Why Does My Baby Wake Every Hour at Night?

A Sleep Coach’s Troubleshooting Guide ❤️

Hourly wakes are never caused by one thing, and this is why everything you have tried has failed

I have supported thousands of families, and I can promise you in every case it was never one thing.

And this is one of the biggest differences between how I work on sleep and a lot of the generic advice you’ll find online.

Sleep is like a puzzle, there are multiple factors which are contributing to your hourly wakes

In this blog post I am going to go through everything, so you can troubleshoot and apply to your baby or toddler

First of all, your baby has 4-5 sleep cycles at night

Babies move between sleep cycles throughout the night, so if you have an hourly waker, this is more than ‘linking sleep cycles’

So when a baby wakes more than this, we need to be exploring why, let’s troubleshoot together

How much sleep is your baby actually getting?

Before I start talking about settling, I want to see the sleep diary, because a common cause of hourly wakes is low sleep pressure.

Your baby has a maximum number of hours sleep they can achieve in 24 hours, and a really common cause of hourly wakes, is trying to achieve more sleep than they need.

So they are in bed much more than they are actually sleeping.

When I work with a family I want to know:

What time does your baby wake for the day?

How much are they sleeping during naps?

Are the naps well timed and age appropriate?

How long is their day?

How long are they in bed at night vs how much are they sleeping?

And how much sleep are they getting across a full 24 hours?

A common mistake….

Parents are trying to achieve three hours of naps AND a 12-hour night because that's what they've been told their baby should have this.

But their baby simply doesn't need that much sleep, so that night sleep can become fragmented.

That might show up as false starts, longer wakes, early rising, or hourly wakes!

And it isn't just HOW MUCH daytime sleep they're having

This is something I probably bang on about more than most sleep coaches.

Where the sleep falls matters too.

Imagine two babies both have three hours of daytime sleep.

Baby one has most of that sleep earlier in the day and has a decent period awake before bedtime.

Baby two has a tiny nap in the morning and then two hours of sleep later in the afternoon.

On paper…

Both had three hours, but their sleep pressure (the thing that drives long stretches at night) going into bedtime will look completely different.

So if loads of their daytime sleep is stacked towards the end of the day, they may simply not have enough sleep pressure behind them at bedtime to sustain the sort of night we're expecting.

“But my baby falls asleep really easily at bedtime…”

This one comes up ALL the time.

And I get why parents assume that if a baby falls asleep quickly, they must be ‘tired enough’

Not always, you take your baby into their bedroom, the routine, the melatonin is all telling them it is ‘bedtime’.

They fall asleep easily, but they don’t stay asleep…

They wake hourly from bedtime, this commonly is a sign sleep pressure is not high enough.

Is feeding causing your baby to wake every hour?

Feeding your baby to sleep does not automatically cause frequent waking, but it can, let me explain.

There are babies who breastfeed to sleep every night and sleep lovely long stretches.

But there are a small percentage of babies who develop a really strong attachment to feeding hourly.

So how do you figure out which is your baby?

Ask yourself these questions:

Are they feeding well during the day?

Are they becoming incredibly distracted during daytime feeds and then catching up overnight?

Have you optimised their routine, and night wakes have not reduced?

Does it feel like feeding has become habitual a quick suckle and back to sleep…

There is a BIG difference.

And no, if feeding has become their main way of resettling, you haven't done anything wrong.

At 2:37am, nobody is choosing the option that takes 45 minutes if feeding gets everyone back to sleep in five.

But if that has gradually turned into hourly feeds and you're absolutely exhausted, we can change it.

Responsively.

Sometimes the sleep support changes — but the baby's need for support doesn't

This is another thing I see quite a lot.

A baby might have had lots of movement, rocking or contact from very early on.

Then that changes.

And something else takes its place.

Quite often that's breastfeeding.

So you can end up with a baby who previously relied on movement or very high levels of sensory input to sleep, and who now wants feeding or cuddling at every waking instead.

It can feel like:

“Why can my baby not sleep without me?”

But I don't think that's a particularly useful way to look at it.

I'm much more interested in gradually helping that baby build more than one route back to sleep.

That's very different from removing all their support and expecting them to work it out alone.

Then we have the FOMO babies…

If you have one, you'll know.

They commonly can become hourly wakers, because they are often distracted feeders, we use feeding as a way to get them to sleep because they fight sleep SO MUCH

And sometimes parents are spending 30–40 minutes trying desperately to get them asleep because an age-based wake window says they “should” be tired…

So it is common to see undertired babies, not feeding enough in the day, and needing to feed to get back to sleep.

Development can completely throw sleep off too

If the hourly waking is recent and coincides with mastering a new skill, this is likely just a phase!

