Baby not sleeping enough?

[MissHoney85]

My DD is 17 weeks and since she was a few weeks old has not slept more than an average of 12 hours in a day. I keep seeing how babies her age need at least 14-15 hours but I can't even get close.

She is ok at night. She's in bed from around 7.30-6 and it's a bit variable but usually she wakes for around 3 feeds on average. She usually resettles ok (for the first half of the night anyway, she starts to get restless around 4am) and has recently started to sleep for a longer initial stretch - had 5 hours the other day, praise be!

The main problem is naps. She's always resisted sleep during the day, since a few weeks old. Her wake windows seem to just be long, and when she does go to sleep her naps are rarely more than 40 minutes. I often spend longer getting her to sleep than she actually spends sleeping. She seems to hate napping and cries every time I try to get her to take one. She usually naps in a rocker bed. She doesn't really like the sling anymore (I think because she knows it means sleep) and even doesn't sleep in the pram or the car.

She's very smiley and seems to be generally hitting milestones. Is it a problem that she doesn't sleep 'enough' or just the way she is? Did anyone else have a non-sleeping baby?

[FATEdestiny]

Does she cry much? Is she clingy, wanting to be held a lot? Or generally need a lot of interaction to stop her crying?

The sign of a well rested baby of this age is that when awake, they are happy to be on the floor reaching and rolling to grab new things. So not needing help/interaction to 'play' (but will need help/interaction to sleep).

So if your baby is happy and independant when awake, don't worry about it.

Issues some people get in your situation is not understanding that babies need significant help to sleep and that because there child doesn't sleep easily, assuming baby therefore doesn't need/want the sleep.

[MissHoney85]

@FATEdestiny no she's not clingy or generally prone to crying and is happy to play on the floor. So I guess she's ok! Thank you 🙂

[TheBestSpoon]

DS also hadn't read the books and wouldn't sleep anywhere near the recommended amount, with short naps, and he cried Every Single Time he went to sleep. Even now he's 2, he only sleeps 11 hours in 24. But he also slept well at night (even if a 12 hour stretch from 7-7 has always been a distant dream!), never had a sleep regression and was happy when awake. And once he hit 6 months he started taking 90 minute+ naps. Sounds like your DD is the same - they're all individuals with their own sleep requirements. I got really stressed he wasn't sleeping enough in the early weeks (not helped by some slightly judgy comments from others), but found sleep as a whole a lot easier to deal with once I accepted that he was happily ploughing his own furrow...

[Thatwentbadly]

Sounds like she just doesn’t need as much sleep as an average baby. Babies are all different.