How To Get a 6 Month Old Baby To Sleep Through The Night

Last updated: March 28, 2024

When will your baby finally sleep well? If your baby is not sleeping well at night, you are exhausted! In this post I will be sharing easy to implement tips on how to get a 6 month old to sleep through the night.

As a mom of 3, I have been there struggling and exhausted. All I wanted to do was sleep again. I was able to implement sleep training in order to get my kids sleeping through the night. And I am sharing what we did in our household, once our kids were 6 months old, to help you get there too.

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Are 6 Month-Olds Capable of Sleeping Through The Night?

Yes, most 6 month old babies are capable of sleeping through the night. Right around this age a baby’s sleep schedule, including naps, becomes much more predictable.

This is also an age where babies sleep in longer stretches through the night. My kids all dropped the early morning feed (4-6am) around this age too.

Baby Sleep Schedule At 6 Months

Understanding a typical 6 month old schedule is vital for your baby to get to the point of being able to sleep through the night. By 6 months of age, your baby should be taking 3 reliable naps per day. Once your baby has established a schedule of 3 naps per day, the schedule becomes much more predictable than before.

You can use 3 naps per day as your cue to start working towards sleeping through the night. Check out the sample schedule below, to see an example of what your baby’s schedule might look like.

Recommended Baby Sleep Items for a 6 Month Old

Another thing that’s important for getting a 6 month old to sleep through the night is having the appropriate baby sleep items. Once my babies were 6 months old, I transitioned them from a Merlin sleepsuit into sleep sacks.

I absolutely love the HALO sleep sacks and highly recommend using them until your kids transition from a crib to a bed. They come in a variety of sizes, so you can buy bigger sizes as your child grows.

Sleep sacks are also great because they provide warmth when blankets are not allowed in cribs. Additionally, they will help your baby feel cozy inside the large crib.

I also highly recommend getting a video baby monitor. It’s comforting to be able to check on your baby from afar, without having to go into the nursery. Other items I’m a big fan of that I’ve effectively used for helping my kids sleep are:

• Sound machine
• Blackout curtains (or shades)
• Night-light

What Age Can Sleep Training Start?

4-6 months is the recommended age to start sleep training. Any earlier and a baby’s schedule is not reliable enough yet to be effective.

Personally, I waited until my babies had shown they were capable of sleeping through the night before starting sleep training. This was right around 6 months old for my kids.

How To Use Sleep Training To Get a 6 Month Old Baby To Sleep Through The Night In His Own Crib

I am going to share the exact sleep training method we used in our house. I decided to use the Ferber method, which does involve letting your baby cry. But, you will also check on your child in various time increments.

I found the Ferber sleep training method to be very effective. But I will say, it was very tough to hear my babies crying and not attend to their needs immediately. But, after 3-4 days my kids started sleeping through the night.

Because of this, I found the Ferber method to be 100% worth it. Not only were my kids sleeping well, but it meant I had some time to relax before bed and I could start getting a good night’s sleep again.

Those are two hugely important things for me, so I was very happy to use sleep training. Let’s get started reviewing how the Ferber sleep training method was implemented in my house.

Step 1: Establish a Schedule & Stick To It

We discussed a typical 6 month old schedule above, which includes 3 naps. The first step towards getting your 6 month old to sleep through the night is to stick with a reliable schedule throughout the day.

When a baby is overtired, he actually doesn’t sleep as well at night. So, make sure you understand what your baby’s schedule should look like and that you are sticking with it each day.

If you feel like your schedule has been all over the place, I recommend working on it for about a week. Once you feel like you are in a good place, then proceed to step 2. If you’re daytime schedule is already good, then you can move to step 2 now.

Step 2: Make Sure You Have a Good Bedtime Routine

It is also very important to have a bedtime routine. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy either, ours looked like this:

1. Feeding in the nursery
2. Diaper change
3. Change into pajamas with sleep sack on
4. Read a book
5. Put to bed in crib

It’s also important that you put your baby down to sleep while drowsy, but not fully asleep yet. Next up, is going to be the very hard part of sleep training. But just remember it only lasts about 3 days, making it very much worth it (in my opinion).