They're crawling, pulling to stand, learning to communicate, suddenly very aware when you walk away.

Their brain is doing approximately 900 things at once, and sleep gets messy.

This is particularly relevant when a baby who previously slept fairly predictably suddenly starts waking constantly.

If hourly wakes have been occuring for 3 weeks or more you can rule out this being developmental

Is your baby experiencing discomfort

Often overlooked, but very relevant

I have worked with babies who had some tummy issues, and this was why sleep was so fragmented.

If your baby seems genuinely uncomfortable, I don't want you treating everything as a sleep issue.

Things I would want you to pay attention to include persistent discomfort, reflux-type symptoms, split nights, restless sleep, significant eczema or itching, feeding difficulties, noisy breathing, snoring, difficulty lying flat or anything else about your baby's behaviour that feels unusual.

My Baby Sleep Guide covers every underlying medical issue the signs and symptoms, to help you get to the root of this if you are concerned.

And if something about your baby's sleep or behaviour is concerning you, that is something to discuss with your GP, health visitor or the appropriate medical professional before trying to “fix” the sleep.

If you I was assessing your baby’s sleep as a client, here is what I am checking 👇

Is baby displaying and red flags?

The first thing I want to be ruling out is an underlying issue; an intolerance, a deficiency, a sleep disorder, a tongue tie etc.

Is the sleep diary displaying signs the routine is causing hourly wakes?

I’d be assessing the sleep distribution and sleep needs

I'd calculate how much sleep they're actually getting vs what we are trying to achieve

I'd look at the distribution of naps, and number of naps

I'd look at their length of day.

Feeding, settling, temperament, sensory, the bedtime routine, what happens at each wake

Whether there are patterns in the first half versus the second half of the night.

Do you need to stop feeding or cuddling your baby to sleep?

Changing how your baby falls asleep is the last thing you would change (unless you want to change it)

You work through everything else first, because their can be red flags, and routine changes needed.

If you work through those things, and your baby still feeds hourly, then changing this can really help consolidate sleep.

Remember this can be gentle and gradual

We can reduce support gradually.

We can introduce other settling cues.

We can work on the routine first.

We can change one part of the night rather than everything.

We can go at a pace both you AND your baby can cope with.

Responsive doesn't mean we never make changes.

It means your baby gets support while they're learning something new.

Where should YOU start?

There is lots of guidance here to get you started, but below are other ways to get more support.

If you're happy working through it yourself

My Baby Sleep Guide is essentially the self-paced version of how I want you to start thinking about sleep.

It helps you work through your baby's individual sleep needs, routine, naps, sleep pressure, frequent waking and settling — without forcing your baby into a generic schedule.

So if you're reading this and thinking:

“Okay, I can see three things here that might be affecting us…”

start with the guide.

You can go through it in your own time, make sense of what's happening and start making changes yourself.

[Get my Baby Sleep Guide here →]

But if you're thinking, “I just need someone to support me through this…”

This is where my 1:1 sleep support comes in.

Support ranges from one of 30 minute calls to the full support package, where I work closely with you for 2 weeks to transform sleep.

With 1:1 support, you don't have to troubleshoot it on your own.

I do the deep dive with you.

We look at the whole picture and build a plan around your baby, your family and what you're actually comfortable doing.

[View my 1:1 sleep support packages →]

The biggest thing I want you to take from this

If your baby is waking every hour tonight, please don't immediately assume you've caused it because you fed them to sleep.

And don't start randomly changing six things at once.

There is usually a pattern there.

We just need to find it.

Because once you understand why your baby is waking, working out what to change becomes a whole lot easier.

And that is always where I start.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is my baby suddenly waking every hour?

If this is a sudden change, look at what else has changed alongside the sleep. Illness, discomfort, development, separation anxiety, feeding and changes to daytime sleep can all affect night waking. I would be particularly interested in a sudden change if your baby previously slept much longer stretches.

Is breastfeeding to sleep causing my baby to wake every hour?

Breastfeeding never causes waking, it simply can be the method your baby has become used to having to resettle. Helping your baby to settle in a different way can (as explained in this blog post) help.

Can too much daytime sleep cause frequent night waking?

For some babies, yes. Babies have different sleep requirements, so if the amount or distribution of daytime sleep reduces the sleep pressure available for the night, sleep can become more fragmented. This is why I prefer looking at a baby's actual 24-hour sleep pattern rather than only following age-based wake windows.

Does my baby need to self-settle to sleep through the night?

Not all babies do, but for some yes. Independent settling isn't a prerequisite for longer stretches of sleep. If the amount of support your baby currently needs has become unsustainable, you can gradually introduce different ways of settling while continuing to respond to them.