Baby sleep schedule and wake windows by age

Enter your baby's date of birth and the time your baby usually wakes up in the morning. The tool picks a typical number of naps for that age, and you can try one nap more or fewer. It then builds a sample day: awake time, nap, awake time, nap and so on, ending with an estimated bedtime. Awake stretches get a little longer as the day goes on, and when there are three or more naps, the last one is a shorter catnap.

Under the schedule you'll see the total daytime sleep, the night in bed (which for most babies includes feeds), the overall total and the official recommendation for your baby's age. The sample covers babies and toddlers up to age 3. For a baby born early, enter the date that gives corrected age, usually the original due date.

The schedule is calculated in your browser. Nothing is saved or uploaded.

A wake window is how long a baby stays awake between sleeps. The idea is popular, but there is no official wake-window guideline. The AAP, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) and the NHS don't publish wake-window times. The ranges below are informal starting points that this tool uses:

Age	Awake time between sleeps	Typical naps
0–5 weeks	40–60 min	5
6–8 weeks	45–75 min	5
9–12 weeks	1–1.5 h	4
13–16 weeks	1.25–2 h	4
about 4–6 months	1.75–2.5 h	3
about 6–8 months	2–3 h	3
about 8–10 months	2.5–3.5 h	2
about 10–12 months	3–4 h	2
about 12–15 months	3–4.5 h	2
about 15–24 months	5–6 h	1
2–3 years	5–6.5 h	1

Your baby's cues matter more than the clock. Eye rubbing, yawning, fussing and looking away are signs it's time to wind down. In the first weeks, a schedule isn't realistic at all: newborns feed and sleep on demand, and a day–night rhythm develops later.

For a baby about 30 weeks old (just under 7 months), the tool uses awake times of 2 to 3 hours and three naps. With a 7:00 AM wake-up it suggests:

Time	Activity
7:00 AM – 9:00 AM	awake (2 h)
9:00 AM – 10:00 AM	nap (1 h)
10:00 AM – 12:20 PM	awake (2 h 20 min)
12:20 PM – 1:20 PM	nap (1 h)
1:20 PM – 4:00 PM	awake (2 h 40 min)
4:00 PM – 4:36 PM	catnap (36 min)
4:36 PM – 7:36 PM	awake (3 h)
7:36 PM – 7:00 AM	night sleep, with feeds

That's 2 h 36 min of daytime sleep and 11 h 24 min in bed at night, about 14 hours in total, which sits inside the 12 to 16 hours recommended for 4 to 12 months. Real days won't run to the minute; use it as a shape for the day, not a timetable.

The official numbers are total hours per 24 hours, naps included. They come from the AASM consensus statement, which the AAP endorses:

Age	Recommended sleep per 24 hours
4–12 months	12–16 hours
1–2 years	11–14 hours
3–5 years	10–13 hours

The AAP's sleep-hours page gives no number for babies under 4 months. The NHS notes that newborns' total daily sleep varies and can be around 18 hours. These are ranges, and babies within the same age can need quite different amounts.

Logging naps for a few days with the baby tracker shows your baby's real pattern, which is a better guide than any chart.

Whatever schedule you follow, the AAP's safe sleep advice stays the same:

• Place your baby on their back for every nap and at night.
• Use a firm, flat surface with only a fitted sheet: no pillows, blankets, bumpers or soft toys.
• Share a room for at least the first 6 months, but never share a bed. Never fall asleep with your baby on a couch or armchair.
• Don't let your baby overheat.

Talk to your pediatrician if your baby is very sleepy or hard to wake, feeds poorly, snores or has pauses in breathing. For growth and development, see the baby growth percentile calculator and the baby milestones checklist; teething can disrupt sleep too, so the teething chart may help.

This tool is informational and isn't medical advice.