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Structured naps or not?

3 replies

Drenched · 17/06/2009 03:35

DD, my first, is 18 weeks. Should I be structuring her day time sleep or just letting her sleep as and when she feels like it? I like a routine, that's just me, I would love to be able to predict when she's going to sleep so that I can plan our days around it (we go out quite a lot). But sometimes I just feel cruel waking her from a nap (in particular I've been only letting her have a short nap in the morning in the hopes of a longer one at lunchtime). So I'm totally inconsistent, some days I wake her other days I don't. If I just let her 'find her own routine' will this ever happen or will each day just be completely random? We started off with quite a good routine (3 hr EASY) and she slept through the night from 9 weeks. Since I've relaxed and gone with the flow a bit more she's started wanting to feed in the night again, but that might just be her age. Basically I've just read so many books I'm now scared to follow her lead in case she leads us down a route of being up all night (I'm a total wimp when it comes to sleep deprivation). So - someone please give me some real life advice, what did you do, how did it work for you?

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blondissimo · 17/06/2009 07:18

Hi Drenched
At 18 weeks my DS would only sleep for a half hour at a time - I couldn't get him to sleep longer, so he had 3 x half hours and about 2 hours inbetween.
At about 6-7 months I managed to get him to sleep for half an hour in the morning and about an hour in the afternoon, soon managed to get that up to 1.5 hours.
Now at 11 months, I have just started binning the morning nap and he has 2 hours after lunch.
I think you should try to get her to sleep for at lest 1.5 hours after lunch with a short morning nap.
If she is really sleepy, maybe a short nap about 4pm?
Also, try not to let her sleep after 5pm if she is going to bed at 7pm.
Sorry if I sound a bit like "The One We Do Not Speak Of", but it is what has worked for me.
HTH

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blondissimo · 17/06/2009 08:12

Sorry that sounds a bit confusing:
"I couldn't get him to sleep longer, so he had 3 x half hours and about 2 hours inbetween each nap"