"I'll go this time."

With relief, Mary rolled over in bed when her husband got up to answer their newborn's cries. "Will I ever get to sleep through the night again?" she thought.

Sleep - or lack of it - is probably the most-discussed aspect of baby care. New parents discover its vital importance those first few weeks. The quality and quantity of an infants's sleep affects the well-being of everyone in the household, and it's the difference between having cheerful, alert parents and members of the walking dead.

And sleep strife rarely ends with a growing child's move from crib to bed. It simply changes form. Instead of cries, it's pleas or refusals. Instead of a feeding at 3 AM, it's a nightmare or request for water.

It sounds like parents don't get a good night's sleep until their kids have left home. Well, actually, it's not all that bad. But how do you get them to bed through the cries, screams, avoidance tactics, and pleas? How should you respond when you're awakened in the middle of the night? And how much sleep is enough?

It all depends on age.

How Much Is Enough?
Charts that list the hours of sleep likely to be required by an infant or a 2-year-old may cause concern when individual differences aren't considered. These numbers are simply averages reported to be slept by large groups of children of particular ages. There is no magical number of hours required by ALL kids in a certain age group. Two-year-old Sarah might sleep from 8 PM to 8 AM, while 2-year-old Johnny is just as alert the next day after sleeping from 10 PM to 5 AM.

Most children's sleep requirements fall within a predictable range of hours based on their age, but remember that your child is a unique individual with distinct sleep needs. Here are some approximate numbers based on age, accompanied by age-appropriate pro-sleep tactics.