Baby sleep schedule: 3-4 months

Your baby is now 3-4 months old, and you would like to learn how to design your baby’s sleep schedule.

Here’s a deep dive into your baby’s development and an example of a sleep schedule matching your baby’s age.

Remember all babies are different and it might be necessary to change/adjust your baby’s sleep schedule to match his/her needs.

Your baby’s development at 3-4 months

At 3-4 months your baby goes through significant development.

At this age your baby becomes more aware of his/her surroundings which explains why your baby might have difficulties falling asleep. As newborn a fixed sleep routine does not exist, and your baby slept most of the time. Therefore, it might feel quite challenging when you baby reaches this age and has troubles falling asleep.

Please also read: How much should my baby sleep?

Why does my baby fall asleep so late at night?

At 3-4 months your baby will benefit from a daily routine consisting of 3 naps during the day. A morning, lunchtime and late afternoon nap is both practical for you and beneficial for your baby. Do not worry if your baby is not tired enough to go to sleep until approx. 9:30 – 10:00 pm. This is completely normal behaviour.

When trying to assess whether your baby sleeps well or poorly during his/her naps it’s important to consider the sleep routine during the night. If your baby sleeps well at night and for many hours, it is only natural that it affects the duration of the daytime naps.

Sleep schedule: 3-4 months 

Here you can see what a sleep schedule for a 3–4-month-old baby looks like:

  • 09:00 – 11:00 am: Naptime
  • 13:30 – 15:30 pm: Naptime
  • 18:00 – 19:00 pm: Naptime
  • 09:30 pm – 07:30 am: Nighttime

Your baby still gets milk in the evening, late evening, during the night, early morning and of course, during the day.

Your baby’s daily routine might look a bit different, which is okay – but we recommend trying to follow the schedule as much as you can. What might vary can be your baby waking up earlier than the sleep schedule suggests. It is important to mention that you should never wake your baby to make him/her fit into the schedule.

Other sleep schedules

As your baby grows adjustments to the sleep schedule will follow. If you want to learn more about the upcoming sleep schedules, please keep reading.

How can you help your 3-4-moths-old baby with his/her sleep challenges?

Some free time in the evenings is important for parents, where you have time to relax and maybe even watch Netflix. Therefore, it can be challenging to accept this, but when your baby reaches 3-4 months it can be a good idea to see the evenings as family time with your baby. This will change as your baby gets older and naturally starts sleeping differently during the day (and night) as a part of his/her development. Changing your mindset how to spend your evenings and being prepared for having a baby who is not tired until late might help make the evenings run a bit more smoothly.