weeks.
Category: Exclusively Formula-fed Babies
Of the formula-fed girls, 82.1% were sleeping through the night between
7 and 9 weeks and 96.4% were sleeping through the night by 12 weeks.
Of the formula-fed boys, 78.3% were sleeping through the night
between 7 and 9 weeks and 95.7% were sleeping through the night by 12
weeks.
Category Medical conditions
Of the 52 infants with medical conditions, (e.g. reflux, colic, premature
infants, viro infections and unspecified hospitalization), all slept through
the night 8–9 hours between 13 and 16 weeks.
As the percentages above demonstrate, parents can guide their baby’s
sleep/wake rhythms quite early and with a high degree of predictability.
In addition, 80 percent of babies in our survey began sleeping through the
night on their own—without any further parental guidance apart from
routine feedings. It just happened. Some periods of night crying were
experienced by the remaining 20 percent of children. Most of this took
place over a three-day period and the crying bouts averaged between five
and thirty-five minutes in the middle of the night. On average it took
three to five days for a nine-week-old to break the old patterns of sleep
and establish new ones.
Healthy Sleep Patterns
“How well did you sleep last night?” We all know about different levels
of sleep. Yet few think to consider how well our wakefulness is. Did you
know that there are different levels of wakefulness? Parents of infants
especially tend to think only in terms of the two broadest categories,
asleep or awake. While sleep ranges from a completely relaxed state to
fitful rest, the awake state ranges from tiredness to optimal alertness.