diff --git a/src/fdwatcher.c b/src/fdwatcher.c
index 711628d..5a120b1 100644
--- a/src/fdwatcher.c
+++ b/src/fdwatcher.c
@@ -129,8 +129,9 @@ fdwatcher_wait(FdWatcher *fdw, void **events, int nevents, int timeout)
 	struct timespec *tsp = NULL;
 
 	if (timeout != -1) {
-		ts.tv_sec = timeout;
-		ts.tv_nsec = 0;
+		// timeout is milleseconds, convert to timespec
+		ts.tv_sec = timeout / 1000;
+		ts.tv_nsec = timeout % 1000 * 1000 * 1000;
 		tsp = &ts;
 	}
 
diff --git a/src/fdwatcher.h b/src/fdwatcher.h
index 046465b..5233628 100644
--- a/src/fdwatcher.h
+++ b/src/fdwatcher.h
@@ -113,8 +113,8 @@ int fdwatcher_remove(FdWatcher *fdw, int fd);
 /*
  * Wait for events and return when one or more are seen.  `events` and
  * `nevents` are an array of pointers (type agnostic) and the number of
- * pointers in the array to fill.  `timeout` is an optional timeout to wait for
- * events, set to -1 to wait indefinitely.
+ * pointers in the array to fill.  `timeout` is an optional timeout (in
+ * milliseconds) to wait for events, set to -1 to wait indefinitely.
  *
  * This function will return the number of events that were seen.  For each
  * event that was seen, its user data pointer (set in `fdwatcher_add`) will be