This is the question no one can answer. This is an idea that a baby up to three months old ought to sleep all the time, except when he is being handled. In fact such a baby is quite unusual. Most have at least one wakeful period during the day, and in the early weeks few will sleep right through the night.
We can` t expect every baby to conform to what suits us. Eventually most of them do settle down to regular pattern of sleep-an hour or two in the morning, an hour or two in the afternoon, a good long evening sleep and then following the last feed of the day, six or seven hours at night.
There is absolutely nothing we can do to ensure that a baby sleeps when we want him to. The amount of sleep the individual baby seems to need can` t be predicted. He may be at his brightest and best at 2 am when his parents most emphatically are not; or he may need, and get, long unbroken sleeps and earn a reputation as a model baby who is a credit to his parent` s methods of up bringing . If fact, in none of these cases can the parents take any credit or blame. If a baby wakes in the night, he may be content to lie quietly gurgling to himself. There is no need to disturb yourselves or him if this is what happen, but if he sounds distressed, it is not wise to leave him in the hope that he will drop off again of his own accord.
He will probably just work himself up into a frantic state, and you will have to attend to him in the end, anyway and you will be encouraging a pattern of fear and loneliness and desperate crying for attention. He may just be a baby who needs company and a short reassuring visit, a drink of water and a little cuddle will settle him down again. Try to do this with good grace, however sleepy you are, so that he doesn` t get upset by rough and impatient handling, which will obviously make things worse. If your baby regularly wakes at night and keeps you awake, you might consider radically altering your own way of life while this pattern lasts. If one of the parents is working, he will obviously need to sleep as well as possible during the week, but could take a turn of duty during the weekends, while the other has a rest.
If both are working outside the home, it is only fair to share the burden-each taking alternate nights off duty. Like adults baby` s sleep varies in type through the night. They don` t just sink into dreamless oblivion for hours at a time as some people imagine. In the lighter phase of sleep, a baby` s eyelids may flicker, and he may change his facial expression, breathe irregularly and make little snuffling sounds. Then he will pass into a phase of a deeper sleep, breathing regularly and remaining quite still. If he is wakened from this kind of sleep he may be irritable, pale and even distressed. This alternating pattern of sleep is quite normal.