Your Baby's Sleep
At five months, the average baby gets about 11 ½ to 14 hours of sleep a day, including about 8 ½ to 9 ½ hours overnight. She will likely also take two or three naps, totaling another 3 ½ to 4 ½ hours of sleep during the day.
Some babies do begin to sleep through the night by the time they are about three to four months old. By five to six months, most babies are sleeping through the night.
Sleeping Through the Night
Like the timing of sitting up and rolling over, sleeping through the night is a developmental milestone that your baby has to meet. So the fact that your five-month-old still wakes up once to eat can be normal.
On the other hand, if your baby is still waking up two or three times a night, he may have a sleep problem that you can work to improve.
Fixing Your Baby's Sleep Problems
The best way to fix your baby's sleep problems is to work on your bedtime routine and teach your baby to fall asleep on his own. This usually means falling asleep without rocking, nursing, or drinking a bottle. You can still do all of those things, just move them to a little earlier in your bedtime routine and put your baby down in his crib while he is drowsy, but still awake.
Next, be consistent and try to do all of the same things, in the same way, at the same time each evening.
If your baby doesn't settle down after a few minutes, try to comfort him quickly and put him back down before he falls asleep. He should eventually learn to fall asleep on his own and comfort himself back to sleep if he wakes up at night.
Sleep Parenting Books
For extra help, in addition to advice from your pediatrician, you can often work to fix your baby's sleep problems by reading a parenting sleep book, such as:
