We have a little three month old. She can easily become overtired as she is very active in the day and tends to wake each sleep cycle at night ie every 45 minutes (although over the last few days we’ve seen more 1, 2 and 3 hour sleeps so I hope it’s gradually improving with the increased day sleep)
We’re not on a strict routine but I try my best to limit her awake time to 2 hours and have an approximate bedtime. She’s breastfed on demand. By keeping an eye on her awake time I’ve gradually been able to get her day sleep up to about 3 hours on average, yesterday she managed 4.
DH believes that she sleeps too much in the day which is why she isn’t sleeping longer periods at night. He hasn’t done any reading on the subject and has never had her overnight (or for long stretches in the day) so although I’m open to suggestions I find this frustrating. When she has less sleep in the day she is miserable and difficult to settle, whereas at the moment she’s a happy smiley baby a lot of the time. I am pretty tired but generally coping so I think we just need to be patient.
Please can you help me explain why keeping her up all day wouldn’t be helpful? I know the science behind it but am obviously not articulating it effectively! I worry that when he sometimes looks after her for a couple of hours so I can nap he might be keeping her up and fibbing when he says she has slept the whole time!