Step 3: Let Your Baby Cry, Then Check On Her

The next step is the hardest part, but the biggest reward. If your baby cries when you put her down to sleep, you will make sure everything is okay. If it is, you will leave the room.

DO NOT PICK UP YOUR CRYING BABY.

This same method can be applied if your baby is waking later in the night too. That was the case when we were sleep training one of our twins.

Next, comes the hard part. You are going to let your baby cry. Start by staying out of your baby’s room for 10 minutes. If she is still crying, go check on her. However, do not talk to her or pick her up.

One thing my kids tried for attention was throwing their pacifiers out of the crib. If this has happened, pick up the pacifier and put it in the crib.

When you are in your baby’s room, make your visit very short and do not give attention to your baby. Again, I want to reiterate that you do not talk to or pick up your infant. You are just there to make sure your child is safe and has everything she needs to fall asleep.

Continue letting your baby cry and checking on her. However each time you check on her, the time in between will be longer. Personally, I started at 10 minutes, then 20 minutes, until I got to 30 minutes in between visits.

You also might find that visiting your baby’s room makes it worse and decide to not make a visit very often. This is when the video baby monitor is very useful. I found that checking on my baby through video helped me feel comfortable that my little one was safe.

Eventually your baby will fall asleep. For us, the first night took 1-2 hours for this to happen.

Step 4: Stick With It To Make Sure Sleep Training Works

Now that you have gotten through night #1, the most important thing is to stick with it. You will continue steps 1-3 above each night until your baby starts sleeping at night. It should take a total of 3-4 days.

I also have some words of advice about when you hear your baby cry. It is heart-wrenching to have to sit there and listen to your baby crying. But, it is only for a few days and after that everyone in the house is much happier because they are sleeping much better.

It’s very normal to feel like giving up because the crying can last a long time (and it feels even longer than it really is). You will also want to make sure that you and your partner are on the same page with the sleep training method you use.

You will need each other for support. If one of you feels like giving in, then the other one will be there to say no, we are sticking with this. That’s how it worked out in my house at least. If only one parent is committed to sleep training, it is unlikely to work in the long term.

How Long Does Sleep Training a 6 Month Old Take?

After using the Ferber method with my kids I found the following pattern.

• Day 1 was hard, but eventually the crying stopped (expect up to 1-2 hours of crying).
• Day 2 was surprisingly easier with minimal crying. This leaves you feeling really good about Day 3.
• But then Day 3 turns out to be even worse than Day 1! Just stick with your plan on Day 3.
• Because…by Day 4, my babies were sleeping with no crying at night.

Of course, each baby can be slightly different. Maybe Day 5 will be the magical day for you or you get through Day 1 and have no more crying. I just wanted to share my experience to give you an idea of what to expect.

How To Deal With Sleep Regressions at 6 Months

You have worked so hard to get your baby to sleep through the night and then, BAM, she gets sick or you go away on a trip. All of a sudden your baby’s good sleeping habits are gone.

Luckily, it’s not super hard to re-teach your baby to sleep through the night. Once you are back to your normal routine your child might return to sleeping through the night. If your baby does not return to her good sleeping habits, then you should do the Ferber method all over again.

The good news is it should not take nearly as long this time to get your baby sleeping through the night again. Maybe just 1 or 2 days, and the crying should be for much less time.

Additional Baby Sleep Guidance

Before I officially sign off, I also want to offer you some more support from a pediatric sleep consultant. If you are someone who benefits from having a place to ask your questions with very detailed step-by-step guides, then the Baby D.R.E.A.M. System is perfect for you.

For that extra boost to get your baby on a schedule, end cat naps, and get your baby sleeping through the night I would recommend signing up for the Baby D.R.E.A.M. System.

Using the steps above is a great way to get a 6 month old to sleep through the night.

I found the Ferber sleep training method to be very effective in helping my kids become good sleepers, who sleep through the night. 6 months is a great time to start sleep training. Just remember in order for it to work best, you should have your baby on a reliable and predicable schedule of 3 naps per day and implement a bedtime routine. Good luck!