Is it normal for my baby to wake every hour at night?
This isn’t a casual Google search.
It’s usually typed one-handed, in the dark, after the fifth or sixth wake. Your eyes feel gritty. Your body feels heavy. Your brain is doing that exhausted spiral where everything feels louder and scarier than it did in the daylight.
Surely this can’t be normal?
How is anyone else coping with this?
Is something wrong with my baby, or with what I’m doing?
When a baby wakes every hour at night, it isn’t just exhausting. It can feel worrying at times.
Why hourly night waking feels so alarming
Frequent night waking often triggers fear before anything else.
You start wondering whether your baby is uncomfortable, overtired, or somehow stuck in patterns that will be impossible to change. Comparison creeps in too - what friends mention, what social media shows, what well-meaning relatives say - and suddenly it feels like everyone else’s baby sleeps better.
This usually isn’t the version of parenthood anyone imagined. And when exhaustion runs this deep, it becomes incredibly hard to think clearly or trust reassurance.
Being told “it’s normal” often isn’t what you’re really asking.
The real question underneath is usually:
How could this possibly be sustainable?
So… is it normal for a baby to wake every hour?
Baby sleep sits on a very wide spectrum of normal.
Waking two, three, four, or even many more times a night can be developmentally typical, depending on age, sleep needs, temperament, and what’s going on physically and emotionally.
Hourly waking sits at the more intense end of that spectrum, and it deserves to be named as hard. But it isn’t automatically a sign that something is wrong, or that something has gone wrong.
What often causes the most confusion is change.
Many babies are very sleepy in the early weeks and may give longer stretches. Then, around three to four months, sleep patterns shift. Sleep cycles mature, babies wake more fully between cycles, and nights can suddenly become much more broken.
It can feel like sleep has “fallen apart”, when in reality, it has developed.
Babies wake at night not only for feeding, but for reassurance, connection, and safety. Waking is protective. It’s part of human infant biology.
What society often calls “normal sleep” is usually shaped by adult expectations, not by how babies are actually designed to sleep.
The first thing that can help when your baby wakes every hour
When night waking is this frequent, the most helpful first step is often easing the mental load around it.
Trying to fix sleep at 2am usually adds pressure rather than relief. Preparing for the night, emotionally as well as practically, can soften the panic that builds with each wake.
Gentle reminders can help:
This is a phase, even if it feels endless right now
A baby waking often isn’t giving anyone a hard time, they’re having a hard time
Many families are living this, even if it isn’t talked about openly
Small practical supports matter too. Keeping snacks and drinks nearby. Making nights as low-effort as possible. Having one small thing to look forward to the next day.
The middle of the night is rarely the best time to work on change. Those shifts tend to land better in daylight, or in the first part of the night, when there’s a little more energy, patience, and emotional space.
A gentle adjustment that can help reduce frequent night waking
Once feeding issues or medical concerns have been ruled out, it can help to zoom out and look at total sleep over 24 hours, rather than focusing only on nights.
Tracking naps and night sleep together over around a week allows patterns to emerge. Looking at averages, not individual nights, gives a much clearer picture.
If daytime sleep is very high, there may not be enough sleep pressure to support longer stretches overnight. This doesn’t mean cutting naps drastically. It usually means gently redistributing sleep so night-time sleep has more opportunity to settle.
This approach works with biology, not against it.
If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by clocks, charts and schedules, my blog Why Wake Windows Might Be Stressing You Out (and What Actually Helps With Baby Sleep) offers a compassionate look at why rigid timing expectations often create more pressure than they solve, and what actually makes sleep feel gentler and more manageable.
Getting through the night itself
When a baby wakes every hour, it’s easy to become clock-focused. Counting wakes. Watching the minutes tick by. Mentally calculating how little sleep is left.
Bringing attention back to the present moment can help calm the nervous system.
Instead of watching the time, the focus becomes simple: this baby, right now.
When a baby wakes, they need comfort and regulation. That’s it.
Some parents find it grounding to focus on a small physical detail - the warmth of their baby’s head, the weight of them against your chest, the curl of their fingers - as a way to breathe and stay anchored.
