Please help me - new mum overwhelmed and confused

[CrystalPalaceMa]

Hi all,

I'm looking for some reassurance / advice as a new mum to a 14 week old. I don't have a mum or MIL I can ask for advice and due to Covid I've not caught up with friends for ages. Feeling a bit overwhelmed by my baby's development and want to know if I'm doing it right or if there are things I can do differently. I feel like I don't have a clue. I read apps like What to expect, BabyCentre, NHS, NCT etc but would like some real life advice!

Basically DS has recently stopped taking long naps in the day. He now won't nap more than 30 mins at a time, even when I catch him waking and try to soothe him back to sleep for a other cycle. He used to nap for 45mins cycle and often go back to sleep for another cycle, so 90mins total. All my baby apps and NCT website tell me that he should be napping about 3 times a day now, but that the lunchtime nap should be about 2hrs and in total he needs about 15-16 hrs sleep every 24hrs at his age. His night time sleep is fine - about 10-11hrs, but his day time naps have got short.

My confusion is that all the guidance says at his age he shouldn't stay awake more than 90mins in one go or he will get over tired. But this just doesn't make sense if he is only napping for 30 mins. He would need to have way more than 3 naps a day to ensure he's not awake longer than 90mins. Eg:
Wake 8am
Nap 9.30am
Wake 10am
Nap 11.30am
Wake 12
Nap 1.30pm
Wake 2pm
Nap 3.30pm
Wake 4pm
Nap 5.30pm
Wake 6pm
Bed 7.30-8pm
(This is just an example of what it would look like).

Now I know that you have to play it by ear and do what's right for your baby, but I'm confused as his behaviour goes against everything I've read in multiple different places. Overall I'm worried his total sleep isn't enough.

Is it ok to give him more than 3 naps a day, since each nap is so short? Eg 5 - 6 naps? Is it normal for a baby this age to suddenly nap much shorter naps?

Finally, since he's napping for such a short time it's a lot of time to fill with him. Should I be doing activities and play with him during each of these awake windows? I'm running out of ideas.

Thank you

This is totally normal - some babies just need less sleep and they all have different sleep patterns. He's only very small still so you may find he will do longer, more infrequent naps once he's a bit older. Try not to worry yourself by reading too much about what he 'should' be doing!

Also, you don't have to do activities with him all day - will he go in a sling so you can get on with things you want to do? We do a mixture of things all day eg go for coffee, tummy time, walk to the park, bit of playing, household chores etc.

Mine was on four naps till they were about six months old. It’s fine. Not convenient, but you’re right to avoid over tiredness.

play mat and baby gym.

chat to them while you get on with stuff.

Honestly don't panic. Some babies just don't sleep as much as others. Basically if he seems tired then let him sleep. It doesn't matter if they have lots of short naps or a couple of long naps, as long as they can sleep when they need to. Also a baby getting over tired isn't the end of the world, just means they could be grouchy and difficult to get to sleep.
I'm pretty sure mine were awake for longer than 90 minutes at a time at that age.

And at 3 months old mine spent most of their awake time in a bouncer chair just chilling and watching the world go by or on a playmat, bit of tummy time every day. Have a little play, plenty of cuddles, talk to him, sing to him but you don't need to fill every waking minute with entertainment. It's good for babies to just chill by themselves (supervised obviously ).

The best advice I was given as a first time mum was to stay off Google, don't worry too much about what the baby apps say. Obviously there is guidelines about the safety stuff such as SIDS, car seats, illness etc which you should take seriously but a lot of the other advice should be taken as a loose guide. Just go with the flow

Is it ok to give him more than 3 naps a day, since each nap is so short? Eg 5 - 6 naps? Is it normal for a baby this age to suddenly nap much shorter naps?

I remember DS's naps used to go to pot when he was downloading an update (e.g smiling, laughing, rolling over). He'd have a few days or a week of being a grumpy nightmare, then he'd hit a developmental milestone and go back to normal till the next time.

You just have to wing it - let him sleep as often as he seems to need.

Try not to worry. You're giving your DS the opportunity to sleep and that's all you can really do. He'll be taking the sleep he needs.

When my DS was that age he was quite easy to entertain. He liked baby gym, songs, rhymes etc. Also maybe try some long walks with baby in the pram or sling - fresh air / movement can help with napping and even if he doesn't sleep he'll have some interesting things to see.

Good luck! He really will be fine!

Thank you so much! I feel so relieved reading these. I don't know what happened- I just sort of had a meltdown today and everything went to pot and I felt like I was doing everything all wrong! I don't know if it's affected me but my period came back today with a vengeance so I don't know if my hormones have crashed or something- but the whole nap schedule felt like the worlds biggest mountain to climb this morning.

He is currently napping and I think I will dig out the sling later whilst I do a few chores.

Thank you again x

My first had a lovely routine and long naps.
Second wasn’t having any of it! She still had 4 x 30min naps until she was at least 6 months. She just couldn’t stay asleep any longer. Life was too exciting!

Developmentally both the same, just very different personalities.

Congrats on your little one :-)

I'm pretty sure mine was having 4 or 5 short naps at that age. He started to move to a more consistent 3 naps at about 5.5 months and is starting to head to 2 naps now at nearly 8 months.

Don’t worry op, all babies are different.
In fact, when my DS was a baby I had the opposite problem in that I was worried he slept too much. I was convinced there was something wrong with him or that he was ill. I kept reading about what he ‘should’ be doing and ended up worrying myself sick.
Turns out he just liked his sleep!
Just keep doing what you’re doing - you sound like a wonderful mum