How to easily track your baby's awake windows
When I had my first baby (before I was a sleep consultant) and was struggling with my daughter’s short naps and frequent night wakings, I scoured the internet searching for tips on how to get my baby to sleep better.
Throughout all the advice, it felt like nothing applied to our situation, and it seemed like I was doing everything “right” already. My daughter had a dark sleep environment with white noise, she was swaddled, I had a naptime and bedtime routine for her, I carefully watched for sleepy cues, and I was breastfeeding every 3 hours during the day. What wasn’t I doing right?!
I couldn’t figure out what else I should do–until I finally ran into My Sweet Sleeper’s article on awake windows. Suddenly it clicked! I was so focused on sleepy cues, which my daughter did not really show (not all babies do!), that I was keeping her up for way too long.
As the article says, awake windows are the time that your baby wakes up (from nighttime or naps) until the time your baby is asleep again. Based on a baby’s age, they have a limit on how long they should developmentally stay awake before being put back in their consistent and dark sleep environment.
If you keep a child up past their proper awake window, they will likely become overtired, causing them to have trouble falling asleep, short naps, night wakings, and/or early morning risings.
Here are our recommended awake windows:
Tracking apps
Some people have amazing memories and/or are great at mentally keeping track of time, but not me. When my babies wake up, I can’t recall off the top of my head what time they went down or how long they just slept. This is why I need a way to keep track of my baby’s sleep and what ultimately led me to a tracking app.
For me, a baby tracking app is a must, and I tell all my soon-to-be-mom friends to get one! Baby tracking apps make it easy to keep track of not just sleep, but also feedings, diapers, measurements, pumping, medications, and more.
Tracking sleep
When you mark down what time your baby falls asleep and wakes up, you’re making it incredibly easy to keep track of awake windows and when your baby needs to be put back down for a nap.
While this is definitely the most useful aspect of a baby tracking app, there are also other uses for keeping track of your baby’s sleep. Apps can summarize data for you, letting you know easily how many hours of sleep your baby is getting, which you can then use to see if you’re on track with the right totals.
It also helps tremendously when you’re working with a sleep consultant, as you can answer their questions about your baby’s patterns, schedules, number of night wakings, etc. In the same way, it makes it easy to answer pediatrician questions!
I also frequently use my app to help me schedule appointments or outings for when my baby is most likely to be awake, based on her patterns from the last couple of weeks.
Feedings, diapers, and more
It’s best to feed your baby about every 3 hours for their first year of life. By tracking feedings, you can make sure you’re on the right schedule, and it makes it simple to know if your baby is crying of potential tiredness or hunger. You can also time how long the feedings are (or note how many ounces), which helps at the end of the day to see if the baby might need a top-up or not.
As for diapers, this keeps me on track with ensuring that I don’t let too much time pass between diaper changes, as well as helps me answer pediatrician questions. I also use the app to track my baby’s height and weight, which helps me have easy access when people ask. When my baby has gotten sick, I’ve used it to keep track of her Tylenol doses so I easily know when she can have more.
Of course, there are non-smartphone ways to keep track of awake windows (and other data) as well! You can have a notebook where you write down the wake-up and sleep times. You can have a white board in the baby’s room where you mark down times. You can even make a spreadsheet! However, I have found that using an app is by far the easiest way to do it, and also to make the information accessible to your partner or whoever else is watching the little one.
Recommended tracking apps
After looking into several different options, I have two favorites - both of which are free. I used BabyTracker for my first baby and currently use Huckleberry with my second (not because I like it more, but just to try them both out). The two options are extremely similar!
Advantages to Huckleberry:
It offers a paid version (with a free first month) that uses your baby’s age and last wake-up time to suggest the “sweet spot” of when you should attempt the next nap or bedtime. That’s helpful, but definitely not necessary if you just follow My Sweet Sleeper’s awake windows chart above (but here’s a link to $5 off the paid version).
The paid version is also good for seeing more stats: your baby’s awake window average, and their bedtime and wake-up times over time (BabyTracker doesn’t offer that data).
Huckleberry allows you to track solid food intake and whether your baby had any reactions to certain foods.
You can easily press a button to say where your baby’s nap was taken (crib, car, stroller, carrier, etc), while with BabyTracker you would have to type that information in the notes, if you cared to.
At the beginning of each new month of your baby’s life, you get a message that tells you how much sleep they should be getting at this age, typical awake windows, and information about upcoming nap transitions or regressions.
At the end of the calendar year, it sent me a fun review saying that my 9-month baby slept 4195 hours in 2558 sessions, used 1747 diapers, nursed for 340 hours in 1853 sessions, and grew 8 inches and 12.7 pounds!
Advantages to BabyTracker:
BabyTracker is probably your best option if both parents (or maybe a babysitter/nanny/grandparent) will be using it regularly. While both apps allow for multiple people to track things, BabyTracker gives push notifications when something is added (ie. diaper changed, baby went down for a nap, baby was marked awake, etc) so that the other caretaker can see right away. Huckleberry, on the other hand, tracks the info on each person’s device, but doesn’t give notifications.
I’ve heard that BabyTracker is compatible with Apple Watch, so that might be an advantage for you.
BabyTracker allows you to track milestones/firsts (like a baby memory book) and also to time activities like tummy time.
You can download a very detailed PDF of your child’s recorded information, if that’s your thing, whereas with Huckleberry you would have to take screenshots.
With BabyTracker, you can view and download data summaries for specific weeks, specific months, the past 7 days, or the past 30 days. With Huckleberry, you can view data summaries for the past 7, 14, 30, 90, or 365 days, but not for specific weeks or months in the past.
No matter which option you choose, I cannot recommend using a baby tracking app more highly! Following awake windows is such a helpful part of making sure your baby is getting the sleep he or she needs, and using an app is so worth the effort in making that happen!
Related Articles:
Three tips for starting a naptime routine.
