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Behaviour/development

Talk to others about child development and behaviour stages here. You can find more information on our development calendar.

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Original poster

Napping during the day = a good sleep at night?

12 replies

Cupcake32 · 26/10/2011 14:50

I have managed with some success to get my 6 week old to sleep in his basket during the day for the past 5/6 days. Today, he took went down this morning for 2.5hrs, and has napped this lunchtime for an hour.

Can anyone confirm or dispel the myth that good daytime napping leads to better sleeping at night? He has slept well at night since 3 weeks, and I'm concerned that my success with daytime napping will lead to a very disrupted night tonight.

Should I wake a sleeping baby to avoid him sleeping too much during the day??

OP posts:

Pascha · 26/10/2011 14:53

Napping well during the day means a happy baby at bedtime to us. Not overtired and fractious and much easier to settle. I always have found that disrupted naps lead to rubbing eyes far too early and tears in consequence.

throckenholt · 26/10/2011 14:56

Mine certainly all slept better at night when they slept well during the day.

If they missed out on daytime sleep they were a nightmare to get to sleep and often were more disrupted during the night too.

At that age it is hard for them to have too much sleep ! Gives them time to grow their brains and assimilate all they pick up while they are awake.

Debs75 · 26/10/2011 15:05

I have found that a well-napped baby will sleep better in the night as they are not over-tired. At 6 weeks he needs many naps to break his day into mini days, ie, feed, play, feed, sleep.
I wouldn't wake him

superego · 26/10/2011 15:59

This was definitely true for us.

KittieCat · 26/10/2011 16:05

Deffo a better night when DS has had decent naps in the day. He's 10 months and it's pretty much always been true for him. I stopped waking him from naps pretty early on and it was deffo for the better. That said, I do try to make sure he doesn't take his last nap too late or for too long (45 mins max) though as if he does, it can mean its harder to get him down for the night. Although if he's had crap naps earlier on I let him sleep longer.

throckenholt · 26/10/2011 16:40

I missed your question at the end ! My motto was never wake a sleeping baby :)

snowmummy · 26/10/2011 18:19

Good naps does equal a good night's sleep in my experience. And I agree with throckenholt - never wake a sleeping baby.

snowmummy · 26/10/2011 18:19

Good naps do equal a good ...

Original poster

Cupcake32 · 27/10/2011 14:19

Thanks all. I'm pleased to let you know that somehow tiddler slept for 8hrs straight last night!

OP posts:

MigGril · 27/10/2011 22:35

Well it's true for DS. But my high need's non sleeping DD the opersit was true, if she had a good long nap in the day then there whent my nice long streach of sleep at night so I had to wake her up.

Rubyabcd · 28/10/2011 14:38

Defo true the more my baby slept in the day, the better at night by far, also it makes you want to do more with them when awake, productive play etc as you are also well rested and lots of time to do house work!!

My dd is sixteen months and still has two hour sleep in the day!! Bliss!!

lukewarmmama · 28/10/2011 14:48

In general, absolutely yes. There's always the exception though.

When they get older (years not months), then some of them need to have the sleep cut short for them if you want them in bed at a decent time or not up at the crack of dawn (or before). But that's ages away for you.

8 hours! Don't tell your friends, they might kill you!

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