Toddlers are waking up less and less at night, Quebec study says

A study out of Quebec found that more and more toddlers are sleeping through the night. (Pexels)

Toddlers' nights are becoming less fragmented, according to data from the Growing Up in Quebec study, which tracked the development of children at five and 17 months of age.

The aim of the vast longitudinal study is to gain a better understanding of the factors that can influence the development and well-being of children born in Quebec in 2020-2021.

The results on toddlers' sleep, unveiled on Thursday, confirm that as children get older, they wake up less at night.

Specifically, 31 per cent of one-and-a-half-year-olds never woke up at night in the month preceding the survey, compared with 13 per cent at 5 months of age.

Parents can also look forward to fewer night-time awakenings, as the proportion of children who woke at least three times during the night fell from 35 per cent at five months to 18 per cent at 17 months.

The Quebec Statistics Institute (ISQ) survey also shows that the proportion of children who sleep through the night is increasing. Nearly half of all babies slept through the night at five months - that is, they slept at least six hours in a row - while at 17 months, three quarters of children met this criterion.

The proportion of children sleeping the recommended number of hours per day for their age jumped from 75 to 85 per cent between five and 17 months.

The data show that at 17 months, children sleep an average of 12.8 hours a day. At five months, they sleep 13.4 hours.

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This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on March 13, 2025.