It doesn’t make broken nights easy. It makes them survivable.
A common myth about hourly waking
One of the most persistent myths around frequent night waking is that it’s caused by how a baby falls asleep at bedtime.
Parents are often told that feeding, rocking, or holding a baby to sleep creates night waking.
But sleep simply isn’t that linear.
Some babies are supported to sleep and still manage longer stretches. Others fall asleep independently and still wake frequently. Night waking is influenced by many things - development, regulation, sleep pressure, temperament - not just what happens at bedtime.
How you respond to your baby does not cause waking. It’s what helps them through it.
Often the hardest part for parents isn’t just night waking - it’s the self-doubt that comes with it. My blog How to Feel More Confident About Baby Sleep (Without Sleep Training or Guilt) explores how building real confidence, not following rigid rules, helps you tune into your baby with calm and clarity.
Why daytime sleep matters for night waking
Night-time sleep doesn’t exist in isolation. Sleep follows a 24-hour rhythm.
Circadian rhythms are shaped across the whole day, which is why daytime patterns matter so much. A fairly regular morning wake-up time helps anchor the body clock. Gentle adjustments to nap timing or length can help build enough sleep pressure for night-time sleep, without tipping a baby into overtiredness.
Daytime and night-time sleep are always connected.
Is hourly waking just a phase?
When a baby wakes every hour, it’s important to rule out red flags first. Pain, feeding difficulties, or medical concerns.
Once those have been explored, and daytime sleep broadly supports night-time rest, frequent waking often does ease with time. Sleep rarely improves in a straight line, but patterns do shift.
Hourly waking doesn’t define what sleep will always look like.
The message exhausted parents need to hear
This feels hard because it is hard.
Broken sleep makes everything heavier. It can help to remember that there are two roles at play.
Your role is to offer calm, safety, and responsiveness. Your baby’s role is to fall asleep.
You can’t make your baby fall asleep - no one can make anyone fall asleep. Sleep can only ever be supported.
Focusing on what’s within your control, and letting go of the rest, creates a little more breathing room.
If you’re craving connection and support beyond the night itself, Why Community Makes Baby and Toddler Sleep Feel Easier shares why finding connection, with others, with your instincts, and with your baby, can be a lifeline through the most broken nights.
One hopeful thought to hold onto
Every night spent rocking, feeding, holding, humming, and staying close is doing more than just getting through sleep.
It’s building trust. That trust creates safety. And safety is what allows sleep to become more settled over time. Independence doesn’t come from being pushed too soon, it grows from feeling secure enough to rest.
This phase will pass. And what’s being built now matters far beyond tonight.
Frequently asked questions about babies waking every hour
Is it normal for my baby to wake every hour at night?
Baby sleep varies widely, and night waking is biologically normal. Hourly waking sits at the more intense end of the spectrum and can feel overwhelming, but it doesn’t automatically mean something is wrong. Development, sleep pressure, temperament, and the need for reassurance all play a role.
At what age do babies stop waking every hour?
There isn’t a specific age where frequent waking suddenly stops. Sleep tends to change gradually, and many babies continue to wake regularly well beyond the newborn stage, especially during periods of rapid development.
Does feeding or rocking my baby to sleep cause frequent night waking?
No. Many babies are fed, rocked, or held to sleep and still manage longer stretches overnight. Night waking is influenced by biology and regulation, not just how a baby falls asleep. Comfort doesn’t cause waking, for many babies, it helps them resettle.
When should I worry about my baby waking every hour?
It’s worth exploring further if frequent waking is paired with feeding difficulties, signs of pain, poor weight gain, or noticeable changes in behaviour. If something doesn’t feel right, trusting that instinct and seeking support matters. Otherwise, frequent waking on its own is often developmental.
Your next step
If nights feel long and you’re craving a calmer way to understand what’s going on with your baby’s sleep, you might find my free guide helpful. It gently explains why babies wake, what supports longer stretches over time, and what you can safely stop worrying about, without sleep training or rigid routines.
If it would help to talk things through, you can also book a free call. It’s simply a chance to offload, ask questions, and feel a little clearer about what’s going on for your family.
