Am I letting her sleep too long at night?

[GirlyWirly]

Hi Hubbers,

Here I am in the sleep section.....again!

I can't get into sleep school til August. So I'm kinda trying to work things out on my own til then.

My 3mo (almost 4mo) DD2 is sleeping from 8:30pm-9:30am with two feeds in between. The first feed is 3am and it lasts 10min with no nappy change, then next feed is 6:30am and lasts 15min with a nappy change.

So she's getting about 12 and a half hours sleep over night.

Daytime. Two 40 min naps are a good day.

Yesterday she only slept about 30 mins in my arms and then a few little naps during her feeds.

She goes to bed at night after a couple of settles (we start bed time routine at about 7 so it takes 90 min to feed her/get her to sleep).

She goes straight to sleep after her night feeds without any need for settling.

I put her to bed for her morning nap yesterday. She lay in her cot for an hour, wide awake and happily talking to herself and then she starts crying so I tried to settle her but she went bananas so I got her up.

Am I struggling for her to have day naps because she sleeps so long overnight?

Should I be getting her up at 6:30am when she wakes for her 2nd feed?

I am finding that she won't have a feed when she wakes up for the day at 9:30. She won't have a feed til about 11ish which should be almost morning nap time.

Everything seems so out of whack!

Any advice would be appreciated.

Sorry about the rambling

[ilovehats]

The average total sleep (i.e in a 24 hour period) for a 3/4 mo is around 14 hours, so you bubs seems spot on. Is she upset/cranky during the day only having 2 short sleeps? I would be putting her to sleep during the day when she shows tired signs. If the 12+ hours at night works for you and bubs then I wouldn't be too concerned unless she is cranky during the day. In the next few months her routine will probably have changed again a few times anyway... :-)

[GirlyWirly]

Thanks for the reply ilovehats

That's the thing, she's the happiest baby in the world. Very smiley and laughs and squeals all the time.

The only time she cries is when I'm trying to put her down for a nap.

Hmmmm......that says something doesn't it? :/

Another hubber said in another one of my posts that the motto in her house is "sleep is a war free zone". I really want to live by that but I guess it feels so weird to let a baby so small be awake during the day for such long stretches.

So confused!

[SpottySocks]

As she is sleeping so well overnight then she may not need the morning sleep. I think I'd continue to let her sleep until 9.30 and then keep her up until early afternoon and just try for one day sleep in the afternoon - you might be able to get one longer afternoon sleep.

Goodluck.

[jennibear]

Id be strating her day at 6.30. Then putting her down for a nap around 10am then again at around midday. Then if you think she needs another nap try for around 3pm.
Try and get out of the house between naps.
It sounds like hse getting the right amountof sleep so try not to worry.
What you want to be aiming for is 10 or so hours over night and 3 ish hours during the day at that age.
At that age, i worked on 2 hours awake at a time. Any longer than that and my bubs would be sooo OVERTIRED that they couldnt settle and sleep.

SLEEP=SLEEP.

[pooks]

^ agree! Start day at 6:30am and back down after 2ish hours then the same later, and possibly a third time too.
I would start the bedtime routine earlier too.

[Californication]

That sounds a lot like my 16 week DD. Well, last week anyway!

She's never been a huge day sleeper except for the first few weeks. Since 8 weeks, she's been having a 9:30-10pm last feed, and bed. Waking around 8am, and having about 40 mins in the morning and unto 2 hours in the afternoon (if she is in my arms or being rocked in the rocker).

But this week, she's waking at around 6am, having a feed and going back to sleep for 3-4 hours. Then she's not having a huge day sleep. Just 2 x 40 mins if I'm lucky. One early arvo, one late arvo.

While she's happy, it's good. But if I miss the late pm tired signs (she only gives me about 2 second notice between happy and overtired), all hell breaks loose!