measures of sleep are used, such as using video recordings to analyse children’s sleep patterns, they indicate that infants wake even more often. One small but authoritative 2001 study using this method found that the average number of wakings (defined as a wake that lasted longer than two minutes) was three wakes for 3-month-olds, 3.5 wakes for six-month-olds, 4.7 wakes for 9-month-olds and 2.6 wakes for 12-month-olds.

But there is good news: as babies approach the end of their first year, their wakes decrease on their own. The Finnish study, for example, found that while nearly eight in 10 eight-month-olds woke at night, just one-quarter of two-year-olds did. 

2. But night wakes aren’t always ‘normal’, either

Sometimes, you hear that children will continue to wake at night until they’re taught not to. But this not only dismisses the fact that typically developing infants consolidate their sleep over time on their own (see above); it also can overlook any underlying health conditions that can impact sleep.