how long awake?

[jembelina]

I started off writing a really long and confusing thread, but decided I'll just start by asking 'how long awake at a time??' (7.5 months) It's a long story, but I'm thinking of dropping a day sleep (he has 3 - 2 long, 1 short). Not sure if he really needs that extra sleep or if it will just take his body a few days to get used to it and maybe his other 2 sleeps will get slightly longer?? As selfish as this sounds, I'm starting to fel like I can't leave the house because when we are out he will not sleep, so the entire day is turned upside down if we aren't home for sleeps. See, already confusing :rolleyes: any help/advice would be most appreciated!!

[drewid]

Hey :)

Let me know how you go dropping a day sleep - I'd be very interested to know how that works out!

My little one has a number of sleeps during the day, between each breastfeed, sometimes twice. I would say that he has 1 longish sleep about 1 - 1 1/2 hrs and the others usually about 30-45mins each.

I do find that whenever we go out, he doesn't sleep - he wont' sleep in the pram, or in a portacot at anyones house, so the only sleep he gets is in his car seat. But I find that it doesn't affect his night time sleep at all, so I don't worry if he doesn't get his sleep.

He sleeps at night from 6.30 - 6 so I'm pretty flexible with day sleeping. I just put him down when he's tired. There's no set times for naps.

I do try to make sure that we only go out AFTER he's had a sleep though, I find that helps a lot.

Sorry I couldnt be of any help! But I'd be interested to know about what sleeps your little one has, and at what times etc. And how you go about having a sleeping 'routine' during the day.

:)

[jembelina]

We just kind of fell into a sleep routine by accident. The actual times he goes down varies but generally he has two sleeps before lunch then one on the arvo. It's working well so I am reluctant to change.
DS also sleeps well at night (6-6 ish) regardless of day sleeps. The problem is, if he misses that afternoon sleep, he's awake from midday till bed which is not a happy situation! He's then well and truly ready to crash at 5pm (I don't fancy starting my day at 4am :eek: ) so we really have to drag out the bedtime routine.
Also, I've become a clock-watcher - reason being, with my DS if you blink you miss his tired signs till its too late!! He rarely gets cranky due to tiredness. So, I'm wondering if he could go longer than I let him, though he almost always falls asleep. gee, can you tell I'm confused :confused: sorry, just thinking out loud!

[funnyfarm]

Jem, i think my daughter was about that age when i cut her down to 2 sleeps. She was having three sleeps a day and going down very well too sleep but only staying asleep for 30-40 minutes (sometimes even 20 minutes). I felt like i couldn't get anything done in this short period of time. Once i cut her down to 2 sleeps it took about 2-3 weeks and she was sleeping for one and half hours in the morning and the same in the afternoon. So here goes, i think this is how her routine went.

Woke about 6.30 - 7am. Back to sleep about 9.30-10am. Woke about 11.30 at lunch time. Back to sleep about 2pm and woke about 3.30pm. In bed at nighttime between 6-7pm.

It's never a nice time when your children are dropping their sleeps (my daughter has dropped down to 1 sleep but some days still wants to have her first sleep at 10.30 in the morning but if i let her go to sleep then she only has 45 minutes and not sleep in the afternoon whereas if i hold her out until after an early lunch and put her to bed about 12 noon she has about 2 hours).

Sorry if this sounding like i was rambling and hope it made sense.

Good luck

Briana's mum

[alissa-mareesmum]

Hello,

Thought i'd pop a reply in as alissa has done a similar thing in dropping her late morning 40min nap. Alissa is 8 months old.

A typical day now goes:

6 in the morn - wake up for breakky (solids and bottle)
7 - 7:30 back to sleep for hopefully 1 to 1.5 hrs
9 - 9:30 awake, play, bottle at 10 now stays awake until midday
11:30 - midday lunch (solids, water and rusk)
midday - 2:00 sleep (yippeee)
2:00 awake play
2:30 - 3:00 bottle
3:00 - 4:00 play
4:00 - 4:30 bath
4:30 - 5:30 late arvo nap
5:30 awake
6:00 - 7:00 dinner time solids, bottle
7:00 - 7:30 in bed and off to sleep usually spends half an hour talking to herself
sleeps through the night and then we start all over again.

I know alissa has in the last week been able to sit herself up and has started to crawl, i wonder if other babies have dropped a nap or sleep during the day once they have had a huge developmental leap. Dunno if that could be an explanation. It can be so frustrating when they change their routines and us mums have to try and work it out all over again.

Don't know if any of this has helped, maybe just knowing that we all go through the same frustrations and get just as confused has helped a bit.

Best wishes Jade.